Speaker: Prof. Nina Asher Topic: “To be very frank, I am a product of

School of Education Studies
Invites you to a Talk by
Speaker: Prof. Nina Asher
Professor, Department of Curriculum & Instruction
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, USA
Topic: “To be very frank, I am a product of these times, I am trained
to be an opportunist:” Identities, Cultures, and Education in an
Economically Liberalized, Postcolonial India
Venue: Room MO. 311-312, Administrative Block, AUD
Date: April 9, 2015 (Thursday)
Time: 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm
Your schedules permitting, please join in for this event. Please see below abstract and bionote for more details about the talk and the speaker.
Regards,
Manish Jain
Abstract of the Talk
“To be very frank, I am a product of these times, I am trained to be an opportunist:”
Identities, Cultures, and Education in an Economically Liberalized, Postcolonial India
Nina Asher, Ed.D., Professor, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA
(nasher@umn.edu )
“Very recently I have started working in elementary education. I am an engineer and I
have worked in the corporate sector. That is another problem of my generation and also
rewarding in some sense. ….
To be very frank, I am a product of these times, I am trained to be an opportunist. My
education has taught me this. ….
I realized when I worked in engineering that it is easily replicable. I was 24 at that time.
I thought if I didn’t come here for 15 days, anybody could do it in my place. I wasn’t really
required. That went against all the thing is held valid of being a good, thoughtful person.”
Asha – a master’s student in education who was a participant in my study
Globalization and postcolonialism are inextricably intertwined. Scholars have noted the
ambivalent, relationship of the colonizer and the colonized (e.g. Bhabha, 1994; Fanon,
1952/1967; Gandhi, 1998) and the effects of capitalist ideology across the globe (e.g.
Alexander & Mohanty, 1997; Appadurai, 1996; Prashad, 2006). Of course, the postcolonial
situation is not identical in all parts of the world. Nonetheless, transnational forms of colonial
oppression are controlled by the spread of Westernized imperialism through the globalization
of the labor market, new technologies, and global financial markets.
Critical thinkers in the education field in the U.S. (e.g., Kumashiro, 2008; Taubman,
2009) and India (e.g. National Council of Educational Research and Teaching [NCERT],
2005; Sadgopal, 2009) have noted that the last two decades have been marked by a focus on
individual monetary gain (often read as “wealth” and “success”); facile, virtual proximity
afforded by digitization; the spread of western-style capitalism and corporatization across
nations; and the effects of consumerism, debilitating economic collapses, and environmental
depletion – all in a context of increasing global interdependence. Privatization,
standardization, and high-stakes testing now shape education and schooling. In this paper,
situating myself as an Indian-born, U.S.-based scholar whose scholarship draws on
postcolonial, feminist, globalization, and critical multicultural discourses in relation to
education, I draw on qualitative data that I gathered for my Fulbright-funded project,
Examining the Intersections of Globalization, Privatization, and Education after two decades
of Economic Liberalization in India, to build further on this discussion and consider ways in
which educators (can) resist recolonization in terms of educational theory, research, and
practice in transnational contexts.
References
Alexander, M.J. & Mohanty, C.T. (Eds.). (1997). Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies, democratic futures.
New York: Routledge.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University
of Minnesota Press.
Bhabha, H. K. (1994). Location of culture. New York: Routledge.
Fanon, F. (1967/1952). Black skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press.
Gandhi, L. (1998). Postcolonial theory: A critical introduction. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kumashiro, K. K. (2008). The seduction of common sense: How the right has framed the debate on America’s
schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
National Council of Educational Research and Teaching (NCERT). (2005). National curriculum framework
(NCF). New Delhi, India: Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of
Secondary & Higher Education.
Prashad, V. (2006). The global war against teachers. Radical History Review, 95, 9-20.
Sadgopal, A. (2009). India’s educational policy: A historical overview. Unpublished manuscript.
Taubman, P. M. (2009). Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in
education. New York, NY: Routledge.
Biographical Note
Nina Asher (Ed.D., 1999, Teachers College, Columbia University), is a Professor in the
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She was
Department Chair from July 2011-June 2014. Nina is also an affiliate faculty member in the
Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies (GWSS).
Nina writes in the areas of postcolonialism and feminism, globalization, critical perspectives
on multiculturalism, and Asian American studies in education. She has published over 30
articles and book chapters and her work has appeared in such leading national and
international journals as the Educational Researcher, Teachers College Record, Postcolonial
Directions in Education, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, among others. Nina is the recipient
of a 2014-15 Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award (Research) for
her project, Examining the Intersections of Globalization, Privatization, and Education after
two decades of Economic Liberalization in India, and will be conducting this research in
India during her sabbatical in the 2014-15 academic year.
Nina is Book Review Editor for the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in
Education, since 2007 and, from 2007-2009, was also Book Review Editor for the National
Women’s Studies Association Journal (now Feminist Formations). Nina has served as a
member of several national committees, including the Fellowship Review Panel for the
International Fellowships Program of the American Association of University Women
(AAUW) and the Canon Project Task Force of the American Association for the
Advancement of Curriculum Studies (AAACS). From 2004-07, she was the inaugural Chair
of the Postcolonial Studies and Education Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American
Educational Research Association (AERA), the premier research organization in the field in
North America. Nina also served as Chair of the Nominating Committee of AERA’s
Curriculum Studies Division (Division B) from 2011-2013 and of AERA’s Teaching and
Teacher Education Division (Division K) during 2013-14. From 1999-2011, Nina was on the
faculty at Louisiana State University, where she served as Co-Director of the Curriculum
Theory Project (CTP) from 2007-10.