Dr Sazana Jayadeva
Research Fellow
PhD in Social Anthropology
About
Biography
I am a Research Fellow on the ERC-funded Eurostudents project, led by Prof. Rachel Brooks.
My research revolves around the broad and interrelated themes of education and inequalities, student migration and mobilities, and digital media, with regional focus on India and Europe.
If you'd like to know more about my work, do get in touch!
My qualifications
MPhil in Social Anthropological Analysis
University of Cambridge
PhD in Social Anthropology
University of Cambridge
Affiliations and memberships
Sociological Research Online
Member of Associate Editorial Board
GIGA Institute of Asian Studies, Germany
Associate Researcher
News
In the media
ResearchResearch interests
My research revolves around the broad themes of education and inequalities, student migration and mobilities, and digital media, with regional focus on India and Europe. It can be divided into three broad streams:
I am currently working on the ERC-funded Eurostudents project, led by Prof. Rachel Brooks. The project investigates how the contemporary higher education student in Europe is conceptualised and the extent to which this differs both within nation-states and across them. The themes on which I have focused in this project include: the impact of marketisation on the student experience in different European countries, how higher education policy is enacted on the ground, the links between higher education and social mobility, and students' political activity.
The second stream of research in which I am involved is focused on student migration from India to Germany. This project explores the increasing popularity of Germany as a study destination among Indian students and the key role of social media platforms (Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube) in mediating Indian student mobility to Germany. It also examines how Covid-19 has impacted and reshaped prospective students plans to study in Germany as well as the experiences of Indians currently studying in Germany.
Finally, my doctoral research focuses on the relationship between education, class and language in post-liberalisation India. It explores the central role that English language proficiency has come to play in middle-class formation. It does so by examining people's journeys to acquire proficiency in English both within and outside the formal education system, with particular focus on low-cost English-medium schools and commercial spoken English training centres targeting adults. It illustrates how low-cost English-medium schools and spoken English training centres are creating new avenues for social mobility, while also reproducing existing inequalities and creating new categories of differentiation.
Methodologically, I have expertise in qualitative research methods including interviews, ethnographies, digital ethnographies, and visual and creative methods.
Research interests
My research revolves around the broad themes of education and inequalities, student migration and mobilities, and digital media, with regional focus on India and Europe. It can be divided into three broad streams:
I am currently working on the ERC-funded Eurostudents project, led by Prof. Rachel Brooks. The project investigates how the contemporary higher education student in Europe is conceptualised and the extent to which this differs both within nation-states and across them. The themes on which I have focused in this project include: the impact of marketisation on the student experience in different European countries, how higher education policy is enacted on the ground, the links between higher education and social mobility, and students' political activity.
The second stream of research in which I am involved is focused on student migration from India to Germany. This project explores the increasing popularity of Germany as a study destination among Indian students and the key role of social media platforms (Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube) in mediating Indian student mobility to Germany. It also examines how Covid-19 has impacted and reshaped prospective students plans to study in Germany as well as the experiences of Indians currently studying in Germany.
Finally, my doctoral research focuses on the relationship between education, class and language in post-liberalisation India. It explores the central role that English language proficiency has come to play in middle-class formation. It does so by examining people's journeys to acquire proficiency in English both within and outside the formal education system, with particular focus on low-cost English-medium schools and commercial spoken English training centres targeting adults. It illustrates how low-cost English-medium schools and spoken English training centres are creating new avenues for social mobility, while also reproducing existing inequalities and creating new categories of differentiation.
Methodologically, I have expertise in qualitative research methods including interviews, ethnographies, digital ethnographies, and visual and creative methods.
Supervision
Postgraduate research supervision
Postgraduate research supervision
I am currently co-supervising a PhD candidate at UCL Institute of Education, Cassie Zhang. Cassie's doctoral project focuses on Chinese education recruitment agents.
