Human Rights in Pakistani Elite School History Textbooks: Constructions, Constraints, and Conceptions
Keywords:
Citizenship Education, Human Rights, History Textbooks, Content Analysis, Pakistan, Elite SchoolsAbstract
Citizenship education aspires to engender in people active, informed citizens committed to a better society. The rise of rights-based transformative citizenship education has necessitated reading curriculum materials through a human rights lens. This qualitative content analysis of Punjab province’s elite private schools’ Grade 6-8 History textbooks ascertains inclusions of rights-based citizenship with respect to identity recognition, equal assessment, anti-discrimination, and equity measures. The study found a dominant discourse on global historical examples of human rights violations, rather than current issues and localized youth mobilization. Critical discourse on state, elite accountability, structural constraints, and equity advancement was restricted. Students lacked opportunities to situate themselves as rights-advocates and articulate policy/social action plans to transform cultural-institutional impediments to social justice. More pragmatic conceptions aligning human rights frameworks with citizenship education are needed to engage youth for diversifying-localizing-democratizing their polities.
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