ArticlePDF Available

English, super-diversity, and identity in the State of Qatar

April 2018
World Englishes 37(1)

April 2018
37(1)

Authors:

Texas A&M University at Qatar

This article provides a contemporary profile of English, or Englishes thereof, in the State of Qatar, a tiny country undergoing tremendous socio‐cultural transformations. The historical background section contextualizes Qatar's contemporary linguistic ‘super‐diversity’ as a continuity of mobility, integration, and exchange with various communities within and beyond the shores of the Arab/Persian Gulf for centuries. We describe Qatar's present‐day sociolinguistic situation, English language policy initiatives and reforms in the educational context, and take a critical stance toward the common homogenizing view of English and Arabic language in the region, one that precludes a nuanced understanding in terms of wider cultural and linguistic processes taking place and shaping identities in Qatar today.

Content uploaded by Sara Hillman

Content may be subject to copyright.

Received: 14 June 2017 Revised: 20 February 2018 Accepted: 20 February 2018

DOI: 10.1111/weng.12312

PAPER

English, super-diversity, and identity in the State

of Qatar

Sara Hillman1Emilio Ocampo Eibenschutz2

1Texas A&M University at Qatar, Liberal Arts

2Cornell University, College of Arts and Sciences

Correspondence

Sara Hillman, Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University

at Qatar,PO Box 23874, Education City Doha,

Qatar.

Email: sara.hillman@qatar.tamu.edu

Abstract

This article provides a contemporary profile of English, or Englishes

thereof, in the State of Qatar, a tiny country undergoing tremen-

dous socio-cultural transformations. The historical background sec-

tion contextualizes Qatar's contemporary linguistic ‘super-diversity’

as a continuity of mobility, integration, and exchange with various

communities within and beyond the shores of the Arab/Persian Gulf

for centuries. We describe Qatar's present-day sociolinguistic situ-

ation, English language policy initiatives and reforms in the educa-

tional context, and take a critical stance toward the common homog-

enizing view of English and Arabic language in the region, one that

precludes a nuanced understanding in terms of wider cultural and lin-

guistic processes taking place and shaping identities in Qatar today.

1INTRODUCTION

Analyzing the roles, forms, and statuses of English in a more visibly interconnected world with rapidly increasing and

diverse kinds of migration flows has become a task that requires a critical reconceptualization of important questions

related to languages themselves, language groups and speakers, language policy and planning, English language teach-

ing (ELT), and identity (Blommaert, 2010; Duarte & Gogolin, 2013; Saraceni, 2015). It is within this context of moving

away from traditional categories of ‘homogeneity, stability and boundedness’ (Blommaert & Rampton, 2011, p. 4) that

we aim to take a closer look at English, or Englishes thereof, within a country that, despite being at the crossroads of

the oldest trade routes in the world, has not until recently received international attention, mostly as a result of its

contemporary geopolitical importance as the world's premier exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the heart of

the Arab/Persian Gulf and as host of the 2022 World Cup.

The State of Qatar, often overlooked for its miniscule size and location in a small peninsula bordering only Saudi

Arabia by land and the waters of the Gulf, has distinguished itself in key areas and become the epitome of a global mar-

ketplace with demographic structures that have historically invited the migration of an array of peoples from virtually

all corners of the world and continue to this day. English is everywhere in Qatar—as a language of administration, busi-

ness, and commerce; as a lingua franca; as a language taught in schools from kindergarten; as the medium of instruction

in most institutes of higher education and many K-12 international schools; and perhaps emerging as a new variety in

the region. As English operates in a context of linguistic ‘super-diversity’ (Nebel, 2017; Vertovec, 2007) though, Qatar

‘offers an important example of an emerging global educational site that resists some of the basic categories’ (Nebel,

Worl d Engl is hes 2018;1–20. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/weng c

2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1

2HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

2017, p. 28) such as ‘first-language’ (L1) vs. ‘second-language (L2) users of English, ‘native’ vs. ‘nonnative’ speakers of

English, ‘local’ vs. ‘foreign’. Language is intrinsically linked to the processes of globalization and Qatar, in this respect, is

a fascinating case-study of ‘the sociolinguistics of globalization’ and ‘the myriad ways in which global processes enter

local conditions and circumstances and become a localized reality’ (Blommaert, 2010, p. 197).

Qatar has also gained recent international attention for its diplomatic crisis. As of June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the

United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt, abruptly cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, and imposed an air,

sea, and land blockade, claiming Qatar supports and funds terrorism and criticizing its relations with Iran. These events

and the possible breakdown of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as new alliances form across the region, further

reveal that Qatar has a unique identity in the region. This article therefore addresses a gap in the literature by providing

a contemporary profile of English in the sociolinguistic context of Qatar, a country that is too often just lumped together

with other Gulf States, but is deserving of its own space (Fromherz, 2012). To date, there are no studies in the journal

World Englishes focused specifically on Qatar and very few on the Arab Gulf in general. We fill this gap by sketching

some general historical considerations in order to show that mixing of peoples and languages in Qatar is not new and

was also very much part of the pre-oil discovery era. We then describe Qatar's present-day sociolinguistic situation,

English language policy initiatives and reforms in the educational context, and takea critical stance toward the common

homogenizing view of English and Arabic language in the region, one that precludes a nuanced understanding in terms

of wider cultural and linguistic processes taking place and shaping identities in super-diverse Qatar today. We conclude

by offering some future research directions for examining world Englishes in Qatar. We infuse our critical overview of

English in Qatar with some observations from the authors’ experiences living and teaching in Qatar as well as data we

have obtained from an ongoing longitudinal study we are conducting examining the linguistic profiles and educational

experiences of Qatari students at international branch campuses (IBCs) in Qatar. Data has been collected thus far from

85 Qatari students over a period of 3 years via a background questionnaire, interviews, focus groups, and classroom

field notes. These examples shed further light on the linguistic realities and complexities of English and identity in the

country.

2THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The sociolinguistics of the global marketplace phenomenon, understood in terms of its integration into a modern ‘glob-

alized’ economy (Blommaert, 2010), cannot be fully nuanced without recognizing Qatar's long history in relation to the

body of water that is the Gulf, and wider routes of exchange connecting it to South and East Asia, Africa, the Middle

East, and Europe. The historical processes leading to Qatar's contemporary demographic structure and sociolinguis-

tic context allow us to trace the influence of Indian English and British English on Gulf dialects to the pre-oil period

(Holes, 2004, p. 307) as well as other Indian, Iranian, and African languages. Most of the limited, albeit existing, lit-

erature on Qatar focuses on the discovery of hydrocarbons—which gave rise to Qatar's natural gas production—as

the single most important part of the country's history influencing every single aspect of its society. However, histori-

cal sources, including historiography and material culture, point towards a very long history of translocal movements

and influences dating back millennia that have also very much shaped Qatar today (Carter, 2005). Qatari nationals

are descended from a number of migratory tribes including Bedouins which came from various nomadic tribes of the

Arabian Peninsula, Hadar which have roots in the regions of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and those of African ori-

gins. While it is beyond the scope of this article to give a detailed historical review, this section briefly explains key

developments that help to contextualize the contemporary sociolinguistic setting as a byproduct of mobility, integra-

tion, and exchange with various communities within and beyond the shores of the Gulf.

Qatar's modern history can be traced back to the establishment of various pearling and fishing settlements at the

end of the 18th century. The peninsula's position within different networks of exchange facilitating the movement of

goods, peoples, and ideas, was to inevitably shape its modern demographics. The Indian Ocean world, and the quest

to control its trade routes, contributed to the multidirectional flow of seasonal economic migrants, divers, fishermen,

merchants, agents, and slaves connecting, through regional and long-distance trade, the Arab shores of the Gulf to

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 3

Persia, Baluchistan, the Indian Subcontinent, the Swahili Coast, and South East and East Asia. The Gulf's maritime com-

munities were thus characterized by a ‘medley of races and racial blends’ (Wilson, 1981/1928, p. 8) and languages and

dialects. Towards the mid-19th century, the British East India Trading Company established its hegemony over the

Indian Ocean trade. With the signing of a British-led maritime truce treaty that halted intra-Gulf disputes over the con-

trol of the pearling banks, the Al-Thanifamily, part of the Banu Tamim tribe, was to be politically positioned as the chief

group controlling the peninsula. The geostrategic position of the Gulf attracted the British government to establish, by

the end of the century, a network of protectorates, which were politically and economicallysituated under the control

of British India. These would allow them to consolidate their control vis-à-vis the growing Ottoman influence over the

Gulf principalities (Commins, 2012). At the end of the 19th century, and all the way to the beginning of the 20th, a rise

in the global demand for pearls was to integrate the Gulf pearling towns to a capitalist global economy (Carter, 2005).

This period saw the consolidation of various towns, shaping the modern urban configuration of arguably every single

Arab Gulf city. Doha, the capital of the modern nation-state of Qatar, grew considerably to become a mercantile mar-

itime port sustained by the growing revenues from the pearling industry. While pearling was indeed the main industry,

it is important to mention that the procurement of basic resources, specifically food and water through trade, which

brought multiple cultures and languages in contact, has always been a fundamental aspect regulating settlement and

migration to, and from, Qatar (Ocampo Eibenschutz, 2015).

By the second decade of the 20th century, the Gulf's pearling centers faced international competition as a result

of the Japanese development of cultured pearls. This, coupled with global transformations, mainly World War I and

an economic depression, was to bring a period of relative stagnation to the Gulf. Despite the virtual halt of the local

pearling industry, tradecontinued as evidenced by 35 years of trade reports (Tuson,1987). What these historical devel-

opments tell us in terms of linguistics is that ‘translingual practices’ (Canagarajah, 2013, p. 36) have always been perva-

sive in the region and for a ‘long period on the Gulf coast two types of dialects [Arab and non-Arab] have been in close

contact and, to some degree, depending on the location one is talking about, in conflict’ (Holes, 2011, p. 132). By the

time oil explorations began, the Gulf towns were situated at the heart of British interests and were already established

as multicultural entrepôts with multiple languages and dialects intersecting. A ‘mass of English borrowings’ entered

Gulf Arabic around this time and Indians had already left a ‘linguistic footprint on Gulf Arabic, especially in the vocab-

ulary of domestic life, clothing, food, and office terminology’ (Holes, 2011, p. 140). However, according to Fromherz

(2012, p. 11) by 1939, South Asians had been temporarily expelled from Qatar and the 39 per cent of the population

that were considered ‘foreigners’ in Qatar were from Africa, originally slaves. There were also some 5,000 Persians

involved in merchant activities that were the only independent ‘foreign’ group. Fromherz refers to both Persians and

Africans as ‘historic expatriate populations’ in Qatar. Qatar started exporting its first barrels of oil by the end of 1949,

and from then on, it was oil, and later LNG, the main resource sustaining its economy. The period ranging from the dis-

covery of oil to the withdrawal of the British and the establishment of the State of Qatar in 1971 saw important infras-

tructural developments fomenting new waves of migration to develop the oil sector and various industries’ byproduct

of its revenues (Ocampo Eibenschutz, 2015). Despite Qatar being a British protectorate until 1971, the British pres-

ence was always remote until more recently and the use of English beyond loanwords in Qatar is typically not asso-

ciated to the British colonial experience (Suleiman, 2003). Before this period, there had been lingua francas based on

Hindi/Urdu and Swahili, and it was not uncommon for British oil conglomerates to use Arabic as a lingua franca. This

began to change around the 1950s as more expatriates came for technical, professional, and management positions

and used English (Boyle, 2014, p. 316).

