High school students’ perceptions of science and attitudes towards intergroup cooperation

ABSTRACT

Science education projects are being used to improve attitudes between conflicting groups, but it is not clear which aspects of science make it an effective agent for this purpose. This paper investigates how attitudes towards intergroup cooperation relate to different perceptions of science. Regression analyses are conducted on questionnaire data (N = 246) collected from Arab-Palestinian minority high school students in Israel, comparing students who identify primarily as Israeli, Palestinian, and pan-Arab. The analyses indicate that perceiving science as global and international is strongly associated with a preference for mixed work or study environments. The paper suggests that for many students, science and technology in Israel have become globalised and internationalised to the point that science education represents a distinct social space from mainstream Israeli society. By border-crossing into the science classroom, students enter a ‘global space’ wherein the challenges associated with minority status and poor minority–majority relations are less salient.

KEYWORDS:

• Globalisation
• Israel
• minorities
• quantitative methods
• science education

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Truman Research Institute, PresenTense Israel, and the Center for the Study of Multiculturalism and Diversity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for continued support throughout the duration of this research. Aurel H. Diamond is grateful for a Doctoral Fellowship from the Israel Institute, and for a Doctoral Scholarship awarded by the Federmann School for Public Policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest in the data collection, analysis, and writing of this research article.

Notes

1. The remaining citizens are classified as ‘others’, including Christian and Muslim non-Arabs, and individuals of Jewish ancestry who are not recognised by the Ministry of Interior as Jews.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Doctoral Fellowship from the Israel Institute under grant numbers GL20314 and GL20475, awarded to Aurel H. Diamond.