Middle Eastern Americans, Education of

Background of the Issue

Students of Middle Eastern heritage are a very diverse population. It is comparable to trying to think about the education of “North American” students and what might constitute best practices in educating North American students. In both cases, there is a diverse population of students to be considered: Some immigrant, others native-born; some first generation bi/multilingual, others monolingual; some Catholic, some Jewish, some Muslim, others atheist; some religious, others secular; some White, others of color; some member of traditional families, others members of bi/multiracial and nontraditional families.

Research conducted by scholars including Edward Said, John Esposito, Michael Suleiman, and Jack Shaheen, as well as the Middle East Studies Association of North America and the National Association of Arab Americans, has found several common assumptions in mainstream conceptions about “Middle Eastern Americans.” These assumptions include (a) they are the same as “Middle Easterners” (therefore, the presumption that to understand Middle Eastern heritage American students, one must understand the Middle East), (b) the Middle East is primarily a place of political and religious strife (therefore, these features underlie assumptions about Middle Eastern Americans and research conducted about them), (c) these conceptions are solidified as facts through their the repetition in media and popular culture of and serve to justify ongoing fear and misinformation. This cycle merges the concepts of Middle East + religious strife + Islam + Arab + backward civilization into a continual spiral, informing both mainstream conceptions and research activities.

The Middle East refers to a geographical region of the world that is identified as such from a European perspective. This means that it is a fluid term that has included at various times nation-states from the West Coast of the African continent to Central Asia. The term has been in popular usage since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. Previously, Near East was in wider usage to refer to the lands that included the Ottoman Empire, but not necessarily to areas that today are associated with the Middle East. Sometimes the term Middle East is used interchangeably with the “Arab World” or the “Muslim World”—many world history textbooks still have such units or chapters in them. This is further evidence of the fluid nature of the term, referring at times to a geographical space and at other times to a cultural space or people.

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