How to Cite it
Kar, S. (2026). Reclaiming the Classroom: Applying Sociological Interventions to Reduce Educational Inequality through Community Tutoring Networks in Semi-Urban India. International Journal of Research, 13(1), 171–178. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18281241
Dr. Sukanya Kar
Assistant Professor
Department of English (CDOE), Sikkim Manipal University
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-5637-9095
Abstract
Educational inequality in India persists despite extensive policy reforms, owing to entrenched cultural hierarchies, linguistic divides, and uneven access to social capital. This paper presents an application-oriented sociological intervention—Learning Together—conducted in semi-urban West Bengal to address educational disparities among first-generation learners. The initiative mobilized community networks by engaging college students, retired teachers, and mothers’ collectives to co-create inclusive neighborhood tutoring spaces. Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), the study explored how social capital, cultural capital, and critical pedagogy intersect to improve learning motivation, attendance, and community cohesion. The project operationalised Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and cultural capital alongside Robert Putnam’s bonding and bridging social capital, integrating Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy. The findings show that community-based interventions can foster emotional safety, gender inclusion, and learning engagement, thereby transforming educational participation from a passive process to a collective social act. The study argues that applied sociology, when enacted through participatory frameworks, can shift education from an institutional privilege to a shared social responsibility.
Keywords: applied sociology, educational inequality, participatory learning, cultural capital, social capital, community engagement, India
1. Introduction: Sociology Beyond Diagnosis
The field of sociology has long illuminated the structural dimensions of inequality—class, caste, gender, and language—that shape educational outcomes. However, sociology’s public role remains underutilized when it comes to transforming these insights into tangible change. In India, education remains one of the most visible sites of social reproduction (Bourdieu, 1986; Jeffrey, 2010). Semi-urban schools, often sandwiched between rural deprivation and urban privilege, exemplify this paradox: despite the promise of mobility, they reproduce marginality through curricular alienation, language barriers, and infrastructural scarcity.
The Learning Together project emerged from this sociological impasse, aspiring to convert theory into intervention. It asked: Can sociological knowledge—when directly applied—alter the lived experience of inequality? Rather than limiting itself to critique, the project sought to co-design solutions grounded in community knowledge and participatory engagement. This article thus contributes to the growing domain of applied and clinical sociology, where the goal is not only to understand but also to improve social conditions (Fritz, 2020). By focusing on the everyday struggles of first-generation learners, it demonstrates how sociology can become a tool of empowerment—bridging the gap between academic theory and social practice.
2. Context: The Semi-Urban Educational Landscape
Educational inequality in semi-urban India operates through intersecting material and symbolic dimensions. While infrastructure, teacher availability, and digital access are visible challenges, the deeper inequities lie in how education itself is socially valued, accessed, and experienced across lines of class, caste, language, and gender.
2.1 Structural Challenges: Semi-urban regions such as those surrounding Siliguri in North Bengal embody the duality of India’s development trajectory: expanding educational institutions coexist with persistent socio-economic precarity. Schools in these areas typically function with limited resources—insufficient classrooms, irregular electricity, and minimal teaching aids. Teachers, often commuting from urban centers, are overburdened with administrative duties that reduce actual teaching time.The digital divide compounds this structural inadequacy. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER, 2022), only 38% of rural and semi-urban households in India possess smartphones accessible to children for learning. Thus, technological reforms, though well-intentioned, tend to reproduce inequality by privileging those already advantaged.
2.2 Symbolic and Relational Inequalities: Beyond these tangible constraints, inequality assumes a symbolic and relational form. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1991) argues that schools act as sites where “legitimate culture” is produced and reproduced through language and habitus. In semi-urban North Bengal, this plays out in the preference for English-medium education, which becomes a marker of social mobility rather than a tool of learning.Children who speak local dialects such as Rajbanshi, Nepali, or Bengali at home find themselves alienated in classrooms that valorize English or standardized Bengali. Their linguistic capital—though rich and expressive—carries little exchange value in the formal educational field. This symbolic exclusion erodes self-confidence and reinforces a sense of inferiority, especially among first-generation learners.
