The National Identity Inculcation through Education in Kuwait- A Study of Elementary School Textbook ‘al-Tarbiyat al-Wataniyat wal-Tanshi’at al-Madaniyat’

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국중동학회
· 수록지 정보 : 한국중동학회논총 / 38권 / 1호 / 127 ~ 146페이지
· 저자명 : 김은지

초록

In recent years, there have been several debates on economic and social problems in the Gulf Cooperation Council(GCC) due to the imbalanced composition of the population. According to Ali, the whole national rate in GCC countries in 2010 was 41%, with UAE nationals only accounting for 12% of its population. Qatar and Kuwait follow 13% and 30% respectably (2012, 1). GCC governments recognize that this problem has been caused by the influx of foreign migrant population and the lack of economically active nationals in the private sectors or labor spots. Therefore governments implemented policies to nationalize the workforce.
Kuwait, one of the members of the GCC and third lowest national rate country, announced that the government will not issue a visa for new labor immigrants from 2013 and will control and reduce the number of immigrants from almost 3 million to 1 million in ten years (Trenwith 2013). There are not only an economic problems as has been noted earlier, but there are also social problems. As the number of immigrants increased, English became the universal language and other cultures were introduced into society. These other cultures have mixed with local Kuwaiti cultures and have had influence on local society. Kuwaitis, especially elders who experienced the establishment of their country and the Gulf War, started to raise concerns about their national identity and their loss of identity as Kuwaiti nationals, Arab and Muslim.
The Kuwaiti government has made efforts to keep their own identity and to reinforce it through educational policy and educational reforms. The national report ‘Development of Education in the State of Kuwait 2004-2008’, recently issued by the Ministry of Education, specifies reasons of educational reform politically, economically, socially and culturally. It explains that education contributes to obeying regulations, the constitution and democracy in political terms. Education also helps in encouraging citizenship and a feeling of belonging in society. In terms of culture, education strengthens national identity and positive thinking. In this context, the ministry of education emphasized the need to reform educational policy (The National Report, 23).
Previous studies on nationalization in GCC countries usually deal with economic reform or policy. As mentioned before, however, a way of nationalization to solidify national formation is not limited to the economic area. It has the ability to extend other areas such as political reform, society and education. This research will focus on the link between education and the nationalization of the Kuwaiti identity. It differs with previous studies which mainly focused on economic reform or policy. The aim of this study is to show how the Kuwaiti government educates their nationals to impose citizenship and proper national identity as a Kuwaiti.
There are many elements of education like curriculum, teaching method, learning activity, textbooks, etc. Though it is hard to handle all elements of education comprehensively, this research will be limited to an analysis of textbooks, especially elementary social studies textbooks. A school textbook is a universal medium, used to materialize educational curriculum and is combined with the social system or regulation and history. It also conveys a national identity (Kim 2014, 51; Rah 2007, 261). In this context, research on textbooks of the country is considered important work.
Recently, selection of history textbooks in Korea caused a big debate due to distortion of texts from the selected textbook. This kind of debate is not just unprecedented. Many countries have experienced similar events due to the importance of texts in history and social textbooks. Governments are continuing to make reforms to overcome this issue. The aim of this study is to highlight aspects of text itself from social textbooks in Kuwaiti elementary schools, especially government schools due to the fixed curriculum. Private schools in Kuwait do not adopt government textbooks and manage their own curriculum. Therefore, it is difficult to analyze data from every private school.
Discussion in this study will concentrate that aim on analyzing how government elementary school social textbooks in Kuwait are comprised of texts and images to embed national image. Chapter 1 have been demonstrated along with several points relating to the nationalization phenomenon in GCC countries, various variables that affect the scope of this study. Chapter 2 deals with a brief explanation of the correlation between textbooks and ideology, and gives a theoretical literature review of education reform or text analysis in the state of Kuwait and Arab countries.
Chapter 3 describes Kuwait’s elementary school curriculum and composition of textbooks. Then, texts and images in elementary school textbooks are dealt with in detail. This chapter also looks at contexts and narrative in regard to Kuwaiti national images, which reflect the intention of the Kuwaiti government. In the concluding chapter, this study briefly summarizes research results and its limitations.

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