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• Sociology of education
• Shadow education
• Educational inequality 
• Social mobility 
• Comparative research 

Achala’s research focuses on investigating educational issues sociologically. Her current interests include education delivery systems (formal and supplementary) and schooling practices in Asia, and students’ aspirations and transition into higher education in Europe.

Key publications

1. on schooling, parenting, teacher identity and shadow education in India: 

• Gupta, A. (2023). Revisiting educational advantage and social class: A Bourdieusian analysis of middle-class parents’ investment in private schooling and shadow education. British Journal of Sociology of Education. DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2022.2126824. []
• Gupta, A. (2023). The nature and scope of English private tutoring: an analysis of the shadowing process and middle-class identity in globalising India. In K. Yung & A. Hajar (Eds.) International Perspectives on English Private Tutoring: Theories, Practices and Policies, Hong Kong: Palgrave Macmillan. []
• Gupta, A. (2022). Middle-class mothers’ participation in tutoring for spoken English: A case of unlocking middle-class identity and privilege in contemporary India. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2022.2131738. []
• Gupta, A. (2022). A ‘Shadow education’ timescape: An empirical investigation of the temporal arrangement of private tutoring vis-à-vis formal schooling in India. British Journal of Educational Studies. DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2021.2024137. []
• Gupta, A. (2022). Social legitimacy of private tutoring: an investigation of institutional and affective educational practices in India. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 43(4), 571-584. []
• Gupta, A. (2021) Exposing the ‘shadow’: An empirical scrutiny of the ‘shadowing process’ of private tutoring in India, Educational Review. DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2021.1931038. []
• Gupta, A. (2021). Teacher-entrepreneurialism: A case of teacher identity formation in neoliberalizing education space in contemporary India. Critical Studies in Education, 62(4), 422-438. []
• 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. []

2. on education policy enactments (Double Burden Reduction policy) in China:

• Gupta, A. & Zhao, X. (2023). Teachers’ work under responsibilising policies: An analysis of educators’ views on China’s 2021 educational reforms. Journal of Education Policy. DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2023.2236067. [] 

3. on constructing higher education students in European countries (England, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Poland and Spain):

• Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, A., Lainio, A. and Lazetic, P. (2022) Constructing the Higher Education Student: Perspectives from across Europe, Bristol, Policy Press. []
• Gupta, A., Brooks, R. and Abrahams, J. (2023). Higher education students as consumers: A cross-country comparative analysis of students’ views in Europe. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2023.2234283. []
• Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S., Abrahams, J., & Lažetić, P. (2021). Students as political actors? Similarities and differences across six European nations. British Educational Research Journal, 46(6), 1193-1209. []
• Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S., Abrahams, J. (2021). Students’ views about the purpose of higher education: a comparative analysis of six European countries. Higher Education Research & Development, 40(7), 1375-1388. []
• Brooks, R., Abrahams, J., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S. & Lažetić, P. (2021). Higher education timescapes: temporal understandings of students and learning. Sociology, 55(5), 995-1014. []
• Brooks, R., Gupta, A., Jayadeva, S. (2021) Higher education students’ aspirations for their post-university lives: evidence from six European nations, Children’s Geographies (Special Issue: ‘The Place of Aspirations’: Young People’s Socio-spatial (Im)mobilities). DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2021.1934403. []