A nation deferred: Language, ethnicity and the reproduction of social inequalities in Mauritian primary schools

Through an ethnographic investigation of pedagogical practices, this dissertation examines the role of the education system in the reproduction of class and ethnic inequalities in Mauritius. People in Mauritius invoke connections to ancestral homelands to bolster their claims to nationhood, thus undercutting citizenship by ethnicity. The resulting double allegiance is further reproduced by the educational system, permeating, for example, debates over issues such as the place of ancestral languages in Mauritian schools. Given that in the Mauritian context, ancestral languages are coterminous with ethnicity, I argue that the curriculum provides students with a means to separate themselves into ethnic groups based on linguistic categories. Thus the Mauritian state through the socializing process of education reinforces the ethnic differences already existing within its population.; Since Mauritius inherited both its form of government and its educational system from Britain through colonial rule, a study of its educational system affords us the opportunity to think about the possibilities for, and contradictions involved in, the building of citizenship in the post-colonial context. Mauritius is particularly interesting in this regard because unlike most former colonies, on which most of the literature on post-colonial nation-formation has concentrated, its own population reflects the various stopping points along colonial trade routes. As such, Mauritius and other entities like it are the unexpected results of a system geared towards trade and production for trade with a population composed of both voluntary and involuntary migrants. In light of this context and its implicit conditions of impossibility for autochthonous nationhood, this dissertation explores the issues involved in the production of post-colonial subjects through an analysis of the socialization of children into citizens.