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The Palestinian Uprising and Education for the Future
Abstract
From the time of the Ottoman Turks, Palestinians have been educated under systems imposed by outsiders. Since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the situation has been exacerbated by the combination of an Israeli civil and military authority and a Jordanian curriculum. The intifadeh (uprising), which began in December 1987 and continues today, has challenged the Israeli occupation and all its institutions. All educational establishments have been subject to frequent closures by military authorities, forcing Palestinians to reexamine their present system of education, and to look for both short- and long-term alternatives.
Khalil Mahshi and Kim Bush review the current educational system in the West Bank and Gaza, and analyze the intifadeh as a catalyst for educational change. They examine informal, community-based education; alternative modes of instruction designed to bypass closures but still using the existing system and textbooks; and long-term planning as part of the nation-building process. They argue that the intifadeh has created a giant educational laboratory, which challenges conservative educators to start afresh. They restate that challenge clearly, encouraging debate among educators in Palestine and in the international educational community.
From the time of the Ottoman Turks, Palestinians have been educated under systems imposed by outsiders. Since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the situation has been exacerbated by the combination of an Israeli civil and military authority and a Jordanian curriculum. The intifadeh (uprising), which began in December 1987 and continues today, has challenged the Israeli occupation and all its institutions. All educational establishments have been subject to frequent closures by military authorities, forcing Palestinians to reexamine their present system of education, and to look for both short- and long-term alternatives.
... Several research studies and international organizations reports refer to attacks committed by Israeli occupation army and settlers on the Palestinian education system (see for example : Fasheh, 1995;Mahshi and Bush, 1989;Asaad, 2000;Sfeir and Bertoni, 2003;Ramahi, 2015;Daoud and AbdulKarim, 2015; in addition to OCHA's and UNICEF's reports on oPT). ...
... However, in low-and middle-income countries, quitting school early remains a problem; poverty and gender (being a female) have been identified as predicators of poor educational outcome (Lewin, 2007). In the case of study here, war and colonial oppressive policies are additional factors leading to poor educational achievements and dropouts (Fasheh, 1995;Mahshi and Bush, 1989;Ramahi, 2015;Daoud and AbdulKarim, 2015). The topicconflict, war, refugees and their effects on children's lives and educational and social integration-is both timely and important not only in Palestine but in the entire region in general. ...
... In the Palestinian context, education was viewed, for decades, as a form of coping strategy by Palestinians, particularly among refugees in the UNRWA camps (Abu Lughod, 1973;Sayigh, 2007Sayigh, [1979; Mahshi and Bush, 1989;Fasheh, 1995;Al-Zaroo and Hundt, 2003;Hundt and Chatty, 2005;Sarhan, 2005, Al-Zarro, 2005Loughry et al., 2006;Kanaana, 2010). The political crisis in oPt and the economic depression [and political unrest] in the region had reduced the significance of education as a strategy of coping and resisting marginalization and the unstable and difficult conditions led to increase in school dropouts (Farah, 2005;Al-Zaroo, 1999;Al-Zaroo, 2005). ...
This research is based on a fieldwork conducted during the months of April and May 2018 in six localities in Area C to explore the experiences of girls and women living in six area C localities in their attempts to pursue their school education. These localities are 1. Al-Rashaida, 2. Kisan, 3. Al Maniya (in Bethlehem), 4. Zif, 5. Ma’in, 6. Al-Buweib (in Yatta, al-Khalil). Published online on by IEMed: https://www.iemed.org/publication/field-diagnosis-girls-access-to-education-in-six-area-c-localities-in-bethlehem-and-al-khalil/
... Burundian parents in Tanzanian refugee camps in the 1980s created parallel learning opportunities to resist the civic education their children had in schools, which they understood as replicating existing power structures from the conflict settings they had fled (Malkki 1995). Palestinian educators have created both formal and non-formal curricula to counteract on-going imposition of "alien curriculum, in which Palestinian culture and history have been ignored or actively suppressed" (Mahshi and Bush 1989) and to support students in understanding dimensions of conflict and on-going inequalities and to build future leaders for an independent Palestine (Amour 2019;Kelcey 2020;Shabaneh 2012;Shuayb 2014). This ...
