Explaining the Nexus Between Gender-Gap and Education in the United Arab Emirates

Introduction

In the present time and space, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) economic and educational sphere seems to be saturated with the female population. Emirate females are more educated now and more involved in business and the government, although getting married and having a family is part of an Emirati woman’s most important roles in life (Al-Shamsi and Fulcher, 2005). However, there has been an incessant increase in the number of dropout male students from the high schools, and this does not afford them the opportunity to proceed to the higher education level. In the United Arab Emirate, females made up to 62 percent of all higher education graduates in the 2011-12 academic year, and made up of an even higher percentage (71 percent) in the public universities (The Economist Intelligent Unit, 2014). The first boys’ school was established in 1912, while the first girls’ school did not open until 1955 (Ridge, Kippels and Chung, 2009:39). But irrespective of this, the females still tend to perform better than their male counterparts in school. An average Emirati female seems to have more access to social and economic opportunities, and the reason is mostly anchored on the stance that the UAE government has a robust support system for the women. The vision and political will, staunchly supported by the ruling families, has resulted in the extensive building of school systems, universities, programmes and foundation grants, enabling a larger number of Emirati women to pursue higher education in UAE and outside it (Soffan 1980). The UAE unlike many other Gulf Countries strongly believes in equal distribution and women inclusion, not just in mere promulgations but also in practice. This is visible in the manner at which the Emirati women take active participation in the social and economic affairs, unlike the Saudi-Arabia where it is prohibited for women to drive cars, let alone engaging in the decision-making affairs. Though, in the gulf region, there remain a challenge of how to overcome the barriers placed on women in terms of employment opportunities (Rutledge et al, 2011). In the same breadth, there has been an excessive attention towards the education of a girl child without a commensurate preference for the boys. A campaign towards girls’ educational empowerment should not be too gender-oriented in order not to malign the boys towards their right to quality education. It is the intervention involving both boys and girls that appears to be successful in addressing constraints that limit girls’ participation in education (Dejaeghere, 2004). In that regard, equal opportunities should be given to both gender in a bid to achieve a proper and balanced educational attainment. Equality of educational outcomes means that girls and boys enjoy equal opportunities to achieve, and outcomes are based on their individual talents and efforts (USAID, 2008). This notion should inform every educational establishment to give room for fair chances. To ensure fair chances for achievement, the length of school careers, academic qualifications, and diplomas should not differ based on a person’s sex (USAID, 2008). In the same vein, this paper is set to review and explain the nexus between gender-gap and education in the United Arab Emirate, by lending credence from the Socio-Economic Status (SES), education trends, cultural and global diversity. It is a literature review article that is channelled towards addressing the question; ‘how can gender gap in learning be explained in UAE?’. Examples were drawn from the high schools and higher education. And the elucidations were culminated in different sessions like; the background of study, methodology, cultural diversity, male dropout trend, government influence on female education, rationale behind male educational underachievement, and the possible solutions.

Background of Study

The United Arab Emirate is located on the Arabian Gulf and formerly known as the Trucial States. It was established in 1971 through the consensus of the seven emirates, namely; Sharjah, Umm Al-Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujairah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, which is the capital. The UAE is one of the wealthiest countries in the Gulf. Since the discovery of oil in the 1960s, it has become an extremely well-developed nation with a high-level of human development (Sanaa and Syeda, 2016). The quest of the UAE to make the development sustainable made her embrace a knowledge-based economy. According to Peter (2010), a knowledge economy is encapsulated in three focal points, which are; the learning economy, creative economy and the open economy. This approach made the UAE to be permissive to the outside world, and the country concomitantly experienced a great influx of expatriates, most especially from the European continent. Despite the UAE huge investment towards transitioning to a knowledge-based economy, the quality of the graduates emanating from the institution is still below expectation. It is found that there is improper growth of graduate studies, in addition to the number of graduates coming out of the universities not meeting the requirements of the market, as stated by employers and employees(Hijazi, Zoubeidi, Abdalla, Al-Waqfi, & Harb, 2008). This ineptitude made the government open are walls extensively to the importation of foreign education. Schools in UAE are mostly characterised by gender. This is a common practice in the high schools, where the school could typically be an all male or female educational entity. However, the females tend to attain higher educational level. Socio-culturally, the Emirati women is publicly promoted, government supported (UNESCO, 2003; Whiteoak, Crawford, & Mapstone, 2006). It is a major propeller for the women to aspire towards harnessing their potential to the fullest. The UAE women’s pursuit of higher education has become a social and familial expectation and that women are encouraged to pursue higher education because of its availability and because it means they will be less dependent on their future husbands (Abdulla and Ridge 2011). Anchoring on this notion of social emancipation and economic freedom, crass majority of the Emirati women always aim to opt for a higher education. Since higher education has become freely available, more females have taken up this opportunity than men (Ridge 2010). In 2011, 70% of students in higher education were female (Abdulla and Ridge 2011). Prior to this era, the boys have always been known to outdo the girls in school work, but the reverse now seems to be the case. Too many boys become demotivated and uninterested in the course of their career, thereby throwing away chances of self-development and acquiring diplomas (Vantieghem, 2014). Hence the need to elicit how gender gap in education can be explained in respect to the United Arab Emirates.

