Dr Achala Gupta
About
Biography
My research focusses on education (private tutoring or 'shadow education; higher education), young people's aspirations, and social inequalities, with a regional focus on Asia and Europe.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to know more about my current work.
Areas of specialism
University roles and responsibilities
- Research Fellow at ERC-funded Eurostudents project (http://eurostudents.net/)
- Undergraduate thesis supervision
My qualifications
News
In the media
ResearchResearch interests
I have been involved in various research projects, exploring higher education, international student mobility, and 'shadow education', with regional focus on Asia and Europe:
1. Currently, I am a member of the Eurostudents project -- funded by European Research Council, and led by Professor Rachel Brooks.
- This project explores how higher education students are constructed in six European countries (England, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Poland).
- I have contributed to papers focusing on: aspirations of young people; the purpose of higher education as articulated by European students; transitions of young people; students as political actors, among others (http://eurostudents.net/project-outputs/). These works explore how marketisation processes and policy enactments have affected students' experiences of HE - and how these experiences are similar and different across countries and higher education institutions.
2. Before joining the project team, I worked at the Asia Research Institute, the National University of Singapore as a Research Associate
- At ARI, I worked on a project on Global Asian Universities and International Students’ Mobilities (in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and China).
3. My doctoral research was an institutional ethnography that examined educational practices in the formal education system from the vantage point of private tutoring (‘shadow education’) in contemporary India. The research outputs show:
- The dynamic of class relations in attaining educational privilege in Indian middle-class families (DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2019.1660142)
- The practices of teacher-entrepreneurialism (outlining why teachers become tutors) DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2019.1708765)
Research projects
The empirical project is guided by four main research questions: (i) How are understandings of the higher education student produced, shaped and disseminated by (a) policymakers, (b) the media and (c) higher education institutions? (ii) To what extent do these understandings differ within and across European nations? (iii) How do students of different national and social backgrounds understand the role of the higher education student? (iv) To what extent are their understandings consonant with those produced, shaped and disseminated by policymakers, the media and higher education institutions?
To answer these questions, data will be collected from six different European countries – Denmark, England, Ireland, Germany, Poland and Spain – and through four strands of work, each of which focuses on a different social actor i.e. policymakers, the media, higher education institutions and students themselves.
Research interests
I have been involved in various research projects, exploring higher education, international student mobility, and 'shadow education', with regional focus on Asia and Europe:
1. Currently, I am a member of the Eurostudents project -- funded by European Research Council, and led by Professor Rachel Brooks.
- This project explores how higher education students are constructed in six European countries (England, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Poland).
- I have contributed to papers focusing on: aspirations of young people; the purpose of higher education as articulated by European students; transitions of young people; students as political actors, among others (http://eurostudents.net/project-outputs/). These works explore how marketisation processes and policy enactments have affected students' experiences of HE - and how these experiences are similar and different across countries and higher education institutions.
2. Before joining the project team, I worked at the Asia Research Institute, the National University of Singapore as a Research Associate
- At ARI, I worked on a project on Global Asian Universities and International Students’ Mobilities (in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and China).
3. My doctoral research was an institutional ethnography that examined educational practices in the formal education system from the vantage point of private tutoring (‘shadow education’) in contemporary India. The research outputs show:
- The dynamic of class relations in attaining educational privilege in Indian middle-class families (DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2019.1660142)
- The practices of teacher-entrepreneurialism (outlining why teachers become tutors) DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2019.1708765)
Research projects
The empirical project is guided by four main research questions: (i) How are understandings of the higher education student produced, shaped and disseminated by (a) policymakers, (b) the media and (c) higher education institutions? (ii) To what extent do these understandings differ within and across European nations? (iii) How do students of different national and social backgrounds understand the role of the higher education student? (iv) To what extent are their understandings consonant with those produced, shaped and disseminated by policymakers, the media and higher education institutions?
To answer these questions, data will be collected from six different European countries – Denmark, England, Ireland, Germany, Poland and Spain – and through four strands of work, each of which focuses on a different social actor i.e. policymakers, the media, higher education institutions and students themselves.
Teaching
I am an Associate Fellow of the UK's Higher Education Academy and I have supported:
- Postgraduate teaching at the University of Surrey and University College London
- Undergraduate teaching at the University of Surrey, University College London, and National University of Singapore [modules: Qualitative Inquiry; Social Thought and Social Theory; Urban Sociology; Making Sense of Society; Gender Studies]
Please contact me to know more about my teaching experience and expertise.
Publications
Highlights
Gupta, A. (2021). Social legitimacy of private tutoring: an investigation of institutional and affective educational practices in India, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.
Gupta, A. (2020). Heterogeneous middle-class and disparate educational advantage: parental investment in their children’s schooling in Dehradun, India, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(1), 48-63.
Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S., Abrahams, J., & Lažetić, P. (2020). Students as political actors? Similarities and differences across six European nations. British Educational Research Journal. [open-access]
Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S., Abrahams, J. (2020) Students’ understanding of the purpose of higher education: a comparative analysis of six European countries. Higher Education Research and Development. [open-access]
Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S., Lainio, A. (2020) Students in Marketised Higher Education Landscapes: An introduction. Sociological Research Online. [open-access]
Gupta, A. (2019). Teacher-entrepreneurialism: a case of teacher identity formation in neo-liberalising education space in contemporary India. Critical Studies in Education.
Please get in touch for the full list of publications.