Coverage of Women Issues in the Pakistan’s Press: A Critical Analysis

The aim of this research is to thoroughly analyze the part multilingual dailies play in covering women issues in Pakistan. It is rooted from national newspapers, the Daily ‘Dawn’, the Daily ‘Jang’ and the Daily ‘Kawish’ in the year of 2011. The study explores to what extent of the violence against women and education issue of women is dealt by the sampled dailies. The study employed content analysis a quantitative research methodology during 1st January 2011 to 31st December 2011. The contents of the newspaper were measured in column per centimeter of the space of one year. For this research work three major dailies of three different languages, the Daily Dawn, the Daily Jang and the Daily Kawish were selected. In sum up, an elite class newspaper the Daily Dawn has published 562 very little issues of women and used 0.6 percent of the total capacity which is of 4353024 co./cm in the year of 2011. However, the Sindhi language newspaper, the Daily Kawish has used 2430 a little more issue of women and covered 2.3 percent of total capacity of 1678976 col./cm of this daily in 2011. To some extent, the Urdu language newspaper the Daily Jang has reported 1297 more number of women issues and used 1 percent of total capacity of 2423616 col./cm in one year. Hence, the result shows that Pakistani press gives a little bit space to issues of women rights. Although, the Daily Dawn and the Daily Kawish have reported more issues of violence against women but the Daily Jang (an Urdu language newspaper) has covered more education problems of women in its newspaper in the year of 2011.

Effects of Socially Stratified Education on Linguistic Performance

Educational success is interlocked to linguistic proficiency which is highly associated to the life chances, income and well-being of a person (Battle & Lewis, 2002). This research contributes to an understanding that Linguistic ability is the currency with which students in higher education negotiate success however, inadequate linguistic skills have been known to be a significant barrier to academic and economic success (Gray, 1996; Pecorino & Dozier, 2000; Saville‐ Troike, 1984). The influences of stratification have been a well-established fact in literature however, the deliberation in maintaining the level of English ability varied across school systems and the range of factors that increase this variation has been a rather left out issue. Likewise, how specific implicit practices at institutional level translate into linguistic disparity and what that might mean for the life chances of individuals, economically challenged groups and our entire nation again has been an untouched issue. More specifically, this study investigated associations between immediate and long-term linguistic attainments of learners from different socioeconomic classes through the existing socially stratified educational system. The focus of the study is on explicating the process and the role of underlying factors that influence linguistic exposure and development towards a specific outcome. The research was conducted in three phases with a total of 1000 participants selected across socioeconomic divisions and stratified schools for detailed linguistic analysis and achievement comparisons. The results of this study showed the measures of linguistic proficiency between high, middle and low socioeconomic status groups. A strong socioeconomic gradient with respect to linguistic proficiency across social classes was observed with noticeable variations among social classes. This study revealed the increasing influence of stratified school systems in society and how they produce linguistic disparities and found out that early childhood socioeconomic circumstances and schooling together form a precise kind of exposure that accumulates overtime towards advantage or disadvantage, a finding that highlights the importance of early influences being translated in the development of linguistic proficiency in higher education which become deterministic across the life course. Based on these findings recommendations are given with implications for practice, policy and further studies.