Language of Peace or Violence? Content Analysis of School Curriculum in Pakistan

This research article investigates the language of peace and violence in textbooks and literature taught to students at the school level in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The militancy-hit province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa education curriculum is selected as a case study in this research, especially focusing on the textbooks taught as compulsory subjects to students of the class of 9th and 10th in high schools. The contents of the school curriculum are evaluated and interpreted thematically in the light of different discourses. For this purpose, we have used qualitative content analysis techniques in this study. Relevant data is extracted from the selected textbooks and categorized into various themes. The data was analyzed in the light of different discourses of peace education and curriculum development. Peace education has been used as a theoretical framework to analyse the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa school curriculum. Findings reveal that structural violence exists in the contents of school textbooks, in which war and conflict are frequently mentioned and mostly glorified in the different subjects of the school curriculum in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is also found that the text of the books sometimes creates cleavages that polarize society based on religion, race, culture and ethnic identity. Furthermore, several contents in these books tend to promote the hegemony of some ethnic and religious groups while other ethnic and religious minorities are relegated to second-class citizens. To promote peace education and diversity, it is necessary to revisit the textbooks to strengthen national harmony. It is inevitable to initiate reforms in the educational curriculum of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.