Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Low social and political returns to education in the Arab world

962
Arab societies urgently need to start looking at how to improve education systems, not just in ways to improve the marketability of individuals but, as importantly, to improve their social and political impact on society. Drawing on evidence from the World Values Survey, this column argues for strengthening a sense of community, beefing up values of civic engagement, inculcating democratic principles, supporting gender equality and promoting social tolerance.

In a nutshell

The social and political returns to education are much lower in Arab countries than in the rest of the world.

Educated Arabs are much less emancipated by their education on political and social values compared with their global peers.

Unless policy-makers start focusing on reforming the type of education that Arab youth receive, it will remain difficult to foster more open societies.

Policy discussion in the Arab world has rarely focused on the social and political returns to education, areas that are of keen interest in more democratic countries. This is unfortunate: the evidence uncovered in my research is that the social and political returns to education are in fact much lower in Arab countries than in the rest of the world.

In other words, educated Arabs are much less emancipated by their education on political and social values compared with their global peers. This means that unless policy-makers and civil society groups start focusing on reforming the type of education that Arab youth receive, it will remain difficult to foster more open societies.

Measuring people’s values

My research makes use of unique data collected by the World Values Survey, a global opinion poll that gathers representative measures of a broad range of political and social values in a comparative context. Data collected between 2011 and 2013 include information for the first time on 12 Arab countries (in addition to 75 non-Arab countries): Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Tunisia and Yemen.

The data make it possible to examine the effect of education on five important values that can be measured at the individual level: preference for democracy over autocracy; the extent of engagement in civic action; the extent of respect for authority; support for the patriarchal system; and the extent of support for religious conservatism.

My empirical work reveals that when comparing the ‘average’ values in the Arab world with those of the rest of the world, the ‘average Arab’ experiences a deficit relative to the average global individual on each of these five values. The average Arab has a lower preference for democracy (with a gap of 11%), is less active civically (a gap of 8%), respects authority more (by 11%), values the patriarchal system more (by a whopping 30%) and is more religiously conservative (by 18%).

But we can also look more closely at the values of different types of Arabs, based, for example, on age, education and religiosity. Here, the data reveal that not every Arab experiences similar deficits on the five values. The key question has less to do with whether more educated Arabs are more ‘emancipated’ socially than uneducated Arabs, as they should be, but whether the gain in emancipation conferred by education is as large among Arabs as in the rest of the world.

Taking ‘emancipation’ to mean a higher preference for democracy, more civic action and a lower preference for patriarchy, authority and social conservatism, my analysis of the data reveals that while educated Arabs are more emancipated than uneducated Arabs, they are less emancipated than their global peers.

Indeed, educated Arabs experience the largest emancipation gap relative to educated global citizens. Instead of university education allowing Arab youth to catch up with their global counterparts, it actually increases the distance in their values.

What explains the emancipation gap of educated Arabs?

There is convincing research evidence that cultures differ in the extent to which they favour individualism versus collectivism, with Arab culture about mid-way between Anglo-Saxon individualism and Asian collectivism. But it is unlikely that the emancipation gap of educated Arabs compared with their global peers can be attributable to the effects of local culture.

After all, it seems more likely that when local culture fosters conservative values, this would occur among the poor and uneducated who tend to be more influenced by local culture than by ideas from the rest of the world. Conversely, under normal circumstances, the educated are likely to be more influenced by global than by local culture. Thus, to explain their more conservative values compared with similarly educated global individuals, one is led to point a finger at the type of education that Arabs receive.

Another possibility is that it is largely more conservative individuals that get schooled, especially at the university level. This must have happened in the part when education was reserved to the rich. But mass schooling campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, and the fast expansion of universities across the Arab world more recently, suggest that this type of adverse selection is no longer a possible explanation of the relative conservatism of students in the region.

Since education emancipates in the world on average, but fosters social and political conservatism in the Arab region, it is tempting to think that this happens by design – the result of a deliberate policy of using education in the Arab world as a tool of indoctrination, with the goal of consolidating autocracy. Indoctrination policies in education can be seen as an effort to use schooling to change individual preferences, in particular by fostering the values of political quietism and support for the status quo.

A review of the pedagogical literature on the Arab world reveals many indications of indoctrination at work – rote learning, a lack of interest in analytical capabilities, an exaggerated focus on religious values, the discouragement of self-expressive traits in favour of conformism and a lack of involvement by students in community affairs – all methods geared to inculcate values of obedience and lack of questioning authority.