Gender further mediates these inequalities. Girls are often expected to help with domestic chores or sibling care, limiting study time. In some families, investment in girls’ education is still seen as secondary to marriage prospects. As one mother remarked during a focus group, “A boy’s education earns money; a girl’s education earns respect—but respect does not feed us.” Such statements reflect the complex intersection of economic and cultural capital that governs educational choices.
2.3 The Field Site: Two Neighborhoods near Siliguri: The field site comprises two semi-urban neighborhoods on the periphery of Siliguri, characterized by cultural hybridity and economic marginality. The population includes tea garden workers, daily-wage laborers, small shopkeepers, and low-income service employees. Most families are nuclear but socially interconnected through kinship and neighborhood networks. Children in these areas typically attend government or low-fee private schools. While parents express a deep desire for their children’s success, they often lack the cultural literacy or leisure time to assist with schoolwork. Homework is frequently left incomplete not from negligence, but from parents’ inability to understand the curriculum. As one father noted, “We can earn for the books, but we cannot read the books.”
2.4 Home as a Site of Contradiction: Home environments in these neighborhoods are culturally vibrant but educationally marginalized. Evenings are filled with community interactions—folk songs, local festivals, and storytelling traditions—but these forms of cultural capital remain unrecognized by formal education. The curriculum, dominated by urban middle-class values, fails to acknowledge the rich experiential knowledge embedded in local life. This disjuncture between home and school produces what Bernstein (1971) termed “codes of exclusion,” where children learn to internalize the feeling that their ways of speaking, dressing, or thinking are less legitimate. Consequently, the school becomes a site of both aspiration and anxiety—a place that promises mobility but often reproduces exclusion.
2.5 Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic intensified these pre-existing inequalities. When schools transitioned to online platforms, access became a matter of privilege. Many families shared a single smartphone, usually belonging to a working adult, which left children without devices during school hours. Internet connectivity was unstable, and digital literacy among parents was minimal.As one mother expressed during a focus group discussion:
“School moved into the phone, but the phone never came into our home.”
This poignant observation encapsulates the digital and emotional distance that widened during the lockdowns. While urban children navigated online classrooms, semi-urban learners were cut off from both formal education and peer interaction, leading to learning regression and emotional fatigue.
2.6 Conceptualizing a Sociological Intervention: It was against this backdrop that Learning Together was conceptualized as a sociological application rather than a charity-driven initiative. The aim was to reimagine education not merely as classroom instruction but as a social process rooted in community participation. By mobilizing existing social capital—retired teachers, college volunteers, mothers’ groups, and neighborhood spaces—the project sought to bridge the symbolic gap between the home and the school. Rather than imposing external pedagogical models, the intervention worked within the community’s own rhythms of life, using local idioms, songs, and storytelling to create familiarity and ownership.
In this sense, Learning Together did not attempt to replace the formal school but to reclaim learning as a communal act, challenging the notion that education must occur only within institutional walls. It demonstrated how applied sociology can function as a pragmatic and empathetic response to inequality, transforming local relationships into sites of social innovation.
3. Theoretical Framework: Sociology in Application
3.1 Bourdieu: Cultural Capital and Habitus: Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986) theory of cultural capital explains how education often legitimizes existing social hierarchies. Students from privileged backgrounds possess linguistic fluency, confidence, and cultural familiarity—the “invisible assets” that schools reward. Meanwhile, marginalized students, lacking such capital, are misrecognized as “less capable.”
This project sought to redistribute cultural capital by embedding learning in local idioms—folk songs, regional stories, and collaborative games—transforming community spaces into alternative classrooms. It aimed to reshape habitus—the internalized dispositions that regulate perception and aspiration—by fostering confidence, curiosity, and belonging.
