Teaching English or producing docility? Foucauldian analysis of Pakistani state-mandated English textbooks

Channa, Liaquat Ali; Gilhooly, Daniel; Channa, Abdul Razaque; Manan, Syed Abdul

doi:10.1080/2331186x.2017.1283101

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 19 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Channa et al . () maintain that disciplinary powers in state‐mandated education can ‘perpetuate and produce docility' (p. 1) amongst students. Given the power relations in schools and the intellectual competences of teenage learners, the scope of resistance against state ideologies, beliefs and political schemes is limited.…”

Section: Curriculum Textbooks National Identity and The Constructionmentioning

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Section: Curriculum Textbooks National Identity and The Constructionmentioning

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Education systems and schools have been employed variously to shape students' national common sense (see Channa et al, 2017; Judt & Lacorne, 2004; Qazi, 2021; Qazi & Choudhary, 2021; Qazi & Shah, 2019b; Qazi & Taysum, 2021). These are sites of discursive social practices where the idea of nationhood is constituted ‘through processes of imaginative ideological labor’ (Eley & Suny, 1996, p. 8).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Privileged discourses, teacher agency and alternative subjectivities: Analyzing Janus-faced character of English language pedagogy

Shah

2023

Learning, Culture and Social Interaction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Teaching English or producing docility? Foucauldian analysis of Pakistani state-mandated English textbooks

Cited by 8 publications

References 19 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

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

Privileged discourses, teacher agency and alternative subjectivities: Analyzing Janus-faced character of English language pedagogy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About