Negotiating Labour and Schooling: Studying the Struggle for Education in Urban Schools

Abstract

This study explored urban marginality, labour engagement and educational participation among children from the sweeper community. Grounded in ethnography, data were collected through observations and interviews to explore how children’s involvement in home-based metalwork enterprises (karkhaans) within the urban context shaped their schooling experiences. The findings revealed a web of structural disadvantages, including precarious living conditions, market dependent subsistence, exploitative labour engagements and severe financial instability that shaped children’s schooling experiences. The overlap between domestic and productive spaces facilitated children’s early integration into income-generating activities, which often resulted in irregular attendance and eventual disengagement from formal education. Occupational transitions in the community developed greater educational aspirations among some families; however, children’s participation in home-based income generation continued to take precedence over schooling. This study suggests the urgent need for systemic policy interventions that go beyond surface-level reforms. Such reforms ensure that education is not just accessible but also meaningfully transformative for historically marginalised urban communities.