Between teachers’ perceptions and civic conceptions: lessons from three Israeli civics teachers

Abstract

Building on sociocultural theories of teaching and learning, rooted in constructivist traditions, this study examined the teaching of civics in relation to contextual sociocultural factors in the Israeli educational system. The study focused on ways in which three civics teachers conceptualized and framed notions of good citizenship in relation to the teaching of the civics subject matter, and on the ways in which such notions manifest in their planned teaching. The main finding points to how the teachers framed their civics lessons in a manner that was in congruence with their perceptions of their students’ approaches to citizenship. Thus, the study reaches the conclusion that teachers’ perceptions are a key element in framing and conceptualizing civics lessons, resulting in a reality in which students from different backgrounds may experience significant differences in their orientation to the notion of good citizenship, limiting their exposure to multiple views.

Keywords:

• Civics
• citizenship education
• social studies
• teaching and learning
• Israel

Acknowledgements

This study is a development of a PhD dissertation conducted at Teachers College Columbia University under the guidance of Professor William Gaudelli, to whom I wish to extend my thanks. I also wish to thank the editors and reviewers for their constructive remarks.

Notes

1. The term ‘Israeli–Palestinians’ will be used to refer to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and not to the Palestinians of the Palestinian Authority. I acknowledge the fact that the term ‘Israeli–Arabs’ is also used in the discourse but have intently chosen this terminology, respecting the choice of most Palestinian scholars who also use this term in order to relate to cultural and national affiliations of the members of this group. The word ‘Arab’ will appear in relation to this group only in cases in which this is the original terminology of the referenced source.

2. For historic reasons, the Jewish ultra-orthodox branch is exempt from teaching civics as a mandatory subject matter.

3. Jerusalem was proclaimed as Israel’s capital in 1950. The UN, the EU countries and the USA do not recognize its status due to the ongoing dispute with the Palestinians and other Arab countries (‘Israel,’ 2012).

4. At the end of 2010 the population of Jerusalem was estimated at 789,000 (Choshen & Korach, 2011).

5. All of the names that are mentioned are pseudonyms. The following information was obtained from the schools’ websites as well as from the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Jerusalem Municipality websites. In order to protect the participants’ confidentiality, the addresses of these websites are not detailed.

6. The Israeli Parliament.

7. The Israeli prime minister who was assassinated by a Jewish right-wing extremist.

8. For more on this aspect see Cohen (2016a).