The subsequent decades witnessed the oil boom and the establishment of the LNG industry, both of which were

to give the ruling family the means to transform and modernize the country and attract an even larger number of

migrants. In 1995, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, Qatar's former ruler, overthrew his father through a blood-

less coup and started a series of modernizing reforms that were to last until this day. Since the 1990s, with the rise in

political and economic influence of the USA (Albirini, 2016, p. 85), coupled with the emergence of a global ELT indus-

try and the discovery of oil in the Gulf—and the Western quest to control its reserves, English began to penetrate the

public and private institutional life of the Gulf states (Karmani, 2005). Along with this, came Western monolingual lan-

guage ideologies. Along similar lines, the media in Qatar, and more specifically Al-Jazeera, followed the modernizing

4HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

reforms implemented by Sheikh Hamad becoming ‘the first Arabic TV station based on Arab soil that is expressly crit-

ical of Arab regimes and governments and even dares insult them occasionally’ (Bahry, 2001, p. 88) in 1996. Follow-

ing the launch of Al-Jazeera Arabic news, Al-Jazeera English started broadcasting in 2006. Al-Jazeera English was the

first English-language news channel to have its headquarters in the Middle East and its aim is to use the language of

global commerce—English—but to eschew its ‘Anglo-American’ worldview.1Until recently, Al-Jazeera English seldom

dealt directly with Qatari politics. However, as part of the 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis, Al-Jazeera English has played

an important role as a de facto mouthpiece for Qatar's government and its reporting has been defensive and defiant

toward the countries imposing the blockade on Qatar. Notably, Al-Jazeera English has been extremely important given

its international position as a branding mechanism for Qatar and promoting an image of an idealized version of the

country. The present Emir, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al Thani, who is the son of Sheikh Hamad, ascended to power in

2013. While he was to continue his father's vision, he has done so through a more conservative approach increasingly

concerned with safeguarding the country's traditions and heritage,2an important task in nation-station formation and

of particular relevance within a demographically imbalanced population. This has had clear implications on the roles

and statuses of the English language as well as other languages used within the country, which we dissect more in the

following sections.

3THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT

3.1 Demographics

When examining language use in Qatar, it is imperative to consider the country's demographic structures. There has

been a particularly massive expansion of the diversity of languages in use since 2003, as expatriates have flocked to

Qatar to work within the growing oil and gas industry and the development of a booming infrastructural sector. Even

more recently, Qatar's winning bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup has led the government to import massive groups

of unskilled laborers, mostly from South Asia, to work on construction projects like stadiums, roads, hotels, and malls

(Barnawi, 2018). Based on the latest United Nations estimates,3Qatar's population, as of December 2017, is 2,665,187

and it continues to grow at an incredibly fast rate—in the past decade, there has been a 124 per cent growth in its pop-

ulation (Ibnouf, Dou, & Knight, 2014). There is no demographicdata on population by nationality or ethnicity published

by the government in Qatar, but based on data collected from embassies in 2017 as part of a consultancy project,4

Qatari nationals now number only 12 per cent of the total population at 313,000 and are becoming an increasingly

smaller minority within their country. Indians and Nepalis each surpass this number, with 650,000 (25%) and 350,000

(13.5%) respectively. After Qatari nationals, come Bangladeshis (10.8%), Filipinos (10%), Egyptians (8.6%), Sri Lankans

(5.6%), and Pakistanis (4.8%). Other sizable groups (between 20,000 and 54,000) include people from other Arab coun-

tries (Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Tunisia), Indonesia, Iran, UK, and Ethiopia. There are approximately

87 different nationalities currently residing in Qatar and the population of some groups, such as the Bangladeshis,

has increased by more than 100 per cent in the past three years. These demographic fluctuations are largely depen-

dent on Qatar's labor agreements with other countries and thus, there continue to be significant population shifts

every year.

In this article, when we use the term ‘Qatari national’, it means a Qatari passport holder. We use the terms ‘non-

Qataris’, ‘expatriates’ and ‘migrants’ interchangeably, but are well aware that these terms often carry class and racial

meanings. Like Vora (2012, p. 790) describes in the UAE context, ‘expatriates’ or ‘expats’ often index ‘western-educated,

middle-class, English-speaking people, and decidedly not the scores of South Asian “migrants” who are the subject of

Human Rights Watch reports and government and private-sector efforts to “clean up” neighborhoods and malls’. These

kinds of expatriates in Qatar typically benefit from the racial and class stratification that exists as opposed to the neg-

ative effects that many unskilled Southeast Asian laborers feel (Theodoropoulou, 2015, p. 54).

It is also imperative to mention that until very recently, expatriates, both Arab and non-Arab, skilled or unskilled,

who have resided long-term in Qatar, could not apply for citizenship. Neither could families in which the mother is

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 5

Qatari but the father is not. This means they do not receive the benefits of generous government subsidies, state jobs,

land grants, and sponsorship for university education. Yet, Qatar is the only home that many of these people, especially

the younger generations born in Qatar, have ever known. Thus, there has always also been a subset population that is

historically and culturally ‘local’ too, for example some Iranian communities, but they have been viewed as peripheral

to Arab Qatari nationals and their population numbers have been largely unreported and lumped together with

country of family's origin. These ‘postmigrants’ (Yildiz, as cited in Nebel, 2017, p. 31) are distinct from the more recent

waves of expatriates coming to the country and complicate what exactly it means to be ‘local’ or ‘Qatari’ and who

determines this. Largely due to the recent diplomatic crisis of the blockade against Qatar, some changes appear to

be happening as Qatar plans to approve a law to allow ‘children of Qatari women married to non-Qataris, as well as

expatriates who provide outstanding services to Qatar’ to apply for Qatari citizenship’.5A draft law is also in place to

allow non-Qataris to own and use real estate under certain conditions. The blockade has led to a greater unification

between nationals and expatriates in the country with slogans like, ‘we are all Qatar’ displayed everywhere and

expatriates expressing their love for the country. Additionally, the loss of tourism from Saudi Arabia and UAE, as well

as falling oil prices, has led Qatar to concentrate more heavily on increasing tourism and many more nationalities

are now eligible to receive visas upon arrival. These changes will likely impact the demographics and sociolinguistics

even more.

3.2 Languages

Arabic and English are the dominant languages of Qatar and are currently the only languages receiving any attention.

Although Arabic is the official language of Qatar, its socio-political, cultural, and economic structures makes English

the de facto second official language in Qatar and the most prestigious lingua franca for day-to-day social interactions

and business transactions among both non-Arabic and Arabic speakers alike. Anecdotal evidence and observations

suggest that different varieties of English around the world have presence and representation in the local context.

While English tends not to be indexically-associated with any particular nationality or culture in Qatar, it does have

cultural and linguistic capital and is an instrument of power (Bourdieu, 1986, 1991). Arabic as the national language

is also endowed with power and authority. The legal system and most government administration offices function pri-

marily in Arabic. It is quite common to see expatriates posting various Arabic documents, such as traffic violations,

onto an expatriate Facebook support group in Qatar called, ‘When, Where, & How in Doha’ pleading for translation

from Arabic to English. Arabic is the language of wasta or influence/clout and getting stuff done efficiently, especially

government-related, in Qatar. Store and street signs are often written in both Arabic and English, and English is typ-

ically used in written communication for banking, commerce, and healthcare (Al-Maadheed, 2017). While Qatar is

placed in the ‘expanding circle of English’ usage (Kachru & Smith, as cited in Al-Maadheed, 2017) it could be argued

that it is drifting into the outer circle with the rapidly changing realities of language use in Qatar or needs a differ-

ent paradigm all together. English in Qatar is not just a result of foreign language learning and is no longer a ‘for-

eign’ language but performs many important functions within the borders of Qatar. Residents are developing new

norms for how they use English that are not dependent on the ‘inner circle’ (Kachru, 1990) such as American or British

English.

It is notable that Qatar's Wikipedia site lists Arabic as the official language and only English is listed under ‘Other

Languages’ because in many ways ‘the spotlight on English has obscured the complex linguistic realities’ of the Gulf's

cosmopolitan cities (Van den Hoven & Carroll, 2016, p. 39). It is in this context that we see a ‘unique pastiche of con-

stantly changing linguistic alliances and compromises’ (Donovan, 2003, para. 14) involving multiple languages, dialects,

and variations thereof happening in Qatar, particularly so in its capital Doha. Although Qatar's sociolinguistic context,

and certainly its linguistic landscape, primarily support the use of Arabic and English, similar to other Gulf countries

there are various ‘peripheral’ languages (Van den Hoven & Carroll, 2016) that contribute to the linguistic ecology and

complexities in its multilingual environment. These languages have different levels of status, power, and market, and

while they play instrumental roles in society, they have mostly been ignored and not recognized in Qatar, largely due to

the role and status of English as well as Qatar's ongoing project to produce a stronger Arab Qatari national identity. As

6HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

FIGURE 1 Most prominent Turkish food terminologies [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

these languages lack political and economic support, there is a dearth of research on how these languages contribute

to Qatari society and its identity as a nation and the identities of its inhabitants.

While there is no data offering a breakdown of all the language communities present in Qatar, a look at the demo-

graphic figures, languages used in the linguistic landscape, and our own anecdotal observations and experiences as

residents in Qatar, givesome insight into some of the linguistic dynamics operating in the country in addition to various

Englishes and Arabic(s). For example, if one calls to make an appointment in the government hospital system, the

automated recording gives options to choose Arabic, English, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu, or Filipino. As another example,

when the Qatar diplomatic crisis and blockade started in June 2017, Turkey stepped up to help provide food supplies

to Qatar, especially dairy and poultry, after Saudi Arabia closed their borders and cut off their food exports. The sudden

replacement of these products that always had Arabic-English labeling with products labeled all in Turkish had nation-

als and expatriates scrambling to learn Turkish words such as ‘milk’ and ‘full fat’. This led to Qatar's Ministry of Economy

and Commerce to post on its Twitter account on June 9, 2017, translations for the ‘most prominent Turkish food

terminologies’. Importantly, the translations were provided for Arabic, English, Hindi, Tagalog, and Urdu (see Figure 1).

Languages such as Malayalam, Nepali, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Balochi, Urdu, Tagalog, Indonesian, Persian, Sinhalese,

Amharic, Pashto, among others, are used vis-à-vis the various major dialects of Arabic such as Egyptian, Levantine,

Sudanese, Maghrebi, and Arab Gulf. Urdu, Hindi, and Tagalog (the latter also referred to as Filipino or Tagalo), operate

as basilectal or less prestigious lingua francas. Boyle (2012, p. 320) notes that ‘one half of the Indian workers in the Gulf

countries come from the state of Kerala, where the level of literacy in English is probably among the highest in India

and where virtually all higher education is in English’. With Indians being the largest ethnic population in Qatar, this

has certainly increased the number of English speakers. Some of these languages, as mentioned earlier, have long been

a part of Qatari society and can be viewed as local, historical, or heritage, but others such as Nepali are much newer to

the region.

Many Qatari nationals grow up in multidialectal homes; for example, one of our participants has a Qatari father

who speaks Qatari and Bedouin dialects of Arabic and his mother is Egyptian and speaks both Egyptian and Qatari

dialects of Arabic. Intermarriage among Gulf Arabs is common and many of our participants are exposed to a mix-

ture of Qatari and Yemeni, or Saudi, Bahraini, Iraqi or other Arabic dialects spoken in the home. In addition, Arabic

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 7

being a diglossic or heteroglossic language, Qataris interact with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Classical Ara-

bic to varying degrees—such as listening to and reading the Qur'an, watching Arabic news, or reading movie subtitles

in MSA. More and more Qataris are also being raised in multilingual homes—many Qatari children have Indian, Sri

Lankan, Malaysian, or Filipino nannies. These nannies provide child-care during formative years for language develop-

ment and may speak various Englishes or may speak other ‘native’ languages to Qatari children. In addition, there are

often Indian drivers and other domestic workers that Qatari children grow up around in their households. Although

none of our participants thus far have claimed that they are functional in languages other than Arabic and English vari-

eties, many Qataris may actually have at least a passive, if not active, understanding of a different language through

their upbringing. In 2017, a video went viral of a Qatari man thanking his Filipina nanny for being part of his family. The

main reason it went viral is that the man chose to speak his message in Tagalog, as opposed to English or Arabic. He said,

‘for more than twenty years since my birth she became a quintessential part of my entire family's life and I can'timag-

ine what my upbringing would have been like without her in it’.6This heartfelt acknowledgement of the importance of

the Filipino community and the fact that he chose to express his thankfulness in the Filipino language, a language often

overlooked in Qatar and rare to hear Qataris speaking, was widely appreciated by the Filipino and other non-Qatari

communities.