3.2 Putnam: Social Capital and Collective Efficacy: Robert Putnam’s (2000) distinction between bonding and bridging social capital offers another analytic layer. Bonding networks create solidarity within communities, while bridging networks link them to external resources. The tutoring circles cultivated both. Neighborhood solidarity encouraged trust and mutual aid (bonding), while mentorship by college students and retired teachers created exposure to aspirational pathways (bridging). The interplay between these forms of capital became the intervention’s social engine.
3.3 Freire: Critical Pedagogy and Empowerment: Paulo Freire (1970) emphasized education as a dialogic act—where learners become co-creators of knowledge, not passive recipients. This philosophy underpinned the program’s design. Students were encouraged to question, express, and teach one another. Volunteers acted as facilitators, not authorities, aligning with Freire’s concept of “problem-posing education.” Through this method, learning became a means of consciousness-raising (conscientização), linking academic progress with social self-awareness.
4. Methodology: Participatory Action Research (PAR)
4.1 Research Design: The study employed the Participatory Action Research (PAR) model (Tandon, 2018; McIntyre, 2008), combining data collection with social intervention. PAR’s cyclical process—diagnosis, action, reflection, re-evaluation—allowed iterative adaptation based on community feedback. The project aimed to
i)Identify the social barriers that limit educational participation.
ii) Develop a community-based tutoring model rooted in sociological principles.
iii)Assess its social and educational impact.
4.2 Participants and Sampling: The project involved60 students (Grades 6–10),15 college volunteers (mentors trained in social science methods),8 retired teachers, and20 mothers, who hosted sessions and coordinated logistics.Participants were recruited through community meetings and school collaborations.
4.3 Data Collection: Data were collected through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs):
Monthly sessions recorded participants’ experiences and perceptions.
i) Field Diaries: Volunteers maintained reflective notes on student engagement and group dynamics.
ii) Observation and Photovoice: Visual documentation captured the learning spaces’ transformation over time.
iii) Post-Intervention Interviews: Conducted with parents, students, and mentors to assess perceived changes.
4.4 Analytical Framework: Data were coded thematically using NVivo, following grounded theory procedures. Emergent themes—confidence, collaboration, belonging, and reflexivity—were mapped against theoretical categories of capital, agency, and participation.
4.5 Ethical Considerations: The project followed AACS ethical guidelines: informed consent, anonymity, and participant co-ownership of data. Reflexive positionality was maintained throughout—acknowledging that the researcher was not a neutral observer but a co-participant in the intervention.
5. Implementation: Learning as Collective Practice
The Learning Together initiative was implemented through a series of interlinked micro-interventions that transformed community spaces into learning laboratories. The goal was not only to deliver academic support but also to reconstitute the social relations of learning—to make education a participatory, relational, and emotionally inclusive process. The implementation unfolded across four major components: community mapping, structuring of Learning Circles, mothers’ collectives, and volunteer reflexivity.
5.1 Community Mapping: Discovering Learning Ecologies: The first phase of implementation began with community mapping, an ethnographic exercise designed to identify organic spaces of gathering and everyday interaction. Rather than imposing an external venue or institutional structure, the team explored where children already congregated — courtyards, tea stalls, temple verandas, and community halls. These spaces were not pedagogical by design, but they carried deep social familiarity and emotional comfort, making them ideal for trust-based learning.
Through participatory discussions, residents helped select venues that were accessible and symbolically neutral — spaces not dominated by any caste, gender, or linguistic group. This ensured inclusivity and minimized the social intimidation often experienced in formal classrooms. Each of these spaces evolved into what we called “Learning Circles,” typically comprising 6–8 students and one mentor. These circles were intentionally small to maintain intimacy and individual attention. The goal was to create “safe micro-publics” of learning — informal, dialogic, and rooted in the community’s own rhythm.
