Jordanian Youth and Education

At all of our host families, adults continue living with their families until they marry.  My elder host sister is a very sweet girl who has graduated from college for two years and is working with relief camps for refugees from Syria or Lebanon.  However, she continues to live at home and probably will continue to do so until she becomes engaged.

There is a culture of close familial ties that is probably perpetuated by close distances most Jordanians live to each other.  There is good and bad in this.  Close family ties and close distance of relatives means that families are usually quite connected and close... but it also means that children are sometimes very dependent on their parents.  

Mohammed, an Arabic teacher who is incidentally the host brother of one of the students in our group, gave an interesting presentation about the role of family pressure on youth career paths.  There is a mounting pressure to be involved in scientific careers such as becoming a doctor or engineer (haha remiscent of some other cultures).  Pursuing literary and humanity fields is frowned upon.  This explains the vast number of engineers that I have met through work.

Additionally, both of the presenters seemed aggrieved that the youths of Jordan did not take more initiative socially and politically.  In particular, they blamed the Jordanian government and established regime for the complacency and corruption that prevented fair and unbiased information from disseminating.  This was outright shocking to hear - it is rare that any words are spoken against the government.

I have observed much of what they have said.  Not many youths that I know are interested in greater social movement or the political process, though I do not blame them for this as politics is much less publicized and not part of the general culture.  There are too many things to keep busy with already daily to think about what the parliament is planning, what with the shortage of water and the masses of refugees entering the country as well as the threat of terrorism.  However, this means that many youths are quite blind to the platforms of the political parties and the charges of corruption.

Well, I think that with all the uprising in the Middle East (Turkey is really undergoing so much right now) it's hard to ignore politics any longer and that have indicated that youths are growing in power.