3.3 Linguistic super-diversity

While we highlighted in the historical background section of this article that there has been a convergence of peoples,

cultures, and languages in the region over centuries, Nebel (2017, p. 31) considers present day Qatar as a site of lin-

guistic super-diversity (Vertovec, 2007) where due to shifting patterns of migration and mobility, ‘people draw upon

multiple social and linguistic resources,’ ultimately creating a new level of diversity. The capital city Doha is very much

a ‘metrolingual’ (Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015, p. 3) city full of ‘creative linguistic conditions’ in which ‘people of different

and mixed backgrounds use, play with and negotiate identities through language’. For generations of Qataris growing

up in this context of super-diversity, English is playing a more dominant role, and to a much lesser extent the Iranian,

African, or South Asian languages of the past. English has become a main linguistic resource for Qataris, and labels like

‘first’ language versus ‘second’ language, or ‘native’ versus ‘nonnative’ may constrain a deeper understanding of the

complexities and tensions that exist. Many note that Arabic-English mixing is a growing phenomenon, particularly for

Qataris who attend English medium instruction (EMI) international schools, but the borders between what is Arabic(s)

or English(es) or other languages in the context of super-diversity become not so defined as many linguistic resources

are likely at play.

3.4 Pidgin Arabics as lingua francas

This complex situation of linguistic super-diversity raises the question of inter-community communication, in general,

and of pidgin variations, in particular. Based on his experience teaching Arabic to oil company employees in the Gulf in

the 1960s, J.R. Smart (1990, p. 84) writes of an ‘ideal breeding ground for pidginization […producing a] language used

by this constantly changing force of temporary immigrant workersin everyday communication with their Arab masters’.

English, moreover, was used for communication primarily at the higher range of migrant activity, in contrast with the

contemporary situation where English is used more widely as a communicative tool between diverse ethno-linguistic

communities (Smart, 1990).

English is still very much the language of the educated workforce in Qatar. While Qatar has attracted many skilled

workers to fill jobs for which there is an absence of qualified Qataris, particularly in areas of health and biomedical

sciences, engineering, energy and environment, computer and information technology, and the education sectors, the

vast majority of its expatriates are semi-skilled or unskilled laborers with basic to no literacy skills who come on tem-

porary labor contracts. As a result of changing economic dynamics in the context of oil revenues, Holes (2011, p. 141)

notes that South Asia has become ‘a reservoir of labor force for the type of manual work many Gulf nationals are not

prepared to do. This force, largely from the poorer parts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh […] is poorly educated and

8HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

knows little or no English, let alone any Arabic. But it needs to communicate and to be communicated with, and we have

here the ingredients for the formation of a pidgin’. In Qatar today, the lack of English among these manual laborers is

quite variable depending on country/region andamount of education, but those that work outside of the touristy hotel

and restaurant zones, tend to function better in Arabic or ‘broken Arabic’than English. Avram (2014) suggests that Gulf

Pidgin Arabic can be classified as an ‘interethnic contact language’. Avram (2014) and Dashti (2015), in this respect, have

identified the ‘foreigner talk’ register of Arabic (a simplified version of a language that ‘native speakers’ sometimes use

when addressing non-native speakers), the Gulf dialects, and various English dialects as the main sources of the ‘Gulf

Pidgin Arabic’. Holes (2011) identifies a local pidgin made up of Gulf Arabic, Urdu, and English. Bakir (2014), for exam-

ple, has provided some descriptive accounts of the various grammatical functions in the grammar of Gulf Pidgin Arabic

or what Bizri (2014) refers to as ‘Asian Migrant Arabic Pidgins’. One example of this, and one that is certainly common

to hear in Qatar, is the expanded use of maafi (loosely translated as ‘there isn't’) as a universal negator, and used in ways

that would be typically viewed as ungrammatical in Arabic spoken varieties. It is also common to hear the Arabic car-

dinal number ‘two’ followed by a singular form of the noun, instead of the dual form which is considered grammatically

correct in Arabic with a few exceptions.

While research on Arabic pidgins in the Gulf is still extremely limited and we are unaware of anyresearch examining

specifically Qatari pidgin Arabic, the existence and use of what Arabic ‘native speakers’ refer to as ‘broken Arabic’ is

widely observable and acknowledged in Qatar. Given the transient nature of the unskilled laborer community as labor

agreements change, there are likely constraints on the stability of inter-community communication in terms of pro-

longed regular contact and developing norms of usage in order to be called a pidgin. However, it may be that both an

Arabic pidgin—one that has developed over time in a more stable and long-residing ‘local’ community exists side-by-

side with all kinds of simplified and broken learner Arabic.

3.5 New Englishes

In addition to the formation of Arabic pidgins, new Englishes have arisen as English has penetrated diverse domains

across the Gulf region. Crystal (2004, p. 36) discusses how the need to express national identity gives rise to new

Englishes. Expanding on this, Alshurafa (2014) writes of the emergence of a ‘Gulf English’ variety or ‘Gulfism’, a prod-

uct of the influence of Gulf identity in English linguistic practices. The author argues, based on the features of Gulf

English, that Gulf identity is constructed through a linguistic dualism with important linguistic-sociocultural charac-

teristics (gender attitudinal male dominance, a pluralistic perspective from females, Gulf religious ideology, creative

linguistic expressions, and insertion of Arabic expressions). Fussell (2011, p. 26) describes how ‘English in the Gulf has

attained a decidedly local flavour, infusing elements of “imported” varieties of English (for example, standardized UK,

standardized American and Indian varieties of English) with an Arabic “mother-tongue” substratum’. He describes five

settings in which Gulf English is emerging including ‘tertiary education, skilled employment, local forms of English-

medium media and entertainment, advertising and signage, and online social networking’ (Fussell, 2011, p. 27). Fur-

thermore, Fussell argues that in discussing emergent world English varieties, the developing varieties of Gulf English

should be examined more seriously and seen as at the stage to start undergoing the process of ‘nativisation’. Likewise,

Al-Rawi (2012) and Mahboob and Elyas (2014) provide some evidence to support the position that there is a ‘Saudi

English’ that is undergoing nativisation. Boyle (2014, p. 38), on the other hand, discusses it as ‘koinéization’—‘the out-

come of dialect mixing, leveling, and simplification’ and provides evidence of pre-koinéization happening in the United

Arab Emirates in his study of English as a lingua franca there.

The extent to which ‘Gulf English’ is really a new variety of English emerging versus just a functional local use is

highly debateable given the dearth of data. There are not enough descriptions and analyses of varieties of English, and

established usage, that of expert users (Kirkpatrick, 2007, p. 177) as opposed to learner English, is still muddled. Also,

the extent to which each Gulf country, Qatar in particular, has its own distinct new English emerging has yet to be

explored. Given that languages and varieties do not always follow national borders though and languages like people

in the Gulf are very mobile, to further classify by nation-state may not be helpful. It is interesting to note, however, that

in our interview data with Qatari students, the majority spoke of a ‘simple English’ or ‘broken English’ that they use in

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 9

addition to a more ‘proper’ English at the university. One student Fahad described it as such, mentioning the deletion

of be before adjectives and nouns (also noted in ‘Saudi English’) as one example:

Idon't really talk proper English with my [Qatari] friends …I, like with my friends, I would use words such as like,

‘oh, what this?’ I don't know, like even my accent changes. I don'tknowwhy,it's just every,everybody does it. Like

here when I'm talking with my friends, sometimes I would use English, but I'd use it in a broken manner.

As another example, one of our participants was speaking in one of the author's foundation English classes and she used

the expression ‘same, same,’ which is a common expression used across South and Southeast Asia to mean ‘similar’ or

‘same’. This student immediately broke into fits of laughter after saying it, as well as the rest of the class. When I asked

them what was so funny, the student explained that, ‘this is English I use at home, not in university. But it just came

out’. In daily life interactions outside the English classroom, Qataris use a variety of English in which the expression

‘same, same’ likely goes unnoticed and is unmarked. The norms for English are very fluid on the street and at home.

However, within the context of an English class at an American IBC, ‘same, same’ becomes the butt of jokes. It is now

seen as marked because it deviates from the standardized ‘school English’. While there is not yet enough research to

support the emergence of a new variety of English, these examples highlight that young Qatari university students are

conscious of and able to negotiate using diverse varieties of English. It is within this context of an incredibly complex

‘sociolinguistics of mobile resources’ (Blommaert, 2010, p. 102) and super-diversity that we now move to critically

examine English as it relates to language policy initatives and reforms in the educational context in Qatar.

4LANGUAGE POLICY IN THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT

4.1 K-12 system

The first school in Qatar was established in 1948. The majority of the population was illiterate in the 1950s. Before

that, education was centered on Islam and the kuttab system, whereby Muslim students would learn the Qur'an and

the hadith—reports of sayings of the Prophet Muhammed—and receive a basic education in Arabic language and math-

ematics (Rostron, 2009). By the mid-1950s, the Ministry of Education was founded under a new series of regulations

that established a network of public schools. In 1999, a new type of schools opened in Doha. The science-centered

‘complex schools’ used English as the language of instruction, and were designed to be partially independent from the

Ministry of Education. These, however, were few and the vast majority of the schools remained unchanged. Further-

more, the Qatari public education was characterized by poor system performance (Brewer & Goldman, 2010, p. 230).

Education policy historically and until the late 1990s in Qatar was ‘aimed at promoting social values and Islamic tra-

ditions as well as preserving local heritage among its citizens’ (Barnawi, 2018, p. 97). Barnawi writes that before 9/11,

there was no reference to ‘deregulation’, privatization’, ‘globalization’, ‘liberalization’, and ‘internationalization’ of edu-

cation. In 2002, new reforms were implemented with the establishment of the Supreme Education Council (SEC). This

followed a 2001 government agreement with RAND (‘Research ANd Development’) Cooperation, a non-profit think

tank, to implement a new K-12 system meant to improve the failing educational sector. The reformed educational sys-

tem saw the introduction of ‘independent’, or chartered schools focusing on Arabic, English, math, and science, giving

schools broad powers to dictate their own educational methodologies and curricula (Donn & Al Manthri, 2010, p. 50).

These schools were supposed to uphold autonomy, accountability, variety, and choice (Bashshur, 2010, p. 254).

As a result of the creation of new curricula and the introduction of independent schools, Qatar developed a set

of standards, including teaching English, for K-12, which ‘benchmarked against the best […] in the world’ (Brewer &

Goldman, 2010, p. 237). The new independent schools thus saw a shift away from Arabic and religion towards English

and technical and scientific subjects taught in English (Bashshur, 2010, p. 157). Or at least, they were supposed to be

taught in English. In reality, both then and still now, it is often only the ‘texts, tests, and terminology’ or the ‘3 Ts’ that

are taught in English (Kane, 2014, p. 96). These schools were meant to enhance national competitiveness, to increase

the numbers of Qataris in the workforce, and according to the Qatari government, ‘English was deemed important

10 HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

for use in the labour market and to prepare students for postsecondary education abroad’ (Brewer et al., 2007,

p. 100). There was little to no consideration for teaching other languages then or now in the independent schools and

the language policy discourse in Qatar has only revolved around Arabic and English. A 2005–2006 study by RAND,

however, kept on showing various weaknesses in K-12 with students being poorly prepared for post-secondary school

(Stasz, Eide, & Martorell, 2007).

