[Reader-list] Child friendly environment: an observational study of children’s lives in Nizamuddin basti

[schatte2 at ncsu.edu]

Child friendly environment: an observational study of children’s lives in
Nizamuddin basti

The fieldwork in Nizamuddin basti has finally started off. Though the
first half of February went by in getting the final permission for
interviewing children from the school, things happened at a breakneck
speed after that.

I told the school to draw up a roster of all the children aged between 11
and 12 years. I was given 44 names, 33 girls and 11 boys. I have randomly
selected 21 girls and retained all 11 boys for my sample. Of these girls,
about 9 go to neighboring government schools while the rest are all
non-formal education students at the school. Two of the boys are
apprentices in their father’s trades—whitewasher and tailor respectively,
while four are non-formal students. Rest of the boys goes to nearby
government schools. The school had originally started as a non-formal
girls school which explains why there are more girls studying here than
boys. The government school kids come here for educational support in the
afternoon. All these children live, learn and play in Nizamuddin basti.
For the purpose of my research this is quite an ideal situation, I get a
diverse range of childhoods in one place and a community that is by and
large homogeneous in terms of culture and religion.

I had called the parents of all these kids one afternoon and in the
presence of the teacher and the school social worker assisting me in the
project, explained in great detail what was going to happen in the next
six months. Only the mothers had come with sons and daughters. This did
not surprise me, as during one of my many informal chats with the
principal, I was explained the issue of gendered interaction of the school
and the children’s families. I was told that due to the intense gender
segregation within the community, the school’s interaction was restricted
to mothers. Fathers were not part of the school-child-parent dialogue. The
principal had narrated an episode about the time  one father had turned up
for the weekly community meeting. He looked into the room and found he was
the only man. The teachers tried to make him feel at ease and made him sit
at the back of the room so that all the womenfolk had their backs toward
him. After some time he got up and said,  “ Mein ja rahan hun, aurate hai
yahan to (I am leaving, there are only women here).” So I sent out