A Post Structural Inquiry into Female Esl Learners’ Gender Identities at a Public University in Pakistan

The present study investigates how English language learning interacts with the gender identities and roles of female learners at the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan. Who learns what and how, is influenced by the learners’ gendered and sexualized identities (Pavlenko, 2004). Language learners have to navigate power relations within the classroom and their specific communities and develop understanding of their limitations and opportunities within these communities. Institutional practices and gender ideologies inhibit their access to networks which in turn affect their linguistic output and interactional opportunities. Within Interpretive epistemological framework eight female learners of final year (fourth year) Linguistics studying at IELL were interviewed and observed twice during one year to gather data for the present study. From the data it appeared that Pakistani females’ access to linguistic resources is mediated by cultural norms and societal expectations. Throughout their academic journeys the learners’ agency remained active due to which they were able to invest in their ESL learning and challenge socially imposed identities on them.

Relationship Between Self-Concept and Academic Achievement of Female Bachelor Degree Students

Self-concept as the core of human personality refers to the sum total of people’s perceptions about their physical, social and academic competence. It is the view that one has of oneself. It is the set of perceptions that the person has about himself, the set of characteristics, attributes, qualities and deficiencies, capacities and limits, values and relationships that the subject knows to be descriptive of him. The study was designed to investigate relationship between self-concept and academic achievement of female bachelor degree students. The objectives of the study were (1) to explore by measurement the areas of physical, social and academic self-concept of students, (2) to obtain a measure of academic achievement, (3) to relate the areas of physical, social and academic self- concept of students to their academic achievement, (4) to discuss possible ways to enhance aspects of the self-concepts of students The population of the study was comprised of all bachelor degree female students of 27 graduate and post graduate women colleges located in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Sample of the study consisted of 1,500 students randomly chosen from 15 selected colleges with 100 students of 3 rd and 4 th year from each college. To measure self-concept, Self-Description Questionnaire III constructed by Marsh (1985) was used after modifying and translating in Urdu. Marks obtained by the students in recently held previous exams were acquired from college records as an indicator of their academic achievement. Two approaches were used for data analysis. in the first approach, collected data were scored and raw scores on each variable were summarized by using xdescriptive statistics such as means, standard deviation. In order to infer mean and standard deviation of the population self-concept scores, standard error of mean, standard error of standard deviation were calculated. The correlation coefficient among the study variables was calculated by using Pearson ‘r’. To determine the degree of relationship between three dimensions of self-concept and academic achievement, technique of probable error of a coefficient (PEr) was applied. An alternative factor analysis approach was also used for the data analysis and Kendall’s Tau-b was employed to correlate the responses obtained on each of the 60 items of the questionnaire with the academic achievement scores. Looking at the results as obtained through two approaches, it was found that week though real relationship existed between the academic self-concept and academic achievement. No relationship was however found between physical self-concept and academic achievement as well between social self-concept and academic achievement.