Kuwait schoolchildren — Danita Delimont / Alamy Stock Photo

In 2006, Kuwait became the first country in the Gulf region to add an explicit human rights component to its national curriculum. One of the most politically democratic Gulf states, Kuwait aspires to create through formal education a ‘knowledge economy’ built on the recognition, agency and action of its citizens. This project explores how schools in Kuwait teach about citizenship, gauging teacher and student perspectives on school life, and on discourses of rights and democratic citizenship they encounter in Kuwaiti media and society.

Using focus group, surveys, media content analysis and critical discourse analysis, the project explores the tensions and challenges of 21^st century citizenship identity and practice formation in Kuwait, attempting to understand how schools as sites of citizenship formation reflect, resist or assimilate different and sometimes competing conceptions of citizenship across Kuwaiti society. Contrasting the experiences of young people and adults in schools with analyses of contemporary media discourses on citizenship in Kuwait, the project will generate new understandings of how pedagogy and mediated discourses influence young people’s civic perspectives and identities. The study intends to generate an evidence base to inform policymaking for a renewed form of citizenship education that will aid the Kuwaiti agenda to be a more democratic, knowledge-based society.

Outputs

Rania Al-Nakib, Sam Mejias, Abdullah al-Khonaini and Rana Khazbak, 'Seen But Not Heard: Youth Citizenship Identities and Participation in Kuwait', LSE Kuwait Programme webinar, 8 December 2021.

Sam Mejias and Rana Khazbak, ‘Between national pride and critical inquiry: Citizenship education and youth perspectives in Kuwait’, and Rania Al-Nakib and Abdullah al-Khoneini ‘Kuwaiti Youth and Evolution of the “Democratic Diwaniya”’, Middle East Studies Association conference presentations, 29 November 2021.