ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Egyptian public schools’ systems of discipline, embedded citizenry, and religious discourses shortly before the fall of Mubarak’s regime in 2011. Through an ethnographic study of three secondary public schools in Cairo and the experience of the students within them, the author examines the role schools play as sources of ambivalence and contradiction, including how schools’ physical spaces and everyday rituals attempt to support the state’s social and cultural reproduction project and deter students from their personal goals and aspirations. Through exploring the students’ strategies in navigating the pressures from school, family, and economic conditions, the author demonstrates how the school space—the product of a heavy-handed authoritarian state—attempts to subordinate young people, with the aim of producing conforming citizens, equipped to serve the state’s economic reforms.
