Egyptian Students' Epistemological Approaches to the Country's Dominant Narrative: Implications for Curricula and Teachers

• In Event: Epistemic Responsibility and Sense-Making With Multiple Epistemologies in Social Studies Education

Abstract

Objectives
In an attempt to chart a way forward for a more polyvocal social studies curriculum that acknowledges and embraces multiple epistemologies and knowledge systems, I explore those epistemologies valued and those negated in contemporary Egyptian classrooms. I do that through examining Egyptian social studies curricula, as well as how Egyptian students’ negotiation of the various dominant and competing discourses shapes their relationship with the country’s ancient, Indigenous epistemology.

Theoretical Perspectives
I draw on the theoretical framework of historical consciousness, fundamentally concerned with how individuals’ understandings and approaches to the past helps shape their worldviews, civic attitudes, and intergroup dynamics (e.g., Rüsen, 2004; Seixas, 2004; Zanazanian, 2012).

Data Sources and Methods
The field research - conducted in Egypt (November 2016 - March 2017) - engaged 39 participants, in the age range of 20 to 30. The data collection methods included a written exercise (e.g., Létourneau, 2007; Zanazanian, 2013), where I posed questions related to the participants’ understanding of the country’s dominant historical narrative. Subsequently, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted. Additionally, guided by key elements of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003), I conducted an analysis of the relevant social studies textbooks studied by those participants.

Results and Conclusions
The data reveal a historical consciousness that is embedded in either of two dominant discourses: a territorial-nationalist discourse, or a religious-based discourse. Hence, even for the participants who exhibited a ‘critical’ historical consciousness - attempting to break away from the territorial-nationalist discourse - they still drew on an equally exclusionary, univocal religious-based discourse. This clearly points to a missing Indigenous epistemology, which would draw on the country’s ancient Egyptian knowledge systems.

The textual analyses also reveal discursive strategies employed by these two dominant discourses presenting the nation’s history and its ancient, indigenous knowledge systems, providing additional insights into the historical consciousness orientations emerging among participants.

Scholarly Significance
The paper demonstrates the importance of introducing an expansive understanding of what epistemologies we should continue to seek to offer to our student-teachers, and ultimately our students. Thus, I draw attention to epistemologies that continue to be sidelined and negated even in our scholarly conversations. For instance, thus far the field has been largely dominated by an approach that stops at critiquing an exclusionary Eurocentric epistemology and worldview, focusing on modern colonization and its role in negating indigenous knowledge systems across various contexts. However, to have a more productive conversation that acknowledges the plurality and the richness of the cumulative knowledge systems and epistemologies that might have been negated or lost along the way, we need to adopt a more archeological approach in identifying other knowledge systems that might have been negated. Those clearly include several ancient and Indigenous ‘pagan’ knowledge systems that have been negated and even vilified by the advent of the Abrahamic tradition – including Christianity and Islam – to various geographical contexts. Scholarship related to social studies teacher education and curricular is strategically situated to initiate and promote this critical, holistic, and more inclusive conversation.

Author

• Ehaab Dyaa Abdou, Wilfrid Laurier University