Education, Inequality and Social Mobility in Central India

Over the past couple of decades, marginalised adivasi (tribal) communities in central India have seen the emergence of a powerful social institution, namely education, that is conferring social advantage and opening up new avenues of social mobility while introducing new forms of social separation. This article is concerned with the relationship between education, inequality and social mobility in a mixed, Hindu/Christian adivasi community in rural Chhattisgarh. More specifically, it is about the engagement that local people have had with education, the uncertainties and ambiguities that underpin this engagement, and the way this impacts on opportunities for social mobility. Attention is also given to the way in which education serves as a powerful mechanism for consolidating new forms of social separation, not simply by reproducing social inequalities, but by introducing new ones.