saudi arabia and women in higher education and cultural dialogue

84 Pages·2010·3.71 MB·English

S
FACOLTÀ
DI SCIENZE POLITICHE R
CRiSSMA
CENTRO DI RICERCHE SUL SISTEMA SUD E IL MEDITERRANEO ALLARGATO
RESEARCH CENTRE ON THE SOUTHERN SYSTEM AND WIDER MEDITERRANEAN E
ANNEMARIEPROFANTERANDSTEPHANIERYANCATE
P
ELENAMAESTRIANDVALERIAFIORANIPIACENTINI
A
P
SAUDI ARABIA AND WOMEN
G
IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND
CULTURAL DIALOGUE
N
New Perspectives
I
K
With an Introduction by
Hatoon Al Fassi
R
O
CRiSSMA WORKING PAPER
N. 18 - 2010
W
CRiSSMA
CENTRO DI RICERCHE SUL SISTEMA SUD E IL MEDITERRANEO ALLARGATO
RESEARCH CENTRE ON THE SOUTHERN SYSTEM AND WIDER MEDITERRANEAN
SAUDI ARABIA AND WOMEN IN HIGHER
EDUCATION AND CULTURAL DIALOGUE
New perspectives
ANNEMARIE PROFANTER AND STEPHANIE RYAN CATE
ELENA MAESTRI AND VALERIA FIORANI PIACENTINI
With an Introduction by Hatoon Al Fassi

CRiSSMA WORKING PAPER
N. 18 – 2010
Milano 2010
CRiSSMA
CENTRO DI RICERCHE SUL SISTEMA SUD E IL MEDITERRANEO ALLARGATO
RESEARCH CENTRE ON THE SOUTHERN SYSTEM AND WIDER MEDITERRANEAN
All articles, whether commissioned or unsolicited, undergo peer review, based on initial in-house
screening and out-of-house anonymous refeereing.
© 2010 EDUCatt - Ente per il Diritto allo Studio Universitario dell’Università Cattolica
Largo Gemelli 1, 20123 Milano - tel. [phone] - fax [phone]
e-mail: [email protected] (produzione); [email protected] (distribuzione)
web: www.educatt.it/librario
ISBN: 978-88-8311-750-3
CONTENTS

Summary...........................................................................................................11
ﺔﺼﻼﺨ ................................................................................................................13
Introduction......................................................................................................17
A New Dawn for Women in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia:
Looming Changes on the Horizon................................................................25
1. Scenario 1: The Meeting of Minds and Cultures........................25
2. Scenario 2: To Be Or Not to Be …..................................................35
3. Scenario 3: One Step Forward Three Steps Back........................40
4. Scenario 4: Metaphysical Encounters
With Our Wonderful “Jeanies”.......................................................42
5. Scenario 5: I Can’t Drive 55.............................................................44
References...................................................................................................49
Forging Links through Education in the “Wider Mediterranean”.
Culture, History, Architecture and Arts in GCC-EU Cooperation........55
5
The Archaeological and Historical Park-Museum.
An Educational and Cultural Destination.................................................71
1. An Educational and Cultural Destination....................................73
2. There are Some Features That Are in Common…......................74
3. In Other Words, the Final Target Would be to Give Back
to the Civil Society a Sense of its Importance!.............................76
4. The Human Environment of a Park-Museum.............................78
4.1 Seeing Familiar and Vanishing Scenes With Fresh Eyes...78
4.1.1 Special Educational Aims............................................78
References...................................................................................................79

