Local voices challenging global campaigns: Re-thinking childhood, agency, and girls’ education in northwest Pakistan
type: CreativeWork
description: International development discourses and policies that center girls’ education are heavily influenced by U.S. foreign policy priorities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) West Asia, and South Asia regions. Muslim girls growing-up during the “war on terror,” have been especially subject to discourses and policies that stem from U.S. geopolitical goals and ambitions in the region. Nowhere is this more true than in the northwest region of Pakistan where Pashtun children, and particularly girls, have been at the center of counter-terrorism strategies as policies that consistently celebrate children’s “voice” and empowerment. Muslim school girls’ in particular are supposed to exert their “agency” for the purpose of fighting Islamist militancy. The story of Malala Yousafzai is the most known expression of this global phenomenon. The aim of this study is to construct an evidence-based understanding of girls’ education by raising questions of children’s agency. It draws on the story of Malala and juxtaposes it against Pashtun children’s perspectives of schooling in times of conflict. The purpose is to situate educational interventions in the lived experiences and needs of students and their communities. To this end, the research questions are as follows: What is the relationship between geopolitics and girls’ education? How have policies and discourses derived from international development shaped views about Muslim girls and their education? How is the story of Malala connected to these two questions? The research takes a critical globalization approach to girls’ education and Pashtun children, and is divided into two phases of research. The first phase combines the life history method with critical media studies to study Malala’s biography and the factors that gave rise to her career as a social media child activist and international spokesperson for girls’ education. The second phase of research combines critical ethnography and children’s ethnography to explore …
abstract: International development discourses and policies that center girls’ education are heavily influenced by U.S. foreign policy priorities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) West Asia, and South Asia regions. Muslim girls growing-up during the “war on terror,” have been especially subject to discourses and policies that stem from U.S. geopolitical goals and ambitions in the region. Nowhere is this more true than in the northwest region of Pakistan where Pashtun children, and particularly girls, have been at the center of counter-terrorism strategies as policies that consistently celebrate children’s “voice” and empowerment. Muslim school girls’ in particular are supposed to exert their “agency” for the purpose of fighting Islamist militancy. The story of Malala Yousafzai is the most known expression of this global phenomenon. The aim of this study is to construct an evidence-based understanding of girls’ education by raising questions of children’s agency. It draws on the story of Malala and juxtaposes it against Pashtun children’s perspectives of schooling in times of conflict. The purpose is to situate educational interventions in the lived experiences and needs of students and their communities. To this end, the research questions are as follows: What is the relationship between geopolitics and girls’ education? How have policies and discourses derived from international development shaped views about Muslim girls and their education? How is the story of Malala connected to these two questions? The research takes a critical globalization approach to girls’ education and Pashtun children, and is divided into two phases of research. The first phase combines the life history method with critical media studies to study Malala’s biography and the factors that gave rise to her career as a social media child activist and international spokesperson for girls’ education. The second phase of research combines critical ethnography and children’s ethnography to explore …
author: Rahman, Fauzia S.
language: en
keywords: schooling and conflict, terrorism, education, geopolitics, Muslim girls, Pakistan, children and social media, children's agency, child rights, international development
date published: 2019-02-08T18:39:48Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:42Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/102918