Learning in Morocco: Language Politics and the Abandoned Educational Dream

by Charis Boutieri

Learning in Morocco offers a rare look inside public education in the Middle East. While policymakers see a crisis in education based on demographics and financing, Moroccan high school students point to the effects of a highly politicized Arabization policy that has never been implemented coherently. In recent years, national policies to promote the use of Arabic have come into conflict with the demands of a neoliberal job market in which competence in French is still a prerequisite for advancement. Based on long-term research inside and outside classrooms, Charis Boutieri describes how students and teachers work within, or try to circumvent, the system, whose contradictory demands ultimately lead to disengagement and, on occasion, to students taking to the streets in protest.

293 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 25, 2016

Reviews

[Mary Mimouna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult, scholarly read; however, it addresses every one of the questions I've ever had about the Arabization policy, about marginalization of French, about bringing Berber into schools, and about how these languages impact students in the job market, at home, in their feelings of personal identity, and in their on-line chat life as they pursue flirting and romance.