Final Year Project

Project Title

Language, Education and Power: A Foucauldian Analysis of Linguistic Identities and Knowledge Hegemonies in Pakistani Schools

Description

My thesis focuses on the domain of language in education through Foucauldian concepts such as power/knowledge, biopolitics, discourse, neoliberalization and governmentality. Based off the research on this subject, I concern myself with a question: in the context of language and education in Pakistani schools, how can those exercising power be expected to make a change when they remain unaware of their influence and that the potential changes threaten their hegemony? It follows from a brief anecdote of a principal of an Urdu-medium school who enrolls their child in an English-medium school despite encouraging the usage of Urdu at her school; how do we interpret such behavior considering power as the “politics of everyday life”? This study will primarily derive its findings from semi-structured interviews of principals of Karachi-based institutions to uncover certain practices, and more importantly, the assumptions behind such practices.