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@article{208038,
        author = {Ziona Olive E and Dr. J. Sasirekha},
        title = {Spatializing Pedagogical Resistance: Reimagining the Classroom through Soja's Thirdspace in Mathangi Subramanian's Dear Mrs. Naidu},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {4},
        pages = {148-151},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=208038},
        abstract = {‘‘People are intrinsically spatial beings,’’ Edward Soja observes in Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Transdisciplinary research moves beyond isolated disciplines to tackle problems often swept under the rug. Literary spatial analysis frequently limits itself to geography, culture, or socioeconomic settings without exploring how these concepts operate in real-world institutional practices. Bridging literary studies, spatial trialectics, and educational policy, this paper examines the structural crisis of educational inequality in Mathangi Subramanian’s young adult novel Dear Mrs. Naidu (2015). Set in urban Bengaluru against the backdrop of India's Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act of 2009, the study uses Soja’s spatial framework to map how educational access is physically and institutionally segregated. The crumbling infrastructure of under-resourced government schools’ functions as Firstspace, i.e concrete material reality, while the bureaucratic promises of the RTE Act represent Secondspace, i.e conceived policy representations. Top-down policies fail to deliver educational justice when trapped between physical neglect and administrative non-compliance. In response, twelve-year-old protagonist Sarojini constructs a pedagogical Thirdspace which is a lived domain of critical reflection and strategic subversion. By transforming a routine assignment into an epistolary dialogue with freedom fighter Sarojini Naidu and establishing a student-led Child Rights Club, Sarojini extends learning beyond school walls into community activism. Ultimately, the paper concludes that Subramanian’s novel redefines the classroom not as a static container, but as a fluid site of spatial literacy and collective action capable of challenging systemic segregation.},
        keywords = {Edward Soja, Thirdspace, Spatial Theory, Dear Mrs. Naidu, Mathangi Subramanian, Critical Pedagogy, Right to Education (RTE) Act.},
        month = {September},
        }