Gender and Peace in Textbooks and Schooling Processes: The Maldivian Experience

The book Gender and Peace in Textbooks and Schooling Processes: The Maldivian Experience, is based on the project awarded by the Asian Scholarship Foundation (ASF) in 2006-2007 to undertake an in-depth study of textual and contextual situations in the Republic of Maldives. The study is based on exhaustive fieldwork conducted in Male and in the four Atolls—Noonu, Baa, Lhaviyani and Gaafu Alifu. The findings of the study highlights that in the scheme of promoting national identity, gender and peace are woven into textbooks of English, Environmental Studies and Social Studies, and in the schooling process itself. In connection with gender the policy, curriculum and syllabus address boys and girls. Textbooks of English, Environmental Studies and Social Studies, in their content depiction and visual portrayal, are gender inclusive, representing both sex and are gender neutral. Stereotyping is found in a limited way. Peace is projected more as a human value and Islamic religion as a repository of it. As a conflict management strategy, peace is dealt in a limited way in textual materials. In the context of classroom processes and co-curricular activities equal opportunities to participate are given to both sexes. Peace as a value is visibly portrayed in classrooms and in all important spaces outside classrooms. In connection with discipline issue there is no major problem in the Republic. The stress of handling minor discipline issue is on diagnostic, curative, corrective and reformatory aspects.