The Middle East at a crossroad: an educational revolution

Drawing from a four-year study the current state of educational opportunities for women in the Arabian Gulf in the early twenty-first century is discussed. The aim is to shed light on the ways in which traditional, tribal Muslim societies view accommodating new educational infrastructures and age-old traditions. The educational realm is a stage for the dilemma of reconciling traditional religious practices and the values of a globalized, modern life. A divergence exists between the Arabian Gulf's rapidly changing national culture and the deeply traditional ways providing women with new opportunities to create and to become connected while simultaneously limiting them. (c) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.