Within these Learning Circles, sessions integrated academic reinforcement with creative engagement: storytelling, local song composition, debates, drawing, and games. Lessons often drew from students’ lived experiences — discussing tea garden life, monsoon rituals, or market dynamics — thereby validating local knowledge as part of the learning process. By anchoring the intervention in everyday spaces and familiar cultural idioms, Learning Together effectively dissolved the boundary between learning and living, fulfilling the sociological aim of making education a collective social act.
5.2 Structuring Learning Circles: Blurring the Line Between Study and Sociality: The pedagogical design of the Learning Circles was flexible yet structured, balancing routine with creativity. Each circle met three times a week for 90-minute sessions, with each day dedicated to a distinct learning dimension:
Mondays: Focused on academic reinforcement—reading comprehension, basic arithmetic, and homework assistance. Mentors used multilingual scaffolding (local dialects and English) to ensure conceptual clarity and confidence.
Wednesdays: Dedicated to collaborative learning through creative expression. Activities included role play, storytelling from local folklore, song writing, and art-based learning. This was designed to foster communication, cooperation, and imaginative thinking.
Saturdays: Functioned as reflection and sharing days. Students discussed what they had learned during the week, celebrated small achievements, and collectively planned the next week’s goals. This rhythmic pattern allowed children to perceive learning as an ongoing conversation rather than a one-way transmission. The deliberate blending of academic and expressive activities blurred the traditional dichotomy between study and play, creating what Lave and Wenger (1991) describe as a “community of practice.” Moreover, by situating these sessions outside formal institutions, the project disrupted hierarchies of age, class, and language that typically structure schooling. In these circles, knowledge circulated horizontally — between peers, between mentors and mothers, and even across generations — thus democratizing the act of learning.
5.3 Role of Mothers’ Collectives: Education as Shared Care: A defining innovation of the Learning Together model was the integration of mothers’ collectives into the learning process. In many semi-urban families, mothers are central to children’s emotional and moral upbringing but remain excluded from educational decision-making due to limited literacy or social confidence. The project sought to redefine educational labour as collective caregiving, validating the knowledge embedded in domestic experience. Mothers were trained in basic facilitation skills and took charge of attendance monitoring, safety, and participation of girls. They managed schedules, prepared learning corners, and encouraged reluctant children to attend sessions. Their visible leadership transformed community perceptions of women’s roles — from passive supporters to active educators. As one participant mother remarked during an interview:
“Before, only teachers taught; now we all teach a little.”
This statement captures the essence of feminist sociology’s understanding of reproductive labour and community care (Chakraborty, 2021; hooks, 1994). Education here became an extension of caregiving, reframing motherhood as a form of pedagogical agency. The mothers’ collectives also served as a bridge between domestic and public spheres, providing a platform for women to discuss social issues, share experiences, and build confidence. Over time, this nurtured new forms of gendered social capital, positioning women as key stakeholders in the educational ecosystem.
5.4 Volunteer Reflexivity and Peer Learning: Sociology in Action: The fourth component focused on developing reflexivity among volunteers, most of whom were undergraduate students of sociology and education. They participated not as detached researchers but as engaged facilitators in a living social environment. Biweekly reflection meetings were held to discuss experiences, dilemmas, and positionality. Volunteers reflected on their own assumptions about class, language, and “good education.” These sessions revealed a gradual shift in understanding: effective teaching depended less on technical expertise and more on empathy, listening, and relational trust.
One volunteer noted in her field journal:
“I came to teach English but ended up learning how inequality speaks in silence.”
This self-realization embodies the heart of applied sociology—where practitioners evolve alongside participants. Volunteers began identifying subtle forms of exclusion within their own practices, learning to translate sociological theory into ethical pedagogy. Additionally, peer learning among volunteers became a site of knowledge co-production. Experienced mentors shared locally adapted techniques, while newcomers contributed fresh perspectives. This recursive process created a reflexive learning network that paralleled the Learning Circles themselves. Ultimately, the volunteer experience transcended mere service—it became a transformative sociological apprenticeship, shaping a generation of socially conscious educators capable of translating theory into practice.
