Psychology in the Egyptian Classroom and Young Women's Empowerment

Abstract

Many psychology instructors approach the topic of gender with considerable resistance and apprehension (Weinstein and Obear). Some professors may be reluctant to incorporate gender issues into their psychology courses due to their fear of altering their teaching practices (Kowlaski). Others may be unable to present their views on gender in an unbiased way, so they avoid gender-related discussions (Ford, Grossman, and Jordan). This matter is even more complex in the Arab world because Arab traditions maintain a hierarchical order in the family, where dominance of male over female and older over younger is often observed (El-Islam). Accordingly, teaching a psychology course that covers gender issues in an Arab context may necessitate caution, tactfulness, and extreme sensitivity. In this paper, I argue that infusing gender issues into the contents of regular psychology courses may spark students’ interest in the subject and may also empower them. To illustrate this argument, I discuss a class assignment that was required of students enrolled in a Lifespan Development psychology course. This course examined environmental, cognitive, emotional, and socio-cultural influences on each major stage of human development from the moment of birth to the moment of death. I taught this course at a private university in Egypt, The American University in Cairo. The class met two times every week for a period of four months at the university campus in downtown Cairo. The language of instruction in this course was English, which is the official language of the university. All students who attended this course were young women: twenty-five were Egyptian and one was Palestinian.