One important factor of education in the Gulf is the use of English as the lingual medium of education. Some theorists such as Ratnawati (2005) suggest that conflicting discourses affect and even hinder the teaching of English in Arabic and Islamic countries. On the contrary, others like Abuhamdia (1988) and Dahbi (2004) argue that Arabic “is not weakened by the domination of English and French media for science and development” (Abuhamdia, p.34) because Arabic is the language of the Quran which influences the “political policy, [and] practically ensures the primacy of Arabic language in Muslim societies” (Dahbi, p. 630). However, post 9/11 educational reforms have resulted in more English being taught within the GCC states and an increased influence of the Western curriculum in general. The GCC countries face the dilemma of responding to the pressure on governments and educators to promote the message of GCC as the cradle of Islam, and thus enact its fundamental Islamic identity through the promotion of Arabic language and culture, and responding to political as well as economic pressures to increase the use of English and teach Western culture in the GCC curricula. We wish to examine such statements as well as the role of cultural and geopolitical factors in shaping educational EFL policies in the GCC. The influx of English in education is not only in response to political pressure. Other cultural influences such as access to information via the Internet result in the adoption of English as a medium of communication among techno-savvy students. This changes the ways in which students access and use language and also challenges teachers in how to appropriately engage with such students. We would like to explore how students incorporate, disregard or impose their native linguistic and cultural print (that is a complex result of their up-to-date networks). For example, do learners use non-Arabic tools and cultural norms as a result of the enforcement of English language as the vehicle of education? Does their education get hindered or enabled by the use of English as a learning medium? In an environment that wavers between Arabic and generally western, particularly American and English cultures, yet is not either, what kind of a linguaculture do educators and learners create? Do they consequently become what one can call third citizens of the globe? What are the multitudes of language-related meaning potentials and social identities and local lingua-culture-scapes such conditions create? There is also a common lack of distinction between different Gulf regions that usually blurs the focus and projection of investigations in the region. We hope to generate a better understanding of the specificity of each region by encouraging presentations that 3 highlight the distinct identities of the Gulf States and regions within each state. This will eventually result in designing well-targeted educational programs. Awareness and further research on the issues discussed above can greatly enhance the future possibilities of GCC countries. Invoking the opposition between movement and stasis in modern life, Dennis Carlson, in his book “Leaving Safe Harbors” recommends the move out of the “safe harbors” of settled educational practices and philosophies in order to better address the challenges posed to schooling by the dynamics associated with globalization and multiplicity (McCarthy et al, 2009). We aim to do this in this workshop by examining common educational practices and understanding their strengths and limitations in order to arrive at a better situation that addresses today’s needs and challenges. This workshop will focus on education in the GCC states in the 21st century. It is based on the assumption that education must support students in realizing their fullest potential and not draw them backwards. Thus, plans need to be focused and clarified to be effective and they need to incorporate as many variables of education as possible. Currently, there is limited objective research that explores the diverse aspects of education in GCC states from a critical perspective. We hope that by probing into issues that investigate the verbalized as well as the silenced aspects of education in the GCC, we will open focused debates on the issues that can shape the GCC in the coming years. We also aim to generate new ideas and revisit older ones in order to assess their current viability. We hope to generate active debates that investigate and eventually exchange and modify ideas regarding 21st century education by exploring the historical conditions that influence education in the GCC. The workshop will explore the issues of reference, educational discourses at play, focusing and targeting long, medium and short term goals, technology and learning, meeting the specificity of different GCC states as well as issues of unemployment that are a result of the current educational policies. We would also like to investigate the diverse range of practices, materials and policies in ESL classrooms in the GCC, as well as the challenges of enforcing English as a medium of learning and the impact of this on education in the GCC. Furthermore, the workshop aims to examine education policy documents, curricula, and textbooks from the perspective of cultural flow in the GCC to examine if and how they have changed in the 21st century. We also hope to explore the challenges that meet educators and learners due to the infiltrating power of the Internet and smart phones, which provide new channels and ways of learning and new social networking opportunities. The concept(s) the workshop proposes to explore would encourage and facilitate the emergence of new thought and would generate incisive papers and presentations that discuss different aspects of our current condition in the GCC. We hope that the research conducted for the purpose will make a significant contribution to understanding the Gulf region and its current developments.