5.5 Summary: From Implementation to Transformation: The implementation of Learning Together demonstrated that when education is embedded in social relations rather than imposed through formal institutions, it fosters not only academic progress but also social cohesion. The convergence of children, mothers, and volunteers created a microcosm of participatory democracy, where knowledge was produced through interaction, empathy, and collective reflection. Through these interconnected practices, the initiative illustrated the possibility of reclaiming education as a community common, reaffirming the sociological insight that learning, at its best, is a shared human endeavour.
6. Findings: Transformations in Learning and Social Relations
The Learning Together initiative generated a series of observable transformations at both the individual and community levels. These findings were derived from continuous field observation, reflective journals of volunteers, and focus group discussions conducted over nine months.
6.1. Reframing of Learning as Collective Practice: Initially, most participants perceived learning as an individualized, school-bound task. Over time, however, the tutoring spaces evolved into community learning hubs where knowledge was collectively produced and shared. Children began bringing siblings and friends, while mothers who were initially passive observers gradually started assisting in reading aloud or helping with simple arithmetic. This shift demonstrates a sociological redefinition of “learning” — from a hierarchical transaction to a shared social process embedded in everyday interaction.
6.2. Development of Confidence and Voice: At the outset, learners displayed hesitancy
To engage, often responding in monosyllables or avoiding direct communication. By the fourth month, classroom discourse became participatory, characterized by storytelling, peer questioning and humor. Students who were earlier silent in formal schools began articulating opinions and even debating local issues. This transformation underscores the link between social inclusion and self-expression — a central tenet in Freire’s (1970) idea of dialogic pedagogy.
6.3. Shifts in Intergenerational Relations: The program also affected the parent–child dynamic. Interviews with mothers revealed that they began perceiving their children’s education as a shared family responsibility rather than a distant institutional obligation. Retired teachers in the neighborhood, initially skeptical, became emotionally invested in the children’s progress. This intergenerational collaboration fostered new forms of social capital (Putnam, 2000), as the act of teaching became intertwined with affective and moral dimensions of care.
6.4. Emergence of Peer Leadership: A striking development was the emergence of “peer leaders”—older students who spontaneously took responsibility for helping younger ones. This self-organized mentorship expanded the project’s reach without external intervention. Peer-led sessions proved more relatable for participants, demonstrating that empowerment can diffuse horizontally within social groups when trust and recognition are nurtured.
6.5. Gendered Shifts and Safe Spaces: The creation of informal and familiar learning spaces encouraged greater participation from adolescent girls, who were often restricted from traveling far or attending evening tuition classes. The project’s spatial flexibility—using courtyards, temples, or mothers’ clubs—allowed girls to negotiate their presence in public learning activities. Over time, mothers began organizing “study evenings” themselves, signaling a subtle but profound reconfiguration of gendered spatial norms.
6.6. Strengthening of Social Networks and Trust: Perhaps the most enduring outcome was the restoration of social trust. Families that previously competed for limited tuition resources began pooling materials and sharing food during group sessions. The transformation from competition to cooperation mirrored a collective realization that educational success could be a shared community good.
7. Reflexivity among Volunteers: College students who served as tutors reported significant changes in their own outlook. Many expressed that they had gained a “sociological imagination in practice,” understanding firsthand how structural inequalities manifest in everyday schooling. Their reflective journals indicate that they began to see themselves as agents of social change rather than mere facilitators. This reflexive awareness marks a vital pedagogical outcome of applied sociology — learning through engagement. In sum, the findings illustrate that the Learning Together intervention did not merely improve academic performance; it reconstituted the very social relations that shape the learning environment. Education, in this context, became a site of empowerment, empathy, and community building
7. Discussion: Sociology as Praxis
The Learning Together initiative validates the proposition that theories gain vitality when enacted. Each theoretical strand—Bourdieu’s capital, Putnam’s networks, Freire’s dialogue—was not merely cited but embodied in practice.
