National Identity Clarity or Confusion: English and Urdu Textbooks

The curriculum revision in Pakistan has always been a politically and religiously motivated exercise and this was initiated because of criticism by the religious and political parties. The most recent curriculum revision happened between 2006-2015. The present study looks at the changes made in the textbooks between 2014-2016 and explores the concepts of national identity promoted through the texts. For this study, the textbooks approved by the Punjab Textbook Board and published by different public and private publishers for the academic year 2014-2015 & 2015-2016 were studied. The content of the textbooks was analyzed using the critical discourse analysis approach. The analysis of the textbook content found ‘Islam’ & ‘Muslims’ as the common thread amongst all the analyzed textbooks. This thread suggests a single identity, which is synonymous to Islam, ‘Pakistanis are Muslims’. This study suggests pluralistic and inclusive content in the textbooks informing students about the TRUE Pakistani society