Chapter 24: Re-Conceptualizing Teacher and Learner Identities for A Paradigm Shift Towards A Cosmopolitan English Education Curriculum

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a quintessentially globalized country where consumerist culture has gone to extremes. Dubai as a hub of elaborately westernized shopping malls, lavish beaches, and hotels that vie for the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, boasts an extravagantly affluent Arab population standing at the crossroads of conflicting cultures, in an attempt to weave in the branded world of Gucci, Versace, and Burberry with its ethnic austerity and simplicity. The result is a generation of confused Arab youth who struggle to keep up with the demands of an increasingly competitive, globalized, and westernized world, when seeking American education and professions, while striving to preserve their Middle Eastern traditional culture that identifies them.