Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Domains, questions, and directions
- 2 Language and literacy in Morocco
- 3 The cultural context of schooling
- 4 Doing fieldwork in Morocco
- 5 Learning to read in Arabic
- 6 Social factors in literacy acquisition
- 7 Beliefs and literacy
- 8 Learning to read in a second language and a second literacy
- 9 Functional literacy: School learning and everyday skills
- 10 School dropout and literacy retention: Out of school, out of mind?
- 11 Literacy and poverty
- 12 Linking research and policy
- 13 Literacy, culture, and development: Concluding thoughts about a changing society
- Appendix 1 Cognitive consequences of Quranic preschooling
- Appendix 2 Details of test construction
- Appendix 3 Parent interview
- Appendix 4 Student interview
- References
- Name index
- Subject index
- Plate section
3 - The cultural context of schooling
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Domains, questions, and directions
- 2 Language and literacy in Morocco
- 3 The cultural context of schooling
- 4 Doing fieldwork in Morocco
- 5 Learning to read in Arabic
- 6 Social factors in literacy acquisition
- 7 Beliefs and literacy
- 8 Learning to read in a second language and a second literacy
- 9 Functional literacy: School learning and everyday skills
- 10 School dropout and literacy retention: Out of school, out of mind?
- 11 Literacy and poverty
- 12 Linking research and policy
- 13 Literacy, culture, and development: Concluding thoughts about a changing society
- Appendix 1 Cognitive consequences of Quranic preschooling
- Appendix 2 Details of test construction
- Appendix 3 Parent interview
- Appendix 4 Student interview
- References
- Name index
- Subject index
- Plate section
Summary
[Quranic schooling] was held in mosques, or in rooms about the town belonging to them, … in which all sit on the ground, the teacher facing his pupils, whose bare pates are all within reach of the switch in his hand. Instead of books or slates, each one is provided with a thin board, narrowed to the lower end.… One of the bigger boys being set to teach them to write the alphabet which they have already been taught by ear, the letters are written out on the board for them to copy. The lessons are then read aloud by all together, rocking to and fro to keep time, some delighting in a high key, others jogging in lower tones. (Meakin, 1902: 304)
Most educational systems in the Third World have been heavily influenced by centuries of colonial rule, and Morocco is no exception. Though the Spanish influence in northern Morocco has diminished substantially since independence, the French educational system has provided the base on which much of Moroccan public education has been built.
And yet, the present educational system was preceded also by almost a thousand years of
Islamic education that provided a network of educational institutions that in some ways still exceeds the reach of modern public schooling. Both the modern and traditional systems of schooling have evolved over decades of contact between teachers, students, and pedagogies within Moroccan society. Competition and even rivalry are still apparent in the kinds of remarks made about these institutions, and no comprehensive picture of education or literacy in Morocco can be drawn without some understanding of each of them.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Literacy, Culture and DevelopmentBecoming Literate in Morocco, pp. 40 - 61Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994