The making of the (iI)legitimate citizen: the case of the Pakistan studies textbook

This paper is intended to contribute to the widening literature on the complicated links between education, the state and violence. It also builds on previous analyses of Pakistan studies textbooks, and utilises notions of citizenship to illuminate inequalities and the theoretical lens of cultural violence. To do this, I present an in-depth analysis of the Pakistan Studies Textbook for Secondary Classes used in government schools in Islamabad Capital Territory. This textbook analysis was conducted as part of a case study of one girls’ secondary school in 2014 which linked citizenship education to Galtung’s 1990 violence triangle. I also demonstrate through classroom observations of the case study school the power that the textbook holds as the voice of authority in the classrooms in which it is used. The analysis is situated it in the broader historical context of the process of nation building. I illustrate the specific ways the textbook contributes to the narrative of exclusion of some Pakistanis from equal citizenship which has the potential to normalise violence against excluded groups.