Methodology

Educational scientists have tried to explain the gender-gap in education through several theories and frameworks, such as innate traits (Cole et al. 1999). These theories mostly exhibit the dominance of masculinity and the weakness of the female folks. Moreover, gender-gap discourse in our society has become synonymous with the marginalization of the women. Interestingly, the reverse is the case in this context. This is because gender-gap discourse in the UAE education seeks to address the male challenges, and the quest to fathom motivational techniques to allow the boys develop interest and aspire to further their education like their female counterparts. In lieu to this, I adopted the Gender Identity Theory as a lens to this paper, while drawing inference from the ‘Doing-Gender’ theory of sociology in a bid to explain and decipher human personality traits within the context of symbolic behaviour and social interaction. Gender Identity theory classifies people according to how masculine or feminine they are, thereby paying attention to both sides of the gender order, while being able to separate this from purely biological sex (vantieghem, 2014). But the doing-gender theory of sociology gives room for societal cues and reflectivity, which makes the adoption and combination of both frameworks a holistic approach. On the same note, literatures adopted for this paper were garnered through various sources like; Google Scholar, University of Oslo Library online platform, Educatin Resources Information Centre (ERIC), and dio links were pasted on the Sci-hub platform to generate literatures.   

Cultural Diversity and Education in UAE

Culture is the combined ways that humans live with each other in groups and how they pass this on from one generation to the next (Biggs and Moore, 1993). The early cultural beliefs of the Arabs subjected the women to the confines and control of the men. The traditional view of women in Arab society is that they should be primarily committed to the house and children (Abdalla, 1996). But as the society evolves, many of the women began to witness a change of social orientation, due to several influences from the western world. A fundamental social change in the contemporary Persian Gulf is the emergence of women into the previously exclusively male world of public affairs (Magnus: 406). The UAE culture is naturally being rooted and informed by the Islamic doctrine and tradition, where a man is perceived to be superior, while the woman is passive and totally refrained from public expression. This passive attribute of their culture deeply permeated the educational circle, where students were highly entrenched in the passive style of learning, most especially in the public schools. The experiences of those students who enter university from state-run schools have been characterised by a lack of using their initiative, not applying techniques of discovery in their learning and not utilising any aspects of their creative and critical faculties (Madsen & Cook, 2010). In cultures such as the UAE “people interact within relatively large and complex social networks formed from long-term relations developed between individuals over time, or from strong familial ties based on trust and senses of family duty and family honour” (St. Amant, 2002, p. 201). And based on this, they were accorded the opportunity to learn excessively through socialization. Moreover, the UAE is predominantly a patriarchal society (Gallant, 2006). But the general perspective shifted as the country began to experience social change in every walks of life. In addition, the availability of abundant financial resources and the strong drive to implement social and economic modernization paved the road for tremendous progress in the expansion of female education, particularly at the primary level (Bahgat, 1999). It also dawned on the entire populace that the man cannot only pool enough resources to take care of his wife and his entire family, and this portends the need for the woman to also play an active role in the economic sphere. The overlapping of roles was the dominant feature before the oil boom; the harsh environment made separation of the sexes something abstract (Al Oraimi, 2011). Apparently, this stance made it easy for the women to carve a niche for themselves within the economy and society as development surfaces. In other words, some scholars refuted the claim that the Islamic religion and doctrine does not truncate the women freedom and choices within the society. Much of the negative stereotyping regarding women in muslim countries is mostly based on practices that emanate from politics and culture, having little relationship to the rights and roles of women in Islam represented in the Qu’ran and Sunna (Soffan, 1980). Women’s achievement are supported by the principles of the Islamic social justice, which the UAE applies through equality in social services and other public programmes, as well as their legal rights (Al Oraimi, 2011). This is very obvious at the gross intensity of encouragement and support the females get from their male counterparts and the society at large to attain the highest level of education.