... One approach to mitigate these risks is to create non-formal refugee education, which often operates in private spaces and sometimes in secret, opening spaces for teacher autonomy. This approach is common across time and space, including among Palestinians in Gaza (Mahshi and Bush 1989), Burundians in Tanzania (Malkki 1995), Somalis in Kenya (Aden forthcoming), and among Syrians in Jordan (Cohen 2019;Magee and Pherali 2017). In contrast, in formal public schools, teachers are civil servants and among the requirements of their jobs is a commitment to follow some ideological lines, which can be more rigid or flexible, more explicit or hidden, depending on the context. ...
This article examines why and how teachers of refugees enact protection by engaging with local forms of harm facing their refugee students. Through portraits of two classrooms in Jordan, we describe the relationships that form between Jordanian teachers and Syrian students, and the protection practices teachers develop in response. We propose a more comprehensive conceptualization of protection in refugee education that layers socio‐political protection on legal and rights‐based protection commonly embedded in humanitarian activities.
... In the late 1980s, for instance, the Israeli state issued an order for the closure of all educational institutions, collectively punishing students and staff for the popular non-violent uprising against the decades of occupation (the First Intifada). Yet Palestinians sought ways to continue education by moving classrooms to neighbourhoods and living rooms (Mahshi & Bush 1989;Zelkovitz 2014), effectively turning education into a front of non-violent resistance. ...
The Israeli military aggression against Gaza has led to unprecedented destruction. Since October 2023, Israel has cut off water, fuel, and electricity, prevented humanitarian aid and destroyed vital facilities and infrastructure, turning the Gaza Strip into a death space marked by horror and mass devastation. The educational sector has suffered significantly, with thousands of students, teachers and professors killed or injured and 60% of educational facilities destroyed, including all 12 universities. In this editorial, we trace the pattern of systematic attacks on Palestinian education by the Israeli settler state in and beyond the Gaza Strip. We contextualise resilience initiatives that strive to conceive a sense of normalcy during the direst conditions. We acknowledge the role stories of such initiatives can have in lifting morale and resisting oppression. Yet, we draw attention to the harm the glorification of such initiatives may have in skewing the image of hardship that most Gazans face under the most disastrous of circumstances. Instead, we urgently call on the global community to urgently respond to end the genocidal violence, support the rebuilding of Gaza and restore the right to life and education for its people.
... Palestinian legal scholar Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who has herself been subjected to brutal repression by the Israeli state, explains that 'education is utilised as a tool for oppression in conflict zones, primarily and precisely because it can be used to affect social and political transformation, emancipation, and liberation' (2010, p. 336). The turn to education in conflict zones as a means of liberation was intensified when the Israeli occupation closed all Palestinian universities and schools in 1967 and during the first Intifada starting in 1987 (Abo Hommos, 2013;Asaad, 2000;Mahshi & Bush, 1989). ...
... Following the Palestinian nakba in 1948 until today, the Israeli occupation continues to target the educational system in the West Bank and Gaza through various military actions (Abo Hommos 2013;Asaad 2000). In 1987, for example, Mahshi and Bush (1989) note that the Israeli military forces closed down schools and universities and kept harassing students who sought many informal ways to reach educational centres and institutions. These attempts, however, became even more challenging for Palestinian students with disability. ...
This article explores the use of artificial stuttering as a powerful practice and therapy in higher education in Palestine where the need for applied drama is increasing. It specifically focuses on the artistic and/or performative re-employment of Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby to enhance the academic achievement and social development of dysfluent students throughout and beyond their university education. By using extra-curricular, art-mediated training and in-class performance of chosen passages from Dickens's narrative, students not only improve their linguistic and intellectual competencies but also develop dynamic confidence to articulate themselves in daily social contexts during self-presentation. This academic practice, which is part of a one-term educational disability programme, focuses on training a selected number of undergraduate students with a severe or mild stutter by relying on the technique of artificial impersonation of the stuttering of Smike, who is one of the most common Victorian dysfluent characters, in different melodramatic acts. In this experience, students show linguistic growth and social command of communication, and thus chart a new subjective identity.
