The shaping of conforming dispositions of educationally and socially disadvantaged higher secondary school students in rural Uttar Pradesh, India: a case study

Yadav, Dinesh Kumar (2026) The shaping of conforming dispositions of educationally and socially disadvantaged higher secondary school students in rural Uttar Pradesh, India: a case study. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This research investigates the role of school practices in reinforcing and informing the conforming disposition of higher secondary school students in India. The study contributes to developing an understanding of the mechanisms by which conformity is incorporated within individuals and how caste is perpetuated through schooling. The project employs Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus (its constituent dispositions) and practice to explain the school's role in perpetuating inequalities.

The study is a case study of a low-fee private school situated in a rural area of Uttar Pradesh, a northern state in India, which is educationally, socially, and economically disadvantaged. The Biographical Narrative Interview Method (BNIM) is employed to gather the data. I conducted in-depth interviews with 12 students across three rounds, all from socially and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, also known as Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Data were thematically analysed to reveal the school's dominant practices and identify the dispositions expressed through repetition.

The study's findings indicate that school’s unofficial pedagogic practices of authority, obedience, and hierarchy shape students' dispositions. I captured two aspects of students’ dispositions from the data: cognitive and affective. Conforming dispositions represent the cognitive dimension of dispositions, characterised by cognitive patterns of non-questioning and reduced agency of individuals. At the same time, affective dispositions represent embodied emotions of respect, fear and honour. These dispositions possess the potential to provide unthought guidance to the generation of caste-based practices of untouchability and endogamy through which caste inequality is reproduced.

Literature shows that schools enforce obedience and cultural morality characterised by hierarchy. This research presents the next level of analysis of such school practices, demonstrating that the everyday life of school embodies conformity as dispositions, with the potential to reproduce prevailing social relations and undemocratic virtues. Moreover, the significance of the research lies in demonstrating that informal school practices, such as authority, obedience, and hierarchy, should be taken seriously alongside official pedagogic practices, while discussing the role of the school in social reproduction/transformations.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Suported in part by the University of Glasgow, College of Social Sciences.
• Subjects: L Education > L Education (General)
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Parker, Dr. Stephen and Murphy, Dr. Mark
• Date of Award: 2026
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2026-85824
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 19 Mar 2026 14:15
• Last Modified: 22 Mar 2026 10:00
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85824
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85824