I approach this paper from a critical retro-reflective stance, which explores borders both physical and educational through my pedagogical experiences in a high school in India, home experiences in the geographical borderlands of Nepal and India, and my current work in Nepal and the United States. All of the anecdotes or data originate from my…

Teaching cultural competency is a two-way street. Instruction is more comprehensive when it raises awareness of cultural context. And students see relevancy when they learn how theories and principles relate to the context they know. Cultural context is especially obvious in nations colonized by cultures different from theirs. India provides a…

In this essay, I explore the genre of live comedy outside its traditional Western setting in popular and academic understanding. I argue that its ever-growing popularity in urban India is reflective of an expanding middle-class's search for an authentic social identity. I demonstrate -- through ethnographic and analytical detail -- how stand-up…

It is argued that educational spaces often maintain certain forms of hierarchical cultural patterns to reproduce an unequal civil society. The history and contemporary nature of Indian civil society, ridden with relations of caste and class, often interpellates its agenda of hierarchical order in the cultures of schooling. Children from…

This article analyses the National Council of Educational Research and Training textbooks of environmental studies using critical discourse analysis to shed light on questions such as how the environment is dealt with in the text, using what kind of language are environmental concerns framed, how is the current environment crisis contextualized…

In this paper I address educational matters that challenge academic and scholarly "givens" so as to enrich knowledge. This acts in two ways to alert educators to the Eurowestern enculturization of knowledge and to propose some useful insights. Firstly, I make a personal scholarly narrative about the situation of the un-named native…

The present study examined the practice of language brokering (LB) among South Asian Canadian college-age adults and how such practice relates to acculturation to mainstream and heritage cultures, as well as personal empowerment. One hundred and twenty-four young adults reported on three different indices of LB (brokering frequency, diversity of…

In the context of India in general, and places where English language functions as a second language in particular, the prevalent idea that our students have to support their language learning capability through the native accent (pronunciation) structures is a myth. The paper takes up the following hypotheses: 1. Listening to BBC English or…

Purpose: To examine the relationships between "westernization" and nutrition and physical activity behaviors among older adolescents in Delhi, India. These relations have not been explored, despite increasingly strong and pervasive socio-cultural influences from the West. Methods: Students (n=1818) in 8th and 10th grades in 4 Private…

In this study I examine how women in a north Indian city narratively construct their identities in relation to medium of education (MoE)--English only (EME), Hindi only (HME), and a combination of both. I specifically analyze how the participants discursively articulate empowerment or disempowerment while narrating stories connected to their MoEs.…

This paper attempts to extend and contribute to the domestic diversity literature by presenting a comprehensive model that takes into consideration the Indian work set up. It proposes to examine the effects of the composition of information systems development teams in Indian firms. Besides the conventional demographics which were studied…

Explains the attitude of Indians to kinship term usage, particularly in referring to one's spouse. (AM)

This paper is a study in language acculturation with special reference to the Indianization of the English language. It briefly traces the history of the diffusion of bilingualism in English on the culturally and linguistically pluralistic Indian subcontinent. The functional roles of English are discussed and the formal influences of Indian…

In accordance with the growing trend in language teaching philosophy towards assessing learner needs before choosing methods and materials, this study concentrates on the attitudes of final year bachelor degree program students towards learning and using English. These 821 students from Thailand, India, and Singapore were majoring in the fields…

This volume contains papers submitted to the 12th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in Sofia and Nessebar, Bulgaria, in June 2014, and papers submitted to the 2nd International Partner Conference, organized by the International Research Centre 'Scientific Cooperation,' Rostov-on-Don,…