... During the first two years of the Intifada (before the Israeli decision to reopen the schools and universities under pressure applied by the European Parliament), Palestinian society adopted alternative modes of education as a reaction to the closure of schools and universities. The following actions were key aspects of this alternative education: (1) universities set up off-campus classes; (2) universities set up popular or neighbourhood schools in which teachers taught students within a geographic area; and (3) private and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools distributed special educational materials for remote education, for example learning objective assignments, self-evaluation tests, and graded exercises (Mahshi & Bush, 1989). ...
This paper attempts to estimate the intergenerational transmission of human capital in Palestine. The main question is whether formal parental education improves their offspring's cognitive skills and school achievements. I use the instrumental variable method in the estimations to overcome the potential endogene-ity of parental education. The main source of variation in parental educational attainment is parents' exposure to the First Palestinian Intifada (1988-1993) during their middle and high school ages. During the First Palestinian Intifada, many school days were lost due to frequent school closures and other restrictions. Furthermore, many young people preferred to search for low-skill employment in Israel, since it provided them with better wages than the local labour market and hardly required any level of educational attainment. This study employs two outcomes, namely the standardised cognitive test scores and school achievements during the academic year 2012/2013 for students between grade 5 and grade 9 in West Bank schools. Overall, the results support the hypothesis of a human capital spill-over but more so for girls than for boys, where the instrumental variables results are often insignificant because of their large standard errors. ARTICLE HISTORY
... With the eruption of the first Intifada (Uprising) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in December 1987, educators and communities in some localities in Palestinian society organised educational provision as part of a widespread and prolonged civil insurrection against Israeli occupation 4 . With schooling banned by the occupying Israeli military, teaching was organised in alternative locations (Mahshi & Bush, 1989). Graham-Brown (1991) notes that, during the Intifada, the 'educational system in the Occupied Territories, from kindergartens to universities, has been shut down for many months at a time over a period of more than three years, effectively punishing the population by withdrawing opportunities for education' (p. ...
... Silwadi and Mayo assert that Paulo Freire's work is relevant to 'the Palestinian case', since his work suggests that education in the Palestinian context can be utilised as a tool to either 'domesticate' or 'liberate' (Silwadi & Mayo, 2014, 73). The political construction of education as a subjective space for liberation is illuminated by the Israeli occupation's practices, which include the closure of schools and universities during the first intifada (Abo Hommos, 2013;Abu Lughod, 2000;Asaad, 2000;Mahshi & Bush, 1989;Ra'ad & Nafi', 2007). However, in spite of the restrictions placed on the educational institutions in Palestine: education has always provided a way out [for Palestinians] . . . ...
The online mode of education has created a space for a decolonial pedagogy that allows student liberation from in-class education which perpetuates students’ passivity. Drawing on Freire’s concepts of banking education, dialogue and democracy, Said’s various works and concepts, including ‘margins’ and ‘centres’, and students’ testimonies concerning online and in-class modes of education, we contend that online education shatters the hegemony of instructors over the process of education. While students air their proclivity for emancipation from the hegemonic intricacy of the traditional classroom, instructors also highlight the importance of dialogue, research and enriching discussions that subvert the teacher-student hierarchy. While some instructors used to follow research and dialogue in class, they encountered challenges in introducing topics related to sexuality, politics and religion. However, these issues have shored up during online education as the emphasis on the part of instructors and students has been on constructing arguments rather than memorising materials. Thus, the online education we have been forced to adopt is a call for a paradigm shift in the sense that the traditional mode of education perpetuates students’ passivity and suppression of their voices in ways that resonate with the suppression of Palestinian voices by the Israeli-settler colonialism.
... Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2010) notes that 'education is utilised as a tool for oppression in conflict zones, primarily and precisely because it can be used to affect social and political transformation, emancipation, and liberation' (p. 336).The construction of education in conflict zones as a means of liberation is further substantiated by the fact that Israeli occupation closed all Palestinian universities and schools in 1967 and during the first Intifada starting in 1987 (Abo Hommos, 2013;Asaad, 2000;Mahshi & Bush, 1989). ...
