Qatar has unique traits that make some areas of inquiry particularly relevant. That the citizen population is a minority and that there are so many international K-12 schools as well as international university branch campuses, the country is very well suited to explore education, identity and language questions. Wisam Abdul-Jabbar edited a 2025 book delving into this topic, "Teaching Interculturally in Qatar", covering K12 as well as higher education. The book has 14 chapters, with seven parts of 2 chapters each. Part 1 covers cultural and educational ethics, Part 2 culture and religion in higher education, Part 3 on cultural identity, Part 4 on intercultural communication, Part 5 on intercultural competencies, Part 6 on media, and Part 7 on translation and language teaching. It is often the case that academics draw on lessons and best practices on multicultural education from countries such as Australia and Canada. This book shows that Qatar has much to offer, and in many regards a more inclusive form of intercultural engagement (which allows comparing and contrasting with the assimilationist melting pot approaches or togetherness in different salad bowl ideas).

As a counter narrative to the stereotypes of the region and country, Chapter 3 by Patrick Laude notes: "Islam is the official religion of the state in Qatar, and the presence of a Catholic University on its land may have suggested to some local constituencies an alarming potential for religious proselytization. The presence of Catholic priests on the faculty, as well as that of a multi‑confessional chapel in the Georgetown building in Doha, could have raised suspicion of religious apostolate. None of these features seems to have been a factor of controversy or disruption. Catholic priests on the faculty were generally well‑received by students. There was never any suspicion that they would be engaged in religious activities promoting their faith. The faculty priests were also involved in interfaith activities; some had a deep knowledge of Islam and the Islamic world. In parallel, Qatar had also positioned itself as a country fostering interfaith dialogue. The Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue was founded in 2010 under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since then, it has been at the forefront of interfaith activities in the country and abroad. It hosts a biennial interfaith conference, among many other community activities, and sponsors a journal of interreligious studies." (p. 33) 

From his doctoral work, Yahia Baiza wrote "Education in Afghanistan: Development, Influences and Legacies since 1901" (2013), published by Routledge. The book covers more than a century (1901-2012), structured around the political eras of the period. As much as this book is about education, it is equally about the context of each time period. This partly to help us as readers have context and probably also partly due to the scarcity of available research specific to education during the period of study. In that sense, a parts readers are left wanting more about the actual education systems. This is a niche book of which there are few comparable options, so for anyone interested in this specific area of study this is worth picking up. A few quotes:

"There has often been a misconception about the nature of modern as well as madrasa education in Afghanistan. Since the latter is understood to be an exclusively or predominantly religious-oriented form of education, it has been often described as 'Islamic school' or 'religious school', although madrasas do also teach non-religious subjects. By contrast, as modern education has been adopted from the European model of education and many of its subjects are different from the traditional madrasa education, modern education has too often been mistakenly described as 'secular' education. As shall be discussed in this book, the modern education system not only includes both religious and non-religious subjects, but religious subjects for a very long time occupied an important position. In addition, the so-called 'secular' education had to rely on teachers from the madrasa system, who would teach language, literature, religion, Arabic language and grammar, mathematical sciences, etc. Furthermore, the modern education system has been borrowing terms and concepts from the traditional madrasa system. For instance, terms such as maktab (an elementary level of education), talib (seeker) or talibul Ilm (the seeker of knowledge) for student, mudaris (teacher), talim (education) and tarbiyah (upbringing for education) etc are rooted in the so-called 'Islamic' education system. Equally, the madrasa, maktab, and makatib-e asri for a long time were used interchangeably, and meant 'modern school'." (p. 44-45)

"The curriculum, which was an important characteristic of the 'modernness' of the schools, was a combination of aspects of religious education and aspects of western education. In civil schools, the curriculum for primary level education consisted of religious education (reading and reciting the Quran), Persian, mathematics, geography, and calligraphy. The lower secondary level curriculum included religious education, history, geography, painting, health care, Persian, Afghani or Pashto, and foreign languages, specifically English, Urdu, or Turkish. The curriculum at the upper secondary level consisted of subjects such as religious education (recitation of the Quran, Tradition (hadiths), Arabic language and grammar, Persian, history, geography, algebra, geometry, analytical geometry, natural sciences, alchemy, and English." (p. 51-52)

"Education became a key catalyst as well as victim on both sides of the war. The PDPA, under the Soviet Union's advisers, integrated socialist ideology in school textbooks, and teacher education programmes. Similarly, the resistance parties, under the United States' and other Western educational experts, used schools in refugee camps and in the areas outside the state's control in Afghanistan as recruitment and propaganda centres for the Islamist parties. They developed their textbooks for disseminating anti-Soviet and anti-PDPA messages of violence, aggression, killing, and use of firearms, etc. As a result, this period experienced two key parallel education streams: the state's education system under the control of the PDPA, and the refugees' education, under the control of resistance parties." (p. 131)

