Arab Women, Education, Policy, and Empowerment: The Role of Gender, Culture, Religion, Traditionalism, and Class

Rey Ty, Manal Alkarzon, Awni Alkarzon 
(Division of International Affairs, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, USA)

Abstract: This paper addressed the problem of Arab women’s challenges that prevent them from pursuing their educational degree, freedom, and career. This qualitative research aimed to discover Arab women’s perspective on distance education and to find out how distance education increases their independence. The findings revealed that distance education is a solution to empower Arab women to be independent and to surmount their cultural barriers which prevent them from pursuing their education. As policy implication, higher education administrators in the Arab world can systematically implement online learning for the empowerment of female students.

Key words: policy, Arab women, gender, world values, culture, Middle East, empowerment, online learning, distance education, higher education