Despite the severe social, health, political and economic impacts of the outbreak of Covid-19 on Palestinians, we contend that one positive aspect of this pandemic is that it has revealed the perils and shortcomings of the teacher-centered, traditional education which colonizes students’ minds, compromises their analytical abilities and, paradoxically, places them in a system of oppression which audits their ideas, limits their freedoms, and curtails their creativity. While Israeli occupation has proven to be an obstacle in the face of the Palestinian government’s attempt to combat and contain the Corona crisis, on-line education, the sole arena that escapes this colonial system, has forced many instructors to give up their domination over the process of education and to create a more collaborative atmosphere of education that is based on dialogue, research and flexibility of the curriculum content. This study is designed to gauge English literature students’ responses to this mode of digital learning. We interviewed a hundred students from six English literature programs between March and August, 2020. Thus, through critically examining students’ answers, and by drawing on Freire’s concepts of banking education, consciousness and dialogue, we propose that online education is an important step towards the decolonization of education and a call for a paradigm shift on the account that the existing paradigm of traditional education is stifling students’ creativity and critical thinking.
... During the first two years of the Intifada (before the Israeli decision to reopen the schools and universities under pressure applied by the European Parliament), Palestinian society adopted alternative modes of education as a reaction to the closure of schools and universities. The following actions were key aspects of this alternative education: 1) universities set up offcampus classes; 2) universities set up popular or neighborhood schools in which teachers taught students within a geographic area; and 3) private and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools distributed special educational materials for remote education, for example learning objective assignments, self-evaluation tests, and graded exercises (Mahshi and Bush 1989). ...
This paper attempts to estimate the intergenerational transmission of human capital in Palestine. The main question is whether formal parental education improves their offspring’s cognitive skills and school achievements. I use the instrumental variable method in the estimations to overcome the potential endogeneity of parental education. The main source of variation in parental educational attainment is parents’ exposure to the First Palestinian Intifada (1988–93) during their middle and high school ages. During the First Palestinian Intifada, many school days were lost due to frequent school closures and other restrictions. Furthermore, many young people preferred to search for low-skill employment in Israel, since it provided them with better wages than the local labor market and hardly required any level of educational attainment. This study employs two outcomes, namely the standardized cognitive test scores and school achievements during the academic year 2012/13 for students between grade 5 and grade 9 in West Bank schools. Overall, the results support the hypothesis of a human capital spill-over but more so for girls than for boys, where the instrumental variables results are often insignificant because of their large standard errors.
... As in earlier periods, however, IVCOs sometimes maintained a foot in service delivery, while also supporting oppositional civic movements. As one example in the late 1980s, despite the official closure of schools by the Israeli government, international volunteers were enlisted by women's groups in Israel to bypass official school closures and subversively taught classes in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank [73]. As another example, thousands of international volunteers in the 1980s were sent to Nicaragua to aid with agricultural development, engineering, teaching and other social programs. ...
This paper examines ways that modern donor practices may challenge international volunteer cooperation organizations' (IVCOs) alignment with the interests of civil society in partner countries—particularly in circumstances where a strong focus on service delivery and poverty eradication limit support for grassroots movements aimed at transformational structural and social change. This thesis is presented within a wider context of IVCOs’ historic development beginning in the late 1950s. Discussion and recommendations focus on how modern IVCOs can balance donor priorities while maintaining alignment with the sometimes oppositional role of civil society as a transformational driver of social change.
... Take-home and distance learning materials were designed. Everything was done to enable students to continue with their education as it was recognised that Palestinians could ill afford a 'lost generation' (Mahshi & Bush, 1989). Progressive educators took advantage of the situation to experiment with alternative pedagogies. ...
Much recent research has been directed at illuminating the role of education in major conflicts between ethnic groups. It is increasingly well understood that education does not necessarily have a positive, peace-supporting influence, but that the wrong kind of education can serve to reinforce divisions. However, in many conflicts there are multiple fault lines. Even if one central antagonism between two broad groupings can be identified, numerous tensions and divergent interests may exist within each of these groupings. This study examines the hypothesis that the notion of the ‘two faces of education’ extends to such ‘conflicts within the conflict’. In other words, with regard to tensions within groups on the ‘same side’, education and schooling may also serve either as a unifying force or as a cause of violent disagreement - or both at the same time. This article presents the results of extracting both kind of themes - education as divisive or unifying - from a thorough review of the literature on two case studies: South African education during the anti-apartheid struggle, and the development of Palestinian education in exile and under occupation. While significant differences exist, there are also some common patterns, such as the use of educational privileges to co-opt part of the opposition, the continuation of educational class differentials within broad alliances during and after conflict, and the role of ambiguity in educational discourse in opposition. Both cases support the conclusion that education and schooling can play an ambivalent role at all levels of complex conflicts, and that research on ‘education and conflict’ cannot afford to ignore this complexity.
