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" How Young Egyptians' Interactions with Egypt's Master Historical Narrative Shape Their Social Identities and Civic Attitudes "
Abdou, Ehaab Dyaa
Mitchell, Claudia A.
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Latin Dissertation
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English
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| Record Number
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1054447
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| Doc. No
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TL53564
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| Main Entry
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Abdou, Ehaab Dyaa
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| Title & Author
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How Young Egyptians' Interactions with Egypt's Master Historical Narrative Shape Their Social Identities and Civic Attitudes\ Abdou, Ehaab DyaaMitchell, Claudia A.
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| College
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McGill University (Canada)
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| Date
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2019
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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2019
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| Note
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422 p.
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| Abstract
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This dissertation elucidates how young Egyptians interact with Egypt's 'dominant' or 'master' historical narrative, as presented in their formal school curricula. Further, it seeks to understand how the omission and misrepresentation of minority perspectives and historical narratives influences post-secondary students' social identities and civic attitudes, as embodied in their current and envisioned societal roles. While I discuss post-secondary Egyptian students' interactions with general omissions and misrepresentations in the dominant historical narrative, I focus on the widely acknowledged, but understudied, omissions and misrepresentations of Coptic (Egyptian Christian) history and contributions from the formal curriculum. To approach these questions, I worked with a diverse group of recent graduates of Egyptian secondary schools (n=39). Adopting a grounded theory approach and guided by historical consciousness, social representations theories, critical discourse analysis and critical pedagogy, my data collection methods included written questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and participatory visual methods. The data analysis reveals that many of the participants - especially because of the Egyptian January 2011 revolution and its aftermaths, and their minority community's misrepresentation in some cases - have developed strong critical approaches vis-à-vis the dominant narrative constructed and propagated by the ruling elite. However, this critical approach is still taking place within the confines of the dominant narrative, thus leaving some of its key defining elements and features intact and unchallenged. Those features include normalizing the nature of the Egyptian state as primordial, and the nature of history as cyclical. Within these critical approaches to the dominant narrative, several important nuances emerge. First, only a few participants questioned structural issues or power dynamics and interests that the dominant historical narrative serve. Second, the dominant discourses shaping the public sphere in Egypt - including the territorial nationalist and the religious-based discourse - clearly shaped the alternative narratives that the participants sought to construct. For instance, participants embedded in a religious-based understanding, while critical of the nationalistic discourse, reverted uncritically to a transcendental – and in some cases a mythical historical narrative – as historical fact. The study shows that especially those exposed to academic history courses and engaged in extracurricular history-related initiatives exhibited a more evolved ability to embrace multiple perspectives in their approaches to critiquing and deconstructing the dominant narrative. In terms of the participants' civic attitudes, there is a general shift towards economic empowerment, educational, and awareness building activities clearly minimizing contact or possible support to the ruling elite. As a generally excluded and misunderstood minority, several of the Coptic participants seemed to attempt to channel their general sense of exclusion and being misunderstood towards establishing and supporting community initiatives that would foster Muslim-Christian interfaith relations and respect.
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| Descriptor
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Curriculum development
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Educational sociology
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North African studies
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Social studies education
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Mitchell, Claudia A.
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McGill University (Canada)
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