Centering Marginalized Voices: Examining Political and Social Rights in Pakistani Elite School Textbooks

Abstract

The qualitative content analysis examines the incorporation of human rights education (HRE) in Pakistani citizenship education by examining political and social rights narratives in History textbooks of elite private schools. Utilizing Gagnon and Pagé’s ‘effective system of rights’ framework (1999), this study explored the depth and diversity of rights issue coverage in 13 textbooks. Textbooks show considerable gaps in the representation of rights struggles, exclusion of minority perspectives, and normalization of political repression. This study identified significant differences in rights discourses between elite private schools and IB textbooks. The findings underline the need to diversify narratives on bottom-up rights movements, emphasize socio-economic impacts beyond material losses, and balance global examples with contextualized, relatable accounts of local issues to transform citizenship education for justice.