This ethnographic study analyzes the barriers women encounter in achieving their goals at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Employing a discursive approach, the study seeks to identify symbols promulgated by various policy actions that legitimize or delegitimize specific gender relations. It draws…

Using detailed data on the 2008 graduating class from an elite engineering institution in India, we evaluate the impact of affirmative action policies in higher education focusing on three issues: targeting, catch up, and mismatch. We find that admission preferences effectively target minority students who are poorer than average displaced…

Over the past decade, a small revolution has taken place at some of the world's leading universities, as they have started to provide free access to undergraduate course materials--including syllabi, assignments, and lectures--to anyone with an Internet connection. Yale offers high-quality audio and video recordings of a careful selection of…

An examination of higher education in India focuses on the complexities of the sociocultural context in which it operates. Public policy concerning equity for specific social groups, including women, racial minorities, castes, and tribes, is discussed and difficulties in bridging the gap between policy and practice are noted. (MSE)

This paper discusses gender discrimination with regard to educational opportunity and outcomes in India. Although official statements promoting equity indicate awareness of the imbalances in this area, solutions, it is argued, lie not only in propagating new equitable educational practices but in political decisions that take into account existing…