I am what I am: Exploring the identity construal in Pakistani School EFL Textbooks

This paper aims at exploring how identity is construed in children’s literature and how the powerful legitimize to identify the textbook consumers by exercising their influence. Drawing on Systemic-functional Linguistics (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014), particularly Genre theory (Martin and Rose, 2008), it examines how English language textbooks used in Pakistan are written to construe, a project, and normalize a particular sociocultural identity. The sociocultural positioning being projected through the textbooks can be norm-conforming, contesting or can suggest otherwise. The majority of the students in Pakistan are mandated to learn state governed textbooks which serve them build up a sociopolitical identity. Therefore, underlying semiotic modalities realizing a perspective are pertinent to be explored in order to unfold discursive strategies for constructing identity. It is widely acknowledged that any educational curriculum is the most effective tool to construct and circulate a reality. Therefore, challenging any literacy pedagogy embedding particular outcomes can help transforming educational practices across the school curriculum (Martin and Rose, 2012). The data comprises Punjab English textbooks for the government schools. The findings suggest that the intriguing intricacies of textbook discourses can be successfully examined through analyzing linguistic patterns and that the textbooks construe sociocultural identity. The findings also provide insightful implications for discourse analysis based on SFL by contributing explorations of identity.

Equity Scenario Response Survey: Understanding Teacher Candidates’ Preparation of Their Sociopolitical Identity

Teacher educators have a limited amount of time to prepare candidates for becoming political change agents. Therefore, we have to understand the efficacy of preparation efforts. As a result, we developed the Equity Scenario Response Survey to understand our candidates’ preparation of their sociopolitical identity, defined by equity knowledge and skills. Findings from quantitative analyses revealed a reliable and valid scale, while qualitative analyses provided rich information about candidates’ understanding and application of skills. Overall, the utilization of quantitative and qualitative methods allowed researchers to understand from a critical race perspective, the preparedness of candidates’ sociopolitical identity to confront inequities.

From Being System-Involved to Changing the System: Infiltrating the System

One model for engaging young people to be more civically minded and to help them develop a critically conscious sociopolitical identity is through youth organizing and participatory action research. Over the last 3 years, I have worked with Leaders Organizing 2 Unite and Decriminalize (LOUD) members—a majority of which we system-involved—who have worked toward creating a more socially just and humanizing juvenile justice system through youth activism and youth participatory action research (YPAR). Through this process, youth have developed their sociopolitical identity by finding their voice, speaking out against injustices, and raising awareness on critical issues that are needed to reform the juvenile justice system, where minoritized youth are overrepresented, sentenced longer, and face more severe punishments. Thus, this paper seeks to address the processes of YPAR that empower system-involved youth to advocate against racist policies and challenge the oppression found in the juvenile justice system.

The structure and organization of collective memory representations

Most collective memory research to date has focused on the temporal distribution of and generational differences in public event representations while not directly addressing the conceptual relationships between different event representations. This study investigates how individuals cluster representations of public events and how sociopolitical identity changes event clustering. Participants judged the similarity of different pairs of key public events and reported their voting behavior. Using multidimensional scaling (MDS), we identified that public events were distinguished based on their political and nonpolitical characteristics; political events were further clustered based on their specific attributes (e.g. power struggles or ethnicity issues). Voting behavior introduced variations into how people clustered political public events. Our findings suggest that collective memories that are formed in relation to a historical and sociopolitical background may be better understood within a network of relationships and at the level of specific cultures/groups rather than at a larger (e.g. national) level.

Stereotyping language choice in times of conflict

The article studies the impact language attitudes have on the stereotyping of speakers in a context of ethnic conflict. We investigate the collision between the public and private language identities of Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking citizens in Ukraine. Empirically based on a public discussion on the relationship between language and patriotism in online newspapers and on Facebook, the article explores the perceived links between linguistic choices and individual, regional and national identities. The study analyses the core identity components attributed to and claimed by Ukrainian-and Russian-speaking participants inthe debate, along two axes: political vs personal language choice and national vs regional identity. Focusing on discourse about language choice, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of how in conflict situations language can be conceptualised as reflecting a fundamental component of sociopolitical identity claims, which in the case of Ukraine has repercussions about who is seen as belonging to the nation.

