Education, Aspiration and aage badhna: The Role of Schooling in Facilitating ‘Forward Movement’ in Rural Chhattisgarh, India

This article explores the role of education in marginalised young people’s aspirations for aage badhna (forward movement). Drawing on ethnographic research in rural Chhattisgarh, central India, we show how young people’s orientations toward a desired future remain anchored in education, even when possibilities for education-related forward movement become unattainable. The way in which aspirations are translated into locally viable outcomes, we suggest, is inextricably linked to the structural limitations that prevent access to education’s more expansive opportunities and that underpin the possibility of falling behind. Focusing on how young people and their parents navigate this tension, we examine their attachment to the idea that education is necessary to get ahead, even as they fail to access its promised benefits. We suggest that a relational approach is critical to this understanding and argue that the way in which young people frame (and reframe) their aspirations must be understood in relation to both peers and parents, but also in relation to the central role that education plays in viable alternative pathways.