Reproducing Inequalities Through Social Studies Textbooks in Afghanistan

Abstract

In conflict-affected contexts, it is generally acknowledged by the international humanitarian community and educational leaders that providing access and quality education is a crucial step toward peace and recovery from conflict. Education is seen as having the potential to provide a sense of normalcy, and as a crucial agent in sustainable peacebuilding and transformation. On the other hand, education can also contribute further to violence and inequality, before, during, and after armed conflict has ended. In Afghanistan, decades of conflict have witnessed the deliberate politicization and militarization of education by various political regimes and international powers, often explicitly and violently. The Soviet-era extremist-ideology textbooks developed by USAID for primary school children are vivid examples of this trend. Using the IREC framework, this paper examines the measures taken by the Afghan Ministry of Education to revise the national curriculum in order to further their aim of using education to promote peacebuilding and equality. Through a document analysis of the Grades 4 and 5 social studies textbooks that were revised in 2012, this paper shows that the Ministry demonstrates some creativity and success in ensuring the textbooks promote peacebuilding; however, the textbooks also reveal complicity by reproducing existing inequalities, through gendered depictions of the role of men and women in society, and the unequal and hierarchical position between the individual and the state. The textbooks’ potential to contribute toward sustainable peace and equality is ultimately hindered.