Muslim teachers’ voices on citizenship education: negotiating faith and democracy

Pakistan is a Muslim majority country where Islamic values dominate the political landscape and inform socio-political ideals and practices. Islam therefore plays a vital role in shaping education and its narratives. The official discourse on citizenship education is a case in point. This appears fixated with the construction of nationhood, defined in Islamic terms, rather than promoting a rights-based discourse on citizenship. Against this background, the study reported here explores the perspectives of a group of Pakistani citizenship education teachers on how they make sense of citizenship as a curriculum experience for students. We thematically analysed teachers’ interviews within an interpretive framework. The results suggest that citizenship discourse is significantly influenced by the interrelationship between Islam and modernity in Muslim societies. Our findings revealed two main approaches: some teachers attempted to Islamise the concept of citizenship for students by identifying its basis within a broad interpretation of Islam, and others had a comparatively liberal approach to citizenship. Both groups generally promoted equal citizenship, although they justified it from two distinct epistemic positions. We also identified distinctive features of citizenship that are illustrative of the Muslim context.