Areas of Research and Current Interests

Areas of Research

Sociology of Education
Comparative Education
Educational Policy
Educational Organizations
School and Higher Education Governance
Educational Leadership
Knowledge Society

CURRENT FIELD PROJECTS

The first of three current projects examines the debates and controversies surrounding the notion of a "knowledge society" and "education for work" in Arab societies, their sources, institutional articulations, and discursive reproduction across the region. Here, I critically explore how cultural, ideological and political frameworks inform and shape discourses on educational policies and restructuring reforms for development across the Arab region. As part of this project, I also delve on the inter-relations between science policies, and the stratification of faculty members in higher education institutions in Arab countries (particularly the Gulf Cooperation Council member states).

The second project includes a series of comparative studies of political socialization in the Arab Middle East and Europe. It examines how educational policies are used as tools for the construction of imagined political communities based on exclusivist notions of citizenship. Among other, I explore how school textbook "semiosis" (Norman Fairclough) choreographs citizenship identities within the broader contexts of geopolitical power relations, contested regimes and deeply divided societies. In November 2008, I presented the main framework of this project as part of a keynote lecture entitled "Semiotics, Geopolitics, and the Question of Representation in Textbook Reforms", delivered at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (Braunschweig, Germany).

The third project examines Muslim activism in the field of schooling in France. By examining how media outlets represent Islamic schools, I deconstruct the ways through which the media represent France as a political community. The aim is to identify the ideological underpinnings and hegemonic effects of media representations and how they shape educational policies and practices and, more broadly, discourses on multiculturalism and schooling. This project is part of a larger interest in the predicament of multicultural education in the post 9/11 period, within the larger context of the reconfiguration of geopolitical, economic and military alliances and blocs.

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Publications

Books

Pathologizing Practices: The Impact of Deficit Thinking on Education. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. (With C. Shields & R. Bishop)

Between State and Church: Life-History of a French-Catholic School in Jaffa. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1996. (With O. Ichilov)

Articles and Book Chapters

Educational Leadership

"Governing the 'new administrative frontier': 'Cohering' rationalities and educational leadership in British Columbia", Management in Education, 23(2), 71-77, 2009 (with M. Stack).

"Dis/integrated orders and the politics of recognition: Civil upheavals, militarism, and educators' lives and work", Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies, 13(2), 69-89, 2008.

Multiculturalism and Schooling in France

"'Qui a peur du lycée musulman?': Media representations of a Muslim school in France", Social Semiotics, 19, 2009 (in press).

" 'Also the school is a temple': Republicanism, transnational spaces and the schooling of Muslim youth in France", in Being Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global North and South, edited by L. Herrera & A. Bayat. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010 (forthcoming).

'Knowledge Society': A Critique

"Naming the imaginary: The knowledge society, the network state, and the contested terrain of educational reforms for development in the Arab region", in Trajectories of Education in the Arab World: Legacies and Challenges, edited by O. Abi-Mershed, London: Routledge, 2009.
 
"'Knowledge society' or work as 'spectacle'? Education for work and the prospects of social transformation in Arab societies", in Educating the Global Workforce: Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Knowledge Workers, edited by Lesley Farrell & Tara Fenwick, pp. 251-267. London: Routledge, 2007.
 
"Globalization, Development, and Policies of Knowledge and Learning in the Arab States", in New Society Models for a New Millennium - The Learning Society in Europe and Beyond, edited by M. Kuhn, pp. 335-384. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2007.

State Policies, Higher Education Governance, and the Shaping of the Academic Profession

"Policy politics of higher education in the Gulf Cooperation Council member states: Intersections of globality, regionalism and locality", in Higher Education in the Gulf States: Shaping Economies, Politics and Culture, edited by C. Davidson and P. Mackenzie Smith, pp. 59-72. SOAS Middle East Issues Series. London: Al-Saqi Books in association with The London Middle East Institute at SOAS, 2008.

