Rana Jawad
October 3, 2016

“Social Sciences in the Arab World: Forms of Presence” by Dr Hicham Ait Mansour, Mohammad V University, Morocco

Posted in: Arab World, Middle East and North Africa, Social science

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N.B: The guest author of this blog post is Dr Hicham Ait Mansour, Mohammad V University, Rabat, Morocco. Please feel free to contact him directly for further information on this report and other work he has carried out at aitmansourhicham@gmail.com

 

The Arab Council for Social Sciences issued its first regional report entitled “Social Sciences in the Arab World: Forms of Presence”. The distinctive feature of the report is that it situates social sciences beyond the classical academic cannon seeing them as playing an important role, not only in researching the social world and generating knowledge about it, but also in forming the culture of citizenship and critical self-awareness for the whole society.

In addition to a detailed introduction outlining the most prominent findings, the report is divided into two important sections. The first section addresses the institutional framework, research centres, professional social science associations as well as journals and the main characteristics of social scientists in the Arab world. The second section, on the other hand, addresses the general frameworks for social sciences in the region such as forms of presence of social sciences in civil society and in the public sphere as well as the media and cultural journals/reviews.

In addition to the ‘Forms of presence” the report addresses important issues such as the ability of social sciences in the region to analyse and keep up with the social change dynamics in the region and its different dimensions and impact on both individuals and society as whole; but also not less relevant issues of the relationship between state and society and the wider international environment. Last but not the least, the report addresses the main obstacles that hinder social science development in the region and its perspectives in the future.

Links to the report

Arabic: http://www.theacss.org/uploads/WEB-ASSR-Report-Arabic-2015.pdf
English: http://www.theacss.org/uploads/English-ASSR-2016.pdf
French: http://www.theacss.org/uploads/French-Report-Final-WEB.pdf

 

Posted in: Arab World, Middle East and North Africa, Social science

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