AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

This project is an investigation into the Life Worlds of the students at the Shamayita Math Convent School in West Bengal, India. The convent school was founded on the idea of empowering women through education, in accordance with the Philosophies of the schools spiritual leader, Sri Sri Prabhuji. However, the school is subject to the national discourse through the curriculum and what we want to investigate is how these discourses influence the girls Life Worlds, their perception of their everyday life. The national discourse is subject to the Global Flows, which influence it. We hypothesise that their life worlds are created through a combination of the girls Inner- and Outer Worlds. In short, the Outer World is what influences the girls from an external point and the Inner World is their Life World from their own perspective. Our aim was to analyse this through the use of qualitative interviews, conducted on location in India, which will then be analysed through the use of several different theories, concerning identity, through the combining method of Bricolage. The results of the interviews will be discussed in relation to their Outer Worlds to determine what the discourses are. Our investigation brings us to the conclusion that the impact of various discourses in the students’ social spheres creates a very complex process of individuation in which they must make sense of themselves.