Public Oral PhD Defense: Fatima Tufail

Epistemic and Affective Justice: Classroom Pedagogies in Recreating or Challenging Social Inequities of Pakistani Secondary Girls’ School Students

Advisor: Dr. Joan DeJaeghere

This ethnographically informed study examines the inequitable social relations that are reproduced and challenged in everyday classroom pedagogies in two secondary schools for girls in Pakistan. My inquiry was focused on teachers’ beliefs, epistemic resources (hierarchies of knowledges, ways of knowing, ways of being), and emotions that are part of the learning processes. Moreover, I show how students are affected by these classroom pedagogies. I argue that both epistemic and affective aspects of pedagogies play a critical role in maintaining as well as disrupting power relations of social class and gender in schooling.
My analysis sheds light on how dominant discourses of knowledge, ways of knowing, and emotions are enacted, negotiated, and resisted by teachers and students in the public schools. My work contributes to knowledge about how social inequities are produced or disrupted in education systems globally, particularly in low- and middle-income countries through two ways. Firstly, I extend the research on educational inequities beyond learning outcomes and school retention to understand the everyday microprocesses of teaching and learning in public schools. I tease out the effects of seemingly common beliefs of teachers and students in schools about intelligence, ambition, and confidence, and how they shape the exclusionary experiences for girls from lower social classes. I also show how teachers advance the wellbeing of students through focusing on building moral, ethical, emotional, and spiritual skills in the form of tarbiyat (holistic upbringing). 

In-Person in 205 Burton Hall and online via Zoom ←