Adaptive Strategies of Santal Families in Educating Their Children: A Study on Primary Education in the Context of Basbari Village of Rajshahi

Abstract

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In spite of being a multicultural and multilingual country, what continuous trend seen over country is that ethnic communities of Bangladesh are excluded from primary education due to poverty, ignorance, lack of social consciousness, lack of learning opportunity in ethnic language, intolerance for indigenous culture, negligence of teachers and students towards indigenous children and discrimination, which may threaten Bangladesh’s achieving SGDs and may result in less graduate/human capital, less literacy rate, decreased job opportunity in ethnic societies as well as Bangladesh. This contradictory socio-cultural environment leads Santal families to occupy new adaptive strategies. Literatures found lacks discussion on this especial issue, which made the sufferings of the Santal families in ensuring education undiscovered. The current research aims to know how Santal children overcome the problems faced in Schools and understand the strategies Santal children take in getting education. This research argues that the Santal families are teaching their children Bangla language, hiding their cultural identity, stopping cultural practices, focusing on their religious identity and taking opportunities given by different Churches, NGOs and government agencies as means of coping strategies in educating their children, which is helping them in participating in education but falling in threats of losing cultural diversity in future