“Our Greek dignity and our educational autonomy”: Arabic language teaching in Greek schools, 1950s to 1970s

In 1955, Gamal Abdul Nasser’s government launched a new educational policy aimed at promoting the Arabic language in Egyptian schools and boosting technological and industrial skills across the population. This paper traces the responses of the Egyptiot – Egyptian Greek – community to the new policies, especially the communities’ reactions to the demand to increase teaching of Arabic in their schools and their negotiations with the Egyptian state over levels and styles of language teaching.