The soldier and the seductress: a post‐structuralist analysis of gendered citizenship through inclusion in and exclusion from language and social studies textbooks in Pakistan

Naseem, M. Ayaz

doi:10.1080/13603110500430799

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Other than this, the use of Islam for national identity excludes minorities from the pale of Pakistani nationhood, as well as giving Pakistani Muslim nationals a specific approach towards viewing non‐Muslims and the non‐Muslim world. Naseem (, p. 451) contends that ‘by equating Pakistani citizen with Muslim the discourse [curricula and textbooks in our case] largely excludes all religious minorities from the meaning of citizen'. Similarly, emphasising religion for national identity discourages the development of multiple identities, as well as provincial identities which emerge from the local cultural idioms and linguistic varieties.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The school experience encouraged the students to view gender through the specific lens of Islam. It is a powerful technology that not only makes it challenging for male students and male teachers, but also female students and female teachers ‘to see the female subject outside the [perceived] space' (Naseem, , p. 459). The textbook representation of the Pakistani female gender signals the curriculum policymakers' and textbook managers' parochial approach.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Discursive construction of Pakistan's national identity through curriculum textbook discourses in a Pakistani school in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates

Qazi

Shah

2018

British Educational Res J

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This study investigates Pakistan's secondary school children's constructions of their national identity in a Pakistani school in Dubai by drawing on data collected from students and teachers from the case school and analysing national curriculum textbooks used in the school. Informed by Foucault's concepts, the article problematises how the curriculum textbooks are employed as a technology of power for inculcating national consciousness in the students. The findings suggest that Pakistan's national curriculum textbooks deploy a specific version of Islam as a major technology, which then influences other national identity signifiers in the textbooks for shaping students' national identity. The school affords a crucial space for the complex interplay of these technologies, which construct students' ethnocentric national identities, encouraging social polarisation. This has implications for Pakistan's national social cohesion as well as the potential for subverting international peaceful coexistence and working relationships, particularly in the selected overseas study context.

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Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discursive construction of Pakistan's national identity through curriculum textbook discourses in a Pakistani school in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates

Qazi

Shah

2018

British Educational Res J

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“…In Pakistan, there is little research on how gender sensitivity training relates to change in patriarchal practices in public sector institutions, with state policies generally believed to produce and reproduce the gendered identities of citizens (Naseem 2006;Durrani 2008;GOP 2009;Rashid 2009;Halai 2010). What is known is the dark side of the state, which in the past has enacted laws to disenfranchise women and made them half citizens (Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987;Weiss 2003;Mullally 2005;Rashid 2009;Shaheed 2010).…”

Section: Access To Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Women in Pakistan have been victims of the patriarchal bias of the state for some time now (Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987;Weiss 2003;Mullally 2005;Shaheed 2010), with the disenfranchising of women in many ways (Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987;Weiss 2003;Mullally 2005;Rashid 2009;Shaheed 2010). State policies have resulted in the divisive gendered identities of its people (Naseem 2006;Durrani 2008;GOP 2009;Rashid 2009;Halai 2010) and the patriarchal arrangements have disadvantaged women (Laslett and Brenner 1989;Moser 1989;Østergaard 1992;Vijayamohanan, Asalatha, and Ponnuswamy 2009).…”

Section: Institutional Practices In the Public Sectormentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Education has been arguably used as a policy tool for the reproduction of culture and social systems (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990;Halai 2010) and in Pakistan, the policy uses education to produce and reproduce divisive gendered identities of citizens (Naseem 2006;Durrani 2008). In KPK, Durrani (2008), in a textual analysis of state-provided class five textbooks, found 37 that gendered identity was meshed with national and Islamic identity 38 and education, and was being used as a tool to maintain, reproduce, and reinforce gendered social hierarchies.…”

Section: Access To Education Beyond Demand and Supplymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender Inequality in the Public Sector in Pakistan

Chauhan¹

2014

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Representation of indigenous languages employing a religious screen for the discursive construction of students' postcolonial national identities: A curious case of ‘internal colonisation’ and ‘cultural invasion’ in Pakistani schools

Qazi¹,

Javid

Khattak

2022

British Educational Res J

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This study problematises the discourses of Pakistan's national curriculum textbooks to investigate how they represent Pakistan's indigenous languages/cultures through the prism of religion to constitute secondary school students' particular postcolonial linguistic identities. It also draws on the perspectives of 12 teachers and 424 students to record their responses. Taking insights from Paulo Freire's cultural invasion, Robert Blauner's internal colonisation and selected postcolonial perspectives, the study notes a dynamic interplay of the sampled textbooks, schoolteachers and the school as a site of discursive social practices. Jointly, they position students within an exclusionary homogenous Urdu-loving group-a language which is represented as Arabic's tributary. Indigenous languages are recognised, however, as an adjunct to Arabic and Urdu, emphasising their role in the proselytisation of Islam in the region. Similarly, fine arts and indigenous cultural festivals are represented from a particular religious lens. The students strongly identify with this curious case of internal colonisation K E Y W O R D S cultural invasion, indigenous languages, internal colonisation, mother tongue, postcolonial identities, schooling and national identities Key insightsWhat is the main issue that the paper addresses? Pakistan is a postcolonial country of vast ethnic/cultural variety, and people living in all four of its provinces speak different languages which are mutually unintelligible. This study investigates how Pakistan's national curriculum secondary school textbooks represent Pakistan's indigenous languages/cultures to constitute students' postcolonial linguistic identities for their national identity constructions. What are the main insights that the paper provides?The findings suggest that textbooks do not represent indigenous languages in their own right, but vis-à-vis their role in proselytising Islam; and position schoolchildren within a monolithic Urdu (Pakistan's national language)-loving group. Situated thus, students attribute inferiority to their mother tongue/indigenous languages and evince aversion for pluralistic identities and religious minorities. How to cite this article: Qazi, M. H., Javid, C. Z. & Ullah, I. (2023). Representation of indigenous languages employing a religious screen for the discursive construction of students' postcolonial national identities: A curious case of 'internal colonisation' and 'cultural invasion' in Pakistani schools.

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The soldier and the seductress: a post‐structuralist analysis of gendered citizenship through inclusion in and exclusion from language and social studies textbooks in Pakistan

Cited by 15 publications

References 2 publications

Discursive construction of Pakistan's national identity through curriculum textbook discourses in a Pakistani school in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates

Discursive construction of Pakistan's national identity through curriculum textbook discourses in a Pakistani school in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates

Gender Inequality in the Public Sector in Pakistan

Representation of indigenous languages employing a religious screen for the discursive construction of students' postcolonial national identities: A curious case of ‘internal colonisation’ and ‘cultural invasion’ in Pakistani schools

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