The Interplay of School Ethos and Identity Crisis among SchoolGoing Children: An Ethnographic Study of Conflicting Discourses

Abstract

- The contestation in the prevailing education system of Pakistan raises serious questions on the role of school environments in the development of children's identity. The increasing level of identity crisis among schoolgoing children in Pakistan has appealed educationists, school counselors and social scientists at large to focus on qualitative discrepancies, which exist between private and public schools to understand the factors hampering children’s positive self-development. This article endeavours to discern the discursive patterns of school socialization in private and public schools of Chakwal analyzing how value conflicts between school environment and generalsocial milieu influence the psychological well-being and socio-cultural attitudes of school-aged children. Using purposive sampling, this study employs participant observation in nine private and public schools accompanied by in-depth
interviews of students,teachers and parents of varied socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. The findings reveal that the value system embedded in both private and public schools in Chakwal is at odds with those ethos which define the everyday discourse of life. The contradictory lived experiences of children in schools and widersociety and the chaotic socialization experiences are engendering ideological confusion, social stigmatization, status war, and identity crisis among school-aged children.