Male Dropout Trend in the UAE

The preponderance of male dropouts of high schools has become a great challenge in the UAE. This untoward pattern is mostly fuelled by lack of interest or motivation to further their education. According to USAID report (2011), dropping out of school in the Middle East is highly gendered in terms of socio-economic status. While lower socio-economic status countries are struggling to keep girls in school, the higher socio-economic status countries like the UAE, faces the challenges of retaining the boys in school, and they are more vulnerable. For instance, the Saudi Arabian government had extensively focused on girls education. But like other Gulf countries, females in Saudi Arabia are continuing their schooling in ever increasing numbers (Hussain, 2007). However, their male counterparts are far more likely to be seeking out work to support their families in a patriarchal society, which seems to be highly segregated (Hussain, 2007). From the year 2000, Statistics on enrolment for Saudi Arabia revealed that 94.5% of girls and 97.5% of boys were enrolled in primary education. At the secondary level, only 88.3% of girls and 92.8% of boys were enrolled in school (Hussain, 2007). In consonance with the Western studies of connecting poor student achievement with dropping out of school, it is essential to note that in the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assessment, conducted in 2003, Saudi Arabian boys scored higher in the math than the girls, with an average scale score of 319 compared to an average score of 309 points, respectively. According to Hussain (2007), there is a correlation between teacher factors and student achievement in the TIMSS. He also noted that parents education levels were significantly related to student performance. 

In the Gulf generally, dropout trends are far more common amongst the boys with up to 25% absconding from school in a single year in Dubai alone (Al Marri & Helal, 2011). In spite of the profundity of this social problem, it is quite disheartening to discover that there is a dearth of research in that perspective. In the UAE, there is only one study that has closely examined dropout patterns, and this was by Zureik in 2005. He examined 416 students from seven boys’ and seven girls’ schools in the emirate of Sharjah. Zuriek discovered that close to 35% of males dropped out between grades 10 and 12 as compared to 25% of females. He then concluded that boys sometimes drop out of school due to family circumstances relating to the father being physically incapacitated, which in turn makes the boys to work in order to fend for their families. But for the females, marriage was found to be the main reason for dropping out of school. School factors included lack of interest in the lessons, the curriculum, and outdated teaching methods. Teachers tends to blame the student or family for their failure or dropping out. The Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau under the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, also released an analysis of dropout rates in Dubai and found that up to 22% of males and 14% of females between the ages of 20 and 24 had left school before completing their secondary education (DSIB, 2010). In 2006/2007 in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), 14% of boys had dropped out of school as compared to only 2.5% of females in the same year. (Ridge, 2009).

Government Influence and Support System for Females

In the UAE, life expectancy is very high for women and exceeds that of many Arab states (Abouzeid, 2010). This is because there is a social platform and support system that vehemently protects the rights of the women. The general welfare of the female population was given utmost priority immediately after the establishment of the UAE Government. The high-profile women’s federation was set-up in 1975 to concentrate initially on eradicating illiteracy and social seclusion among women (Colin & Lila, 2007). The United Arab Emirates Government education system was developed under the guidance of the founding president Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Shaikh Zayed was concerned with the well-being of all people in the UAE and used the oil wealth of the Abu Dhabi Emirate for the benefit of all UAE citizens (The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 2004). He channelled a large investment quota towards women empowerment. Empowerment embraces a woman’s ability to access finance, education and income, as well as to have control over life choices through active engagement in politics and organizations (Beverly, 2011). The UN and World Economic Forum (WEF) reports highlight that the empowerment of Arab Gulf women is a significant aspect of the region’s future competitive development (Ali 1999; UNDP 2009; Hausmann et al. 2010). This actually enables the women to have a tenable ground of competition with their male counterparts in every of life’s endeavour and gradually bridge the inequality gap. The gap between the rights of men and women is the most visible and significant in the world and it is where resistance to women’s equality and social justice has been most challenged (Walby 2009; Freedom House 2010). However, given the nature of society, the extent of women’s influence on their external environment is limited because the degree of tolerance is still limited, although it varies from one emirate to the next, from one region to the next and from one tribe to the next (Al-Oraimi, 2011). In further notion, the Article 23 of the UAE constitution recognises the role of education in national development, and the federal government has pledged that education shall be provided free of charge to UAE nationals at all levels (Stephen, 2010). Apparently, the female student’s greater accessibility is another way in which public knowledge about their views and needs is increasing (Sally, 2007).

