Inter-Cultural Limbo: The Dilemma of Western Education in Traditional Societies: Egypt as a Case-Study
Mansour, Dina, Ille, Sebastian and Madkour, Mervat (2013) Inter-Cultural Limbo: The Dilemma of Western Education in Traditional Societies: Egypt as a Case-Study. In: ulticulturalism, Conflict and Belonging,. Interdisciplinary Press.
Abstract
The sense of belonging is a subjective perception. In traditional societies that are inherently conservative, cultural and religious the perception of the self becomes bound to the holistic context of the society. From the moment you are born you slowly submerge in a world where traditions, culture and the divinity of religion make up almost every aspect of one‟s daily life whether in public or in private. Slowly the society becomes a collective of individuals who work to safeguard traditions, culture and religious heritage. This holistic bond is, however, broken when a culture of individualism enshrined in the ideals of freedom and rights is instilled in the education and thus value system of those growing up in a traditional society. Meanwhile, the widening cultural gap between East and West renders the clash of civilizations more evident. Taking Egypt as a case-study, this paper examines the situation of those lying at the fault-line of this clash. What makes the situation of those lying at the fault-line of this clash more perplexing is the fact that Western education in Egypt has furthermore created an even wider cultural gap between those who receive such education and thus perceive themselves to be more „Western‟ and the rest of the society. To the West, Western educated Egyptians are, at the same time, never perceived as being part of this culture due to the fact that they are always put in the stereotypical category of „Arabs‟, „Middle Eastern‟ or „Muslims‟ thus hindering their integration in Western societies. They therefore usually find themselves in an inter-cultural limbo – neither belonging to their perceived nor to their normative culture. This paper intends to examine the correlation between education and identity and belongingness as applied in the case of Egypt.
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