CAES Morocco: Leading Across Differences

      For this blog, I have chosen to focus on mental disorders--specifically anxiety, mood, and neurodevelopmental disorders, as recognized by the World Health Organization in a 2025 article--and how availability of institutional support for these conditions impacts Moroccan citizens.       A Moroccan Arabic version of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) reports that "among 5,498 subjects interviewed, 40.1% had at least one current mental disorder," with major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder most commonly reported. Interestingly, according to the tests, these mental disorders were most prevalent among "female, urban, divorced, and unemployed subjects"  (Kadri et al., 2009). As of 2007, there were no more than 350 psychiatrists in Morocco, a country of 37 million, and more recent reports have counted a very slight increase (Moussaoui, 2007). With a concerningly large portion of the MINI test subjects reporting st...

 Blog 3: Sexual Orientation or Gender Roles During our time in country, one thing that has particularly stood out to me is the complete lack of public displays of affection. These displays, such as a kiss on the cheek, hand holding, hugging, or putting an arm around someone, are so commonplace in the United States that no one gives them a second glance. In Morocco, however, relationships and sexuality appear to be treated much more privately. This observation prompted me to think more deeply about how homosexuality is viewed and expressed within Moroccan society. Since I have not seen any heterosexual PDA, I have certainly not observed any homosexual PDA. Morocco is a predominantly Muslim country, and cultural and religious values strongly influence public attitudes surrounding sexuality and relationships. According to the Pew Research Center (2020), attitudes toward homosexuality tend to be less accepting in countries where religion plays a major role in daily life and cultur...

When I think back on our days in Morocco, I struggle to pick a picture for this blog post because oddly enough, I keep searching for someone who was often difficult for me to find. Women. Not because they were absent, but because I realized I had started noticing what appeared to be their absence in many of the spaces we moved through. Walking through the Medina, visiting markets, eating in cafés and restaurants, and riding buses from city to city, I suddenly found myself looking around and noticing that most of the visible faces working around us were men. Men preparing food, men selling goods, men negotiating prices, men leading conversations. The moments I most frequently encountered women were often in quieter places such as the restroom, where women sat or worked cleaning facilities, accepting small tips from visitors as part of their income. And suddenly, I found myself paying attention not just to who was there, but to who I was looking for. For this reflection, I found ...

While traveling across Morocco, I have seen many different kinds of people and have observed that there are different expectations for women in regards to the law. In the US, coming from personal experience, I have observed that women can do anything and have the same level of representation as men in the law [up until recently but that can be said not to be related]. According to an article from the Freidrich Naumann Foundation (2024), Morocco is one of the most progressive countries for women where they can enjoy access to political and economic life, and single women [with no guardian] can travel freely. That ends at criminal and civil law. There is one of particular intrest called the inheritance law. According to Islam, women are only entitled to 1/3 of the property left to them.  In contrast, the United States has laws that are generally based on gender equality in inheritance. Women and men have equal legal rights to any property left to them by parents or spouses. According...

  The identity I am choosing that is different from my own is that of a person with a physical disability. Our time in Fes made me curious about how a physically disabled person would be able to go about and travel in their daily lives in Morocco. After doing some research, I found that “in Morocco, 727,833 people live with a disability, representing 5.5% of the population,” ( United Nations Development Programme ). Although that is a large number, there are many obstacles, like social acceptance and access to services, that disabled people face everyday. As a result, UNDP Morocco has begun to make strives to combat this. They have constructed wide passages with ramps to make places more accessible to people in wheelchairs. They have also been creating parking spaces specifically for the disabled. Morocco also has an inclusive recruitment policy which prevents discriminatory recruitments practices in places of work and school. Along with all of these physical improvements, the UNDP...

     One identity category that stood out to me during my time in Morocco is how social class and access to education shape opportunity, specifically through differences between private and public school. This idea came to my mind during our visit to the École Nationale d’Agriculture, where we learned about the highly competitive admissions process and spoke with students about their educational backgrounds.      During the tour, we were told that the school receives over 10,000 applicants but accepts fewer than 200 students each year. The admissions process is based on high school academic performance, followed by an additional standardized exam for selected candidates. This was especially interesting because it differs from systems like the United States, where admissions may include essays, recommendation letters, and standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT. In contrast, the Moroccan system felt more specialized and focused on academic performance, whi...