Continuous negative results led in 2013 to the end of a decade-long deal between Qatar and RAND, and the re-

take of the ‘independent’ schools curricula by the SEC.7On a practical level, this meant that many schools were forced

to ‘switch back’ to Arabic, thus having a direct impact on many independent school-system students. This decision to

return to the Arabic language as the medium of instruction or rather for the ‘3 Ts’ mentioned above, was viewed by

many as ‘rash’ (Alkhatib, 2017, p. 58). Many of the students that we interviewed coming from independent schools

had gone through several shifts between Arabic and English as the medium of their instruction and textbooks during

their K-12 schooling. They expressed great frustration in these abrupt shifts or ‘zigzagging of language policy’ (Barnawi,

2018, p. 107) that did not prepare them and instill confidence for an EMI higher education experience nor an Arabic-

medium one, as can be seen in this quote from our participant Ahmed:

The thing is I am quite ashamed that my Arabic is not as good because when I went to private school Sheikha

Moza was stressing on English, and then I left that school and went to Debakey and then she completely changed

the ide—the children don't know how to speak Arabic now, you know? Ha ha. She's like the children don'tknow

how to speak Arabic, their Arabic is very bad from the private school, so what they…so they just made it really

hard and then that was very hard for me to get good grades in Arabic, which kind of ruined my GPA and didn't

make me feel confident in English or Arabic.

A 2015 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked Qatar in the bottom

10 of their education index.8The SEC was replaced by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in 2016. In

May of 2017, it was announced that Qatar's Emir signed off on legislation (Law. No. 9 of 2017) to revamp the country's

independent school system and take a more centralized approach to education by forming a public school system.9

While the new system will focus on ‘achieving creativity and scientific excellence’10 it is unclear whether there will be

more shifts in the medium of instruction for subjects.

The alternative to a seemingly failing public K-12 system has been private schools, of which there are over 150

registered in Qatar and three different types.11 There are private Arabic schools, which follow an Arabic curricu-

lum and mainly cater to Qatari nationals and children of Arab expatriates. Most are Islamic schools and the medium

of instruction is Arabic with English taught as a second language. There are ‘community schools’ which are spon-

sored by embassies and cater toward the needs of specific expatriate communities who want their children to follow

home curricula. There are a large number of Indian community schools, in addition to Filipino, Pakistani, Sudanese,

Tunisian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Iranian, Turkish, Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, German, French,

and Japanese schools. A community school for Nepali expatriates is also set to open soon. At the Philippine School

Doha, for example, the medium of instruction is mainly Filipino and students take both English and Filipino language

classes starting in first grade and continue throughout the rest of their education there. Lastly, there are international

schools which are not sponsored by embassies, but follow a ‘foreign’ curriculum or general international curriculum

with EMI and attract Qataris and expatriates alike (Al-Maadheed, 2017; Brewer et al., 2007).The majority of these are

American or British and they provide courses in various other world languages such as Arabic, French, Spanish, and

Chinese, but we are aware of only one private school in Qatar—the bilingual Arabic-English program at Hayat Univer-

sal School—that advertises as bilingual or immersion. However some, such as the Swiss International School in Doha,

say they promote ‘multilingualism’ and integrate other languages such as French more heavily into the curriculum.12

With Qatari parents believing that English is related to their children's ability to be accepted into a prestigious uni-

versity in Qatar or abroad and successfully integrate into a globalized workforce, investing in schools that teach course

work in English is seen as the clear option for many. Persuaded by the ‘architecture of neoliberal English language

learning’ (Barnawi, 2018, p. 101), families thus support EMI education as a vital part of their children'sdevelop-

ment. Barnawi (2018, p. 101) writes, ‘learners with a higher command of English […] are given access to world-class

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 11

education, social status and economic opportunities. Subsequently, the discourse of individual competitiveness and

accountability has formed the basis for success in the socio-cultural environment of Qatar’. Essentially, as Barnawi

describes, Qataris are groomed with the ethos that their children will get ahead in life if they are highly proficient in

English. A powerful example of this can be seen in Alkhatib's (2017, p. 53) study,which analyzes the status and function

of the English language in Qatar through Arabic cartoons published in local Qatari newspapers. She gives an example

of a cartoon in which a child is sitting behind a manager's desk in an office and an arrow pointing to him says, ‘it is not

important if the manager is young with no experience, as long as he knows English’. During the 2013–14 academic year,

48 per cent of all students in Qatar were enrolled in private schools and this percentage continues to increase.13 In

addition to private school tuition, many Qatari parents are also paying for after-school English classes or tutoring to

prepare their children for IELTs or TOEFL exams at places like the British Council, which has a large presence in the

region. What these data suggest is that K-12 EMI education and extra English coursework and tutoring, mostly within

the private sector, is flourishing even more so since independent schools switched to teaching in Arabic, with English

linked to an identity of access to cultural capital and success.

4.2 Higher education in Qatar

The only public university in the country, Qatar University (QU), was established in 1973. Its main language of instruc-

tion has varied from English to Arabic. The same set of reforms implemented after the end of RAND's advising, also

affected QU. At QU, certain programs such as law, international affairs, communication, and management switched

from being taught in English to being taught in Arabic so as to ‘help young Arab students preserve their identity and

culture’.14 Across the entire Gulf region, this was seen as a strong form of resistance (Belhiah & Elhami, 2015). This

decision raised issues about lack of Arabic materials and potential problems over international collaborations, accred-

itations, and rankings, on the one hand, and controversy over QU's graduates’ employability, on the other.15 Forty per

cent of companies in Qatar stated, in a 2013 survey—a year after the SEC's reforms—that language differences in the

workplace have a negative impact.16 While QU is the largest university in Qatar, it is notably the only university in

Qatar offering undergraduate degrees taught in Arabic. According to Ellili-Cherif and Alkhateeb (2015, para 24), QU

students seem to favor Arabic in spite of viewing English as a high-status and global language, and important for job

prospects. However, they found this relates most to the students’ low levels of English and lack of preparation at the

K-12 level to succeed in EMI programs, but also perhaps attitudes of parents toward English as a ‘threat to the local

language and culture’. In addition to QU, Qatar is unique in the Gulf region in that it has imported a larger number of

prestigious American institutions of higher education than any other Gulf country. Bashshur (2010, p. 253) describes

this as a ‘revolution’ in the field of education through ‘inviting the best brains and the best organizations that it could

find in the West to advise on the vision and how to bring it about and transplant themselves in the soil of the land’. This

strategy was a product of Sheikh Hamad's earliest reforms with the establishment of the Qatar Foundation for Educa-

tion, Science and Community Development (QF) in 1995, with his second wife, Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser Al Misnad,

as its chairperson. QF became a ‘fertile zone of experimentation and entrepreneurship’ (Willoughby, 2008) sponsoring

top Western universities to establish branch campuses in the country. It now plays a major role in helping to diversify

Qatar's economy and transform Qatar into a knowledge-based society.

QF and the successful negotiation to open branch campuses of mainly American universities was very much a

part of Sheikh Hamad's efforts to make Qatar a key ally to the United States post-9/11 as Gulf States became heavily

scrutinized for their role in supporting and sponsoring terrorism. Around this same time, Qatar also opened American

and British air bases to support US-led military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan (Barnawi, 2018, p. 95). In the aftermath

of 9/11, the United States put a lot of pressure on Gulf States, in particular Qatar's only land bordering neighbor

Saudi Arabia (Elyas, 2008), to reform their educational curricula, believing that the educational systems of the Gulf

States were breeding ‘ignorance, anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Western views’ (Karmani, 2005, p. 262) which

threatened global security and stability. Karmani (2005, p. 263) gives an example of a Washington Post article about

Qatar, published in 2003 amidst post-9/11 debates about educational reform in the Middle East. The article entitled,

‘Qatar reshapes its schools, putting English over Islam’ discusses how students in Qatar were now ‘learning less Islam

12 HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

and more English’ with less classes in Islam per week and less religion textbooks. This chasm between Islam and

English, which we argue is erroneous, was symbolic of this period in which Qatar, led by Sheikh Hamad, readily adopted

neoliberalism and with that Western monolingual English language policies.

It was within this political context as well as the larger global trend for a demand in ELT worldwide, that a hub located

in the outskirts of Doha, named ‘Education City’, became the home of a number of IBCs each with their own area of spe-

cialization and all with English as the main medium of instruction, although a few offer various courses taught in Arabic.

These IBCs currently include: Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (since 1998), Weill Cornell Medical Col-

lege in Qatar (2001), Texas A&M University at Qatar (2003), Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (2004), Georgetown

School of Foreign Service in Qatar (2005), Northwestern University in Qatar (2008), HEC Paris (2010), and Univer-

sity College London Qatar (2012). In addition, Education City also hosts a foundation program for English and science

(Academic Bridge Program), an Islamic Studies graduate school teaching primarily in English (Qatar Faculty of Islamic

Studies), and a government-initiative to provide alternatives for—mostly Qatari nationals—undergraduate and grad-

uate students (Hamad Bin Khalifa University or HBKU). Among other academic programs and centers, HBKU has a

Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII) with a Language Center that offers foreign language classes to students

and the broader community in Arabic, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish. Classes to learn

regional languages or those more widely spoken in the community such as Hindi, Urdu, Persian, and Filipino are notably

absent. Beyond Education City, the College of North Atlantic, Stenden University, Community College of Qatar, and

University of Calgary offer various certificates, diplomas, and associate degrees, all taught in English. Education City is

greatly diverse with faculty and students ‘from 89 different nationalities with diverse backgrounds, cultures, religions,

financial status, and citizenship’ (Ibnouf et al., 2014, p. 47) although most of the English faculty tend to be from ‘Inner

Circle’ countries (Kachru, 1990). With English being the medium of instruction, students must have a strong command

of English, as determined by IELTS, ACT, SAT, or TOEFL tests to be admitted into these institutions. Sheikha Moza has

heavily emphasized the prestige of attending these IBCs in terms of being able to secure the best jobs or be accepted

into elite graduate schools abroad. As Barnawi (2018, p. 104) describes, ‘having a strong command of English means

access to world-class education, thus ensuring promising career opportunities. It also offers access to cultural capital

such as openness, critical thinking and superiority in the country’.

As Vora (2015) has suggested, IBCs in the Gulf have a particularly important relationship with developing forms of

citizenship, identity, and belonging by acting as enablers of complex sets of engagements between students and the

constructs that come with these educational offerings. The formation of a national identity as well as the transmis-

sion of cultural values thus become important elements at stake in educational contexts (Abou El-Kheir, 2016, p. 118).

Eslami, Seawright, and Ribeiro (2016) found that students studying in foundation English courses at Texas A&M Uni-

versity at Qatar in Education City still favor English over Arabic as the medium of instruction, despite often finding

content easier in Arabic, and in our interviews with Qatari students, this idea of IBCs being superior to QU because

they are Western institutions that teach in English was salient. They view IBCs as more prestigious than QU and essen-

tial for future job prospects. The acculturation process for students entering one of Education City's IBCs in Qatar can

be especially difficult for those who have attended Arabic-medium schools with ‘native teachers’ and a ‘local curricu-

lum,’ adding ‘temporal and social burdens of studying in a language other than their native tongue’ (Kane, 2014, p. 97).

Similar to findings in the UAE (Van den Hoven & Carroll, 2016, p. 39), some students seem to experience an abrupt

transition from Arabic to EMI. However, also similar to what O'Neill (2017) describes in the UAE, there is considerable

variation among students regardless of their schooling background. Some students who go to Arabic K-12 schools are

still more oriented towards English than students who go to EMI schools. One of our participants did all of his school-

ing in Arabic, but had a much more sophisticated knowledge and range of English vocabulary than his classmates due to

(according to him) playing hours upon hours of World of Warcraft with English speakers around the world since he was

young. We found just as O'Neill did (2017, p. 219) that ‘linguistic habitus is clearly affected by family language practices

and language ideology, school background, degree of exposure to a multilingual environment and personal interests,

but the particular combination of these and other factors is unique in each individual’.

