Farida Makar

Leave to Supplicated Granted: November 2023

DPhil Research Topic

Progressive Education, Modern Schools and Egyptian Teachers, 1922-1956

My DPhil dissertation explores manifestations of progressive pre-university education in Egypt between 1922 and 1956. It occupies a hybrid position between intellectual and social history as it traces the making of a modern teaching profession in Egypt via an exploration of the profession's relationship to progressive pedagogy. The project re-examines the historiography on education in the Middle East by following teachers as the main historical interlocutors thereby unlocking previously underexplored pedagogical ideas, practices and experiences which complicate the view of education as a mere (simple) byproduct of nation-building. While the dissertation focuses on Egypt, it understands progressive education as a larger transnational movement which was prevalent in multiple geographies at the same time including India, Japan, Turkey, Argentina, Iraq, Palestine and Mexico.