Infusing cultural diversity into Pakistan Studies textbooks: An analysis of textbooks and teachers’ perspectives

One of the challenges faced by diverse democratic nation-states such as Pakistan is to provide opportunities for different groups to maintain aspects of the culture of their religion, region, or community while constructing a national political and educational narrative in which these groups are structurally included and to which they feel allegiance. Banks (2009) noted that: ‘schools and nations cannot marginalize the cultures of groups and expect them to feel structurally included within the nation and to develop a strong allegiance to it.’ More than this, excluded students, who official narratives present as the ‘other,’ might be attracted to alternative narratives that fuel their sense of being unrecognized, underappreciated, or even potentially violent outsiders. This is why sensitive approaches to cultural diversity matter; without such sensitivity, there may be unwitting support offered to extremist groups proffering more alluring narratives.