Introduction

This chapter focuses on one of the significant tools in shaping national identity as well as public opinion in Egypt, namely education; other significant tools include the media and language. The education system is crucial in enforcing certain identities, whether pan-Arabism or cosmopolitan, which is marked linguistically through the use of grammar and discourses, prevalent in interpersonal communication. These markers include participants’ roles, positions and relationships (Ochs 1993: 424). Language, moreover, warrants attention as an object of study and a tool by which human memory is constituted, victims are identified, perpetrators are named, and group identity is formed. It is through language that we express feelings of solidarity with other groups, or alienation from the same groups. It is also through language that we define the boundaries of each group vis-à-vis other groups, not to mention that ‘knowing how to use language well and knowing when to intervene in language are two essential features of intellectual action’ (Said 1994: 20). The role of language will be discussed in the next chapter.

This chapter argues that education systems in Egypt have contributed to consolidating a two-tier society, intentionally or unintentionally, in as much as they are directly involved in stratifying citizens, not necessarily according to their intellectual abilities, but according to their socio-economic status.