Negotiating the Pre-9/11 Muslim Identity in Reluctant Fundamentlist and Home Boy

This paper critically analyses pre-9/11 diasporic identity of Muslims living in the US as immigrants or expatriates depicted in The Reluctant Fundamentlist (TRF) and Home Boy (HB) authored by minority outgroup Muslims (MO). The pre-9/11 identity and image of Muslims has exacerbated from erotic, primitive, barbaric, ignorant, close-minded and semicitizen to maddened, fundamentalist, blood-thirsty and terrorist after the attacks. The study attempts a textual analysis of the novels in the light of Rosenau’s model (2003) of diasporic acculturation process and social identity theory (ST). Given this stereotyping, this study endeavours to dissect the pre-9/11approach Muslims immigrants adopt to negotiate their religious identity in the hostland: whether they are fanatic and diehard separatist or they are moderate and assimilative into the enlightened values of the West. Opposite to popular assumptions, the protagonists have been found very much assimilative and adoptive to the host culture and also adhere to their homeland culture as well.

Academic Balanced Scorecard: A Proposed Framework of Performance Evaluation for General-Public Sector Universities in Pakistan

The pressure on the higher education institution is mounting due to increasing competition, rising costs and reducing public funding for the higher education institutions worldwide. These trends in the higher education demand higher education institutions to realign their activities, functions and strategies to their core objectives to be more effective in a constrained world. The situation of higher education in Pakistan is even worse in the sense that most of the higher education institutions, particularly working under public sector, do not have strategic direction. This situation calls for greater attention on the accountability and performance measurement of public sector higher education institutions. The main purpose of this study is the development of Balanced Scorecard performance measurement system for the general-public sector universities in Pakistan. This model of performance measurement has already been implemented successfully in various organizations worldwide. The outstanding feature of this performance management system is that it could be modified according to the cultural context of the organization and its dynamics. This is a qualitative study. The data were collected in two phases. In the first phase, eight general-public sector universities were selected and data were collected from the Students, Teachers and Treasures of each university by means of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and indepth interviews. The second phase of data collection was primarily focused on the opinion of five experts. These experts were selected on the basis of their standing and experience in universities and quality assurance of higher education. The experts were asked to translate the objectives into strategies and suggest measures to gauge the effectiveness of these strategies. By utilizing constant comparison method, as proposed by Grounded Theory, the researcher compared and contrasted the data collected from the stakeholders of the universities and experts. Thus, a strategy map containing all the strategies to achieve all the desirable objectives was developed and finally the Balanced Scorecard containing the measures of performance of general-public sector universities in Pakistan was developed and it appears at the end of the thesis. The findings of the study indicate a disappointing state of strategic planning and performance measurement of genera-public sector universities in Pakistan. The students and teachers raised many concerns relating to the quality of education which according to them was out of context of practical world. This study recommends five perspectives of Balanced Scorecard i.e. Learning and Development (of teachers) Perspective, Research Perspective, Teaching Perspective, Student Perspective and Financial Perspective. The strategies and measures relating to the objectives of the universities are also segregated for each of the perspective. Balanced Scorecard provided by this study should be taken as a first step which could further be modified to fit each of generalpublic sector universities according to the needs and demands of the individual organization. The researcher calls practitioners and policy makers to implement the proposed framework to make the performance management system of their universities more relevant and effective. By no means, it is implied that this is final version of Balanced Scorecard. Each implementing university will subsequently modify this framework on the basis of feedback during implementation. Consequently, switching over to this performance management system will enhance the quality of higher education in Pakistan.