7.1 Theory in Action: Bourdieu’s framework helped identify invisible barriers; Putnam’s clarified how trust networks sustain motivation; Freire’s pedagogy transformed hierarchy into collaboration. When operationalized collectively, these frameworks produced measurable social transformation—improved attendance, self-efficacy, and intergenerational dialogue.
7.2 Emotional Infrastructure: Beyond metrics, the project built emotional infrastructure—trust, care, belonging—elements often overlooked in policy design. Learning improved not solely because of instruction but because children felt seen and valued. Sociology here acts as a therapeutic science of collective well-being.
7.3 Rethinking Educational Reform: Conventional reforms treat education as a technical system; applied sociology reframes it as a relational ecology. By recognizing community agencies, it shifts responsibility from institutions alone to networks of shared solidarity.
7.4 Knowledge Co-Production: The process exemplified co-production of knowledge—where community insights refine sociological understanding. For instance, the use of folk songs as mnemonic tools emerged organically from participants, later becoming a core learning strategy. This bottom-up creativity shows that communities are not research subjects but co-theorists.
8. Policy and Practical Implications
The Learning Together initiative offers not merely a localized solution to educational inequity but a replicable framework for policy innovation rooted in applied sociology. Its implications cut across educational planning, social welfare, and gender-inclusive community development. The following recommendations arise from both field-based insights and theoretical reflection.
8.1 Integrating Sociology into Teacher Training: Teacher education in India has traditionally focused on pedagogy and content delivery while neglecting the sociological dimensions of the classroom. To make learning environments more inclusive and empathetic, sociology should be embedded within teacher training curricula. Modules on social capital (Putnam, 2000), cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986), and participatory engagement (Freire, 1970) can help educators understand that learning is mediated by social hierarchies and cultural codes. A teacher sensitized to these dimensions can better recognize why certain students remain silent or disengaged — not due to lack of ability, but due to alienation from dominant linguistic and cultural norms. By cultivating empathy-driven pedagogy, teachers can transform classrooms into dialogic spaces where every student’s background becomes an asset rather than a deficit. Policy frameworks like the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 already emphasize holistic learning; sociological training can operationalize that vision by grounding it in lived social realities.
8.2 Institutionalizing Community Learning Hubs: Formal schools often operate in isolation from the communities they serve. The Learning Together model demonstrates how neighbourhood-based tutoring circles can act as bridges between home and school, aligning informal learning with formal curricula. Partnerships among schools, local NGOs, and universities can institutionalize such learning hubs. College students studying sociology or education could earn credits through structured fieldwork, while retired teachers and mothers’ collectives can contribute local wisdom. This collaborative ecosystem transforms education from an institutional service into a community responsibility. Government programs like the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan could incorporate this model by allocating micro-grants to community learning spaces. The long-term impact would be a reduction in dropout rates and an increase in parental participation — crucial indicators of social capital growth in semi-urban India.
8.3 Recognition of Informal Learning: Current educational assessment systems overwhelmingly prioritize measurable academic outcomes — test scores, attendance, and grades — while overlooking affective, emotional, and cooperative competencies that are equally vital for social integration. The Learning Together initiative provides evidence that informal learning—through storytelling, peer mentoring, and collective play—significantly enhances self-confidence and communication skills among first-generation learners. Policymakers should therefore advocate for multi-dimensional assessment frameworks that value collaboration, empathy, and social engagement alongside academic metrics. Such recognition could reshape the very notion of success in education, validating community-based knowledge systems and everyday learning as legitimate pedagogical outcomes.
8.4 Women’s Participation: Women’s engagement emerged as a cornerstone of the project’s success. Mothers who were initially hesitant observers evolved into active collaborators, managing study groups and mentoring younger children. This transformation reveals the latent educational potential of caregiving labour and the need for gender-sensitive community frameworks that recognize it.
