Abstract
In 2013, thousands of Egyptians protested in the streets of Cairo in an effort to overthrow the country’s first democratically elected president only 1 year after he took office. Some of my acquaintances participated in those protests, chanting “we do not want democracy.” Several observers tried to analyze and understand this strange phenomenon of declining democracy after many Egyptians had waited so many years for it. However, using an autoethnographic method, I argue that any analysis of this phenomenon that does not include curriculum and education is inadequate. This autoethnographic essay argues that Egypt’s curriculum and its schooling system are fundamental factors that contributed to this phenomenon. Fundamentally, this paper discusses the theoretical and practical relationship between curriculum and democracy from an autoethnographic perspective by assessing the nature of this relationship both in democratic societies and in Egypt. Furthermore, an overview of the Egyptian educational system is provided to answer the basic question of this paper: why would some people reject democracy?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2012). Why nations fail: The origins of power, prosperity and poverty. New York, NY: Crown Publishers.
Amnesty International (2014). Egypt’s security forces are getting away with murder: Amnesty International oral statement to the 25th session of the un human rights council. (Index number: MDE 12/017/2014). Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde12/017/2014/en/.
Amnesty International (2016). Egypt’s security forces are getting away with murder: Amnesty International oral statement to the 25th session of the un human rights council. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/07/egypt-hundreds-disappeared-and-tortured-amid-wave-of-brutal-repression/.
Apple, M. (2009). Controlling the work of teachers. In D. J. Flinders & S. J. Thornton (Eds.), The curriculum studies reader (pp. 199–213). New York, NY: Routledge.
Carr, W. (1998). The curriculum in and for a democratic society. Curriculum Studies, 6(3), 323–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681369800200044.
Chomsky, N., & Macedo, D. (2004). Chomsky on miseducation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Cochran, J. (2008). Educational roots of political crisis in Egypt. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Dewey, J. (2004). Democracy and education. Delhi: Aakar Books.
Egan, K. (1978). What is curriculum? Curriculum Inquiry, 8(1), 65–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.1978.11075558.
Ellis, U. S. F. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. New York, NY: AltaMira Press.
Ellis, C. (2008). Autoethnography. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods: A-L (Vol. 2, pp. 48–51). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
Ellis, C., Adams, T. E., & Bochner, A. P. (2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 36, 273–290.
Freire, P., & Ramos, M. B. (2014). Pedagogy of the oppressed: 30th (anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Grumet, M. R. (2010). The public expression of citizen teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2), 66–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487109348344.
Hayano, D. (1979). Auto-ethnography: Paradigms, problems, and prospects. Human Organization, 38(1), 99–104.
Huebner, D. (1962). Politics and the curriculum. In D. Huebner, V. Hillis, & W. F. Pinar (Eds.), The lure of the transcendent: Collected essays by Dwayne E. Huebner (pp. 15–22). Taylor & Francis: Hoboken, NJ.
Huebner, D. (1964). Politics and curriculum. In D. Huebner, V. Hillis, & W. F. Pinar (Eds.), The lure of the transcendent: Collected essays by Dwayne E. Huebner (pp. 94–101). Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis.
Huebner, D. (1966). Curricular language and classroom meanings. In D. Huebner, V. Hillis, & W. F. Pinar (Eds.), The lure of the transcendent: Collected essays by Dwayne E. Huebner (pp. 101–117). Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis.
Huebner, D. E., Pinar, W. F., & Hillis, V. (1999). The lure of the transcendent: Collected essays by Dwayne E. Huebner. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jones, S. (2005). Autoethnography: Making the personal political. In D. Lincoln, N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln, N. K. D. Y. S. Lincoln, & Y. S. L. N. K. Denzin (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 763–791). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Khan, M. (2014). Islam, democracy and islamism after the counterrevolution in Egypt. Middle East Policy, 21(1), 75–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12058.
Khatab, S., & Bouma, G. D. (2007). Democracy in Islam. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Macdonald, J. B. (1971). Curriculum theory. The Journal of Educational Research, 64(5), 196–200.
Matar, A. (2009). Qasidat al-huria [Freedom poem]. Retrieved from http://www.mokarabat.com/s6379.htm.
Parray, T. A. (2012). “Islamic democracy” or democracy in Islam: Some key operational democratic concepts and notions. World Journal of Islamic History and Civilization, 2(2), 66–86.
Russell, B., Brittan, S., & Willis, K. (2004). Power: A new social analysis. New York, NY: Routledge.
Schou, L. R. (2001). Democracy in education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 20(4), 317–329. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011886727055.
Schumpeter, J. A. (2003). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. Retrieved from: https://eet.pixel-online.org/files/etranslation/original/Schumpeter,%20Capitalism,%20Socialism%20and%20Democracy.pdf
Silin, J. (1997). HIV/AIDS education: Towards a collaborative curriculum. In D. J. Flinders & S. J. Thornton (Eds.), The curriculum studies reader (pp. 224–246). New York, NY: Routledge.
Sulaiman, S. J. (1998). Democracy and Shura. In C. Kurzman (Ed.), Liberal Islam: A sourcebook (pp. 96–101). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Watt, W. M. (2003). Islam and the integration of society. London: Routledge.
Williams, R. (2001). The long revolution. New York, NY: Broadview Press.
Zheng, F. (2014). The implications of existentialist philosophy in the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions. Retrieved from http://stanfordfreedomproject.com/what-is-freedom-new-essays-fall-2014/the-implications-of-existentialist-philosophy-in-the-egyptian-and-tunisian-revolutions/.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Karkour, I. Why on Earth Would Some People Reject Democracy? An Autoethnographic Reflection on Education and Democracy in Egypt. Interchange 50, 305–319 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-019-09362-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-019-09362-4