This paper predominantly focuses on understanding the relationship between education and the aspirations of social and economic mobility in the city margins. A notable consequence of the economic liberalisation in India in the 1990s has been a widespread movement of labour from rural areas to urban spaces. The informal and underpaid employment of these migrant labourers, along with an absence of even basic civic services, push them to the peripheries of urban spaces. These urban spaces become important sites to be looked at, as these spaces carry the burden of the city that is critical for its everyday functioning and sustenance, and yet these very spaces are invisibilised and ignored by the “legitimate” residents of the city. There is a crucial link between economic reforms of the 90s and changes in the education sector of India since then. The need for education has expanded, as a result of a significant increase in the social and economic aspirations across the unequal social fabric of India. It is against this backdrop that my fieldwork inquires into the questions of urban marginality and education.
This study is primarily a result of primary research, where the field visits were conducted to an urban slum site in South Delhi, and a deep engagement was developed with the field using ethnographic methods (observation, FGDs, interviews, in-depth conversations with the community). The study highlights the emphasis on respect, economic betterment and dignified jobs, in these children’s aspirations, the burden of which has to be borne by education. As a consequence, the purpose of education has become instrumental and has been reduced to merely being a means to an end, which is to get a job, and find a belongingness in the city.
