Wow! eBook
Palestinian State Formation: Education and the Construction of National Identity Unabridged edition
Author(s): Nubar Hovsepian (Author)
- Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Publication Date: June 17, 2008
- Edition: Unabridged edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 265 pages
- ISBN-10: 1847185681
- ISBN-13: 9781847185686
Book Description
This book examines the role of education in building a new Palestinian state, and especially on the role and function of the education system in the process of state formation. Since education frames a people’s identity, the nature of the education system affects how Palestinians relate to their state. Through education the Palestinian Authority (PA) transforms the parameters of identity to serve the requirements of state-building and the peace process. International assistance to the PA affects all of these processes through the disbursal of political rent, whose primary function is to bolster the PA and to keep the peace process going. The new Palestinian Authority has assumed two seemingly contradictory functions: state building and resistance, and the dynamic tensions between the two raise key questions for political and policy analysis. Are these functions mutually exclusive or complementary in the context of the ongoing peace negotiations, and state-building? Can the Palestinian leadership transform the Palestinian national movement from a revolutionary organization to a pragmatic state apparatus? Are the PLO and the PA interchangeable? What type of power does the PA need to cultivate the support, or to secure the compliance, of the Palestinian people for the state-building project? Clearly, the answers to these questions have a direct bearing on the education system. Will this system promote a resistance identity or a state-building legitimizing identity
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This book offers important multi-disciplinary insights into the tensions and contradictions that underpin education in contemporary Palestinian society in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, particularly following the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994. The author draws on history, political science, critical sociology, development studies, curriculum research and economic analysis in shedding light on marginalized issues pertaining to the study of Palestinian education." André Elias Mazawi Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia; Associate Fellow, Euro-Mediterranean Center for Educational Research, University of Malta Arab Studies Quarterly, 32: 3 (2010)
About the Author
Dr. Nubar Hovsepian is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Chapman University (California). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Graduate CenterCity University of New York. He edited: The War on Lebanon (2007). He is currently working on a book on Edward Said as a Public Intellectual.
