NPF Cycle Two Fellows and Projects

Sawsan El-Sherif: Political Elites and Their Role in Shaping Nationalism

 

Abstract: The fast sequence of events and the Arab uprisings that swept through the region rewrote history and rebuilt various intellectual and ideological systems that are different from some concepts that we wrongfully believed were constants. These changes and developments require understanding minds that can comprehend and analyze them logically and elaborately. This educational awareness quest should be the responsibility of the intellectual elite in general, and the political elite in particular. The reason is that this political class has the necessary culture especially in terms of politics, as well as the ability to analyze and deconstruct current events. This research explores the elite and its role in this regard.

 

Sawsan El-Sherif holds a PhD in Education with a major in social studies and pedagogical philosophy. She is currently a research fellow at the Social Research Center (SRC) at the American University in Cairo (AUC), and a consultant for various civil society organizations. She is also a board member of Insan Al-Moustaqbal and Hawaa Al-Moustaqbal, as well as a member of the Egyptian Society for Mental Health. El-Sherif works on social development, civil societies, training, women’s issues (economic and social empowerment, personal status affairs, etc.), children’s rights (child protection, street children, child employment, etc.), as well as designing and implementing research projects in the fields of humanities and Islamic studies. She has won the writing and publication awards from the Friends of Ahmed Bahaa El-Din Society in 2005-2006 for her book “Scientific Research Utopia: Academic Freedom.” Her published works include: “The Educational Aspect of Gender Equality,” “Issues of Personal Status between Theoretical Concepts and Realistic Practices,” “Paths for Women’s Political Empowerment,” and “The Personal Status Law and the Reality of Exclusion.”