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"Primary school enrollment has increased dramatically in Sub-Saharan Africa since democratization in the 1990s. A large theoretical literature in political science identifies education as a tool for democracy and state-building. Schooling Citizens forecasts the effect of expanded access to schooling and the liberalization of educational sectors in Mali by analyzing the relationship between parents and students' educational experiences and their participation in politics. In a landscape of the declining quality of public education and a multitude of accredited private providers, including Islamic, Arabic-language schools, does schooling contribute to citizens' political knowledge and participation? Are all educational institutions equally capable of forming democratic citizens? Bleck's methodologically rigorous research answers these questions and more. Her original survey of 1,000 citizens, which she conducted in Mali before the 2012 coup d'état, explores how different educational experiences, in public/private/informal and Islamic schools, affect citizenship. She looks at the perspectives of both students and parents as social service consumers. The results demonstrate schooling, in any type, plays an important role empowering citizens as democratic agents"--

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