Publications
Jayadeva, Sazana, Brooks, Rachel, Gupta, Achala, Abrahams, Jessie, Lazetic, Predrag. and Lainio, Anu. (2021) Are Spanish students customers? Paradoxical perceptions of the impact of marketisation on higher education in Spain, , Sociological Research Online, 26, 1, 185-204. (Open access)
This article examines how higher education (HE) students are conceptualised in Spain, drawing on an analysis of policy and institutional narratives about such students, as well as on the perspectives of university staff and students themselves. More specifically, it will explore an interesting paradox that we encountered in our data: on one hand, marketisation is less firmly established in the HE system of Spain than in many other European countries, and policy and institutional narratives in Spain present the HE system as being relatively unmarketised. On the other hand, the staff and students we interviewed presented the Spanish HE system and the student experience as having been dramatically transformed by marketisation. In analysing this paradox, the article highlights the importance of not viewing countries as coherent educational entities. In addition – while broadly supporting scholarship that has pointed to a growing market orientation of national HE systems across Europe – the article draws attention to how the manner in which the marketisation of HE is experienced on the ground can be very different in different national contexts, and may be mediated by a number of factors, including perceptions about the quality of educational provision and the labour market rewards of a degree; the manner in which the private cost of education (if any) is borne by students and their families; and the extent to which marketisation may have become entrenched and normalised in the HE system of a country.
Brooks, Rachel, Gupta, Achala, Jayadeva, Sazana and Abrahams, Jessie (2020) Students’ views about the purpose of higher education: a comparative analysis of six European countries, Higher Education Research and Development. (Open access.)
Across Europe, assumptions are often made within the academic literature and by some social commentators that students have come to understand the purpose of higher education (HE) in increasingly instrumental terms. This is often linked to processes of marketisation and neo-liberalisation across the Global North, in which the value of HE has come to be associated with economic reward and labour market participation and measured through a relatively narrow range of metrics. It is also associated with the establishment, in 2010, of the European Higher Education Area, which is argued to have brought about the refiguration of European universities around an Anglo-American model. Scholars have contended that students have become consumer-like in their behaviour and preoccupied by labour market outcomes rather than processes of learning and knowledge generation. Often, however, such claims are made on the basis of limited empirical evidence, or a focus on policies and structures rather than the perspectives of students themselves. In contrast, this paper draws on a series of 54 focus groups with 295 students conducted in six European countries (Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain). It shows how understandings of the purpose of HE are more nuanced than much of the extant literature suggests and vary, at least to some extent, by both nation-state and higher education institution. Alongside viewing the purpose of HE as preparing them for the labour market, students emphasised the importance of tertiary-level study for personal growth and enrichment, and societal development and progress. These findings have implications for policy and practice. In particular, the broader purposes of HE, as articulated by the students in this study, should be given greater recognition by policymakers, those teaching in HE, and the wider public instead of, as is often the case, positioning students as consumers, interested in only economic gain.
Jayadeva, Sazana (2020) The impact of Covid-19 on postgraduate-level student migration from India to Germany, Centre for Global Higher Education, Research Findings, 6, Oxford: University of Oxford.
This paper examines how the Covid-19 crisis is impacting Indians’ plans to study for a postgraduate degree in Germany, and how Indians currently studying in Germany have been affected. It draws on interviews conducted with Indian Master’s students in Germany and digital ethnographic research carried out within social media communities used by prospective students. The paper shows how, apart from concerns about a disrupted educational experience, prospective and current students were very concerned about the impact of Covid-19 on the German job market and the ability of an international student to secure a good job in their field of study upon graduation. The paper explains why, despite these concerns, most prospective students do not appear to be rethinking their plans to study in Germany. However, they are facing major hurdles in applying to universities, obtaining visas, and organising travel, as a result of lockdowns in India and international travel restrictions. These logistical problems might lead to a fall in postgraduate student flows from India to Germany this year.
Brooks, Rachel, Gupta, Achala, Jayadeva, Sazana, Abrahams, Jessica and Lažetić, Predrag (2020) Students as political actors? Similarities and differences across six European nations, British Educational Research Journal, 46, 6, 1193-1209. (Open access.)