... eed, since the Ottoman empire, the formal Palestinian education system had been administered by foreigners. Modern formal education in Palestine grew out of a reaction to Ottoman attempts to promote and impose Turkish culture. Later, during the British mandate, expansion of formal education came as a response to the British need for civil servants.Mahshi (1989)summed up the educational situation during that epoch in the following terms: 'despite the inadequacies of government education by the British, the traditional value of education, especially formal schooling, was strengthened over time. Formal education was perceived as a means for securing white-collar jobs with steady income, and to en ...
This volume addresses the dual problems of providing rapid educational responses in global conflict and crisis situations and assessing the role of education in the root causes of these conflicts. Education and training are key components of international relief responses to emergencies resulting from conflicts. Even more important, rehabilitation and reconstruction processes are now seen as "windows of opportunity" to redesign educational systems in view of fostering stability and promoting peace. This report summarizes the conclusions of an international workshop that brought together researchers, national education officials, and representatives of donor agencies in an attempt to address these concerns. The group focused on four case studies chosen to represent crisis situations of different natures. The case studies featured Cambodia, Colombia, Palestine, and Sierra Leone. The general objectives of the workshop included: (1) re-situate current educational concerns pertaining to conflict and crisis situations in a socio-historical perspective; (2) identify the different types of conflict situations (causes, nature of conflict, duration, resolution) and the role of education at various phases before, during, and after such conflicts; and (3) exchange views among national researchers, government officials, and representatives of both public and private development aid agencies on their respective analyses of the role of education and training in crisis situations and the appropriateness of current intervention strategies. The report includes references, statistical and tabular data on each country, and a list of conference participants. (MJP)
... "As a people we were depending on ourselves," explains a Ramallah-based teacher who taught a class in her home, "this was our way of resistance". According to Mahshi and Bush (1989), this atmosphere of mass resistance during the first intifada afforded opportunities for radical change by creating a "giant educational laboratory" that challenged conservative educators to start afresh. ...
Incl. appendices and bibl. references This study explores the setting up and development of the first Palestinian-led education system, from 1994 to 2005. Given the context of chronic crisis, and the immensity of the endeavour, the Palestinians have made substantial progress in a relatively short time. However, the Palestinian education story does not end here. The author looks at both the opportunities and challenges for education in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and draws lessons for those in other conflict-affected areas. Major achievements include the development of core mechanisms for educational planning, administration, budgeting and coordination, as well as a new Palestinian curriculum framework, which has been instrumental in bringing Palestinian identify, history and culture into the classroom. There is greater harmonization of the West Bank and Gaza Strip within the education system, and expansion of access and inclusion has been built into the system.
... Later, during the British mandate, expansion of formal education came as a response to the British need for civil servants. Mahshi (1989) summed up the educational situation during that epoch in the following terms: 'despite the inadequacies of government education by the British, the traditional value of education, especially formal schooling, was strengthened over time. Formal education was perceived as a means for securing white-collar jobs with steady income, and to enhance social status, in a predominantly peasant society.' ...
This volume addresses the dual problems of providing rapid educational responses in global conflict and crisis situations and of assessing the role of education in the root causes of these conflicts. Education and training are key components of international relief responses to emergencies resulting from conflicts. Even more important, rehabilitation and reconstruction processes are now seen as "windows of opportunity" to redesign educational systems in view of fostering stability and promoting peace. This report summarizes the conclusions of an international workshop that brought together researchers, national education officials, and representatives of donor agencies in an attempt to address these concerns. The group focused on four case studies chosen to represent crisis situations of different natures in the context of Cambodia, Colombia, Palestine, and Sierra Leone. The workshop aimed: (1) re-situate current educational concerns pertaining to conflict and crisis situations in a socio-historical perspective; (2) identify the different types of conflict situations (causes, nature of conflict, duration, resolution) and the role of education at various phases before, during, and after such conflicts; and (3) exchange views among national researchers, government officials, and representatives of both public and private development aid agencies on their respective analyses of the role of education and training in crisis situations and the appropriateness of current intervention strategies.
