Linda Herrera, Educating Egypt : civic values and ideological struggles [book review]

Abstract

Educating Egypt offers a topical and compelling account written against the backdrop of immense changes taking place within Egypt’s ‘new’ education system. What makes this book unique is that it traces Herrera’s research trajectories from being a postgraduate researcher conducting an ethnographic study of a Cairene school in the early 1990s, to becoming a key consultant in Egypt’s efforts to reform and digitise its education system. Despite this involvement, she is under no illusions regarding the difficulties facing Egypt’s youth in accessing an empowering and just education. The book aims to trace ‘the everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political battles relating to education from the era of nation building in the twentieth century to the age of digital disruption in the twenty-first’ (p.1), with the main theme being how schooling and education, more broadly, ‘have consistently mirrored larger political, economic, and cultural trends and competing ideas about what constitutes the “good society”, the “good citizen”, and the “educated person”’ (ibid.). At first glance, a challenging feat given Egypt’s complex history, nonetheless, remarkably achieved in an accessible and engaging manner. [excerpt]