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This paper explores the possibilities of engaging in cross-disciplinary research to generate social studies curricula that disrupt singular historical constructions about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), specifically for US high school teachers and students. As part of a larger multi-sited study that investigated and analyzed the common categories used to describe and teach MENA in US World History textbooks, the team engaged in multidisciplinary scholarship on the region to (1) review and analyze the five most widely adopted high school World History textbooks in the US; (2) share analyses with researchers and experts in the fields of MENA studies, history, and religion; (3) synthesize and integrate innovative scholarship on the region for potential curricula; and (4) generate robust alternative curricula for Grades 9-12 teachers. The authors, consequently, consider how educational research spurs innovative and culturally relevant curricular interventions for high school teachers. We argue thorough analysis of existing textbooks, informed by deep understandings of contested versions of historical events, should undergird social studies curriculum development. We suggest multidisciplinary and transnational collaboration can inform curricula in order to respond critically to singular narrations of peoples, cultures, and histories of a region.

Contrasts a group of exporters based on their choice of traditional versus newer export markets. Uses a sample of 88 Turkish exporters, contrasting the two groups (traditional and export) with respect to: organizational and resource characteristics; information use behaviour; criteria used in assessment of export markets; and levels of involvement in international market research. Reveals that the results indicate a lack of a planned systemic approach to exporting from both groups.

This chapter discusses the extension of legal equality between male and female citizens in four states in North Africa – Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria – through one specific lens: A married woman's legal capacity to initiate and obtain divorce without the husband's consent. Building on the works of Stein Rokkan and Reinhard Bendix on the expansion of citizenship to the ‘lower classes’, it is argued that amendments in divorce law by introducing in-court divorce for women, in addition to out-of-court divorce, is a significant institutional change that extends legal equality between men and women. The introduction of in-court divorce expands female citizenship by bolstering woman's juridical autonomy and capacity in state law. Changes in divorce laws are thus part of state centralization by means of standardizing rules that regulate family law through public administrative institutions rather than religious organizations. Two questions are addressed: First, how did amendments in divorce laws occur after independence? Second, in which ways did women's bolstered legal capacity in divorce have a spill over effect on reforms in other patriarchal state laws? Based on observations on sequences of change in four states in North Africa, it is argued that amendments that equalize between men and women in divorce should be seen as a key driver for reforms in other state laws, that reduce legal inequality between male and female citizens. In all four states, women's citizenship was extended in nationality law and criminal law after amendments in divorce law gave women unilateral legal power to exit a marital relationship.

This chapter offers a survey of education development in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), and how the different crises have changed the global dynamics in education. This chapter first gives an overview of the regional context and the history of education in the region, followed by a discussion of the education developments in the region as shaped by the economic growth of high-income countries and the political upheavals in low-income countries. MENA states have made huge investments in their educational systems through implementing major changes in the education policies and introducing initiatives to improve the quality of education in their countries. However, the educational system in the region has not reaped the benefits of these reforms as it has not met the desired goals. The quality of students’ learning is very low as reflected in the poor rating by international assessments such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS. Structural educational reforms to foster citizenship and civic responsibility are urgently needed. Good governance of the education systems of the MENA countries, a critical thinking skills-based curriculum and strong market-oriented skills and vocational training programs are necessary for MENA to become economically competitive and reliably democratic.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.