Drawing on data from students, higher education staff and policymakers from six European countries, this article argues that it remains a relatively common assumption that students should be politically engaged. However, while students articulated a strong interest in a wide range of political issues, those working in higher education and influencing higher education policy tended to believe that students were considerably less politically active than their predecessors. Moreover, while staff and policy influencers typically conceived of political engagement in terms of collective action, articulated through common reference to the absence of a ‘student movement’ or unified student voice, students’ narratives tended not to valorise ‘student movements’ in the same way and many categorised as ‘political’ action they had taken alone and/or with a small number of other students. Alongside these broad commonalities across Europe, the article also evidences some key differences between nation‐states, institutions and disciplines. In this way, it contributes to the comparative literature on young people’s political engagement specifically, as well as wider debates about the ways in which higher education students are understood.
Jayadeva, Sazana (2021) Keep calm and apply to Germany: how online communities mediate transnational student mobility from India to Germany, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46, 11, 2240-2257.
This paper draws attention to the increasingly central yet understudied role of social media in facilitating student mobility from India. More specifically, it explores the emergence of online mutual-help communities of aspirant student migrants on Facebook and WhatsApp, which are aimed at helping members navigate the process of going abroad for study. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork focused on postgraduate-level student migration from India to Germany, the paper explores how these communities are meeting aspirant student migrants’ information and support needs in novel ways. Not only are they a key space in which information on study in Germany is discussed, dissected, and interpreted, they have also resulted in the production of a whole new body of information, tools, and resources on how to navigate the process of going to Germany for a Master’s degree. The paper argues that these communities can be seen as democratising access to study abroad, to some extent, by dramatically expanding applicants’ social networks and the social capital to which they have access.
Jayadeva, Sazana (2019) English‐Medium: Schooling, Social Mobility, and Inequality in Bangalore, India, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 50, 2, 151-169.
Focusing on low‐cost English‐medium schools, this article investigates whether the ideology of the transformative potential of English‐medium education squares with most people’s experiences of this education in urban India. It shows how such schools enable socioeconomic mobility among the middle classes while also creating new forms of inequality. It argues that a meaningful evaluation of education outcomes requires understanding students’ and their parents’ experiences of an education system and its impact on their lives.
Jayadeva, Sazana (2018) ‘Below English Line’: An ethnographic exploration of class and the English language in post-liberalization India, Modern Asian Studies, 52, 2, 576-608
Anthropological studies of India's post-liberalization middle classes have tended to focus mainly on the role of consumption behaviour in the constitution of this class group. Building on these studies, and taking class as an object of ethnographic enquiry, I argue that, over the last 20 years, class dynamics in the country have been significantly altered by the unprecedentedly important and complex role that the English language has come to play in the production and reproduction of class. Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork—conducted at commercial spoken-English training centres, schools, and corporate organizations in Bangalore—I analyse the processes by which this change in class dynamics has occurred, and how it is experienced on the ground. I demonstrate how, apart from being a valuable type of class cultural capital in its own right, proficiency in English has come to play a key role in the acquisition and performance of other important forms of capital associated with middle-class identity. As a result, being able to demonstrate proficiency in English has come to be experienced as a critical element in claiming and maintaining a space in the middle class, regardless of the other types of class cultural capital a person possesses.
Jayadeva, Sazana (2016) Aspiring by Degree: Outbound Student Migration from India to Germany, GIGA Focus Asia 5.
Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S. and Lainio, A. (2021) Students in marketised higher education landscapes: an introduction, Sociological Research Online, 26, 1, 125-129. (Special section: Students in marketised higher education landscapes) (Open access)
Brooks, R., Abrahams, J., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S. and Lazetic, P.(forthcoming) () Higher education timescapes: temporal understandings of students and learning, Sociology.
Jayadeva, S., Brooks, R. and Lazetic, P. (forthcoming) () Paradise lost or created? How higher-education staff perceive the impact of policy on students, Journal of Education Policy.