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Monday, January 31, 2011

Students and Youth in the Egyptian Uprising « Student Activism

Students and Youth in the Egyptian Uprising « Student Activism

Students and Youth in the Egyptian Uprising

Patrick St. John of the For Student Power blog has a good post up on how the demography and contemporary culture of Egypt is shaping the role of Egyptian youth and students in the current popular uprising. Among other things, he notes that nearly two thirds of the Egyptian population is under 30, and that one in four young adults in Egypt is unemployed.

Egypt’s colleges and universities are large and growing, but as St. John notes, the student role in this revolt can be hard to disentangle — with the country’s population so young, and the student body relatively representative of the country as a whole, the “demographic overlap” between students and revolutionaries makes distinctions difficult to draw.

Meanwhile, the New York Times this morning has a fascinating look at the strategists behind Egypt’s uprising,