2025/09/02 by Aamna Pasha · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Global Educational Policies and Reforms #Peace and Human Rights Education #Values and Moral Education
paper · doi:10.1080/25355406.2025.2570358
openalex publication_date 2025/09/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
This study employs critical discourse analysis to examine human rights discourses in grade 5 social studies textbooks across public and private schools in Pakistan, where nation-building, Islamic values and international educational competitiveness are policy priorities. While international commitments introduced human rights education (HRE) into policy, its integration into curricula remains limited and inconsistent, restricted by ideological priorities and structural constraints. Analysis reveals a fragmented and selective approach to human rights-based themes in public school textbooks, embedded within nationalist or religious narratives. Private school texts largely omit rights-based themes in favour of an economic utility model. Persistent challenges include the absence of human rights content in teacher training and difficulties in translating policy commitments into textbooks. There remain tensions between global agendas such as UNESCO’s vision for Global Citizenship Education and HRE under Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 and national ideological frameworks, raising critical questions for rights-based learning.