Parental Choice in Education: A Case from Pakista

This dissertation examines how parents from three locations in Balochistan, Pakistan, experience and practice educational choice for their children. Drawing on critical theories of class, geography and gender, and mixed-methods primary data collected in the three locations, the dissertation explores three key questions: 1) What types of educational choices and systems were available to urban families versus those available to rural families, boys versus girls, richer families versus poorer families? 2) How does the structure of the three most common education systems (public, private, and Madaaris) impact institutional-level experiences and outcomes? 3) How and why do parents say that they make a choice and/or preference for a certain type of schooling and education? Findings of the study indicate that parental educational "choice decisions" mostly revolve around the issues of 1) physical accessibility to multiple institutions, 2) perceived outcomes of each type of institution, and 3) perceived safety and morality to each type of institution. Parental preferences and decision-making rest on a different set of perceived risks and benefits to schooling than are commonly assumed by proponents of school choice. "Choice" is so deeply over-determined by geography and family wealth, and multiplied by gender norms and concerns about safety, that framing students' educational experiences as being a result of parental free choice misunderstands the reproductive nature of Pakistan's current education system. The study further concluded that instead of serving as a tool to eliminate social inequalities, transform class status, and increase social cohesion, the public education system in Pakistan, in fact perpetuates these inequalities and reproduces a class-based society. Pakistan's overall education system is assisting to maintain a status quo and these institutions are preparing children for life in the economic, geographic and gender classifications into which they were born. The public school system and the Pakistani state are expected to play the more egalitarian role that was promised post-independence. When the public schools fail to produce opportunities for social, economic, and geographical movement, people are much more likely to express dissatisfaction with the system and to express hurt and upset over the state's lack of care for its poorer citizens. This may have significant repercussions over time, as poor citizens feel there is less and less that they gain from the state.