"Besieging the king's tower? En/gendering academic opportunities in the Gulf Arab states", in Aspects of Education in the Middle East and North Africa, edited by C. Brock and L. Zia Levers, pp. 77-97. Oxford Studies in Comparative Education. Oxford: Symposium Books, 2007.

“State power, faculty recruitment and the emergence of constituencies in Saudi Arabia”, in Education in the Muslim World: Different Perspectives – An Overview, edited by R. Griffin, pp. 55-78. Oxford, UK: Symposium Books, 2006.

“Contrasting perspectives on higher education governance in the Arab states”, in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Volume 20, 133-189. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science, 2005.

“The academic profession in a rentier state: The case of the Saudi Arabian professoriate”, Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning and Policy, 43(3), 221-244, 2005.

“The academic workplace in Arab Gulf public universities”, in The Decline of the Guru: The Academic Profession in Developing and Middle-Income Countries, edited by P.G. Altbach, pp. 231-269. New York: Palgrave Press, 2003.

“Divisions of academic labor: Nationals and non-nationals in Arab Gulf universities”, International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, 40(1), 91-110, 2003.

Educational Policies, Schooling, and the Reproduction of Social Inequalities

“Dependence on state funding, local educational opportunities, and access to high school credentials in Israel”, Educational Studies, 30(2), 145-158, 2004. (With A. Addi-Raccah)

“Concentrated disadvantage and access to educational credentials in Arab and Jewish localities in Israel”, British Educational Research Journal, 25(3), 355-370, 1999.

“Elite formation under occupation: The internal stratification of Palestinian elites in the West Bank and Gaza Strip”, British Journal of Sociology, 50(3), 397-418, 1999. (With A. Yogev)

“Educational opportunities, parental choice, community structure and mobility: The case of the Arab community of Jaffa” in: Autonomy and Choice in Context: An International Perspective, edited by R. Shapira & P.W. Cookson, pp. 135-160. Oxford: Elsevier Science, 1997. (With O. Ichilov)

“Region, locality characteristics, high school tracking and equality in access to educational credentials: The case of Palestinian Arab communities in Israel”, Educational Studies, 24(2), 223-240, 1998.

“Competition over school-management positions and the mediation of social inequalities: A case study of High Court of Justice petitions against the appointment of principals in public Arab schools in Israel”, Israel Social Science Research, 11(1), 87-114, 1996.

“University education, credentialism and social stratification among Palestinian Arabs in Israel”, Higher Education, 29(4), 351-368, 1995.

“Palestinians in Israel: Educational expansion, social mobility and political control”, Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education, 24(3), 277-284, 1994.

Schooling and Political Socialization

“Educational expansion and the mediation of discontent: The cultural politics of schooling in the Arab states”, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 23(1), 59-74, 2002.

“The contested terrains of education in the Arab states: An appraisal of major research trends”, Comparative Education Review, 43(3), 332-352, 1999.

“Contested regimes, civic dissent and the political socialization of children and adolescents: The case of the Palestinian uprising”, in:  Citizenship and Citizenship Education in a Changing World, edited by O. Ichilov, pp. 83-97. London: Woburn Press, 1998.

“Teachers’ role patterns and the mediation of sociopolitical change: The case of Palestinian Arab school teachers”, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 15(4), 497-514, 1994.

“Israeli adolescents’ comprehension and evaluation of democracy”, Youth and Society, 21(2), 153-169, 1989. (With O. Ichilov & D. Bar-Tal)

Literary Studies

“Bajazet en arabe: Entre traduction et acculturation”, in Jean Racine et L'Orient, edited by I. Martin and R. Elbaz, pp. 53-62. Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2003. (With I. Martin).

Short Essays and Research Reports

Campus 2020 and the Future of British Columbia's Post-Secondary Education: Critical Responses and Policy Perspectives. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia, Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training, 2007. (Co-authored by A.S. Metcalfe, A.E. Mazawi, K. Rubenson, D. Fisher, M. MacIvor, J. Meredith)

“National curricula, gender and the schooling of Palestinians”, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Vol. VI, edited by S. Joseph. Leiden, The Netherlands: B.J. Brill, 2007.

