An Incompatible Method: The western liberal arts educational model in Kuwait and the Arab Gulf Region

Abstract

Drawing on oral histories from the region as well as literature on the subject, this paper begins with an examination of the historical development of the characteristics of liberal arts in Europe and then goes on to argue that those essential characteristics are largely incompatible with the social and cultural traditions of the Arabian Gulf region largely because they are imposed from without rather than from within. While there are similarities in the historical experiences of the west and the Gulf, the necessary conditions for implementing a liberal arts-type of education in the region have yet to be realized.