In Pakistan, the school subjects of Social Studies, Civics and Pakistan Studies are explicitly used to construct Pakistani national identity and young people’s sense of citizenship. This article draws upon interviews with 27 Pakistan Studies teachers from a town in the Punjab region of Pakistan. The interviews aimed to explore the teachers’ perceptions and teaching practices with respect to teaching about regional, national and global identity content within the area of Pakistan Studies. The research found that in seeking to reconcile conflicting binary policy discourses most of the teachers continued to subscribe to relatively traditional pedagogical practices constrained by an examination system that overwhelmingly assesses students’ knowledge of textbook content. Most of the teachers had more inclination towards developing students’ national identity based upon Sunni Islamic values rather than multi-layered identities, reflecting more localized cultural diversity or global outlooks and viewpoints.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Pakistan studies, citizenship, cultural diversity, global perspectives, national identity, teacher perspectives
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Curriculum and pedagogy
Research Field:	Humanities and social sciences curriculum and pedagogy (excl. economics, business and management)
Objective Division:	Education and Training
Objective Group:	Teaching and curriculum
Objective Field:	Teaching and curriculum not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Brett, P (Dr Peter Brett)
ID Code:	123781
Year Published:	2017
Deposited By:	Education
Deposited On:	2018-01-29
Last Modified:	2018-06-21
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