While the academic load is typically more challenging for those students who come from independent schools

and/or do not possess the necessary language skills to succeed in an EMI program at entrance, QF has become a place

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 13

for many of them to enhance their English language skills. Many coming from independent schools do a year at the

Academic Bridge Program between high school and university in order to get accepted into the IBCs and even once

accepted, in the case of Texas A&M University at Qatar, many are still placed into foundation English courses for a

year before being able start the coursework for their major. Texas A&M University at Qatar is the only university in

Education City to offer three semesters of foundation English courses for high achieving students who are admitted,

but might not have scored quite high enough on their English examination. Students are not always happy with the

English-language requirements when they cause them to spend an extra year or two working on their English before

they can start their degrees and may even consider it as a barrier to continuing higher education if their sponsors

are not flexible with funding more years of study (Khalifa, Nasser, Ikhlef, Walker, & Amali, 2016; Nasser, 2012). While

we have found that academic bridge and foundation courses increase access for Qatari students to be admitted to

IBCs and are an ideal space for academic socialization to occur in order to make a successful transition to IBCs, Khoury

(2017, p. 142) states they also represent ‘a clear failure in the reform of the K-12 education system that has produced

graduates who not ready for the demands of a degree-granting program, which is modeled on programs in the United

States and the United Kingdom’. On the one hand, the higher education system that is seen as the most prestigious

in local discourse is largely based on the American model and is linked to the value of English language learning and

teaching, but on the other hand, the public K-12 system is not. While blame can be put on the K-12 system or on the

students themselves, most of these IBC institutions also have monolingual mindsets which it comes to their curricula

and evaluating the usage of English of their students. Kane (2014, p. 96) writes that at Weill Cornell Medical College

in Qatar ‘faculty actively discourage the speaking of Arabic within classrooms, laboratories, and clinical settings’ and

critiques how ‘fluency in English, specifically American English, is a prerequisite for Qataris wishing to participate in the

nation's modernizing project’. In reality, we have observed like Nebel (2017) that students bring multiple dialects and

languages into these IBC classrooms and make strategic choices with their available languages to negotiate meaning

and comprehend. They code-switch, provide translations for each other, and translanguaging (Garcia & Li Wei, 2014) is

commonplace as students engage with each other and academic material and draw on the various linguistic resources

they have. Students often speak in one language (or more) and write in another. The K-12 system needs improvement,

but IBCs may also not be best serving their student population within a context of linguistic super-diversity.

5LANGUAGE POLICY REFORMS: INCREASING ARABIZATION

Qatar's development plan, entitled ‘Qatar National Vison 2030′, was drafted—in English and Arabic—in October 2008.

One of the major challenges of its Human Development pillar is ‘raising the achievement of Qatari students at all levels,

especially in math, science and English and, through that, increasing educational attainment’ (Al-Kuwari, 2012, p. 95).

Encouraging EMI education, therefore, has been in line with Qatar's National Vision. And yet, in terms of policy, there

has been a recent change in the ways that the Qatari government treats English as it has adopted more Arabization

policies under the leadership of the present Emir, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad al Thani. As the expatriate population con-

tinues to explode and Qatari nationals become a smaller and smaller minority, a discourse of Arab Qatari identity under

threat has increased—‘a situation aggravated further when English was the official language of instruction in education

and a primary language of administration’ (Al-Kuwari, 2012, p. 86). What Solloway (2016) calls the ‘Englishisation of

the Arabian Peninsula’ vis-à-vis the ‘de-Arabicisation of education’ reinforces common perceptions that English consti-

tutes a threat to the customs and Islamic values of the Gulf countries. Furthermore, EMI has been examined as one of

the ‘supposed universals’ that signify a ‘different type of crisis, a different loss—one that destabilizes autochthonous

understandings of Arabian Gulf history, language and identity […] creating new and interesting re-assemblages’ (Vora,

2015, p. 33).

With growing concerns over the impact of English on local culture and identity, it has been possible to observe

changes in the official narrative, starting with the 2012 reforms in which Qatar's independent schools and QU switched

their main language of instruction from English to Arabic and implemented an Arabic monolingual model. The year

2016, in particular, was an important year in terms of change. Sheikha Moza, the chairperson of Qatar Foundation, and

14 HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

the main spokesperson for Education City's predominantly EMI IBCs, gave a speech in January of 2016 decrying Qatari

children's lack of Arabic literacy skills and saying that Arabs who lose their language lose their identity.17 As a result

of tumbling oil prices in early 2016, the government reduced Qatar Foundation's budget by 40% making ‘significant

cuts at Western academic institutions in Education City’.18 Around the same time, the Doha Institute for Graduate

Studies, an institute that is part of the initiative of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and uses Arabic

as a medium of instruction for master's degrees in policy and social sciences, enrolled its first intake of students. In

February of 2016, the state Cabinet approved a draftlaw requiring ministries, official organizations, and public schools

and universities to use Arabic in all their communications.19 While these policies attempt to strengthen the position of

Arabic, or more precisely MSA, it has not been made clear how the use of Arabic (as well as expatriate languages) can

contribute to the development of Qatar. While educational changes can be seen as an attempt to transform the labor

market by increasing the opportunities for Qatari nationals to form part of the private sector (Donn & Al Manthri,

2010, pp. 49–50), professional working proficiency in English still appears to be a prerequisite for Qataris wishing to

participate in achieving the Qatar National Vision 2030. The SEC decision to switch language policy in education back

to Arabic, as suggested however, goes beyond mere employability. The negotiation of ontological, epistemological, and

cultural values and identity is thus an urgent issue affecting higher education in Qatar (Mcniff, 2013), and integration

into the private labor market. While some English programs in Qatar's IBCs are adapting curriculum when it comes to

reading and writing assignments and textbook choices (Miller & Pessoa, 2017; Rudd & Telefici, 2017) we hope to see

Education City be pioneers in embracing more heteroglossic, ‘culturally responsive (Crabtree, 2010), and more ‘glocal’

approaches to education which include the ‘interpenetration of the global and the local’ (Selvi & Rudoph, 2018, p. 2).

These approaches could ‘raise students’ critical language awareness and develop border-crossing communicative skills

that enable them to actively and critically engage in diverse cultural, ethnic, racial and linguistic contact zones’ (Kubota,

as cited in Selvi & Rudolph, 2018, p. 2). Along similar lines, as Selvi and Yazan (2017, p. 77) describes in their descrip-

tion of English as an international language (EIL) pedagogy, this kind of pedagogy ‘recognizes and promotes plurality of

present-day local and global English uses, users, and contexts’.

6LINGUISTIC SUPER-DIVERSITY AND IDENTITY

While the ideology of modernization is inevitably linked to English (Karmani, 2005), it is precisely because of skepti-

cism regarding the influence of ‘modern’ (viewed as Western) ideas, that we see concern about the threat of English

to Arabic language, culture, and identity (Pessoa & Rajakumar, 2011). Research on language and identity in Qatar is

sparse, but analyses conducted in the wider Gulf region, usually conducted with college students, tend to focus on a

dichotomizing view of English and Arabic, where the former is equated with globalization/Westernization and moder-

nity, and the latter with tradition, religion and heritage (Al-Issa & Dahan, 2011; Dahan, 2014; Diallo, 2014; Findlow,

2006; Hopkyns, 2016; Mcniff, 2013). Along similar lines, English is seen as necessary as long as it does not affect the

local cultural identity (Elyas, 2008, p. 45). The spread of English has been seen as a ‘double-edged’ sword representing

both access to globalization, and lifestyle changes associated with identity and Arabic language loss (Hopkyns, 2014).

Hopkyns (2016) further writes of the fragility of cultural identity—in the UAE context—as the result of various factors

that include a climate of fast-paced change, an increased focus in English in education, global English, demographic

imbalances, and a complex history with English-speaking countries.

Arabic is often seen as the ‘soul and the substance of identity dynamics in the Arabic-speaking world’ (Albirini, 2016,

p. 123), resulting in strong sentiments stating that students ‘should and must maintain their Arabic [Standard Arabic]

as it carries with it their heritage and culture’ (Al-Issa & Dahan, 2011, p. 17). However, this discourse is strongly tied to

Arab nationalism and the creation of Arab nation-states. Qatar has a past and a present that is ethnically and linguis-

tically diverse but this has largely been ignored in favor of a creating a Qatari identity that is Gulf Arab and adopting

monolingual language policies. The proposed chasm between a ‘global English’ and an ‘endangered Arabic’ (Al-Issa &

Dahan, 2011), is problematic since it suggests a homogenizing view of both languages and precludes a nuanced under-

standing of their complex relationship, especially in relation to identity, and of the sociolinguistic context of linguistic

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 15

super-diversity in Qatar that is both old and new. It also does not consider home literacy practices; rather than English

being the sole cause of loss of MSA, literacy practices in the social environment are important considerations. When

looking at Education City, Pessoa and Rajakumar (2011) argue that students embrace their bilingualism and cultural

hybridity by using Arabic (dialect) at home and English for practical purposes. Most respondents in their study stated

that education in English decreases their use and knowledge of Arabic, but believe that Arabic will not be lost because

of Islam. Concomitantly, some of the responses indicate some degree of cultural conflict (students ‘resisting change’)

in light of the interaction between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’. We found in our data that Qatari students in Education

City are constantly negotiating their identities by using different varieties of English and Arabic (and sometimes other

languages) and increasingly hybridized forms of English and Arabic in their daily lives. Within the same day, it would not

be uncommon for a student, for example, to converse with a Qatari father, a Yemeni mother, an Indian driver, a Filipina

maid, a Bengali store worker, a Moroccan friend, a Pakistani classmate, and an American professor. Within Education

City, both male and female students are free to interact within a very international group of students, and have access

to virtually unrestricted information and discussions around topics that could very well be taboo beyond the walls of

Education City'sIBCs.

The Qatari students report that on campus they use both Qatari dialect as well as other Arabic dialects. They also

use localized Gulf English (what participants referred to as ‘broken English’) with friends and as a lingua franca for daily

economic transactions, as well as a more standardized English for academic purposes and conversing with professors.

They also code-switch between English and Arabic and play creatively with both languages with minimal concern for

social repercussions. Outside of Education City, students also flow between their own Qatari dialect, other Arabic

varieties, forms of pidgin Arabic, and various world Englishes, depending on their interlocutors. Many stated, however,

that they feel uncomfortable using English with their family members or in community gatherings of just Qataris and

are shamed by family members when doing so, as can be seen in the following examples from interviews with our

participants:

(1) Here [Education City] I can speak both English and Arabic, but in like, at home, you cannot speak English because,

first, brothers will make fun you, that like you're showing off, and then your mother may like hit you or something

because she doesn't understand English. (Abdulaziz)

(2) Sometimes when I'm sick, I would say like hi, instead of marHaba or salaam alaykum, or something accidentally and

they'd say like, ‘why English? Like we know you're in an English university, but speak in Arabic!’ like I forget that I

have to switch …ha ha. (Najoud)

(3) Sometimes when I talk to my mother I use, for example, one word, one word like for example ‘sure’, when I tell her

‘sure’, she says, ‘what do you mean by sure?’ ha ha …and like she takes it like it's rude that I talk to her in something

she don't understand. (Al-Anoud)

However,these same family members that may smack their children when they use English, take great pride in the fact

that their children are attending EMI IBCs in Education City. This pride can be seen from the perspective of literacy

since some of their parents and grandparents are illiterate, and English is no longer a ‘foreign’ language but a language

of schooling and literacy. For many of the parents though, educated or not, Education City's IBCs with their Western

EMI are seen as the ‘Ivy League’ of the Gulf and a bragging point.

As in the UAE context, local dialects have been identified as the ‘appropriate’ language for communication with

family in Qatar, often seen as a ‘crucial locus for the protection and development of Arabic, both [dialect] and MSA’

(O'Neill, 2016, p. 35) with differing views regarding the acceptability of other languages and language mixing. Never-

theless, Qatar's linguistic super-diversity complicates these dynamics as youth are increasingly exposed to an array of

languages and often develop a preference for English, especially if attending international schools. We found that our

participants neither demonized English nor welcomed it uncritically. While none of the students directly mentioned

English or any language other than Qatari dialect as an important part of their Qatari identity in interviews, more than

half checked off English in addition to Qatari dialect as an important part of their Qatari identity on our questionnaire.

