Social Positionality of Women in Punjab Textbooks (Urdu, English, General Knowledge) Critical Discourse Analysis of 2nd and 3rd Grade

Abstract

Course development is the process of designing and framing basic textbooks for the purpose of various levels of students’ education. It paves the way for the future of students and thus plays important role in the educational system. The current research was conducted in six schools of district Rawalpindi. The purpose of the research was to evaluate “How the female has been portrayed by the content including text and pictorial representation? In addition, it further aimed to measure “the psychosocial impact of this content on primary grade students from 2 and 3.” The researcher utilized the qualitative research methodology in order to understand the deep meaning of fender discourse in the 2nd and 3rd-grade textbooks developed by the Punjab Textbook Board, Lahore. Thirty-six students from six different schools based in Rawalpindi were interviewed and six books were analyzed for evaluating the women positionality. The researcher analyzed the results with the help of Critical discourse Analysis developed by Fairclough (2001). The study revealed that the books represent biased pictures of females. In addition, females are portrayed as inferior human beings having less power and lower social role in our society. Consequently, as students get their primary education through textbooks, they found revealing the same discourse that has been taught to them. Moreover, the study finds students learn basically from textbooks, and they also practice whatever they learn from these books. In addition, gender relations and power structure, which shape the mind of current and forthcoming generations color the development of the textbook for the sustenance of the system. The study finds highly segregated gender representation, biased presentation, and ideologically constructed norms of dominance through textual analysis as well as narratives of the students