A Voice for Education: A Digital Analysis of Sheikha Moza’s Public Statements, 2009–2018

Women in politics have been subject to extensive research, and their speeches examined from different gender and discourse analysis perspectives; however, little has been written on female political participation in the Arab world. This paper examines how Sheikha Moza’s public statements have evolved from 2009 to 2018 in terms of linguistic features and content. The method used is both qualitative and quantitative. Unlike previous digital studies to date, this research employs two different digital tools: DocuScope and AntConc. DocuScope was used to trace statistically significant changes and to identify the variables that have changed over time. To complement these results, AntConc was employed in order to analyze unique word choices. Results suggest that there were significant differences between Sheikha Moza’s public statements over the period in question, specifically between the years 2009 and 2018. These were examined and compared here as being predominantly “ceremonial” vs. “realistic”. Thus, in 2009 she adopted a more ceremonial, positive, academic and institutional-idealist stance on education. In comparison, in 2018, she focuses on major international tribulations; her statements contain more narrative, character, negative and descriptive clusters as per DocuScope’s analysis. In particular, in her statements, she makes striking references to human suffering and comes to an understanding that education depends on cultural, political, and economic tranquility. Her language in 2018 becomes much idealist-nationalist and much more realist about the savagery that conflict and war can exact on educational opportunity.