Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
5-2025
Abstract
This paper advances the idea of ‘educational infrastructures’ to explore the slippages created by national education frameworks and the everyday ways in which citizen-subjects learn to be part of an ethno-cultural community. In doing so, we tease apart the differences between education as a top-down process of citizen-making and learning as a poly-directional assemblage of behaviours and influences that permeate the socio-spatial landscapes of ethnic belonging. We illustrate these theoretical arguments through an analysis of Singapore’s diasporic Indian community and the collapse of linguistically and culturally complex community backgrounds under the Mother Tongue policy. This leads to a pluralisation of learning and negotiation of identity for young people as they attempt to forge their own identities amidst a homogenising sense of ‘Indianness.’ By tracing the evolution of Singapore’s language policies, this paper demonstrates how educational infrastructures come to fill the gaps created by a state-wide commitment to multiculturalism.
Keywords
Indianness, Singapore education, infrastructure, Mother Tongue language, identity
Discipline
Asian Studies | Educational Methods
Research Areas
Integrative Research Areas
Publication
South Asian Diaspora
Volume
17
Issue
2
First Page
337
Last Page
352
ISSN
1943-8192
Identifier
10.1080/19438192.2024.2358599
Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Citation
GRIMLEY, Emma; WOODS, Orlando; and KONG, Lily.
Educating Indians, learning ‘Indianness’: Navigating pluralistic educational infrastructures in diasporic Singapore. (2025). South Asian Diaspora. 17, (2), 337-352.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/164
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1080/19438192.2024.2358599