Knowledge and Identity: Articulation of Gender in Educational Discourse in Pakistan,

Saigol, R.
ASR publications, 1995.

Chapters: 1. Setting the Parameters; 2. The Knowledge System, State and Identity; 3. The Nation-State, Educational Rhetoric and the Construction of Gender; 4. Social Studies Curriculum and the Gendered Construction of Nationalism; 5. Implications of Static Discourse on Society; 6. Bibliography.

Social and political entities are gendered in the categories of 'masculine' and 'feminine', which underlie their constructions. Since the state is a gendered entity, the discourse that it produces are also couched in dichotomous, either/or terms in which one category is always valued and the other is considered its negative; its moral and ideological opposite. This volume is a study of the educational rhetoric of the Pakistani state. Educational policies of three historical periods, the Ayub, Bhutto and Zia eras are examined, along with the social studies curriculum of the corresponding periods, in order to see the implementation of these policies at the level of the curriculum. The form as well as the content of the curriculum is examined with a view towards exploring the underlying epistemological categories.
Some of the main findings of this study are that Pakistan, as a nation-state, is a gendered entity. However, it is not simply a patriarchal and masculinist state; rather its rhetoric is bisexual in that the educational discourse reflects maternal as well as paternal aspects, values of nurturance as well as aggression and war. As such the state is a multiple and complex entity which, while it represents the interests of the dominant class, also incorporates the language of those whom it seeks to subjugate and control.

Key words: Knowledge systems, Educational systems, Identity, State, Nationalism, Gender