Intriguingly, more checked English than Modern Standard Arabic. In interviews, when asked about Qatari identity, the

16 HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

majority mentioned their pride in Qatar's achievements, and its national visions and global thinking, of which English

still appears to be inextricably linked. With regard to the youth, a 2015 survey on media use in Qatar showed that

Qataris are online more than any other Arab nationals studied, and that younger Qataris are more likely to use English

for both traditional and digital media (Northwestern University in Qatar, 2015). The expanding role of the Internet is

thus another crucial component in the equation. The majority of young Qataris are online, and English seems to be the

preferred language for virtual interactions. The majority of our participants play online video games, some as much as

40 hours a week when they are not in school, in which they use English while interacting with other players all over

the world. While the impact of Internet use vis-à-vis language preferences has not been examined extensively in Qatar,

new technologies are bound to linguistically influence generations to come.

The relationship between English and Arabic in light of wider questions of identity is not by any means simple. In

this respect, it is useful to view both languages as heterogeneous with various spoken varieties, which more often

than not overlap with each other. Moreover, it is time to move beyond just a focus on English and Arabic and con-

sider the way that a number of other languages used in Qatar contribute to the sociolinguistic landscape and to

identity. Qatari students negotiate their identities within dynamic environments that are inevitably subject to rapid

cultural transformations. The symbolic position of English as an agent of ‘globalization’ and ‘modernization’ raises

important questions over its meaning within Qatari society. Negotiations between cultural ‘authenticity’ and linguis-

tic practices, moreover, are indicative of identities that are constructed, re-constructed, and performed so as to give

meaning to the national self in light of changing regional geopolitics. Qatar's super-diversity allows for English to func-

tion as a de facto second language and lingua franca. Arabic's position as the national language, with all of its varieties

and the connotations that it implies, further complicates the relationship between language and identity in the Qatari

context. By the same token, and considering the recent diplomatic crisis, national sentiments are likely toappear more

and more, alluding to a sense of self that is increasingly differentiated from that of its neighboring Arab Gulf countries

and perhaps more aligned with Iran or Turkey. It is hard to say what that might look like at this point, but what is clear

is that various Englishes will continue to flourish for now and other languages may begin to gain more status.

7CONCLUSION

English is ubiquitous in Qatar. Given its status as a de facto second language and lingua franca, on the one hand, and

its position as a virtual access code to globalization and modernization, on the other, it is possible not to recognize its

relevance for Qatari nationals and expatriates alike.The country'smodernhistoricaldevelopmentshavehelpedtocon-

textualize this discussion of English in Qatar in terms of continuity in patterns of translocal connections and exchanges.

Given the country's demographic imbalances, moreover, English has become the preferred means for inter-community

communication within and beyond the workplace, often acting as a symbol for the rich linguistic environment that is

Qatar today. Qatar is achieving a unique identity in the Gulf and is a fascinating sociolinguistic setting with much left

unexplored with regards to world Englishes. The demographics have changed so rapidly that even research from a few

years ago is becoming quickly dated. Some future research directions, to name just a few, might include further analy-

ses of a Gulf or Qatari English, the linguistic landscape, language ideologies and attitudes toward varieties of English,

identity construction and English language use, the use of English in various types of workplaces, the role of English in

media and online activity, English and language policy and planning at the K-12 level, particularly in terms of support-

ing bilingualism/multilingualism, and the impact of English as a lingua franca and/or as a medium of instruction in IBCs

on identity. In terms of world Englishes, adopting Saraceni's (2015, p. 133) ‘person-based model’ of asking ‘what do

people do when they use language resources that they identify as “English”?’, ‘how do they position themselves toward

it?’, ‘what does it mean to them?’ as opposed to ‘what does this variety of English look like?’ in a bounded geographi-

cal sense may prove more useful. Identities in Qatar, as in any other nation-state, undergo constant negotiations and

transformations and acknowledging the complexity of the topic, particularly in a country whose definitions of citizen-

ship and belonging are related to its historical, socio-cultural, economic, and demographic reality, is fundamental for

a nuanced analysis of the role of English. The global flow and change of English (Pennycook, 2007) has influenced the

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 17

ways in which the language is perceived, used, and changed by diverse members of an extremely multicultural society.

Within the context of super-diversity, various Englishes as well as many other languages may be—to different degrees—

an evolving component of many young Qataris’ linguistic repertoires and identities. Among the recent diplomatic crisis,

Qatar has proudly shown the world that its identity is not fragile, but rather pliable—in other words—flexible, adap-

tive, and evolving (Kim, 2007). Perhaps it is now time for Qatar to embrace its linguistic identity as it relates to super-

diversity in the same way.

NOTES

1Tischler, L. (2006, April 1). Al Jazeera's global mission. New York: Fast Company. Retrieved from https://www.

fastcompany.com/55936/al-jazeeras-global-mission/

2Kerr, S. (2013, June 25). New emir seen as savvy and affable but untested at the top. Financial Times. Retrieved from

https://www.ft.com/content/ca3c97de-dd66-11e2-892b00144feab7de/

3Qatar's population (live). (2018, January 3). Worldometers.Retrieved from http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

qatar-population/

4Snoj, J. (2017, February 7). Population of Qatar by nationality—2017 report. Doha: Priya DSouza Communications. Retreived

from http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in-2017/

5Qatar to approve permanent residency for some expats. (2017, August 3). Al Jazeera English. Retrieved from

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/qatar-approve-permanent-residency-expats-170803095052801.html/

6Scott, V. (2017, September 18). Qatari man thanks nanny ‘yaya’ with message in Tagalog. Doha News. Retrieved from

https://dohanews.co/qatari-man-thanks-nanny-yaya-with-message-in-tagalog/

7Khatri, S. S. (2013, December 23). Rand and Qatar Foundation officially part ways after 10 years. Doha News. Retrieved from

http://dohanews.co/rand-and-qatar-foundation-officially -part-ways-after-10-years/

8Walker, L. (2015, May 14). Report: Qatar ranks in bottom 10 of education index, but shows potential. Doha News. Retreived

from http://dohanews.co/report-qatar-ranks-in-bottom-10-of-education-index-but-shows-potential/

9Khatri, S. (2017, May 17). Qatar's emir approves new law to overhaulindependent school system. Doha News. Retrieved from

https://medium.com/dohanews/qatars-emir-approves-new-law-to-overhaul-independent-school-system-c002bf25e9b8/

10 Emir issues law to establish public schools. (2017, May 17). Gulf Times. Retrieved from http://www.gulf-

times.com/story/549257/Emir-issues-law-to-establish-public-schools/

11 List of all schools in Qatar. (2017, June 14). Expatwomen.com. Retrieved from http://www.expatwoman.com/qatar/monthly_

qatar_education_List_Of_All_Schools_In_Qatar_8641.aspx/

Qatari private schools. Doha: Ministry of Education And Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.qa/En/

ServicesCenter/PSO/Pages/default.aspx/

12 Swiss International School, Qatar. (2018). Welcome to the Swiss international school in Qatar. Retrieved from

https://www.sisq.qa/

13 Snoj, T. N. (2015, September 1). Which education system would suit parents in Qatar better. BQ Magazine. Retrieved from

http://www.bq-magazine.com/industries/2015/09/private-vs-public-education-in-qatar/

14 Khatri, S S. (2013, October 26). Qatar's education system grapples with language challenges. Doha News. Retrieved from

http://dohanews.co/qatars-education-system-grapples-with-language-challenges/

15 Doha News Team. (2012, January 29). English vs Arabic: Qatar University decision continues to stir controversy. Doha News.

Retrieved from http://dohanews.co/english-vs-arabic-qatar-university-decision-continues/?4ad11268/

16 Doha News Team. (2013, July 8). Survey: Language barriers in the workplace hurting Qatar companies. Doha News. Ret rieved

from http://dohanews.co/survey-language-barriers-in-the-workplace-hurting/

17 Fahmy,H. (2016, January 21). Qatar's Sheikha Moza: Arabs who lose their language lose their identity. Doha News. Retrieved

from http://dohanews.co/qatars-sheikha-moza-arabs-who-lose-their-language-lose-their-identity/

18 Cafiero, G. (2016, March 1). Qatar cuts spending to cope with low oil prices. Middle East Institute. Retrieved from

http://www.mei.edu/content/article/qatar-cuts-spending-cope-low-oil-prices/

19 Walker, L. (2016, February 11). Qatar cabinet gives nod to new Arabic language law. Doha News. Retrieved from

http://dohanews.co/qatar-cabinet-gives-nod-to-new-arabic-language-law/

ORCID

Sara Hillman http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0738-5030

18 HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

REFERENCES

Abou El-Kheir, A. (2016). A phenomenological study of identity construction in the education sector of Qatar. In L. Buckingham

(Ed.), Language, identity and education on the Arabian Peninsula: Bilingual policies in a multilingual context(pp. 116–138). Bristol:

Multilingual Matters.

Albirini, A. (2016). Modern Arabic sociolinguistics: Diglossia, variation, codeswitching, attitudes and identity. New York: Routledge.

Al-Issa, A., & Dahan, L. S. (2011). Global English and endangered Arabic in the United Arab Emirates. In A. Al-Issa & L. S. Dahan

(Eds.), Global English and Arabic: Issues of language, culture, and identity (pp. 1–22). Bern: Peter Lang.

Alkhatib, H. (2017). Status and function of the English language in Qatar: A social semiotic perspective. JournalofWorldLan-

guages,4(1), 44–68.

Al-Kuwari, A. K. (2012). The visions and strategies of the GCC countries from the perspective of reforms: The case of Qatar.

Contemporary Arab Affairs,5(1), 86–106.

Al-Maadheed, F. (2017). Qatar: Past, present and prospects for education. In S. Kirdar (Ed.), Education in the Arab world

(pp. 179–196). London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Al-Rawi, M. (2012). Four grammatical features of Saudi English. English Today 110,28(2), 32–38.

Alshurafa, N. S. D. (2014). On the emergence of a Gulf English variety: A sociocultural approach. The Buckingham Journal of

Language and Linguistics,7, 87–100.

Avram, A. A. (2014). Immigrant workers and language formation: Gulf pidgin Arabic. Lengua y migración,6(2), 7–40.

Bahry, L. Y. (2001). The new Arab media phenomenon: Qatar's Al-Jazeera. Middle East Policy,8(2),88–99.

Bakir, M. J. (2014). The multifunctionality of fii in Gulf Pidgin Arabic. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages,29(2), 410–436.

Barnawi, O. Z. (2018). Neoliberalism and English language education policies in the Arabian Gulf. London: Routledge.

Bashshur, M. (2010). Observations from the edge of the deluge: Are we going too far,too fast in our educational transformation

in the Arab Gulf? In O. Abi-Mershed (Ed.), Trajectories of education in the Arab world: Legacies and challenges (pp. 247–272).

New York: Routledge.

Belhiah, H., & Elhami, M. (2015). English as a medium of instruction in the Gulf: When students and teachers speak. Language

Policy,14(1), 3–23.

Bizri, F.(2014). Unity and diversity across Asian migrant Arabic pidgins in the Middle East. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages,

29(2), 385–409.

Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Blommaert, J., & Rampton, B. (2011). Language and superdiversity: A position paper. Working Papersin Urban Language & Litera-

cies,70, 1–22.

Bourdieu. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education

(pp. 241–258). Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Bourdieu. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Boyle, R. (2012). Language contact in the United Arab Emirates. World Englis he s,31(3), 312–330.

Boyle, R. (2014). Economic migrants, social networks, and the prospect of koinézation in the United Arab Emirates. English

World-Wide,35(1), 32–51.

