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About Adhoc Group-01: Digital Sociology
Throughout the world, the digital revolution is altering the economy, politics, and society. Additionally, it is establishing a new power dynamics. The network society's laws control the changed economy, government, and society. Invisible conditioning to enforce coercive power relations is provided by the intellectual hegemony of the modern political economy, technocratic rationalism, commercialization of information, consumer society, and consumerism ideology. Numerous trustworthy organizations oversee the digital society, using coding and algorithms to direct trends or regulate virtual behavior and action. Modern digital technologies have control over individual privacy, which has sped up the legal commercialization of data / information. It has endangered people's personal safety and promoted online fraud, digital spying, cybercrime, internet addiction, etc. In order to comprehend and interpret the web of digital relationships between individuals, groups, communities, and institutions that have been altered by digital resources, sociologists may conduct scientific studies of these emerging trends within the framework of new concepts, models, paradigms, and theories. The Adhoc Group-01, titled "Digital Sociology," will make serious efforts to look into these fresh, growing fields of study: from digital empowerment to digital opportunity initiatives, to support the growth of Indian Sociology, and to launch a push to make Digital Sociology as a sub-discipline of Sociology in its new avatar.
Introduction:
This proposal is to argue for a Adhoc Research Committee (ARC) on Pedagogy, Teaching and Learning. It is divided into three sections. The first section highlights the rationale of the proposed ARC; the second section discusses the importance of such an ARC for the discipline of sociology and the third section reflects on the broad areas within pedagogy that would be of interest for sociologists and fourth section examines the importance of this ARC for the larger society.
Section 1: Rationale
The proposed ARC seeks to engage with the process and politics of knowledge building, by mapping the intersections of disciplinary formations and theorization of pedagogy. It seeks to provide a platform to examine the practices of teaching and learning, by placing the classroom at its core. It builds on the argument that as knowledge is emancipatory in its aim, any analysis of the practices of knowledge is a political intervention and has epistemological significance. Therefore, as practitioners of the discipline of sociology, one needs to seriously engage with the challenges associated with pedagogy, teaching and learning within the academic institutions. is important to recognize that unless we engage with the classroom as a site of learning, the understanding that we have of our discipline of sociology will be fragmented.
Classroom is a part of the larger hegemonic education system, that is seeking to build 'docile citizens' (Thapan 2005); as space recognized by the state, where a prescribed and approved curriculum is given to the teacher to teach students. Similarly, Chaudhuri (2016) has argued that the reflexive critical identity of sociology as a discipline gets lost in the everyday doing of sociology. While it is recognised that teaching and research are core within any discipline; the practitioners focus on building quality research, and teaching is more often than not perceived in terms of whether conducting routine class and completion of syllabus. To retrieve teaching as a serious engaged practice would necessitate rigorous engagement with pedagogy as a practice. Buroway (2004:265) states that, 'as sociologists our students are our first and captive minds'. Thus, it requires serious engagement with the teaching and learning practices. Pedagogy of sociology is not considered a serious area of inquiry and thus has not received much attention and analysis.
As Chaudhuri and Thakur (2018:8) argue, that it is the classroom, which is the significant site for 'dissemination and appropriation of theory, then the focus needs to be on, not only the text books, syllabi, question papers, assignments, lectures, etc but also on how is theory taught in the classroom, and what are the specific challenges we as teachers face?' With few exceptions we as practitioners of the discipline have not rigorously engaged with how we teach sociology. Further in the present political changes, students should have an ability to develop a critical understanding of social phenomenon and also there is a need to make informed choices especially today when there is an abundance of information due to AI and internet. The challenge to teach in the face of AI and the challenge to assess at the time of ChatGPT. This proposed RC hopes to provide the space for sociologists to reflect on our pedagogical practices that would not only nurture critical minds but also by learning from each other help us to become better teachers. It seeks to build a collaborative space where pedagogical strategies and techniques could be shared, documented and reworked upon. This platform would provide a space to rethink, reflect and get inspired from one another.
Section 2: Importance for the discipline
This proposed ARC would examine the inter linkages of teaching and learning, within the framework of engaged pedagogy. It builds on the argument that the most important aspect within education is critical thinking and that the index of whether higher education is effective or not depends upon to what extent does the structure and process of higher education facilitates nurturance of critical thinking. Critical thinking is the hallmark of engaged pedagogy, where the students and teachers create, process and reflect on knowledge construction as equal partners. It consists of seeing both the sides of an issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms the young ideas, reasoning dispassionately, demanding that claims be backed by evidence, deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts, solving problems and so forth. The pillars on which critical thinking stands includes asking the who, the why, the what, the how and the where of things, so as to get the students and teachers to perceive, articulate and reflect on knowledge construction and creation.
Engaged pedagogy is a theory and practice about teaching and learning process that structures one's choice of teaching and learning practices. The pedagogical sites of analysis include spaces such as classroom practices (both physical and virtual); ranging from curricula, to framing of assignments; peer learning; collaborative teaching and writing, teacher student relationship within classrooms/ institutional impediments, teaching and evaluation strategies. Engaged pedagogy demands continuous engagement with self in a continuing reflective process; engagement with the material that is being analysed; but also, with social structural axis of identity, such as gender, caste, class, ethnicity, race, religion, disability, sexuality that frames one's location within the classroom either as a teacher or a student. Engaged pedagogy is thus framed on the recognition that sociological phenomena influence and shapes the classroom experience, thereby building a more reflexive pedagogy which is in line with the core aspects of sociological imagination. Further increasing presence of technology has also pushed us to creatively engage and nurture a proactive pedagogy.
