Racism, Gender, and Disability: Epistemic Injustice and Ideological Critique in Indian Educational Contexts

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Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Indira Miri School of Education, Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University, Guwahati, (India)

2 Research Scholar, Department of Education, Mizoram University, Aizawl (India)

3 Department of Education, Iswar Saran Degree College, University of Allahabad, (India)

4 Department of Education, Mizoram University, Aizawl (India)

Abstract

This research adapts Bufkin's materialist-ideological view to the Indian educational system by replacing "caste" with "gender" in order to examine how racism, gender oppression, and disableism combine to generate epistemic harm. We contend that testimonial and hermeneutical injustice in Indian schools cannot be explained as individual epistemic failures or conceptual deficiencies, based on qualitative interviews and focus groups with 48 students and teachers from marginalised positions across three Indian states (Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Delhi). Rather, a materialist ideology of meritocracy, cis-heteropatriarchal normality, and ableist universalism that normalises racial, gender, and disability inequalities is the root cause of these injustices. We demonstrate how educational procedures solidify a "racist-sexist-ableist common sense" that makes prejudice seem reasonable, normal, and justified by using Stuart Hall's idea of ideology as a "terrain of struggle." The study comes to the conclusion that removing the material and discursive structures that perpetuate epistemic exclusion across racial, gender, and disability boundaries is more important for anti-oppressive pedagogical transformation than just "training better knowers."

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 29 May 2026

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