6
SAUDI ARABIA AND WOMEN
IN HIGHER EDUCATION
AND CULTURAL DIALOGUE
New Perspectives

Annemarie Profanter, Dr. Dr. Mag. MSc, holds a master’s degree in Psychology of
Education from the University of London and doctorates in both Education and Psy-
chology from the Leopold-Franzens-University in Innsbruck, Austria. She is a tenured
member of the Faculty of Education at the Free University of Bolzano. She has done
visiting lectureships and fellowships for such esteemed international institutions as “The
City University of Science and Information Technology” in Peshawar, Pakistan and the
American University affiliated, “Dhofar University” in Salalah, Sultanate of Oman, as
well as “Prince Mohammed University” in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She is cur-
rently working on projects dealing with Arab women’s changing identity conceptions in
the Gulf, as well as with processes of integration and migration in Europe with a num-
ber of esteemed Arabian and European colleagues.
Stephanie Ryan, Cate, MA, Doctoral Candidate Political Science/Sociology University
of Innsbruck Austria, is an American Scholar from North Carolina who has since 2000
resided in the Arabian Gulf doing fieldwork in various disciplines and teaching at differ-
ent Universities across the Arabian Peninsula. She held the position of associate chair of
the preparatory at Prince Mohammed Bin Fahad University in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia in the academic year 2007/2008 and has been affiliated with this renown private
university since then. She has done numerous projects in the Dhofar and Muscat re-
gions of Oman with both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Media and
Information as well as working closely with Kingdom Schools in their early develop-
ment in Riyadh, KSA. Her current research includes socio-political and cultural studies
involving gender, family, and urban impact.
9
Elena Maestri, Ph.D., is tenured researcher at the Faculty of Political Science of the
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milano, Italy) and assistant to the Chair of His-
tory and Institutions of the Muslim World. A frequent visitor to the Gulf, she gained
inside knowledge of the Gulf Arab countries from linguistic, historical, political and
socio-economic points of view. Her research focused in particular on tribal and family
dynamics, State-formation and State-building in the Arabian Peninsula, the GCC
States’ institutions and organisations, the non-oil industrialisation process, with specific
regard to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and human resources development in the area. She
contributed to specialised studies, research papers, articles and books and participated in
many international workshops and conferences in Europe and in the Gulf region.
Amongst her publications, the most recent one is the book “La regione del Gulf Coop-
eration Council (GCC). Sviluppo e sicurezza umana in Arabia” [The Gulf Cooperation
Council Region (GCC) Region. Development and Human Security in Arabia], Fran-
coAngeli, Milano 2009.
Valeria Fiorani Piacentini is Director of the CRiSSMA and Full Professor of History
and Institutions of Muslim Countries at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Fac-
ulty of Political Science), Milano, Italy. She has taught at various universities and she has
organized her scientific activity through extensive research in archives and specialized
libraries and through field-work in many Asian Muslim countries. Since 1986, she is
also Scientific Director of a multidisciplinary-interdisciplinary Research-Project focused
on “Patterns of Settlement in Makran and Kharan (Baluchistan)”, and “History of Peo-
pling of the Gulf Region”. She is author and editor of a great number of publications.
Among her monographs: Turchizzazione e Islamizzazione dell’Asia Centrale (VI-XVI
sec. d.Cr.) [Turkisation and Islamisation of Central Asia – 6th-16th Centuries AD],
vol. n.33 – Series of “Nuova Rivista Storica”, Dante Alighieri ed., Roma-Città di Castel-
lo, 1974; L’Emporio e il Regno di Hormoz. Vicende storiche, problemi e aspetti di una ci-
viltà costiera del Golfo Persico [The Emporium and Kingdom of Hormuz. History and
Cultural Aspects of a Coastal Civilisation of the Persian Gulf], Istituto Lombardo –
Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, Memorie XXXV,1, Milano 1975; Merchants, Merchan-
dise and Military Power in the Persian Gulf (Suriyanj/Shahriyaj – Siraf), Atti della Ac-
cademia Nazionale dei Lincei – Memorie – ser. IX, vol.3, Roma 1992; Islam. Logica del-
la fede e logica della conflittualità, [Islam. Logics of Faith and Logics of Conflicts], Fran-
coAngeli, Milano 2003.
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SUMMARY

This volume collects some female educational perspectives, with
special focus on Saudi Arabia.
The introduction is by Hatoon Al Fassi, a Saudi historian originally
from Makkah, who is specialist in women’s history at King Saud Uni-
versity (Riyadh) and at Qatar University (Doha). She published books
and articles in Arabic and in English on historical, social, economic,
educational and political issues, with special reference to women’s is-
sues, rights in Islam and reforms in her country. Hatoon Al Fassi deliv-
ers much-needed insight into the lively debate open in Saudi society on
crucial issues, such as the educational process and identity formation,
and she remarks very significantly that in Saudi Arabia the crisis of
identity is often justified by a “Saudi particularity”, which can also ex-
plain the difficulties that some local social forces are facing “in dealing
with modernity”.
Identity in the region is a vital issue and the archaeological and his-
torical Park-Museum emerges as a possible pathway towards building
identity through education: it is one of the promising projects, as pre-
sented in this volume, which, if adopted in Saudi Arabia by the Com-
mission for Tourism and Antiquities, can also contribute effectively to
strengthen cultural links between our peoples.
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