Rationale Behind Male Educational Underachievement

The consciousness and drive towards education increases daily in the UAE. This is very evident in the large number of applicants towards the Higher Education admission. Enrolment is expected to increase by approximately 10,000 students over the next 10 years and 20,000 by 2020 (MOHE, 2007). This projection is very feasible, as the UAE Higher Education is being proliferated. Variably, the female population seems to be the largest beneficiaries, due to their high admission level. By 2014, 32.8 percent of all males worldwide were enrolled in higher education, but more significantly, the percentage of females had grown to 36.2 percentage (UIS, 2016). Fewer males may be pursuing higher education due to the growing uncertainty about economic benefits of education for males (Charles & Luoh, 2003). Many of them may be in consonance with the assumption that educational achievement is not contingent to lucrative employment opportunity. There are many reasons for this low level of male enrolment in the higher education system, and correcting the problem will require policy initiatives that will demand significant resources and require a cooperative effort among many institutions in the UAE (Warren, 2007). According to (Ridge et al, 2017), low socio-economic status, shortage of programming efforts to support boys , failure of boys to consider the benefits of school for work, and the emergence of an education system that favour girls over boys seems to be the barriers for boys’ academic achievement. Across the globe, girls’ education campaign is being excessively staged, and it had enjoyed bountiful support from several multilateral organizations, while the cause of the boys is given little attention. Moreover, in societies where the quality of education is low and public sector employment seems to be very high, individuals often make distorted educational choices. This seems to be valid in a country like the UAE, where the Emiratization policy dictates the affairs of the economy. In this regard, the public sector would prefer to employ a national of UAE irrespective of his educational efficiency, than to employ an expatriate or foreign national. However, this factor also tend to discourage male participation in educational activities, as they believe connections will get them a job rather than education (Abdullah and Ridge, 2011). Social stratification is another factor that inhibits the majority of the Emirati men towards attaining higher educational level. Male students from a high economic background have a very high tendency to opt for higher education compared to their other male colleagues from a low economic background, who do not have the financial prowess to further their education. Minnis (2006) believes that education underachievement in the Gulf States may be associated to a rentier mentality characterized by a disjunction between educational effort and probable reward. In this respect, the government tend to channel a huge investment in the public sector, thereby making it attractive and desirable for every citizen to aspire to secure positions. The UAE has a robust social welfare package for her citizens working in the public sectors, which makes it enticing to the males after their high school, while they lost interest in the pursuit of higher education. In addition, social capital culminated in educational stratification also contributes to the the male educational underachievement. Male students whose parents acquired a higher education degree have the tendency to access higher education seamlessly. Consequently, male students whose parents are less educated have a high probability to experience difficulty in accessing, understanding information and attitudes relevant to making the right decisions in relation to the efficacy of obtaining a college degree, what to study and which institution to attend (Pascarella et al, 2004).

Intervention Measures and Possible Solutions

The first line of action that should be implemented in this regard is to conduct a baseline survey in order to systematically identify those boys that are indeed at risk. Criticisms about interventions concerning boys at risk revealed that not all boys are at risk, and group-specific approaches need to be implemented for a more nuanced result (warner, 2013). In the same breadth, sufficient resources should be channelled towards organizing extra-curricular activities after school hours , in order to motivate and make schooling attractive to the boys. The conventional class subjects and topics should also be incorporated with the extra-curricular activities to ensure that learning becomes fun. Gender imbalance in schools has become problematic by depriving students of positive male role models, and it has also contributed to their perception of teaching as a low-status profession (Garon, 2013). On this note, the government should recruit more male teachers, as they also role-play as a father figure for the students at school and also serve as a point of connection for the boys. Research had proven that schools that have more of male teachers, tend to have a high retention rate for male students. On the global perspective, multilateral agencies like the World Bank, UNESCO, Global Partnership for Education (GPE), and the Open Society Foundation (OSF) should fund campaigns aimed creating awareness on the low educational achievement of the boys and men. They should also initiate and fund research to study the gender-gap in education, and also devote streams and their online platforms to sensitize, and create awareness on the reality of the underachievement of the boys in education.

