Perspectives of Palestinian and Jewish parents in Israel on bilingual education

Abstract

This article is based on a study conducted at the first Arabic and Hebrew bilingual school in Israel (Neve-Shalom/Wahat-Alsalam – NSWAS). The article focuses on Jewish as well as Palestinian parents' perspectives and responses to survey questions and interviews conducted at the school. Parents named reasons for choosing the school, satisfaction with the school, concerns, and their visions of the school's peace education goals and mission. The results of the study indicate a level of trust in the school's ability to promote cultural understanding and tolerance among children from both sides. The data analysis also suggests that Jewish parents chose the school mainly because it offers smaller classrooms while Palestinian parents chose it mainly because it is a bilingual school. The article provides analysis of the results, makes recommendations to establish and maintain the bilingual and bi-national nature of such schools in Israel and recommends directions for future research.

Keywords:

• bilingual education
• parents and bilingual education
• peace education
• Israel–Palestine conflict
• integrated schooling

Notes

1. NSWAS is the first Arab–Jewish village in Israel. For more information about NSWAS refer to http://www.nswas.org.

2. The Palestinian Arab minority in Israel is addressed here as Palestinians in Israel or Arabs as both terms are acceptable by the majority of this community. Most studies suggest that the majority of Palestinians identify themselves as such. This seems to be the preferred term in recent studies on this minority.

3. The Jewish-Israeli group is addressed as the majority group in Israel because it is greater in numbers as well as access to power and resources. The Palestinian minority is lesser in number and access to resources.

4. There are more than two educational systems in Israel. For example, the Jewish religious school system operates independently. For the sake of this article we will focus on the Arab and Jewish secular systems only.

5. Arab Higher Committee for Education Report published in 2004. For the full report see the reports and publications of the Arab Education Follow Up committee, accessed on December 9, 2008, at http://www.arab-education.org/english/index.

6. One should mention that this article doesn't address the diversity within the Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli communities. It focuses on the interactions and relations between the two ethnic and national groups. These dynamics have different manifestations than the internal ones within each group which are beyond the scope of this study.

7. The Hebrew version of this survey was constructed in part by Zvi Beckerman and the survey was used with permission. It was translated and back translated into Arabic to ensure accuracy.

8. It should be noted that 65% of the student population are Arabs; thus the parents' responses reflect this disproportional representation.