Trajectories of Education in the Arab World

In comparison to other parts of the developing world education in Arab countries has been lagging behind. This book examines the impact of Western cultural influence, the opportunities for reform and the sustainability of current initiatives.

Osama Abi-Mershed is Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University, where he currently teaches classes on the medieval and modern histories of the Middle East, North Africa and the Western Mediterranean world. His current research focuses on the processes of cultural transformation in colonial Algeria.

Introduction: The Politics of Arab Educational Reforms Part 1: Historical Perspectives 1. The Principles of Instruction are the Grounds of Our Knowledge: Al-Farabi's Philosophical and al-Ghazali's spiritual approaches to learning 2. Between the Golden Age and the Renaissance: Islamic Higher Education in Eighteenth-Century Damascus 3. "If the Devil Taught French": Strategies of Language and Learning in French Mandate Beirut 4. "According to a Logic Befitting the Arab Soul": Cultural Policy and Popular Education in Morocco Since 1912 Part 2: Education and the Post-Colonial State 5. Public Institutions of Religious Education in Egypt and Tunisia: Contrasting the Post-Colonial Reforms of Al-Azhar and the Zaytuna 6. Palestinian Education in a Virtual State 7. Language-in-Education Policies in Contemporary Lebanon: Youth Perspective 8. Education as a Humanitarian Response as Applied to the Arab World, With Special Reference to the Palestinian Case Part 3: Education and Socio-Political Development: Reform, Policy and Practice 9. Naming the Imaginary:"Building an Arab Knowledge Society" and the Contested Terrain of educational Reforms for development 10. An Introduction to Qatar's Primary and Secondary Education Reform 11. Observations from the Edge of the deluge: Are we going too far too fast in our Educational Transformation in the Arab World?