Conclusion

Prior to this era, the universe had always been embattled with several kinds of social problems, which are mostly culminated in Poverty, maternal mortality, oppression and marginalization of the women etc. These social problems attracted the global attention and innumerable support is still being meted out to ensure their effect on the human race is effectively truncated. Unfortunately, the world has been silent on the emerging challenge of low performance of boys and men in education. It is definitely of high efficacy for policy makers and professionals in the field of development all around the world to channel their resources in reintegrating and reawakening the educational zeal in the male population, in order to avert possible crimes and social-cohesion that could emanate as a result of their educational underachievement. It is worthy to note that this paper is not aimed at providing answers to the questions of gender gap, but to explain the necessary factors and indicators that may be responsible for the underachievement of boys and men in the UAE educational sphere. This is corroborated with the point that, there has been no sufficient research in the UAE to systematically discover the actual cause of the gender-gap in education, which I also termed to be a limitation to this paper work. However, without any iota of doubt, I would posit that there is still much to discover regarding the impact of gender gap on school achievement, and it obviously appears to be an interesting area of focus for gender and educational researcher.

REFERENCES

Abdalla, I. A. (1996). Attitudes towards women in the Arabian Gulf region. Women in Management Review, 11, 29–39.

Abdulla, F., and N. Ridge. 2011. “Where Are All the Men? Gender, Participation and Higher Education in the United Arab Emirates.” Dubai School of Government. Working Paper Series 11-03.

AbouZeid, O. 2010. “Women’s Empowerment Hammers Patriarchy: How Big is the Dent?” In The Changing Middle East: A New Look at Regional Dynamics, edited by B. Korany, 119–138. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.

Al Marri, F. & Helal, M. (2011). Addressing the early school leaving challenge. In The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), Education in the UAE: Current Status and Future Developments (pp. 83-123). Abu Dhabi, UAE: ECSSR

Al Oraimi, S. 2011. “The Concept of Gender in Emirati Culture: An Analytical Study of the Role of the State in Redefining Gender and Social Roles.” Museum International 63 (3–4): 78–92.

Al-Shamsi, M.S.A & Fulcher, L.C. 2005. The Impact of Polygamy on United Arab Emirates. International Journal of Child & Family Welfare, Vol. 8, PP. 46-55.

Bahgat, G. (1999). Education in the Gulf monarchies: Retrospect and prospect. International Review of Education, 45 (2), 127-136.

Beverly Dawn Metcalfe (2011): Women, empowerment and development in Arab Gulf States: a critical appraisal of governance, culture and national human resource development (HRD) frameworks. Human Resource Development International, 14:2, 131-148

Biggs, J. & Moore, P. (1993). The process of learning (3rd ed). Australia: Prentice Hall.

Charles,K.K, & Luoh, M. (2003). Gender differences in completed schooling. Review of Economics and Statistics, 85(3), 559-577.

Cole, D.A., Martin, J., Peek, L.A., Seroczynski, A.D., & Fier, J. (1999). Children’s over- and underestimation of academic competence: A longitudinal study of gender differences, depression, and anxiety. Child Development, 70(2), 459-473.

Colin, B. & Lila.Z.L. (2007) . Aspects of education in the Middle East and Africa. United Kingdom: Symposium Books.

DeJaeghere, J. 2004. “Background paper for workshop 1: Quality education and gender equality.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Education: Forty-seventh Session, Geneva.

Dubai School Inspections Bureau (DSIB). (2010). Annual Report 2010. Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA). Retrieved January 9, 2013 from, https://www.khda.gov.ae/CMS/WebParts/TextEditor/Documents/KHDA-DSIB%20Annual%20 Report%202010%20English.pdf

Gallant, M. (2006). Five case studies of Emirati working women in Dubai – their personal experiences and insights. Doctoral Thesis Faculty of Education, University of Southern Queensland.

Garon, I. (2013). Why do people view teaching as a ‘B-list’ job? The Guardian. Retrieved from https:// www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/Sep/05/education-us-teacher-shortage

Hijazi, R., Zoubeidi, T., Abdalla, I., Al-Waqfi, M., & Harb, N. (2008). A study of the UAE higher education sector in light of Dubai’s strategic objectives. Journal of Economic & Administrative Sciences., 24(1), 68-81.