Policies that empower mothers as educational partners can bridge the domestic–public divide that often excludes women from decision-making spaces. Integrating women’s collectives—such as self-help groups (SHGs)—into local education governance could create sustainable structures of support. This aligns with feminist sociological theory (Chakraborty, 2021; hooks, 1994), which advocates for community-based empowerment and recognizes the home as a legitimate site of social transformation. Enabling women to co-own educational spaces not only enhances learning outcomes but also contributes to broader gender justice.
8.5 Low-Cost Replicability: A significant strength of the intervention lies in its economic simplicity. With minimal financial investment—basic learning materials, local spaces, and voluntary time—the initiative achieved measurable improvements in engagement and confidence. The underlying resource was social trust, which functioned as a currency more valuable than funding. This insight has profound policy implications: it suggests that educational reforms need not depend solely on large-scale infrastructural spending. Instead, by mobilizing existing human and social capital, small communities can generate significant educational transformation. Government and NGO partnerships can replicate this model in other regions by training local facilitators, offering micro-incentives, and using low-cost communication tools. The emphasis should be on contextual adaptation rather than uniform implementation, allowing each community to evolve its own sustainable learning culture.
8.6 Toward a Sociology-Informed Education Policy: Ultimately, the Learning Together initiative urges policymakers to integrate sociological insight into the very architecture of education reform. Recognizing education as a social process rather than a purely cognitive endeavor means valuing relationships, empathy, and participation as key learning outcomes. By embedding applied sociology within education policy, India can move closer to a truly democratic model of learning—one that not only transmits knowledge but also transforms social relations.
9. Limitations and Future Scope of Research
While the Learning Together initiative demonstrates the transformative potential of community-based sociological interventions, several limitations must be acknowledged. First, the study was geographically limited to semi-urban pockets of West Bengal, which restricts the generalizability of findings. The socio-cultural fabric of this region—marked by specific linguistic, caste, and gender dynamics—may differ significantly from other Indian contexts, such as tribal belts in central India or urban migrant clusters. Future research should thus employ comparative case studies across diverse cultural terrains to test the adaptability of the model. Second, the project’s reliance on voluntary participation created inconsistencies in engagement levels. While enthusiasm among college volunteers was initially high, sustainability beyond six months required structured incentives or institutional backing. Future interventions should explore hybrid models that combine community motivation with formal recognition—perhaps through credit-based service-learning programs or local government partnerships.
Third, while qualitative data through observation and interviews yielded rich insights, longitudinal quantitative tracking of academic performance was limited. Further studies could incorporate mixed methods—combining ethnography with statistical measurement of educational progress, confidence levels, and social capital indicators—to establish stronger causal relationships. Fourth, gender representation, though organically balanced, revealed nuanced challenges. Adolescent girls often faced domestic restrictions that limited participation during certain hours. Future research should pay closer attention to the intersection of gender, mobility, and informal education, using feminist participatory frameworks (Chakraborty, 2021; hooks, 1994) to ensure equitable access.
Finally, the pandemic and subsequent digital divide limited the project’s reach to offline spaces. Exploring how low-cost digital tools—community radio, WhatsApp learning circles, or solar-powered mobile libraries—can augment social learning offers fertile ground for future investigation. Overall, the Learning Together initiative opens pathways for future scholarship that reimagines applied sociology not just as a means of studying society, but as a collaborative tool for rebuilding it
10. Conclusion
The Learning Together project underscores that sociology’s true relevance lies not in detached critique but in applied compassion— in its ability to transform communities through collective reasoning and participation. Educational inequality, when approached sociologically, reveals itself as a problem of relationships, not just resources. By redistributing cultural and social capital through community cooperation, this initiative demonstrated that the classroom need not be confined to four walls—it can be the neighborhood itself. Applied sociology thus reclaims its founding purpose: to bridge the moral and the empirical, to turn understanding into transformation. In semi-urban India, where the distance between knowledge and opportunity remains vast, such praxis can convert sociology from an academic discipline into a living instrument of justice
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