Stanford University Press Blog

The Education Revolution

A century ago the average person was illiterate. Advances in education since then have wrought drastic changes the world over.

by DAVID P. BAKER

When most people discuss education, they talk about reforming it. At the primary level, people want to save failing schools (the current debates around the Common Core State Standards comes to mind). At the higher education level, many worry that Americans are becoming overeducated—that the bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma; some have even argued that too much education stifles creativity. Yet these discussions don’t situate education in its broader context: if we recall that just about 100 years ago the average person was illiterate, we may think of education differently.

Because of education about 80 percent of the world’s population can now read and write a short essay about their lives. Beyond primary education, approximately 20% of the world’s youth enrolls in higher education. In the early 20^th century we thought nothing of a student dropping out of high school; in many ways it was the norm. But by the end of the century (infamously marked through the 1983 government report A Nation at Risk) the idea of dropping out of high school was tantamount to failure. Education has changed the concept of youth, adulthood, and the life course.

In the 1960s and 1970s, several scholars started writing about an impending crisis; they warned that mass education at all levels (primarily through university) would lead to an overeducated population. These scholars warned that providing access to higher education en masse would lead to whole societies of overeducated and underemployed citizens and, ultimately, social unrest. However, rather than overeducation, we see that economies and labor markets change to adapt to the changes in education levels and skills.

The Origin Story of the Muslim Brotherhood

Author Beth Baron describes how one of today's most notorious and polarizing organizations first came to be.

Q:

You describe the Muslim Brotherhood as emerging from a battle “for the bodies and souls of Egypt’s children”—can you elaborate on that? What motivated the formation of this group?

A:

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928 as an Islamic reform organization to combat British colonialism and Westernization as well as the inroads of missionaries. American and other missionaries had started a network of social welfare institutions—hospitals, clinics, schools, and orphanages—as sites where they could spread the message of the gospel. Orphanages became particularly contentious sites, for missionaries had discovered that children who were not under parental care were relatively easy targets for conversion.

An Egyptian orphanage established by Christian missionaries

 

New Flashpoint, Old Conflict: Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Divide

6 books that offer insightful context for the Israreli-Palestinian conflict.

by KATE WAHL

Over the course of the past few weeks, the murders of four teenagers—three Israeli, and one Palestinian—have sparked a firestorm of upheaval and violence, redoubling ethnic antagonisms in the already fractious region. In the interest of providing context and insight for both the acute and chronic tensions shaping the intractable Israeli-Palestinian schism, our Middle East Studies Editor, Kate Wahl, has compiled a handful of select titles to shed light on the escalating conflict. 

Considering the occupation

Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine

Even as we’re decades into the occupation—since 1967—most people speak of this rule, both in everyday political discussion and in legal and academic debates, as temporary, as a state of affairs incidental and external to the Israeli regime. Many Israelis, on both the political right and left, agree that the occupation constitutes a problem for Israeli democracy, but few would ultimately question the very structure of the Israeli regime itself and whether Israel is a democracy. 

Too frequently ignored in debates about occupation are considerations of how the events of 1948 and 1967 have reinforced the sweeping militarization and recent racialization of Israeli society. Looking closely at the history and contemporary formation of the ruling apparatus—the technologies and operations of the Israeli army, the General Security Services, and the legal system imposed in the Occupied Territories—one can see the “one-state condition” of Israel/Palestine: the grounding principle of Israeli governance is the perpetuation of differential rule over populations of differing status.

Fútbol in Argentina: A Common Passion for a Country of Immigrants

Fútbol has provided a unique arena for immigrants to immerse themselves in Argentinian culture.

by RAANAN REIN

Colombia's President, Juan Manuel Santos, asked Colombia's soccer coach, the Jewish-Argentine Jose Pekerman, to stay on after leading the national squad to and through the most successful World Cup in history. Pekerman is the most recent example of Jewish Argentines' involvement in football since its early days in South America.

There was no Hank Greenberg, Red Auerbach, Moe Berg, or Mark Spitz in Argentina, although this does not mean that no Jews made names for themselves in Argentine sports. Prominent Jewish footballers have included, among others, Leopoldo Bard, the first team captain and president of River Plate; Ezra Sued, a striker on both the Racing and national teams; Aaron Werfiker, stopper on the River and national teams (his fellow players had trouble pronouncing his name, so they called him “Pérez”); Miguel Reznik, who played for Huracán; and, more recently, Juan Pablo Sorín, midfielder for River as well as a Spanish team. All these figures challenge the still very common myth that Jews did not participate in Argentine football.  At any rate, simply buying a ticket to a game, learning the names of all the members of a team, following the sport in the media, or rooting for your favorite team or player was enough to make you an active participant in Argentine popular culture.

Club Atlético Atlanta is a predominantly Jewish fútbol club, and still today a fan favorite for Argentina's Jewish fútbol fans; pictured here in 1936

Most books about Argentine football tend to claim that religious and ethnic differences have not been issues in Argentina's national sports. This claim is not confined to sports history. The fact is that many intellectuals in Latin America reject ethnicity as a significant analytical category (unless they are discussing the indigenous population or people of African descent), even if they themselves are part of an ethnic minority. Thus, football is presented as a channel of social mobility based on talent alone and as the sport that best represents some of the most cherished Argentine values and character traits, irrespective of the players’ ethnic origins.

A Harbinger for Hindu Hegemony

The recent election of the Hindu nationalist BJP seems likely to further erode cultural pluralism and minority rights in India.

by NARENDRA SUBRAMANIAN

In India’s recent national elections, a single party gained the majority of the seats in the lower house of parliament for the first time since 1984. That party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has consistently aimed to consolidate the Indian nation around certain elite Hindu cultures and marginalize religious minorities, gained its highest ever vote share (31.0%, compared to 18.8% in the last elections of 2009) and now rules the country on its own for the first time.

Its majoritarian goals contrast with the way the Congress Party, which preceded the BJP in power, presents itself.  The Congress party’s rhetoric upholds pluralism and the formation of India from diverse yet overlapping religious and ethnic cultures. The ascent of the BJP could seriously erode pluralism. Without the potentially moderating effect of operating in a coalition with other parties, the BJP seems likely to heighten the Hindu majoritarian tendencies that have existed since independence, and increase minority marginalization and religious violence.

Posters in support of Narendra Modi put up in Mumbai pic.twitter.com/Kwxfb9AhTI

— ANI (@ANI_news) July 18, 2013