Indian social reality presents an interesting challenge to social scientists, particularly Sociologists and Anthropologists, to disentangle the multiple marginalities, which at times act singly, and at other times work in tandem with several other marginalities to produce disadvantages and dis-privileges to individuals and social groups in various domains of social life. These marginalities are produced from various sources and thus have diversity in terms of their nature, dynamics and impacts on the individuals as well as social groups. For example, the elementary forms of marginality are deeply rooted in the caste system in the Indian society, which in turn shows differences in terms of social class and gender. Religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, linguistic identity form other sources of marginality in the Indian context. The proposed paper seeks to discuss these multiple marginalities, their intersections and overlaps and how they play out in the domain of education, which produce new experiences of disadvantage and inequality among individuals and social groups. The paper especially draws its analysis in the context of the neo-liberal and neo-conservative environments where educational, social, cultural and economic policies exacerbate such marginalities, and also giving rise to new forms of inequalities.
