Educating Egypt

Linda Herrera, a social anthropologist with regional expertise in North Africa and West Asia with a focus on Egypt, is a professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research deals broadly with education, citizenship, youth cultures, and geopolitics. Her books include, Revolution in the Age of Social Media: The Egyptian Popular Insurrection and the Internet, Wired Citizenship: Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East, Being Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North (with A. Bayat), and Cultures of Arab Schooling: Critical Ethnographies from Egypt (with C.A. Torres).

• List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Educating Egypt: From Nation Building to Digital DisruptionPart 1: Schooling the Nation: Inside a Girls’ Preparatory School1: An Ethnographer’s Orientation2: Schooling Citizens3: Educating Girls4: Teachers of The Nation5: Grade FeverPart 2: Political Islam and Education6: The Islamist Wave and Education Markets7: Experiments in Counter-Nationalism8: DownveilingPart 3: Youth in a Changing Global Order9: Education, Empire, and Global Citizenship10: Young Egyptians’ Quest for Jobs and Justice11: Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Age: A View from Egypt12: It’s Time to Talk about Youth in the Middle East as “The Precariat’Part 4: Conclusions and Future Directions13: Is the School as We Know it on its Way to Extinction?NotesBibliographyIndex

"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"Very copious, rich and meaningful work . . . . Herrera does offer the reader a brilliant analytical treatise on the critical relationship between schooling, educational systems and the unfolding of various features of both local and global political economy over the past three decades." —Malak Zaalouk, The International Review of Education"[T]opical and compelling . . . . Educating Egypt represents a significant contribution to debates surrounding education in the Global South. It offers a sober and timely analysis which will be of relevance to students, academics, and policy makers."—Postcolonial Directions in Education"[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