Filippo and Caroline Osella, anthropologists who spent three years in rural Kerala, south India, write about the modern search for upward social mobility: the processes involved, the ideologies that support or thwart it, and what happens to the people involved. They focus on the caste called Izhavas, a group that in the mid-19th century consisted of a small land-owning and titled elite and a large mass of landless and small tenants who were largely illiterate and considered untouchable, and who eked out a living by manual labor and petty trade. In the 20th century, Izhavas pursued mobility in many social arenas, both as a newly united caste and as families. The work considers how successful the mobility has been and looks at the effects on their society of an ethos of progress. Distributed by Stylus. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This book focuses on the provision of basic social services, in particular, access to education, as the central building blocks of any human development strategy and it also signifies a substantial contribution towards the central role of education in social mobility. In examining the impact of educational development of any society or group, the questions that the proponents of egalitarian approach ask are: Who benefits? Who loses? What is the resulting socio-economic status of the people? Although gender inequality in education is not so prominent in Kerala, the difference between communities and classes is one of the critical aspects of this broader phenomenon of disparity in Kerala. Recent studies regarding poverty and inequality show that although poverty is declining, inequality between socio-economic groups is increasing in Kerala. In this scenario, the educational backwardness of the socio-economic groups in Kerala is a matter of particular concern to the policy makers and this book hopes to provide some insight into this subject. It will be highly useful to policy makers, administrators and academicians.

Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative, conceptual, and methodological advances. If forms of mobility have slowed in the West, then we might be entering an age of rigid stratification with defined boundaries between the always-haves and the never-haves-which does not augur well for social stability. Social mobility research is ongoing, with substantive findings in different disciplines—typically with researchers in isolation from each other. A key contribution of this book is the pulling together of the emerging streams of knowledge. Generating policy-relevant knowledge is a principal concern. Three basic questions frame the study of diverse aspects of social mobility in the book. How to assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets by conventional measurement techniques are unavailable? How to identify drivers and inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts? How to acquire the knowledge required to design interventions to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?

This book analyses India’s middle class by recognising the diversity within the class, the people, their practices, and the production of spaces. It explores the economic and social lives of the new middle class, expanding the areas of inquiry beyond consumption in post-liberalisation India and its intersectionalities with gender, caste, religion, migration, and other socioeconomic markers in various cities across the country. The book interrogates the meanings and perceptions of social mobility, growth, consumerism, technology, social identity, and development and examines how they can be emancipatory or subjugating in different contexts. It engages with the new entrants in the middle class, particularly from the marginalised sections, their struggles, insecurities, anxieties, agency, and experiences. The personal, emotive, and psychic dimensions of social mobility have been dealt with in the larger context of socioeconomic settings. The book crosses disciplinary and spatial boundaries and uses a variety of methodologies to provide perspectives on several unexplored or underexplored areas of India’s new middle class. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of sociology, economics, development studies, public policy, social work, and South Asian studies.

In 1990, Kerala on the southwestern coast has India's lowest infant mortality, longest life expectancy and highest female literacy. India's 'problem state' of the 1950s has become 'the Kerala model'. The collapse of a matrilineal social structure and a rigid caste system contributed to widespread politicization. Women retained a circumscribed but influential position in social life. The result is an instructive analysis for students of politics, development policy and women's issues.

Affirmative Action, Commonly Alluded To As Reservation, Is One Of The Few Policy Instrumentalities Provided In The Indian Constitution To Peck A New Socio-Political Order Based On Equality And Justice. On The One Side, The Policy Seeks To Compensate For The Unprecedented Discrimination Heaped On The Marginalized Sections Of The Society, And On The Other Side To Empower And Integrate These People With The Mainstream Society, In A Sense To Oversee Their Transformation From The Status Of Subjects Under Ancient Regimen To That Of Citizens In A Modern Democratic Polity.This Book Traces With Brilliant Analytical Clarity The Impact And Consequences Of Reservation On The Scheduled Caste In Kerala.. What Is The Degree And Extent Of Their Social Mobility? Have These People Achieved Social Acceptance And Integrated With The Larger Society? Is There A Caste Differential In Mobility Among Them? What Is The Role Of Elected Sc Representatives In The Decision Making Process? What Is The Extent Of Their Political Mobility?These Are Some Of The Specific Issues Addressed In The Book. And This Makes It An Essential Reading For Those Who Are Interested In Understanding The Implication And Impact Of Reservation And, In A Sense, The Working Of The Indian Constitution For The Last Half A Century.