Methodological Hybridization to Study Micropolitics and Education Quality in Rural Contexts

Different patterns of relationship between intersecting systems of ‘politics ’and ‘education ’are useful in understanding the quality of schooling in local contingencies. Given the evolutionary nature of state sponsored programmes, interaction between power structures for want of public resources creates ‘political disequilibrium ’where lobbying by actors and legitimizing of decisions by institutions become detrimental factors to influence processes related to education quality and its outcome. Only technical means of understanding problems related to education quality by adopting ‘empirical approaches ’have the tendency to invariably quantify the evidences. In this process it silences the voice of the ‘stakeholders ’thus examining such complex phenomenon in very shallow depths. This paper is an attempt to challenge the well-established paradigms of educational research practice in India; it proposes alternatives through the process of ‘methodological hybridization ’. Understanding of education quality using micro political frameworks is the core of the paper, complex interplay and dynamics of interaction between micro politics and quality have been discussed using two methodological paradigms of ‘empiricism ’and ‘constructivism ’.