Hussain, T. (2007). Student achievement in Saudi Arabia: The importance of teacher factors (Masters dissertation). Retrieved January 9, 2013 from https://aladinrc.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/1961/4151/etd_th234.pdf?sequence=1

Madsen, S. R. (2009a). Preparing for future leadership development efforts in the United Arab Emirates: Studying the transformational learning experiences of women students. Paper presented at Academy of Human Resource Development Research Conference of the Americas, Washington, DC, February. Available at: https://works.bepress.com/susan_madsen/9.

Magnus, Ralph H. 1980. Societies and Social Change in the Persian Gulf. In: Alvan J. Cottrell, ed., The Persian Gulf States: A General Survey.

Michael A. Peters (2010). Three Forms of the Knowledge Economy:Learning, Creativity and Openness. British Journal of Educational Studies, 58:1, 67-88.

Minnis, John, R. (2006). First Nationals Education and Rentier Economics: Parallels with the Gulf States. Canadian Journal of education. 29(4), 957-997

MOHE, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, ‘Higher Education and the future of the UAE’, office of Higher Education Policy and Planning, 2004.

Pascarella. E.T., Pierson. C.T., Wolniak, C.G., & Terenzini T.P (2004). First-Generation College Students: Additional Evidence on College Experiments & Outcomes. The Journal of Higher Education: Ohio. 1-37.

 Ridge, N. (2009). Privileged and penalized: The education of boys in the United Arab Emirates (Doctoral dissertation). Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.

Ridge, N. 2010. “Teacher Quality, Gender and Nationality in the United Arab Emirates: A Crisis for Boys.” Dubai School of Government. Working Paper Series 10-06.

Ridge, Kippels & Brian, J.C. 2017. The Challenges and Implications of a Global Decline in the Educational Attainment and Retention of boys. World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). PP.39

Rutledge, E., Al Shamsi,F., Bassioni, Y. & Al Sheikh, H. (2011). Women, Labour Market Nationalization Policies and Human Resource Development in the Arab Gulf States: Human Resource Development International, 14(2), 183-198.

Sanaa, A. & Syeda, K.F (2016). Factors favouring or impeding building a stronger higher education system in the United Arab Emirates:Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 38:5, 576-591, DOI:10.1080/1360080x.2016.1196925.

Soffan, L. 1980. The Women of the United Arab Emirates. London: Croom Helm.

St. Amant, K. (2002). When cultures and computers collide: Rethinking computer-mediated communication according to international and intercultural communication expectations. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 16, 196-214.

Stephen Wilkins (2010). Higher education in the United Arab Emirates: an analysis of the outcomes of significant increases in supply and competition, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 32:4, 389-400.

The Economic Intelligence Unit (2014). UAE economic vision: Women in science, technology, and engineering. Geneva Switzerland: Author. Retrieved from www.alqasimifoundation.com/admin/content/UserFiles/English%20UAE%20Vision%20Women%20FULL%20-%20WEB_o.pdf

UNESCO-Beirut, Regional Office for Education in the Arab States. (2003). Literacy and adult education in the Arab world. Retrieved from: https://www.unesco.org/education /uie/pdf/country/arab_world.pdf

UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2016). Custom data representations of education enrolment by gender net years of schooling by gender. November, 21, 2016. UIS Data Centre. Retrieved from: https://data.uis.unesco.org.

USAID (2008). ‘Education From a Gender Perspective’. Retrieved from

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED511674.pdf

USAID, 2011. School dropout prevention pilot program: Review of the literature. United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Creative Associates International.

Vantiegham et al (2014). Why gender disappeared from the gender gap: (re-)introducing gender identity theory to educational gender gap research. Belgium:Springer.

Warner, B. (2013). Is there really a Boy crisis? Time. Retrieved from ideas.time.com/2013/03/21/the-boy-crisis-is-it-fictional/

Warren, H.F. (2007). The United Arab Emirates: Policy Choices Shaping the future of Higher Education. Research and Occasional Paper Series: Carlifornia

Whiteoak, J., Crawford, N., & Mapstone, R. (2006). Impact of gender and generational differences in work values and attitudes in an Arab culture. Thunderbird International Business Review, 48(1), 77-97.

Zureik, E. (2005). Explaining anomalies in educational attainment. Presentation of UNESCO Chair Program in the Center for Applied Research in Education, Higher Colleges of Technology, Sharjah Women’s College, May 3, 2005.