The growth in the numbers of graduates continued even after the Jordanian economy stagnated in the mid-1980s and the devaluation of the Jordanian dinar in 1988 raised the cost of studying abroad. [...] One of the most informative aspects of the book is its discussion of the University of Jordan as a site of social stratification. [...] Cantini also describes the increasing importance—with the neoliberal reforms of the universities—of a parallel system of fee-paying admissions (the so-called ta‘lim muwazi) wherein the grades required for acceptance are reduced in return for the payment of higher fees, sometimes multiplied by a factor of up to four times. [...] The student council of eighty has only half its members freely elected while half are appointed by the university senate; the president of the council is appointed and Cantini documents an unwritten agreement between the politically active students and the university admin- istration that enforces a mutual understanding that the regime will not toler- ate strong dissent on campus. [...] Cantini’s book contributes to a small literature on the anthropology of education in Jordan—such as the ethnographic work of Fida Adely on a girls’ public school—and is a wel- come addition to the limited literature in English on knowledge production in the country.2 The book is likely to become recommended reading for any- one interested in the politics of youth in Jordan, and in the anthropology.
- Pages
- 4
- Published in
- Lebanon
