Middle East SIG Highlighted Session:The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? Education Across the MENA After the Uprisings

Session Submission Type: Paper Session

Description of Session

Political uncertainty, economic pressures, and humanitarian crisis characterize much of the educational landscape in the post-Arab Uprisings Middle East and North Africa. Despite the popular social movements that challenged (and in some instances, overthrew) regimes, many of the structural and social challenges confronting peoples throughout the region remain intact. Drawing upon different conceptual frameworks and national contexts, these papers offer complementary perspectives on how education is constructed as a key site of political contest, a laboratory for governance, and vehicle for social aspiration in the post-Uprisings MENA.

Sub Unit

• SIG: Middle East

Chair

• M. Najeeb Shafiq, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• Academic freedom in post-Mubarak Egypt - Manar Sabry, The College at Brockport

• Returns and revolution? Educational attainment, earnings, and protests in Arab Economies - M. Najeeb Shafiq, University of Pittsburgh; Anna Vignoles, University of Cambridge

• The Politics of Language Teaching in Morocco - Gareth Smail, Georgetown University

• The Westernization of the Egyptian System of Higher Education and Implications for National Governance. - Mark Meehan, Rivier University