Perceptions of Pakistani Society About Western Enlightenment: An Analysis in the Light of Islamic Teachings

The study was conducted to examine some of the important questions raised by both the religious scholars and the proponents of the Enlightenment movement. The purpose of the study was to interpret enlightenment in Western and Islamic context and to examine the impact of western enlightenment on contemporary Pakistani society in the light of Islamic teachings. The study was quantitative in nature. Survey was conducted to probe into the perceptions of the Pakistani people regarding impact of western enlightenment on various aspects of contemporary Pakistani society. The sample of the study was 1000 people from four provincial headquarters of Pakistan including male and female from urban and rural areas of the provincial capitals. Two research instruments were developed by the researcher based on review of the related literature. First was a questionnaire named WEBI, Western Enlightenment Beliefs Inventory; second was a checklist named WEKAPC, Western Enlightenment Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Checklist. Results showed that most of the respondents were of the view that western enlightenment exerted significant influences on their thinking, lifestyles, and education, culture, media and social practices. Majority of the respondents thought that western enlightenment emphasized on tolerance, cultural harmony, equality, social justice and independent thinking. Gender-wise comparisons indicated that male respondents were more positive towards western enlightenment than the female respondents. It was recommended that Pakistani society needs to be made aware of the philosophy of western enlightenment and Islamic values which are characteristics of western enlightenment movement. There is need to initiate interfaith dialogue to understand socio-cultural dynamics of a Muslim society and a western society.

Reducing Attitudes of Prejudice and Discrimination Through Literature in Personal Social Health Education Pshe Classes: A Quasi-Experiment on the Upper Key-Stage 2 Students of the British Schools in Karachi, Pakistan

This study aims to explore the efficacy of teaching concepts of peace education with the literature on Anne Frank to reduce children’s attitudes of prejudice and discrimination in specific dimensions including: ethnicity & race, religion and gender. Quasi-experiment was employed with pre-post control design. The sample comprised 100 students of the Upper Key-Stage 2 (UKS2) level, recruited from the two British schools in Karachi. These schools represented Experiment Group (EG) and the matched Comparison Group (CG). A research instrument titled “Muggles world of differences” (MWD) was developed and validated. It was in a form of test with different questions aiming to measure prejudice and discrimination. It was administered on CG and EG, both before and after intervention. The intervention plan “Reading of Young Anne’s Literature” (ROYAL) was developed based on selected readings from the Anne Frank literature (AFL). Altogether, 15 lessons were taught to EG as part of “Personal Social Health Education” (PSHE), whereas CG studied the similar concepts using standard method for the same time duration.Results of pre-test revealed high level of prejudice and discrimination in both EG and CG with no significant difference (p > 0.05) in the overall scores as well as the specific content domains. However, the post-test of the two groups revealed that the students in the EG had outperformed their CG counterparts in overall MWD scores as well as specific content domains. The difference was found to be significant (p < 0.05) with the large effect size (r = -0.63). Results support the efficacy of teaching Anne Frank literature in reducing the attitudes of prejudice and discrimination. The results of the study are generalizable to the seven British Schools in Karachi. However, insights could be gained for other school systems.