Posted on January 21, 2012 Yesterday (January 20, 2012), Debalina and I went to meet with the Tippecanoe County school officials to contest the categorization of our son Shloke as a "English as a Second Language (ESL)" child. This was after I had written to the school administrator about how that categorization was incorrect and had asked to see race-based data from him about decisions that are made on the basis of the categorization (resources provided or denied on the basis of specific metrics, and the race-based breakdowns of these metrics. I was interested to know how often children of color were denied specific resources although they qualified under a certain metric as compared to Caucasian children). At the meeting, the school officials were very gracious. They had also brought in a bilingual expert who specialized in Spanish and English, and who in someway understood our struggle although she was not conversant in Bengali. This particular expert worked with the in...
This blog offers Mohan Dutta's reflections on the theoretical framework of the culture-centered approach, examining the interplays among Structure, Culture, and Agency in shaping marginalisation and the ways in which communities at the margins challenge structures. Writings on the blog are continually being revised to reflect the organic analysis of structure and agency.