هدف البحث إلى تحليل وتقييم محتوى التوليدات التي يقدمها ChatGPT حول فلسطين والقضية الفلسطينية والتعليم في فلسطين، والتعرف على مدى قدرة هذه التقنيات على توفير تحليلات دقيقة وجدلية في سياقات تتعلق بفلسطين والقضية الفلسطينية، كما يتناول البحث فهم كيفية معالجة ChatGPT للمعلومات المقدمة للمهتمين، مع التركيز على دقة وعمق الردود التي يقدمها. تم اعتماد البحث النوعي بأسلوب تحليل المحتوى النوعي للاستجابات التي قدمها ChatGPT، حيث قام الباحثون بتوجيه ثلاثة أسئلة أساسية موحدة - وبنفس الصياغة لبرنامج ChatGPT حول فلسطين والقضية الفلسطينية والتعليم فيها - بثلاث محاولات بأوقات مختلفة، حيث تم بتوجيه الأسئلة الثلاث لبرنامج ChatGPT ثلاث مرات بأوقات مختلفة لأربع مرات، بهذه الطريقة حصلوا على 36 استجابة لكل موضوع 12 إجابة. وأظهرت نتائج الدراسة: أن ChatGPT قدم استجابات حول التعليم في فلسطين وفي كثير من الجوانب التي تخص القضية الفلسطينية كأصل الصراع وسبب النكبة وغيرها، كما أن ChatGPT تغافل بعض الجوانب المهمة في التعليم والقضية الفلسطينية كالتعليم في القدس وفي مناطق الداخل المحتل عام 1948، كما تغافل قضية الأسرى والمعتقلين وأهمية القدس بالنسبة للعرب والمسلمين، ومن أهم النتائج أيضاً الانحياز الواضح لصالح إسرائيل في القضايا السياسية والتاريخية والجغرافية المتعلقة بفلسطين وقضية القدس، وملكية الأراضي وأسباب وتداعيات الصراع الإسرائيلي الفلسطيني وفي غيرها من القضايا، وقد أوصى الباحثون بضرورة التحقق من مصداقية المعلومات من خلال مصادر موثوقة قبل الاعتماد عليها، خاصة في المواضيع ذات الأهمية كالتعليم في فلسطين والقضية الفلسطينية.
Colonialism deprives colonised peoples of the self-determined histories needed for continued struggle. Scattered since 1948 across diverse educational systems, Palestinians have been unable to control their education or construct an authentic curriculum. This paper covers varied schooling in the Palestinian diaspora. I set this state of ‘splitting through education’ as contradictory to international declarations of the right of colonised peoples to culturally relevant education. Such education would include histories that explain their situation, and depict past resistances. I argue for the production of histories of Palestine for Palestinian children, especially those in refugee camps as well as in Israel and Jerusalem, where curricula are controlled by the settler-coloniser. Black and Native Americans have dealt with exclusion from history in ways that offer models for Palestinians.
Despite being a protracted refugee crisis that entails international debates and controversies, discussions about Palestinian education have frequently sidelined the perspectives, needs and priorities of the Palestinian refugee population. Drawing upon a qualitative study in the West Bank and engaging with theoretical ideas of Johan Galtung, Paulo Freire and Pierre Bourdieu, we argue that the nexus between educational motivation and motivation for Palestinian liberation, which was particularly significant during the periods of ‘Palestinian uprising’, seems to be declining today in the present day context of oppression and structural violence. The growing disassociation among young refugees with Palestinian liberation, and with education as a means to this liberation, can be seen as a process of symbolic violence. Building upon these findings, we propose a new analytical framework for understanding the interrelationship between education, violence and struggle for social and political transformation in conflict-affected societies.
