India, was an issue of social reality. The urge to inquire
into these problems provided the impetus for this research.
Problems give rise to a research question, which does no
more than identify areas of concern and asks the question
"why?" (28)
From the original problem of disadvantage in the community
one moves to a researchable problem, via an interplay of
different sources which are extremely difficult to capture
adequately, namely: insight, hunches and imagination.
Disadvantage is then studied at a higher level, in an
attempt to develop current knowledge about disadvantage in
the Anglo-Indian classroom. The research explores why
certain events or conditions occur. (29)
All these aspects play a part in defining the research
question(s) which should be of interest not only to the
individual researcher but to some recognized section of the
educational community. It is usually more likely that the
research question has been developed from an extension of
an already completed project. This is what occurred in
this research, because this research developed out of the
findings of research conducted in Britain in 1988. (30)
The next section describes the research question which was
based on finding out reasons for present-day disadvantage
in Anglo-Indian classrooms.
5. The Research Question
The question was :
Why is the Anglo-Indian community being
labelled "backward" (31) in India today, and
is this "backward" tag linked to educational
backwardness?
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