"When the University of Nebraska programme staff developed these textbooks, international organizations chose to ignore the images of Islamic militancy in them for the first five years of the programme (Davis 2002: 93). Later on, when the United Nations and various NGOs lobbied against such teaching and learning materials, some images and messages that promoted violence and killing were removed from the text- books, but the religious content remained unchanged (Pourzand 2004: 24–25). However, it is also worth noting that none of the NGOs or the UN agencies criticized these textbooks as long as the Soviet Union's army was present in Afghanistan." (p. 155) 

Haitham M. Alkhateeb published "Qatar: Political, Economic and Social Issues" (I published a similar book with the same publisher, in the same year, on Ethiopia). Unfortunately this publisher charges an unacceptably high rate for books (both this book and the one I edited sell for US$230), which makes them largely inaccessible to most readers. I was fortunate to come across this book recently, via one of the contributing authors. I am glad I did, as there are some gems in this book. Notably, almost all authors are based in Qatar (or nearby, in UAE or Oman), only the editor is based outside of the region (in the US).

With 20 chapters, I won't go into the details, other than primarily share what is in the book and some of its highlights / unique contributions. The chapters are not grouped under sections; as far as I read this collection there are two main groups of chapters (the blockade of Qatar and education) and a range of additional chapters. On the blockade, Chapters 2 through 6 (all written by Paula Marie Young from the College of Law at Qatar University) cover different aspects of the blockade of Qatar (a strength of these chapters is the legal basis they reside in, and their extensive referencing). These could be read alongside the book that Ulrichsen wrote on the topic (published in 2020).

The contributions relating to education are a unique addition for a generally under-researched area in Qatar (not all are formal education, but I am grouping them under a broad umbrella). Ramzi Nasser et al cover the attestation of online education programs (and the need for a policy, or a revision of policy, continues making this still relevant despite all the changes the pandemic brought about). Chapter 13 raises the question if Qatar needs a language policy, written by the editor of the book. Chapter 14, written by Aaron LaDuke, covers developments in Qatari literature. Ramzi Nasser also wrote Chapter 15, on the educational reforms that have taken place in Qatar, which goes alongside Chapter 16, on the same subject, by Weber and Kronfol (which are good reads alongside the excellent chapter written by Lolwah alKhater on the same topic, published in 2016). The editor contributes Chapter 17 on attitudes toward Arabic as a language of instruction (specifically for math and science) as well as Chapter 20 on university student study skills in Qatar. Chapter 18 covers the education role of museums, broadly and in Qatar, by Mariam Ibrahim al-Hammadi.

The third grouping of chapters are less connected. Chapter 1, by Nawaf al-Tamimi and Azzam Amin, covers nation branding (economic, media, humanitarian, education, cultural, sport, tourism) as a key aspect of strengthening soft power. Tarek Ben Hasen covers the transition to a knowledge-based economy in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 covers the water-energy nexus, by Ammar Abulibdeh, which is an excellent summative chapter on the issues (particularly useful for teaching or getting a summary of the nexus in the context of Qatar). Chapter 9 by Esmat Zaidan and Ammar Abulibdeh covers the role of place and culture / identity in urban development / planning. Chapter 10 by Susan Dun covers the divides of citizen and non-citizen in the context of FIFA and domestic interest to attend; given the demand for tickets that was recently registered, I think this chapter would be written in a different way today (assuming limited interest and half empty stadiums). Chapter 11 shares coins held by the Qatar Museums Authority, found at al Zubarah. Chapter 19, by Ziad Kronfol et al, takes a mental health perspective on the challenges youth face in Qatar 

New open access publication: Whose voice matters in the teaching and learning of IPE? Implications for policy and policy making

Abstract: Critical decolonial assessments of International Political Economy (IPE) curricula have found a continued dominance of Euro-Western perspectives. However, these critical assessments have often been of specific programs or courses. In this article, we open the canvas wider in our quantitative assessment of privilege and marginalization, by conducting an analysis of IPE curricula from universities from around the world as well as of one of the most widely used introductory textbooks in the field. We find that scholars based outside of the Euro-West are marginal, while those based in the Euro-West continue to be dominant – in all the assessed course offerings. We also find that female voices are marginal, in all locations. Knowledge production systems privilege Euro-Western male voices and perspectives, furthering a process of systemic cognitive and epistemic injustices. Building upon our analysis of teaching and learning content, this article critically reflects on the implications of when IPE meets policy, and offers avenues for the policy engagement to avoid the same processes of privileging and marginalizing, and thereby better situating policy making to avoid repeating failures resulting from the identified entrenched biases.

Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14494035.2021.1975220 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2021.1975220