Le soulevement palestinien de septembre 2000 contre l’occupation et la colonisation israeliennes des Territoires occupes et sa repression convoient mediatiquement l’idee d’une rupture historique avec un ordre social qui serait herite des negociations interimaires d’Oslo debutees en 1993. A une periode de calme « normalite » succederait depuis bientot deux ans une periode obscure de crise multiforme et violente. La mise en exergue de cette violence risque de faire oublier que les trois million...
On 28 January 2011 – as police abandoned the streets and reports of theft spread – Egyptians went down to the streets to protect their families and property, closing down intersections and setting up checkpoints. These neighborhood groups – known as popular committees (PCs) – filled the security vacuum and were one of the deciding factors of Mubarak’s downfall. This article explores how ordinary Egyptians collectively acted in order to restore stability during the regime’s moment of crisis. The author briefly introduces Egyptian PCs by discussing other instances of community organizing that occurred under extraordinary circumstances. Next, the author focuses on the microdynamics of PCs during the 2011 revolution by describing their mobilization, social networks, practices, communication methods, and dissolution. The PC narrative reminds us that, even during a revolution, the actions of ordinary individuals are often ignored by scholars and observers. Only after moving our attention away from the main squares do we begin to understand the full complexity of such exceptional moments.
This paper probes the socioeconomic and political processes underlying the expansion of schooling in the Arab states. The paper, which does not report new data but rather critically reviews studies published so far, argues that both development and modernisation approaches, as well as class reproduction theories remain largely unable to account for the complex web of factors affecting educational expansion in the Arab states. These theories fail to point to the articulation of multi-level processes ultimately shaping the social and cultural underpinnings of educational expansion. Moreover, these theoretical approaches, beyond their paradigmatic differences, have confined Arab civil societies essentially to the structural outcome of state policies. Consequently, processes of civil dissent and resistance and their effects on educational expansion are naively conceptualised in terms of 'forces of tradition' versus 'forces of change'. The community-based, and conflict-laden power conjunctures shaping educational expansion in the Arab states have been largely left outside the analysis and the voices they represent often discarded. To probe the argument, first, the paper outlines the major macro-structural and historical factors affecting levels of literacy and access to educational resources in different Arab states. Secondly, published fieldwork research undertaken by others into community-based settings is examined in order to explore points of articulation between state policies, civil society processes and their sociopolitical and cultural effects on patterns of educational expansion. Thirdly, within the frame of a concluding discussion, the major implications are discussed and possible research paths are pointed to.
This paper compares the results of three surveys. The subjects comprise 96 adolescents in an English comprehensive school, 118 Arab adolescents in three schools in Israel and 89 adolescents in two schools in Saudi Arabia. The first and last groups of subjects have a modal age of 14 years whereas the majority of the second group are 15 years of age. The open‐ended questionnaire comprised 10 prompts designed to elicit responses concerning ideals and least ideals, most and least preferred companions, use of solitude, summum bonum, most and least desired outcomes to life and nascent philosophies. Two methods of analysis were used. First, references to dominant themes were totalled; secondly, responses were assigned to six categories according to the dominant values expressed from materialistic to altruistic. Similarities but also significant differences were found in the dominant themes and significant differences were also apparent in the values that were expressed. Most marked was the high value placed on parents and friendship by the English young people, the importance attached to education by the Israeli‐Arab group and the prominence given to Islam by the Saudi Arabian adolescents.
This paper draws on the results of a study carried out in the West Bank, in 1999, to explore the role of education as a coping strategy among the children of Palestinian refugees, and to examine how the state of being refugees affects perceptions of the value and importance of education. The paper first reviews the background to the development of a formal education system in Palestine and considers the different approaches to education in different political contexts, with ensuing particular reference to the West Bank. The findings of the regional study are then reported, with special reference to the various functions of education as a coping strategy—remedial, incentive-mobilizing and identity-building. Education, for those who have lost their property and whose identity is under threat, emerges as a key channel for maintaining consciousness of collective rights.
The effect a conflict has on local TVET need not be the same as its effect on other kinds of education. While this is almost
tautological, it is worthwhile examining just how pronounced the difference can be and, by implication, how potentially misleading
it would be in conflict and post-conflict settings to generalize from the state of the education sector as a whole to the
state of TVET.
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