5 - The cultural corollary: education and social stratification

Summary

The content and distribution of modern education in the Akhdar region prevent the majority of Akhdaris from becoming socially mobile. This is especially true in the case of women for the value system which reserves the ‘public sphere’ for men and excludes women from it also requires the training of women to be entirely domestic so that they are unemployable and economically dependent. They do not acquire a grasp of the principles on which is based the culture from which Moroccan education is derived. Their behaviour continues to be dictated by the ascribed status they occupy.

I was fortunate to be able to visit most of the schools in the administrative district of Akhdar. It will be useful to divide the social universe into the familiar categories of rural, urban, meaning Akhdar, semi-urban, meaning the ksour situated within 5 kilometres of Akhdar and closely integrated with it economically. The majority of the inhabitants of these ksour depend for their livelihood either on wagelabour, or on a combination of agricultural production and sporadic employment in the town. The first category comprises the rural ksour beyond the five-kilometre limit, whose economy may be considered almost entirely agricultural. Urban culture barely impinges on these villages. For them, the town represents a market for produce and a source of consumer goods, but not of behavioural models.