Brewer, D. J., Augustine, C. H., Zellman, G. L., Ryan, G., Goldman, C. A., Stasz, C., & Louay, C. (2007). Education for a new

era: Design and implementation of K-12 education reform in Qatar. Doha: RAND-Qatar Policy Institute. Retrieved from

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG548.pdf

Brewer, D. J., & Goldman, C. A. (2010). An introduction to Qatar's primary and secondary education reform. In O.Abi–Mershed

(Ed.), Trajectoriesof education in the Arab world: Legacies and challenges (pp. 226–246). New York: Routledge.

Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Abingdon: Routledge.

Carter, R. (2005). The history and prehistory of pearling in the Persian Gulf. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the

Orient,48(2), 139–209.

Commins, D. (2012). The Gulf states: A modern history. New York: I.B. Tauris.

Crabtree, S. A. (2010). Engaging students from the United Arab Emirates in culturally responsiveeducation. Innovations in Edu-

cation and Teaching International,47(1), 85–94.

Crystal, D. (2004). The Language revolution. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Dahan, L. S. (2014). Global English and Arabic: Which is the protagonist in a globalized setting? Arab World English Journal,4(6),

45–51.

Dashti, A. (2015). The role and status of the English language in Kuwait. English Today,31(3), 28–33.

HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ 19

Diallo, I. (2014). Emirati students encounter Western teachers: Tensions and identity resistance. Learning and Teaching in Higher

Education: Gulf Perspectives,11(2), 1–14.

Donn, G., & Al Manthri, Y. (2010). Globalisation and higher education in the ArabGulf states. Providence, RI: Symposium Books.

Donovan, T. (2003). Linguistic chaos: English in the Gulf of Araby. The Vocabula Review,5(1), 1–4.

Duarte, J., & Gogolin, I. (Eds.). (2013). Linguistic superdiversity in urban areas: Research approaches. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ellili-Cherif, M., & Alkhateeb, H. (2015). College students'attitudes toward the medium of instruction: Arabic versus English

dilemma. Universal Journal of Educational Research,3(3), 207–213.

Elyas, T. (2008). The attitude and the impact of the American English as a global language within the Saudi education system.

Novitas-ROYAL,2(1), 28–48.

Eslami, Z., Seawright, L. E., & Ribeiro, A. (2016). Attitudes toward English as a lingua franca: University students in Qatar. In

L. E. Seawright & A. Hodges (Eds.), Learning across borders: Perspectives on international and transnational higher education

(pp. 132–148). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Findlow, S. (2006). Higher education and linguistic dualism in the Arab Gulf. British Journal of Sociology of Education,27(1), 19–

36.

Fromherz, A. J. (2012). Qatar: A modern history. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.

Fussell, B. (2011). The local flavour of English in the Gulf. English Today,27(4), 26–32.

Garcia, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Holes, C. (2004). Modern Arabic: Structures, functions, and varieties. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Holes, C. (2011). Language and identity in the Arabian Gulf. Journal of Arabian Studies,1(2), 129–145.

Hopkyns, S. (2014). The effects of global English on culture and identity in the UAE: A double-edged sword. Learning and Teach-

ing in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives,11(2), 1–20.

Hopkyns, S. (2016). Emirati cultural identity in the age of ‘Englishisation’: Voicesfrom an Abu Dhabi university. In L. Buckingham

(Ed.), Language, identity and education on the Arabian Peninsula: Bilingual policies in a multilingual context (pp. 87–115). Bristol:

Multilingual Matters.

Ibnouf, A., Dou, L., & Knight, J. (2014). The evolution of Qatar as an education hub: Moving to a knowledge-based economy. In

J. Knight (Ed.), International education hubs: Student, talent, knowledge-innovation models (pp. 43–61). Dordrecht: Springer.

Kachru, B. (1990). World Englishes and applied linguistics. Worl d En gl is he s,9(1), 3–20.

Kane, T.(2014). Whose lingua franca? The politics of language in transnational medical education. The Journal of General Educa-

tion,63(2–3), 94–112.

Karmani, S. (2005). Petro-linguistics: The emerging nexus between oil, English, and Islam. JournalofLanguage,Identity&Educa-

tion,4(2), 87–102.

Khalifa, B., Nasser, R., Ikhlef, A., Walker, J. S., & Amali, S. (2016). A qualitative study of student attitudes, perceptions, beliefs,

outlook and context in Qatar: Persistence in higher education. Near and Middle Eastern Journal of Research in Education,2,

1–22.

Khoury, I. E. (2017). Building a foundation for success? Foundation programs in the Arab Gulf States using Qatar as a case

study. In M. Shah & G. Whiteford (Eds.), Bridges, pathways, and transitions: International Innovations in widening participation

(pp. 141–155). Cambridge: Chandos Publishing.

Kim, Y. Y. (2007). Ideology, identity, and intercultural communication: An analysis of differing academic conceptions of cultural

identity. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research,36(3), 237–253.

Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). World Englishes: Implications for international communication and English language teaching. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Mahboob, A., & Elyas, T. (2014).English in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Wo rl d En gl is he s,33(1), 128–142.

Mcniff, J. (2013). Becoming cosmopolitan and other dilemmas of internationalisation: Reflections from the Gulf states. Cam-

bridge Journal of Education,43(4), 501–515.

Miller, R. T., & Pessoa, S. (2017). Integrating writing assignments at an American branch campus in Qatar: Challenges, adapta-

tions, and recommendations. In L. Arnold, A. Nebel, & L. Ronesi (Eds.), Emerging writing research from the Middle East-North

Africa region (pp. 175–199). Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado.

Nasser, R. (2012). The breadth and depth of foundation courses in Qatar's only public institution of higher education. Journal of

Applied Research in Higher Education,4(1), 42–57.

Nebel, A. (2017). Linguistic superdiversity and English-medium higher education in Qatar. In L. Arnold, A. Nebel, & L. Ronesi

(Eds.), Emerging writing research from the Middle East-North Africa region (pp. 27–40). Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Clearing-

house and University Press of Colorado.

20 HILLMAN AND OCAMPO EIBENSCHUTZ

Northwestern University in Qatar. (2015). Focus on Qatar: Unique demographics and culture, highly connected and dis-

tinct media users. Doha: Media in the Middle East, Research by Northwestern University in Qatar. Retrieved from

https://www.mideastmedia.org/survey/2015/chapter/

Ocampo Eibenschutz, E. (2015). Trade, settlement, and migration: Persian-Arab mobility across the Gulf, 16th–20th centuries

(Unpublished Master's dissertation). Doha: UCL Qatar.

O'Neill, G. T. (2016). Heritage, heteroglossia and home: Multilingualism in Emirati families. In L . Buckingham (Ed.), Language,

identity and education on the Arabian Peninsula: Bilingual policies in a multilingual context (pp. 13–38). Bristol: Multilingual

Matters.

O'Neill, G. T.(2017). “It's not comfortable being who I am”—Multilingual identity in superdiverse Dubai. Multilingua,36(3), 215–

245.

Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and transcultural flows. New York: Routledge.

Pennycook, A., & Otsuji, E. (2015). Metrolingualism: Language in the city. London: Routledge.

Pessoa, S., & Rajakumar, M. (2011). The impact of English-medium higher education: The case of Qatar. In A. Al-Issa & L. S.

Dahan (Eds.), Global English and Arabic: Issues of language, culture, and identity (pp. 153–178). New York: Peter Lang.

Rostron, M. (2009). Liberal arts education in Qatar: Intercultural perspectives. Intercultural Education,20(3), 219–229.

Rudd, M., & Telafici, M. (2017). An Arabian Gulf: First-year composition textbooks at an international branch campus in Qatar.

In L. Arnold, A. Nebel, & L. Ronesi (Eds.), Emerging writing research from the Middle East-North Africa region (pp. 115–132). Fort

Collins, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado.

Saraceni, M. (2015). World Englishes: A critical analysis. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Selvi, A. F.,& Rudolph, N. (2018). Introduction: Conceptualizing and approaching “education for global interaction.” In A. F.Selvi

& N. Rudolph (Eds.), Conceptual shifts and contextualized practices in education for global interaction: Issues and implications(pp.

1–14). Singapore: Springer.

Selvi, A. F., & Yazan, B. (2017). English as an international language pedagogy: A sustainable alternative for teaching English

in the GCC region. In A. Mahboob & T. Elyas (Eds.), Challenges to education in the GCC during the 21st century (pp. 65–90).

Cambridge: Gulf Research Centre Cambridge.

Smart, J. R. (1990). Pidginization in Gulf Arabic: A first report. Anthropological Linguistics,32(1/2), 83–119.

Solloway, A. (2016). English in the United Arab Emirates: Innocuous lingua francaor insidious cultural Trojan horse? In L. Buck-

ingham (Ed.), Language identity and education on the Arabian Peninsula: Bilingual policies in a multilingual context (pp. 76–96).

Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Stasz, C., Eide, E., & Martorell, F.(2007). Post-secondary education in Qatar: Employer demand, student choice, and options for policy.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND-Qatar Policy Institute.

Suleiman, Y. (2003). The Arabiclanguage and national identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Theodoropoulou, I. (2015). Sociolinguistic anatomy of mobility: Evidence from Qatar. Language & Communication,40, 52–66.

Tuson, P. (Ed.). (1987). The Persian Gulf trade reports 1905–1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Archive Editions.

Van den Hoven, M., & Carroll, K. S. (2016). Emirati pre-service teachers'perspectives of Abu Dhabi's rich linguistic context.

In L. Buckingham (Ed.), Language, identity and education on the Arabian Peninsula: Bilingual policies in a multilingual context

(pp. 39–58). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversityand its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies,30(6), 1024–1054.

Vora, N. (2012). Free speech and civil discourse: Producing expats, locals, and migrants in the UAE English-language blogo-

sphere. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,18(4), 787–807.

Vora,N. (2015). Is the university universal? Mobile (re)constitutions of American academia in the Gulf Arab states. Anthropology

& Education Quarterly,46(1), 19–36.

Willoughby, J. (2008). Let a thousand models bloom: Forging alliances with Westernuniversities and the making of new higher

educational system in the Gulf. Department of Economics Working Paper Series,1, Washington, DC: American University.

Wilson, A. T. (1981/1928). The PersianGulf: A historical sketch from the earliest times to the beginning of the twentieth century.New

York: Hyperion Press.

How to cite this article: Hillman S, Ocampo Eibenschutz E. English, super-diversity, and identity in the State of

Qatar. World Englishes. 2018; 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12312

National Identity in Qatar: A Systematic Literature Review

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2024

The Arabian Gulf region has witnessed tremendous social, political and economic change in recent decades. The State of Qatar's ambitious global visions mean that it is a significant player in both creating and riding these transformational waves. Yet with a minority citizen population of only 12%, protecting the language, culture and values of the nation in the midst of rapid development and modernization presents unique challenges that most governments do not have to grapple with. This has led to strategic and legal stances and policies as well initiatives by governmental and non-governmental organizations to maintain and develop national identity and Qatari culture. Through a systematic literature review, this paper synthesizes available evidence regarding national identity for Qatari citizens. It explores dominant themes that emerged in the literature related to identity in Qatar, namely: architecture, education and language policy, gender, media and social media, museums, politics and governance, and sports. Each are synthesized, from which we offer reflections on what is (not) known regarding national identity, identifying a number of areas in need of research related to better understanding the complexity and diversity within the citizen population.

The Conundrum of Identity in the Omani Higher Education: A Case Study of an English Language Teaching (ELT) Context

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2023

Plain Language Summary The developing status of the Omani higher education has made this sector subject to both national and global influences. Such influences created inconsistencies between the demands of the local context and those of the increasingly globalizing context, which resulted in a nationally diverse faculty body. This paper draws on the Social Identity Approach (SIA) and the intersectionality theory to argue that identity in the workplace could be understood better through focusing on processes rather than individual narratives since processes reveal much of the complexity of prototypes especially when applied to workgroups. The paper reports the findings of a qualitative case study conducted in an English language-teaching department in Oman. The study explored identity intersectionalities within a workgroup by analyzing the data generated through 16 interviews, eight meeting observations and document analysis. The thematic analysis reveals that identities are constructed based on intersections of language, nationality, contract and professional identity. Such intersections were evident in relation to the process of recruitment, employment security and retention, staff inclusion, and professional identity enactment. These findings demonstrate that analyzing identity at the intra-categorical level sheds light on its effects at the individual level. The paper concludes by highlighting theoretical and practical implications that are relevant to ELT contexts internationally.

