ABSTRACT
Educational institutions occupy a pivotal place in the social system, linking childhood and adulthood, the domestic and the political, the private and the public. In modern democratic states, the education offered by public schools promotes the values of liberty and equality without ratifying the moral convictions held by any specifi c religious group. In many modern Arab countries, by contrast, the state is not neutral and neither is the education it offers its citizens. Instead of simply promoting the values of liberty and equality, the public schools also endorse the moral authority of Islam.
