Family characteristics and family life education in Algeria

Abstract

The present chapter reviews the main characteristics of the Algerian family and discusses some of the major areas where some forms of family life education (FLE) programmes have been applied. The chapter is divided into five sections. It starts by exploring the historical and cultural backgrounds of the Algerian family and then discusses how family life is construed and organised in an Islamic context. Afterwards, it examines children’s rights and status within the Algerian family. The following section is devoted to illustrations on how FLE is applied, to end with how FLE is taught in Algeria. Overall, it has been shown that FLE has been part of the Islamic religious education. It has been practiced informally by imams in mosques and was part of the traditional educational system. Some forms of FLE are also found in the area of children rights and in the dissemination of these rights. In the domain of healthcare, the role of FLE programmes is recognised as crucial, mainly within the top health policy priority areas, such as family planning, maternal health, the elimination of sexually transmitted diseases and waterborne diseases and most recently in the fight against cancer diseases. Nevertheless, it has been noticed that teaching FLE needs strengthening and should be harmonised in order to be delivered in a consistent manner to provide a professional training to students and other workers in family sciences.