“Why don’t you become Jewish”: identity politics in the encounter between Arab teachers and Jewish students in Israel

ABSTRACT

In this phenomenological and qualitative study, we explored the experiences of six Palestinian-Arab Israeli Arabic teachers working at K-12 Jewish schools in Israel. We examine the three models of intergroup contact according to Brewer and Miller’s theorisation – category-based, differentiated, and personalised – and their potential in explaining the interaction between the teachers and their students. The results of this inquiry illuminate how the teachers challenge their students’ limited understanding of Islamic and Arab culture. In addition, they clarify the limitations of differentiation-based contact. This means that developing a positive relationship at the interpersonal level may not necessarily lead to a positive change at the intergroup level. We also found that most students to continued holding negative associations at the intergroup level. The findings shed the light on the struggles and dilemmas of minority ethnic teachers teaching in mainstream schools in a conflicted society. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Contact hypothesis
• Arab teachers
• Jewish schools
• Israel

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Najwan Saada

Najwan Saada is a lecturer of multicultural, citizenship, and values education atAl-Qasemi Academic College of Education and Beit Berl College of Education, Israel. His research focuses on citizenship and religious (Islamic) education and education for religious and national minorities in western and Muslim-majority societies. Najwan’s research has been published inTheory and Research in Social Education, Teaching and Teacher education, Journal of Religious Education, Religious Education, and Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. Also,Najwan's broad interest includes teaching for diversity and social justice, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, social studies education, values education, and curriculum studies. Najwan has an account on Research Gate and he can be reached on [email protected].

Zehavit Gross

Zehavit Gross is an associate professor and head of the graduate program of Management and Development in Informal Education Systems in the School of Education and is the UNESCO/Burg Chair in Education for Human Values, Tolerance and Peace, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She is an honorary research associate in the Department of Hebrew, Biblical & Jewish Studies, University of Sydney. Her main area of specialization is socialization processes (religious, secular, feminine and civic) among adolescents. She is the president of the Israeli Society for Comparative Education (ICES). She is the recipient of the 2016 Ursula Thrush Peace Seed Award of the American Montessori Society (AMS) and a research grant for the years 2016e2018 from the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.She is also the recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Religion & Education SIG at the American Education Research Association (AERA). Her book together with Lynn Davies and Al Khansaa Diab entitled: Gender, Religion and Educationin a Chaotic Postmodern World was published by [email protected]