شبكة المعلومات العربية التربوية

Literature on politics-education interaction proposed that the politicians operating governments have been employing different sorts of educational strategies to direct or control the conduct of education. Few studies have dealt with one of the most significant political dimensions for education systems, that of power relationship among a nation's majority and minority ethnic, social-class, and religious groups. Moreover examining the political development of the Lebanese Shi'a community in relation to education is not an issue that has captured much scholarly attention. Therefore, this study pictures political-educational strategies employed by a religious group, the Shi'a of Lebanon, as a conscious tool to obtain greater share of the economic and political power which has been held in large measure by the nation's dominant group, the Christians. This study attempts to answer the following questions: a) what factors contributed to the expansion of Shi'a schools in Lebanon? b) How did this expansion occur? c) What role did the expansion of the educational institutions have in the community political mobilization?The study came to a conclusion that the wider cause of these groups based on religious conviction greatly influenced the vigor with which educational activities was undertaken. Actually, the Shi'a schools' system emerged as institutions that empower the culturally marginalized segments of the population by creating proud around Shi'a identity, the fact that accelerated the political mobilization of the community. As such, the impact of the religious political parties has been the Islamization of the citizenship discourse among Shiites in Lebanon in addition to radically politicizing educational institution-building as a crucial component of political legitimacy.Data were collected from the analysis of historical and school documents. The author carried out personal interviews with officials, parents and members of the institutional organizations. A constant comparative and interpretational approach to data analysis was used to create categories, to identify recurrent themes in the primary and secondary sources. Personal judgment was used to weave together the findings into a coherent story of how particular events, individuals and groups in the recent past initiated the rise and expansion movement of Shi'a schools in Lebanon and helped it gain momentum. (Authors' Abstract)