Reflection on the teaching practices also raises the questions such as, 'what are the outcomes of teaching and learning? Who defines the outcomes? What is the students' definition of learning? How do they understand the teaching and learning process? Why do we consider students as a homogeneous group? To what extent does the vision of the discipline or specialized subjects relate to the vision and stated goal of education, institutions of higher learning as organised by the state? It is important to address these questions because it sensitizes us to the complex terrains of power, privilege and inequality in which a classroom is organized and the need for pedagogical practices to have the sensitivity and conceptual frameworks to address it. As Chadha and Joseph (2018: 12) argue, that engagement with questions of pedagogy not only involves focus on macro pedagogic processes, thus addressing issues of 'knowledge-making concerns of institutional limitations and practices in higher education, syllabi and hierarchy of disciplines but also need of addressing the micro and everyday levels of teaching and learning'.
While evaluating the possibility of such endeavour, one has to keep in mind, that classrooms are diverse, and are placed within formal institutions of learning, operated on principles of discipline, clear cut rules of rewards, punishment, authority figures, structured and prescribed curriculum, accepted modes of learning and articulation, evaluation formats, compulsory attendance and many other rules framing its practices. Thus, the focus of this proposed ARC is to engage with pedagogy so as to enhance teaching and learning practices.
Section 3: What would the proposed ARC focus on?
Such an ARC would be of interest to various groups such as students, doctoral scholars, young teachers and established professors, where they would not only learn newer ways, but also how to re- engage and strengthen conventional pedagogical practices. Some of the broad areas that would be addressed includes:
- Working with critical pedagogy – engaged pedagogy/ feminist pedagogy
- Collaborative and peer learning
- Innovation in pedagogy
- Digital and technological intervention in pedagogy
- Emotional and care labour in pedagogy
- Teaching inclusively
- Regional/ Vernacular Pedagogy
- Classroom ethnography
- Teacher student relationship in classroom
- Autoethnography as pedagogy
- Engaging with power, privilege and authority in classroom
- Building and nurturing safe classrooms
- Teaching in anxious times and with anxiety
- Decolonial Pedagogy
- Ethics and Pedagogy
- Intersectionality, Practice and Pedagogy
The above-mentioned areas are the initial ones that have been identified. As members join and engage, the list would be enlarged to address themes emerging from one's pedagogical engagement.
Section 4: Importance for the larger society
The higher education spaces are increasingly becoming diversified. The UGC Saksham, GOI document (2013) states that there is an uneven and diverse representation of students within educational institutions making the campus spaces highly contested. Further as Puwar (2004:51), while analysing how cultures of exclusion operate within contested social spaces such as universities, argues that, 'social spaces are not blank and open for anybody to occupy. Over time, through processes of historical sedimentation, certain types of bodies are designated as being the 'natural' occupants of specific spaces…some bodies have the right to belong in certain locations, while others are marked out as trespassers who are in accordance with how both spaces and bodies are imagined, politically, historically and conceptually circumscribed as being 'out of place' (cited in Mirza 2018:7). This analysis of Puwar, though was based on analysis of university spaces in the United States, it holds relevance with university structures in India. Thus, academic spaces do not always seem to be welcoming spaces for students, especially for those whose socio-economic background, caste, ethnic, gender, religious and/or linguistic worlds differ significantly from what they are used to. In such context the role of a teacher and the pedagogic style used becomes crucial.
Here I draw upon the insights of Avijit Pathak, who argues that teaching is the core of the discipline of sociology. For him, 'sociology needs the development of a humanist temper, profound sensitivity, criticality and of course rigorous practice. In fact, teaching sociology becomes meaningful only when the teacher and the taught begin to see the possibility of this alternative orientation to knowledge (Pathak 2003:61). Further as Connell (2009:9) argues, 'teaching as a form of work which is difficult to pin down as it involves an unspecifiable object of labour, a limitless labour process, an is, in a sense, unteachable. Teaching is always transformative labour, bringing new social realities into existence; and is fundamentally interactive, and not individual. Teacher's work is not social reproduction, but is creative and therefore a site of struggle'. The above arguments raise issues of how challenging it is to teach, calculate what is 'effective teaching' and to reach out to students who feel excluded within these hierarchical and uneven academic spaces.
In conclusion:
It is to these concerns and invisible markers within the higher education spaces that the proposed ARC on pedagogy wishes to address. By focusing on the everyday teaching and learning practices of the discipline, that one can also address the concerns of the society, relating to issues of marginalization, exclusion and social justice. While it is accepted that engagement with pedagogy is an area within the broad framework of sociology of education, the present proposal for a distinct ARC on Pedagogy, argues that the focus one needs is not only how sociology is taught but also how practice of sociology is shaped by our pedagogical practices. This proposal is built on the principle that along with theory and research; teaching is an integral part of what shapes the discipline of sociology. This proposal thus makes a case for a distinct Adhoc Research Committee that would be based on one, teaching as a scientific practice, two, pedagogy as a critical tool of knowledge creation and dissemination, and three, classroom as a significant site of doing sociology.