Fostering Tomorrow’s Educational Leaders. British Columbia: The Association of BC Deans of Education, 2006. (Co-authored by M. Stack, D. Coulter, G. Grosjean, A. Mazawi & G. Smith).

“Wars, geopolitics and university governance in the Arab states”, International Higher Education, 36, 7-9, 2004.

“Equality of educational opportunities as a daily practice”, Ru’a Tarbawiya, 4, 18-20, 2001.
 
“Annotated Hebrew sources on Palestinian refugees”, in: Palestinian Refugees: An Annotated Bibliography Based on Arabic, English, French and Hebrew Sources, edited by E. Zureik, pp. 78-156. Cairo: Canadian International Development Centre, 2000.

“Crossing the distance: The open university in the Arab states”, International Higher Education, 18, 20-21, 2000.

“A special focus: Knowledge, power and academe in the Arab States”, International Higher Education, 18, 2000.

“Gender and higher education in the Arab states”,International Higher Education, 17, 18-19, 1999.

“Gli studenti Arabo-Palestinesi in Israele”, in: L'Università per lo Sviluppo: Europa - America Latina - Mediterraneo, edited by M. Gaudina, P.-G. Palla & T. Sabuzi-Giuliani, pp. 177-181. Studi Sulla Cooperazione Internazionale 10, Istituto per la Cooperazione Universitaria. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1995.

“Frontiere aperte al flussi formativi nel Mediterraneo”, in: L'Università per lo Sviluppo: Europa - America Latina - Mediterraneo, edited by M. Gaudina, P.-G. Palla. & T. Sabuzi-Giuliani, pp. 50-52. Studi Sulla Cooperazione Internazionale 10, Istituto per la Cooperazione Universitaria. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1995.

“Gli studenti Arabo-Palestinesi in Israele”, Universitas, 51, 35-36, 1994.

“West Bank and Gaza Strip: Academic freedom requires autonomy - Palestinian higher education in the occupied territories”, Higher Education International, 6-8, 1994.

“Segregated labour market lessens higher education impact: On university education among Palestinians in Israel”, Higher Education International, 3 (March), 1994.

“Bildung ja - integration nein”, Deutsche Universitäts-Zeitung, 6, 32-33, 1994.

“Israele: Istruzione e società Palestinese”, Universitas, 44(2), 44-48, 1992.

Book Reviews

Review of: Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach (edited by T. Modood, A. Triandafyllidou & E. Zapata-Barrero), International Sociology Review of Books, 24(2), 204-209, 2009.

"Schooling and curricular reforms in Arab and Muslim societies", The Middle East Journal, 62(2), 329-337, 2008.

Review of: Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel (by G. Feuerverger), Comparative Education Review, 46(4), 522-525, 2002.

Review of: Education and the Arab World: Challenges of the Next Millennium, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 23(3), 396-404, 2001.

“The reconstruction of Palestinian education: Between history, policy politics and policy making”, The Journal of Education Policy, 15(3), 371-375, 2000.

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Courses Taught

EDST 429: Sociology of Education
EADM 501: Research Traditions in Educational Administration
EDST 508: Research Methods (with D. Fisher)
EDST 577: Educational Policy (with M. Stack)
EADM 582: Educational Organisations
EDST 565: Critical Theories of Education in Society
EDST 601B Doctoral Seminar in Advanced Methodologies in Education

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Editorial Activities

Malta Review of Educational Research
Member, International Advisory Board (2008-)

Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies
Member, International Board of Editors (1999-August 2008)
Member of the Executive Editorial Board (Since August 2008)

Canadian Journal of Higher Education
French Editor (January 2006 - December 2007)
Associate Editor (Since January 2006)

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Memberships

Faculty Associate, Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training

Senior Fellow, Qattan Centre for Educational Research and Development

Associate Fellow, Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research, University of Malta