The arabic language and contemporary egyptian national values: A lexical analysis

Abstract

Aiming at compiling a culture specific taxonomy of Arabic values, four Egyptian raters extracted 327 value descriptive nouns from a dictionary of Arabic. These concepts were rated as personal guiding motives by 773 Egyptian students at the American University in Cairo (AUC), 490 of them women. Principal Components Analysis with varimax rotation yielded six factors which explained 29.4% of the variance: I. Nobility and Compassion, II. Discipline, III. Advancement, IV. Self-Actualization, V. Belief and Commitment and VI. Counter-Culture. These factors were named and interpreted by a focus group of seven former or current AUC students. The value dimensions reflect the traditional ethic of Arabic society and focus on community related issues which are characteristic of collectivist societies.