Educating Egypt

Civic Values and Ideological Struggles

By: Dr. Linda Herrera

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Paperback | 20 February 2022

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256 Pages

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22.86 x 15.24 x 1.27

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The everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political battles that have shaped Egyptian education, from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of digital disruption in the twenty-first

From the 1952 revolution onward, a main purpose of formal education in Egypt was to socialize children and youth into adopting certain attitudes and behaviors conducive to the regimes in power. Control by the state over education was never entirely hegemonic. National education came increasingly under pressure due to a combination of the growing privatization of the education sector, the growth of political Islam, and rapidly changing digital technologies.

Educating Egypt traces the everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political and economic contests over education from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of global change and digital disruption in the twenty-first. Its overarching theme is that schooling and education, broadly defined, have consistently mirrored larger debates about what constitutes the model citizen and the educated person. Drawing on three decades of ethnographic research inside Egyptian schools and among Egyptian youth, Linda Herrera asks what happens when education actors harbor fundamentally different ideas about the purpose, provision, and meaning of education. Her research shows that, far from serving as a unifying social force, education is in reality an ongoing battleground of interests, ideas, and visions of the good society.

Industry Reviews

"A collection of studies conducted over the last 30 years by the preeminent American scholar of education in Egypt, this book paints an evocative portrait of the educational philosophies, institutions, and practices that have so poorly equipped Egyptian young people for the world they encounter as adults."-Foreign Affairs

"[A] gem of a book in the expanding literature on the sociology of education and civic values in Egypt and the MENA region."-Contemporary Sociology

"[E]ngages some of the most difficult issues facing Egyptian students, parents, teachers, and state officials as this critical sector struggles under the accumulated weight of failed policies promoted by both Egyptian officials and international development 'experts.'"-Laurie A. Brand, Political Science Quarterly

"[A] valuable and timely contribution to the small but expanding literature that views education as a way to understand societal structures and imaginaries and how they change."-Die Welt des Islams

"A seminal work of original, informative, insightful, and thought-provoking scholarship. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Educating Egypt will be of particular interest to students of modern Egyptian political, educational, and cultural history."-Midwest Book Review

"What makes this book important is the breadth and depth of the research. Combining ethnography and oral history with critical analysis of educational policies, laws, textbooks, and school curricula, Herrera offers a detailed, comprehensive study of educational policy in modern Egypt."-Khaled Fahmy, University of Cambridge

"This book steers a skillful route through the complexity of education in Egypt, but it does more than that. It deals with the complexity of Egyptian society in general, against the background of mass poverty, high levels of unemployment, the digital divide, the country's geopolitical location, and long standing mores with respect to gender and other social relations. These all impinge on the education of Egyptian children, youth, and especially girls as Educating Egypt's thick ethnographic descriptions show. I cannot think of any better 'foreigner' than Linda Herrera, who lived and studied in Egypt, to carry out the task of researching all of the above. This volume proves me right."-Peter Mayo, University of Malta

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