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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
Author(s) -
Qazi M. Habib,
Shah Saeeda
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1002/berj.3496
Subject(s) - curriculum , ethnocentrism , national curriculum , sociology , national identity , pedagogy , cohesion (chemistry) , context (archaeology) , national consciousness , identity (music) , gender studies , social science , political science , politics , anthropology , geography , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , archaeology , law , acoustics
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.