Arab regimes had the will and the capacity to engage in such deep social engineering. Starting with the mass education movements of the 1960s, meritocratic education systems were increasingly turned into tools of the social re-engineering of society.

In the early days of independence, this engineering was in the service of a top-down version of nationalism, revolution and development. But over time, and as state-led modernisation efforts failed and governance became increasingly more autocratic, education policies and institutions were increasingly moulded towards more conservative ideals, the goals of which became narrower and increasingly less socially emancipative.

The policy implications are clear. Arab societies urgently need to start looking at how to improve education systems, not just in ways to improve the marketability of individuals, but also to improve their social and political impact on society. These include strengthening a sense of community, beefing up values of civic engagement, inculcating democratic principles, supporting gender equality and promoting social tolerance.

Further reading

Al-Issis, Mohamad, and Ishac Diwan (2016) ‘Individual Preferences for Democracy In the Arab World – Explaining the Gap’, ERF Working Paper No. 981.

Diwan, Ishac (2016) ‘Low Social and Political Returns to Education in the Arab World’, ERF Policy Brief No. 17.

Most read

EU climate policy: potential effects on the exports of Arab countries

The carbon border adjustment mechanism aims to ensure that Europe’s green objectives are not undermined by the relocation of production to parts of the world with less ambitious climate policies – but it could impose substantial costs on developing countries that export to the European Union. This column examines the potential impact on exporters in the Arab world – and outlines possible policy responses that could mitigate the economic damage.

Financial development, corruption and informality in MENA

Reducing the extent of informality in the Middle East and North Africa would help to promote economic growth. This column reports evidence on how corruption and financial development influence the size of the informal economy in countries across the region. The efficiency of the financial sector in MENA economies reduces the corruption incentive for firms to seek to join and stay in the formal sector.

Green hydrogen production and exports: could MENA countries lead the way?

The Arab region stands at the threshold of a transformative opportunity to become a global leader in green hydrogen production and exports. But as this column explains, achieving this potential will require substantial investments, robust policy frameworks and a commitment to technological innovation.

Climate change threats and how the Arab countries should respond

The Arab region is highly vulnerable to extreme events caused by climate change. This column outlines the threats and explores what can be done to ward off disaster, not least moving away from the extraction of fossil fuels and taking advantage of the opportunities in renewable energy generation. This would both mitigate the potential for further environmental damage and act as a catalyst for more and better jobs, higher incomes and improved social outcomes.

Child stunting in Tunisia: an alarming rise

Child stunting in Tunisia seemed to have fallen significantly over the past two decades. But as this column reports, new analysis indicates that the positive trend has now gone dramatically into reverse. Indeed, the evidence is unequivocal: the nutritional health of the country’s youngest citizens is rapidly deteriorating and requires immediate and decisive action.

Freedom: the missing piece in analysis of multidimensional wellbeing

Political philosophy has long emphasised the importance of freedom in shaping a meaningful life, yet it is consistently overlooked in assessments of human wellbeing across multiple dimensions. This column focuses on the freedom to express opinions, noting that it is shaped by both formal laws and informal social dynamics, fluctuating with the changing cultural context, particularly in the age of social media. Data on public opinion in Arab countries over the past decade are revealing about how this key freedom is perceived.

Exchange rate undervaluation: the impact on participation in world trade

Can currency undervaluation influence participation in world trade through global value chains (GVC)? This column reports new evidence on the positive impact of an undervalued real exchange rate on the involvement of a country’s firms in GVCs. Undervaluation acts as an economy-wide industrial policy, supporting the competitiveness of national exports in foreign markets vis-à-vis those of other countries.

New horizons for economic transformation in the GCC countries

The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have historically relied on hydrocarbons for economic growth. As this column explains ahead of a high-level ERF policy seminar in Dubai, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain and robotics – what some call the fourth industrial revolution – present a unique opportunity for the region to reduce its dependence on oil and make the transition to a knowledge-based economy.

Shifting public trust in governments across the Arab world

The Arab Spring, which began over a decade ago, was driven by popular distrust in governments of the region. The column reports on how public trust has shifted since then, drawing on survey data collected soon after the uprising and ten years later. The findings reveal a dynamic and often fragile landscape of trust in Arab governments from the early 2010s to the early 2020s. Growing distrust across many countries should raise concerns about future political and social instability.

Corruption in Iran: the role of oil rents

How do fluctuations in oil rents influence levels of corruption in Iran? This column reports the findings of new research, which examines the impact of increases in the country’s oil revenues on corruption, including the mechanisms through which the effects occur – higher inflation, greater public spending on the military and the weakness of democratic institutions.




LinkedIn