Plurilingual repertoires and identity constructions in transit states of the Arabian Gulf: A language portrait study with young people in a Turkish school

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2023

This study focuses on the role of plurilingual repertoires in the construction of identities among adolescents in the Arabian Gulf region. The region attracts numerous migrant workers, each contributing to the linguistic diversity of a largely multilingual yet under-researched population. We analyzed visual data - specifically language portraits (LPs) - and interview responses from twelve adolescents attending a Turkish school in this region. This school was chosen for two reasons: firstly, its plurilingual environment was representative of the diverse linguistic interactions we aimed to study, and secondly, the school offered convenient access to the study group as the first author was working there as a teacher. Our analysis contributes to the understanding of the complex and dynamic interplay between plurilingual repertoires and identity constructions. A thematic and metaphorical analysis of LPs reveals how the young participants navigated their identities amidst intricate relationships among social, territorial, imagined, and symbolic affiliations. These connections notably shape the dynamics of transit societies, particularly in settings where English is the common language.

Translanguaging in GCC English-Medium Higher Education: A Scoping Review

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2024

Through the method of a ‘scoping review’, this chapter explores a growing body of research on translanguaging in English-medium higher education in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. With Arabic as the official language, and English as a lingua franca and common medium of instruction, translingual practice in GCC universities is the norm. However, complexities exist around language ideologies, attitudes, pedagogy, and assessment. With the ‘translingual turn’, Gulf scholars’ interest in researching translanguaging in EMI classrooms has increased. While there are systematic and scoping reviews of attitudes toward EMI and world Englishes in the region, a comprehensive overview of research specifically on translanguaging is notably missing. This chapter surveys research undertaken in the last decade (2013-2022) in terms of bibliographic characteristics, sub-areas examined, and contributions made to the understanding of translanguaging in EMI higher education. Gaps in the current research base are identified with key suggestions for future research directions.

Effect of Lesson Planning on Academic Performance: Evidence from the Elementary Level Classroom

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2024

This study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of lesson planning on the performance of elementary school students. The research focused specifically on class 8th students in the subject of English. The chosen research design was experimental, employing pre-test post-test control group design. This design allowed for the measurement and observation of both the groups experimental and control before and after exposure to a treatment. The population of the study included all students enrolled at Government Girls Middle School Koteri Qandeel Bagh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir. A sample of forty students was selected for the study, with twenty students assigned to each of the two groups. The data collection process involved conducting pre and post-tests in the classroom, administered before and after the intervention. Data was analyzed using independent and paired sample t-test. The findings revealed a significant and positive effect of lesson planning on the academic performance of students. These results have important implications for educators, policymakers, and curriculum developers, emphasizing the critical role of effective lesson planning in enhancing students' academic achievements at the elementary level. By implementing well-structured and engaging lesson plans, educators can optimize teaching and learning experiences, leading to improved educational outcomes. The findings highlight the importance of incorporating comprehensive lesson planning strategies in curriculum design and instructional practices. Future research should further explore the long-term effects of lesson planning on academic performance, considering diverse subjects and student populations. By embracing evidence-based practices, educators can continue to enhance teaching methods and foster academic progress among elementary school students. This research study was conducted at Government Girls Middle School Tangyat district Bagh.

Glocalizing English Language Teaching in the Arabian Gulf: Professional Development's Mediating Influence

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2023

Hussain Ahmad

Methods and materials in English Language Teaching (ELT) are influenced by the unique socio-cultural contexts of instruction. Nonetheless, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching practices in the Arabian Gulf tend to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to teaching methods and pedagogical approaches. This study investigates the influence of the Cambridge English Teacher (CET) professional development program on the classroom practices of EFL instructors in the Arabian Gulf and its role in facilitating the contextualization of teaching in alignment with Saudi cultural norms. The study involved 120 Saudi EFL university teachers as participants. Employing a convergent parallel design that incorporated a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the results demonstrated that the CET program empowered participants to contextualize their teaching methods and adapt their classroom delivery to the local teaching environment. Specifically, the findings revealed that participants perceived their learning experience in the CET program in four distinct dimensions: contextualizing teaching methods, localizing Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) principles, diversifying teaching methodologies and materials, and comprehending context-specific classroom management strategies. Moreover, the study highlighted the significant impact of contextually tailored in-service professional development programs in the process of "glocalizing" teaching methods. In conclusion, the research findings carry implications for EFL educators, professional development initiatives, and provide valuable directions for future research endeavors.

English-medium instruction in higher education in Saudi Arabia

Chapter

Full-text available

Feb 2024

The past decade has witnessed a rapid growth of English-medium Instruction (EMI) programs in many higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia (Alnasser, 2022; Al-Hoorie et al., 2021; Allmnakrah & Evers, 2020; Almoaily & Alnasser, 2019; Elyas, 2008, 2011; Elyas & Picard, 2010, 2013, 2018; Elyas & Badawood, 2016; Elyas & Al-Ghamdi, 2018; Phan & Barnawi, 2015; Barnawi & Al-Hawsawi, 2017; Barnawi, 2017, 2021a, 2021b). Commentators have identified several factors regarding this rapid growth of EMI in the Saudi context. These include the desire for internationalization (Phan & Barnawi, 2015), economic growth (Elyas & Picard, 2013; Elyas & Al-Ghamdi, 2018), the need to reform and shift educational policy (Allmnakrah & Evers, 2020) coupled with the desire to improve university rankings (Kirkpatrick, 2014; Tsou et al., 2017) towards a transnational world (De Costa et al., 2020). These driving forces have led to the expansion of EMI across Saudi universities, particularly in top-tier universities (De Costa et al., 2021), and the quest towards ‘global multiversities’ (Collini, 2012). The chapter reviews a range of historical and current investigations that may serve as an important resource for EMI researchers and policymakers at a time when EMI programs, particularly in Saudi Arabia, are getting increasing attention.

Development Of Adobe Captivate-Based Arabic Reading Skill Learning Media For Students Of Class X SMA

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2019

Adam Ghozali Reynaldo Suharto

Many students experience difficulties in reading Arabic texts in several schools due to the lack of variety of learning media applied in class. This study aims to develop IQRA (Interactive Quiz for Reading in Arabic), an Adobe Captivate-based learning media for the Arabic reading skills of class X high school students. The method used in this research is research and development. The development design used to design this media refers to ADDIE. The research data was obtained using the nontest technique. The non-test instruments used were interviews, observations, teacher and student needs questionnaires, expert validity test questionnaires, product satisfaction questionnaires, and SWOT questionnaires for old and new products. The result of this study is an Adobe Captivate-based media prototype for the Arabic reading skills of class X high school students in the form of a Windows application (.exe). Based on a questionnaire that analyzes the needs of teachers and students, this Adobe Captivate-based media contains 3 themes, namely البيانات الشخصية, المرافق العامة في المدرسة, الحياة في الأسرة وفي السكن. The assessment of experts and teachers is that this Adobe Captivate-based media is appropriate in the aspects of software engineering, audio aspects, and visual aspects. The implementation of this media is a product satisfaction questionnaire by experts and practitioners who are declared appropriate. While the evaluation of this media is by SWOT analysis of old products by teachers and students, as well as SWOT analysis of new products by teachers and experts.

Impact of college English education thoughts on enhancing national cultural identity

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2024

Tianzhu Liang

The current issue of cultural identity is an inevitable manifestation of the contradictions and dilemmas of China’s economic and social development in the cultural field. Its root lies in modern China’s backward social development and the invasion of foreign culture, which is manifested by indifference to excellent traditional culture. English is a widely used international language, which is used worldwide. In recent years, with the popularity of English, college English teaching has also received more and more attention. Philosophy is highly theoretical, speculative and difficult to understand, which requires English teachers to be good at utilizing various beneficial resources to mobilize students’ subjectivity and creativity. English is one of the beneficial resources, and proper use of English in cultural identity can have unexpected teaching effects. Therefore, how to use college English education thoughts to enhance national cultural identity is of great significance for promoting the overall development of college English education and promoting national cultural construction. This article discusses how to cultivate national cultural awareness and cultivate national cultural one in the process of English teaching. On this basis, this paper puts forward new ideas to promote the overall development of English teaching in colleges and universities and build national culture. In addition, it emphasized that English knowledge must be integrated with the one learned in order to enable students to better understand different cultures, enhance students’ interest in various countries’ philosophy and culture, and enhance students’ own sense of cultural identity.

Acquisition of vocabulary in a foreign language classroom: the case of FFL in the minor of French at Qatar University

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2023

The objective of this research is to highlight the importance of vocabulary acquisition and lexical competence in the development of communicative competence among foreign language learners (FL). To achieve this goal, we have discussed the place occupied by vocabulary in the different methodologies of teaching / learning foreign languages, and we have defined the concept of lexicon and that of vocabulary. We have insisted on lexical competence and the different knowledge associated with it. We then identified our research context and analyzed certain difficulties encountered by our students in acquiring vocabulary in French as a Foreign Language (FFL). We ended up offering a number of activities to develop vocabulary acquisition in FFL classes. This research has therefore allowed us to observe that the acquisition of vocabulary remains a difficult task, especially in exolingual situations where FL is not used outside the classroom.

Emirati students encounter Western teachers tensions and identity resistance

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2014

Ibrahima Diallo

This paper discusses tensions and identity resistance in a cross-cultural educational context in the United Arab Emirates. It focuses on how Emirati students, living and socialised in a conservative Arabic-Islamic society and shaped by Islamic values and epistemologies, construct their cultural identities while learning English with their Western-trained teachers, who are influenced by liberal ideologies and secular epistemologies. To understand the complex engagement between Emirati students and their Western-trained teachers this article uses both phenomenography and reflection on critical incidents to explore, investigate and interpret Emirati students’ intercultural experience with their Western-trained teachers and to highlight the tensions and identity resistance that arise from this educational encounter.

Linguistic Superdiversity and English-Medium Higher Education in Qatar

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2017

Anne Nebel

The Sociolinguistics of Globalization

Book

Jun 2012

Jan Blommaert

Human language has changed in the age of globalization: no longer tied to stable and resident communities, it moves across the globe, and it changes in the process. The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways. This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society, reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality.

ON THE EMERGENCE OF A GULF ENGLISH VARIETY: A SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH

Article

Sep 2014

Nuha Alshurafa

The paper discusses the question of Linguistic identity in the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (henceforth CCASG). The notion of identity is analysed with reference to linguistic practices as a sociocultural means of communication. The existing register is a natural outcome on which the vast and fast process of modernization is reflected. The paper discusses a corpus of the Gulf register to seek an answer for the question of how the Arabic Gulf native identity impacts the English linguistic practice, as an interdisciplinary and integrative part in the sociocultural approach. Arabic meets with English as a global non-native variety of English and results in the new Gulf code. The result of the examination of linguistic practices confirm that identity in the Gulf reflects a cultural transformation and does not resist the new linguistic and sociocultural system. The selected theoretical framework for the analysis is drawn from a variety of linguistic sub-disciplines and research traditions. The sociocultural approach is selected for this study as it is the most applicable.

An Arabian Gulf: First-Year Composition Textbooks at an International Branch Campus in Qatar

Chapter

Jan 2017

World Englishes: A Critical Analysis

Book

Jan 2015

Saraceni Mario

Qatar: Past, Present and Prospects for Education

Chapter

Jan 2017

Fatma Al-Maadheed

Education in the Arab World is a critical reference guide to development of education in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The chapters, written by local experts, provide an overview of the education system in each country, as well as discussion of educational reforms and socio-economic and political issues. Including a comparative introduction to the issues facing education in the region as a whole, this book is an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers.

The Gulf States: A Modern History

Book