H. Ammar - Growing Up in an Egyptian Village

The International Library of Sociology

GROWING UP IN AN EGYPTIAN VILLAGE

The International Library of Sociology

THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
In 18 Volumes

GROWING UP IN AN EGYPTIAN VILLAGE

Silwa, Province of Aswan

by
HAMED AMMAR

First published in 1954
by Routledge

Reprinted in 1998, 2000, 2002
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1954 Hamed Ammar

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Growing up in an Egyptian Village
ISBN 0-415-17570-4
The Sociology of Development: 18 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17822-3
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

I N writing a foreword to Dr. H. M. Ammars study of growing up in an Egyptian village, I am expressing in particular terms the general satisfaction which every university teacher feels when a field of research which he has been advocating for some time, is adopted, investigated and made the subject of an original study. Dr. Ammars book was the result of an intensive period of field work in Egypt, preceded by systematic study in London where he formulated his theories, argued his premises in seminars, and examined the main approaches to his problems. He has done me the honour of referring to several of my published papers, and it is clear from these references and from the way in which he has handled his topic, that his research was directed towards the almost unexplored field of the social and psychological aspects of the training of children in a village community. The village of Silwa which he chose for his study was a community which in its social structure and economic life was, to a large extent, homogeneous. Though it was relatively isolated geographically, it was not unaffected by social change, and an important section of Dr. Ammars book deals with the impact of a modern system of schooling on the outlook and activities of the villagers.

The publication of this study marks a second stage in the contribution of the University of London Institute of Education to this important field. In 1940, Dr. Otto Raum, also a former post-graduate student at the Institute, published his Chaga Childhood, the first full-scale study of indigenous tribal education undertaken at a British university. Dr. Raums book was the first landmark in a new approach to the study of what had formerly been called Primitive Education. In this book he related the process of training Chaga children in their own environment to the nature and activities of Chaga tribal institutions, and relied on the teaching and field work of social anthropologists, chiefly those of the functional school, for his theoretical guidance.

The focus of interest of scholars in this field, up to the publication of Dr. Raums book in 1940, was in societies which were then designated as primitive. Subsequent field studies, between 1940 and 1953, were almost exclusively confined to tribal societies, where the culture was enshrined in institutions, distinctive to, and dominant in, a particular tribe, and hence limited to that tribal group and tribal area. The notable exceptions to the limitation to tribal societies were the American field studies in Indian communities in North, Central, and South America, and in Negro communities in the southern states. Only one piece of research, and that hardly an intensive village study, had been undertaken in the cultural areas dominated by the Islamic tradition, and none in the cultural areas of the Far East and South-East Asia.

Dr. Ammars book is therefore a landmark in two respects. He has carried out research in child training in a village community dominated by the Islamic cultural pattern, and has established the validity of these studies in a society which shows many contrasts with tribal societies. He has also demonstrated an original line of research. His dominant interest lay in the problems of personality and culture. In his exploratory research he ranged widely in the modern anthropological studies of culture, and also in the inter-disciplinary approach to the study of personality. In his theoretical examination of his problems, and in the organization and analysis of his field work, he has brought together the contributions of social anthropologists and of psychologists, both British and American. In his capacity as a trained educationist he has focused these contributions on the dual aspect of education of the children in Silwa village, in its traditional and modern forms. It is this correlation of the study of traditional child training, in its setting of the village culture of Upper Egypt, with the examination of the impact of modern schooling on that village culture, which distinguishes Dr. Ammars contribution to the progress of research in this field.