Citizenship education and gender in Pakistan teachers' and students' perspectives

There are two competing and contrasting perspectives about what makes a good Pakistani citizen, a theocratic vision and liberal democratic vision. Tensions between these visions create an ongoing struggle for teachers to enable principles and educational practices to align in classrooms. These perspectives sit alongside two competing ideological discourses – social conservatism and social transformation, promoting democratic pluralism in an Islamic context. Syllabuses and textbooks at all levels in the Pakistan education system have struggled to represent the complexities of Pakistan as a diverse changing society. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Pakistani curriculum is seeking to accommodate more progressive agendas in the context of a particular national, societal, and religious set of perspectives around gender. A sample of Pakistani teachers’ and 16-19-year-old students’ perspectives on gender in education is explored.