The Structure and Organization of Collective Memory Representations

Most collective memory research to date has focused on the temporal distribution of and generational differences in public event representations while not directly addressing the conceptual relationships between different event representations. This study investigates how individuals cluster representations of public events and how sociopolitical identity changes event clustering. Participants judged the similarity of different pairs of key public events and reported their voting behavior. Using multidimensional scaling (MDS), we identified that public events were distinguished based on their political and nonpolitical characteristics; political events were further clustered based on their specific attributes (e.g. power struggles or ethnicity issues). Voting behavior introduced variations into how people clustered political public events. Our findings suggest that collective memories that are formed in relation to a historical and sociopolitical background may be better understood within a network of relationships and at the level of specific cultures/groups rather than at a larger (e.g. national) level.

The Political Agency of Billionaires

Chapter 4 develops arguments and hypotheses about the political agency of billionaires, in terms of capacities, goals, and power. It draws upon insights from the “structure-agency” discussion and the political sociology of elites. While all billionaires control vast amounts of money, only few of them venture into world politics. A billionaire’s motivation to act transnationally may stem from material interests or a sociopolitical identity whose commitments reach across national borders. Wealth can be a highly fungible power resource, but its activation depends on what can be purchased, which is regulated by laws and norms. Entrepreneurial success in business can foster self-efficacy beliefs as well as social and cultural capital, yet whether this can be put to use in politics is contingent upon the political field that a billionaire is trying to enter. Further analysis thus needs to take the specificities of a billionaire’s international actions into account. This chapter is developing the analytical tools for the following case studies (chapter 5), which are structured around three goals that are often assumed to drive the international behavior of states: security, wealth (economy), and esteem (social entrepreneurship).

Identity, Internal State Conflict, and Religion

Social science literature does not identify a direct effect of religion on the occurrence of intrastate conflict. Yet religion as a sociopolitical identity does have several fairly unique features that render religious differences particularly useful to political entrepreneurs in the course of conflict. First, religions often have codified guidelines, typically written, that convey normative behaviors—what one should do to attain salvation, for example. The presence of such guidelines can reinforce the organizational strength of particular groups and underscore the nonnegotiable status of their beliefs, both of which can be useful in the course of conflict. Second, the religious identity includes multiple levels of division that do not exist within other identity types—including interfaith differences, differences between sects within religious traditions, and divisions between secularists and strong religionists. Such divisions create opportunities for outbidding that exacerbate tensions and conflict. Third, religious group membership confers nonmaterial benefits, such as perceived access to salvation, that can motivate behavior in very tangible, this-worldly ways, for example by encouraging fighters to choose martyrdom over negotiated settlements. Finally, religious networks link adherents transnationally in a manner that no other identity type can, creating opportunities to mobilize resources and support from abroad for a conflict within borders. These features suggest that, whereas religion is no more likely than other types of identity divisions to cause conflict, it can be particularly powerful for political entrepreneurs to wield as a tool in conflict settings. In some cases, conflicts are viewed as religious because the religious labels of competing sides differ, even if the conflict itself has nothing to do with religion. In other cases, conflicts may be described as religious if the content over which adversary sides fight is itself religious in nature; violence over the imposition of Islamic sharia law in a religiously mixed country may be one such example. Even when intrastate conflicts are fought over religious content, however, from the perspective of political scientists the matter is still one of political choice. This underscores the critical role that political entrepreneurs play in the shaping of conflicts as religious. Understanding the power of codified behavioral guidelines, multiple layers of division, non-material payoffs, and transnational networks that religious identity provides, political entrepreneurs can use religion to exploit the (sometimes unrelated) grievances of their supporters and thus escalate conflict where doing so pays political dividends. In this way, scholars recognize that intrastate conflicts with various causal foundations frequently become fights in the name of God.

Hong Kong’s Growing Separatist Tendencies against China’s Rise: Comparing Mainland and Hong Kong College Students’ National Identities

Why have separatist sentiments increased in Hong Kong despite of China’s growing economic attractiveness? This question is critical for China–Hong Kong relations. However, few studies have explored it from a comparative perspective. This study compares Hong Kong and mainland college students’ national identities by making a series of interlocked surveys and interviews from 2012 to 2016. It shows that Hong Kong students have a much lower sociopolitical identity with China, which proves to be the primary cause for their separatist tendencies. Although they hold a comparably strong pan-Chinese economic identity, it does not strengthen their sociopolitical identity as it does for mainland students. This can be attributed to their post-materialist framework through which they are unlikely to believe that economic development alone can bring sociopolitical improvements. The findings imply that China faces serious difficulties in turning its economic strength into political charm in societies with strong post-materialist values.