Saudi Arabia is behind the rest of the world in many aspects of human rights due to various religious and historical events that have developed its culture in a certain way. It is the purpose of the local educators to challenge exclusion practices and gradually change the social, political, and educational climate for the better, and help promote the values of equality and feminism in such a rigid and conservative environment.
It must be noted that every society in the world had gone through the same process at one point or another, meaning that there are valuable historical and educational lessons that educators can benefit from. The purpose of this section is to analyze various global, international, and comparative perspectives, to inform the local application of education in my area of practice.
Educational Transfer in Comparative Education
The first thing that an educator must recognize is the differences in practices across the world, which correspond to a certain level of historical and societal development. Applying practices that are ahead of their time or fit into a particular cultural narrative may be counterproductive or even harmful to the educational effort. For example, the US school system is using a humanistic educational theory, which propagates equality of capabilities in students no matter their gender or race (Trohler, 2013, p. 63). Girls and women are empowered to compete and are shown support from various feminist organizations and the government.
However, while the feminist agenda has been present in the educational narrative of the USA since the 1970s, Saudi Arabia is still struggling with the promotion of basic rights to women, such as the right to drive a vehicle and the right to personal freedom. Therefore, simply copying the practices of the US educational system towards sports would not be efficient. Beech (2006, p. 3) suggests the following pattern for introducing comparative practices from abroad:
- Identifying the local problem or issue in education;
- Finding solutions for a similar issue from abroad;
- Adapting the solution to a new context and implementing it.
This framework can be utilized to identify useful practices and create strategies for their implementation in the educational sphere.
The Position of Women in Sports in Saudi Arabia
As it stands, there are many barriers to the participation of women in sports in Saudi Arabia. Many of these issues stem from the perception that sports are the domain of men and that women have no reason to practice competitive sports, as it goes against “their nature” (Alhareth, Alhareth, & Dighrir, 2015, p. 122). Because of this trend, girls were barred from sports classes in public schools in the KSA, which prevented the growth and development of professional female athleticism in the country.
The first step towards equality for Saudi women in sports was taken in 2012, when two female athletes from Saudi Arabia, Sarah Attar, and Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, were allowed to compete in London Olympics (Stevenson, 2018, p. 239). This also showed a significant level of underperformance as a result of restrictions placed on women. Since 2017, certain private schools in Saudi Arabia have allowed limited participation of girls in gym classes (Stevenson, 2018, p. 240). Public schools, however, remain unaffected by these changes.
International Practices to Encourage Women in Sports
The roles, virtues, and perceptions of women in the KSA are currently similar to those in Europe and North America roughly 100 years ago. Therefore, the experiences, advances, and perceptions of female sports during that time must be taken into account during the development of strategies to introduce and promote sports in the country through activism and education. One of the prominent practices to keep a note of is the promotion of female sports in Canada.
At the beginning of the 20th century, women were largely excluded from participating in any forms of sports, as those were largely geared towards men to promote masculine virtues. Women were present during sporting events as spectators to encourage male athletes and also to keep them in line through feminine presence (Mott, 1983, p. 61). However, as evidenced by the social programs of involving women in sports competitions as members, the general purpose behind the initiative was to promote health and feminine virtues as well. These programs increased the participation of women in manly sports and gave a powerful boost to traditionally “feminine” sports, such as golf, tennis, and tracking (Mott, 1983, p. 61).
Russia shows a different experience of integrating its women into sports. After the fall of the imperial monarchy at the beginning of the 20th century and the introduction of communist ideology, a course for equality of rights and opportunities between men and women was announced (Riordan, 1991, p. 185). However, the government quickly discovered that the progressive ideology was not easily accepted by the traditionalist Russian society, which retained many of the opinions and prejudices towards women left from the days of the Empire.
As such, the curriculum programs of the USSR had to distinguish between male and female sports while maintaining a façade of equal opportunity. Thus, while men were focused on sports that promoted physical strength, such as running, weight-lifting, football, and athletics, women were encouraged to participate in more feminine sports, where grace, flexibility, and accuracy of motion were more important than physical strength. Female sports teams from the USSR were particularly impressive in gymnastics, swimming, water polo, volleyball, and biathlon. The overarching purposes of these programs, which started since school, were two (Riordan, 1991, p. 186):
- Help represent the country in the international arena;
- Improve the overall levels of health in the population.
Application of Educational Transfer in the Local Setting
Based on the historical experiences of Russia and Canada, it is possible to see how female participation in sports was introduced, promoted, and popularized among the populace. The two conditions under which women in sports could be promoted in a conservative environment are health concerns and the focus on feminine virtues.
In the local setting of KSA, it would be possible to initiate public dialogue and push for humanitarian and feminist goals using these strategies, as they do not directly oppose the dogmas and traditions of Islam. The right to public education is already available to the majority of women in Saudi Arabia.
The proposition for curriculum should involve the introduction of volleyball, tennis, and gymnastics as sports that promote female virtues. These sports can also be engaged in while maintaining the dress code demanded of women by the Sharia law. Lastly, due to a relatively high percentage of female students, it would be possible to keep them in separate sports teams and avoid direct competition with male students (Hamdan, 2005, p. 42).
Such adaptations of the solutions presented by international practices are required to ensure a gradual acceptance of women in sports by the Saudi society and its legislative bodies. The transformation, as it was in the case with Canada and Russia, must be gradual. An attempt to force a more liberal agenda, such as that of Europe and the USA, will be met with a lack of understanding. Such an outcome would not promote the overarching goals of educational equality and opportunities for Saudi women in sports.
References
Alhareth, Y. A., Alhareth, Y. A., & Dighrir, I. A. (2015). Review of women and society in Saudi Arabia. American Journal of Educational Research, 3(2), 121-125.
Beech, J. (2006). The theme of educational transfer in comparative education: A view over time. Research in Comparative and International Education, 1(1), 2-13.
Hamdan, A. (2005). Women and education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and achievements. International Educational Journal, 6(1), 42-64.
Mott, M. (1984). One solution to the urban crisis: Manly sports and Winnipeggers, 1900-1914. Perspectives on Sports and Urban Studies, 12(2), 57-70.
Riordan, J. (1991). The rise, fall, and rebirth of sporting women in Russia and the USSR. Journal of Sport History, 18(1), 183-199.
Stevenson, P. (2018). Empowerment discourses in transnational sporting contexts: The case of Sarah Attar, the first female Saudi Olympian. Sociology of Sport, 35, 238-246.
Trohler, D. (2013). International curriculum research: Why and how? In W. F. Pinar (Ed.), International handbook of curriculum research (pp. 60-66). New York, NY: Routledge.