A study of Bangladesh’s secondary school curriculum textbooks in students’ national identity construction in an overseas context

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper problematizes the interplay between curriculum textbooks and national identity constructions. Drawing on data from Bangladesh’s school-textbooks, and students’ and teachers’ perspectives, the study identifies factors shaping Bangladesh’s national identity in the textbook discourses and discusses students’ experiences of these in an overseas school. Conceptualizing national identity construction as a discursive social practice, the study is informed by the postcolonial theoretical framework and Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. Findings suggest that the sampled textbooks project Bangla Language Movement of 1952 and Bangladesh’s Liberation War with Pakistan as Bangladesh’s defining national identity markers. This constitutes Pakistan as Bangladesh’s external “Other” and criminalizes those who did not support the Liberation War, establishing them as Bangladesh’s internal “Other”. Participating students’ strong identification with the nationalist discourses signals intense hostility towards Pakistan which has implications in the given overseas context. Their acrimony towards home-based internal “Other”, and significantly weak identification with other textbook-projected national signifiers i.e., secularism/liberalism, religious/ethnic diversity and female representation has implications for Bangladesh’s national social cohesion, gender relations and multiculturalism.