The Empowerment of Pakistani Muslim Women Through Diverse Funds of Knowledge, Language, and Literacy Practices: A Study Undertaken in Rotherham Exploring English Language Learning from the 1980s to 2020

The research focuses on stories of Pakistani Muslim female English language learners and explores the women’s lived experience of learning the English language. The research also highlights the women’s own diverse funds of knowledge, language and literacy practices that give them agency and a strong Islamic and cultural identity as learners and as mothers. The study begins with the stories of a cohort of Pakistani women who attended English classes in the 1980s at a local community centre. The research offers a platform for marginalised women to represent themselves as English language learners, thus contributing to knowledge from the learner’s perspective, whose voices are often not heard in language and citizenship debates.