In Afghanistan today, a generation of young people is being shaped inside classrooms that feel very different from the ones their parents knew. For girls and women, state-regulated madrasas are now the only legal path to education at all. For boys in madrasas, minor infractions over clothing choices or beard length are regularly met with physical punishment. And at the university level, students describe an environment where curiosity itself is banned. Even as the nation's economy contracts and millions fall into poverty, the Taliban continue to pour state resources into what appears to be a purely ideological project. So what are the consequences of policing an entire generation of young men within their own classrooms? Can madrasa education for women be considered legitimate education at all, or is it something closer to a mechanism of social c ...