JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Abstract

An apparent lack of economic benefit from performing well in schools, coupled with the UAE governments’ over-investment in its citizens in the public sector has been seemingly having an impact on their citizens that not only grants unique privileges to the adults but also transcends into the minds of their young ones; in a way that it reflects in the educational settings by affecting the students’ participation and their educational attainment. In the beginning, this study shall briefly elaborate on the unique privileges that are garnered by the UAE governments’ over-investment in its citizens. Then, review the impact of these national investments as presented by other studies that have been implemented within the UAE. Later, this study will focus on the perceptions of the teachers in the UAE to essentially explore the beliefs and assumptions that they might have, based on the influences due to nationalization, of their students. The motive of this research is to explore and identify the stereotypes, if any, that exist when it comes to teaching the local students (UAE citizens) in UAE public schools, and to identify whether these perceptions lead to a positive or negative judgement with an effect on their teaching preferences. With a qualitative approach, this research gathers teachers’ perceptions through a semi-structured open-ended questionnaire. The selected participants are employed teachers in the UAE public schools who are delivering primary, intermediate, and secondary education. By discussing the beliefs, perceptions and experiences that reflect within the questionnaire responses from the teachers, the authors have identified what perceptions the teachers have about their students, what stereotypes are constructed, and are these perceptions resulting in positive or negative judgement. Through a thematic analysis of the data collected from the respondents, various stereotypes were identified within teachers’ perceptions that not only were found to be embedded within their reasoning but also affected their judgements and teaching preferences. Therefore, this research calls for further identifying and exploring the roles that teachers play in the construction of social disparities in schools. This may clarify the teachers’ individual and societal purpose, and approaches to providing education and determine ways to increase productivity, motivation, and collectively the educational attainment in the UAE.