OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF INTEGRATED EDUCATION IN CONFLICT-RIDDEN SOCIETIES: The Case of Palestinian-Jewish Schools in Israel

Childhood Education, 2006 by Bekerman, Zvi, Nir, Adam

At present, the schools attract rather homogeneous sectors in both the Jewish and Palestinian population-the middle, middle-upper professional/independent-merchant class. This is understandable, given that the schools, in order to allow for a fully bilingual curriculum in line with their equity policies, need parents' fees to supplement the funding received from the Ministry of Education, which supports them at levels similar to its support of regular segregated schools.

The schools seem to be faring well when their educational achievements are compared to other, segregated, educational institutions, and though not all needed assessments have been done, it seems in some cases that they are doing better when the comparison is made between the Palestinian kids and those in segregated Palestinian schools. This relative success is of utmost importance to the future of the initiative since, as we mentioned earlier, the upper-middle socio-economical sector of society views education as a means of mobility in an increasingly global economy.

Like many bilingual programs, the bilingual schools described suffer from somewhat contradictory practices, perspectives, and expectations in relation to their goals. Despite serious efforts by the entire staff, the attempt to sustain full symmetry through the implementation of bilingual educational practices has failed. When the language policy shifted towards an even stronger support of Arabic, the introduction of English and Israel's homogenizing policies and context renders the bilingual efforts mostly ineffective with regard to the Jewish population at school (at least for now). While teachers and CBE see this as a serious obstacle to achieving their declared goals, both Jewish and Palestinian parents seem to be less worried. Jewish parents, for example, support bilingualism as long as it does not harm educational excellence, and they seem satisfied with an education initiative that allows them to substantiate their liberal positions and offer their children cultural understanding and sensitivity towards the "other." Palestinian parents seem to want the best education available, given the present Israeli sociopolitical context. As was apparent from the interviews we conducted, Israel's present sociopolitical conditions make it almost impossible for parents to dream anytime soon about a top-down, multicultural multilingual policy; thus, given their mobility aspirations for their children, they prefer an English lingua franca and high Hebrew literacy.

Beyond the issue of language parity, our research shows that parents and teachers see culture and religion as areas in which mutual understanding can help bridge the gaps that separate the populations in Israel. Parents put the stress on getting to know and understand others' cultures better, and believe that the schools are achieving this goal. Teachers emphasize similar goals, and educational activities/celebrations around these issues appear to be conducted with ease and in fruitful collaboration. These celebrations carry a strong religious emphasis. In fact, it could be said that religious aspects are disproportionately emphasized given that the majority of the Jewish parents belong to secular sectors of Israeli society and the Muslim populations, though more traditionalist, are also mostly non-religious. While Jewish parents, at times, express concerns and ambivalence about this religious emphasis, they also seem to find solace in the religious underpinning of cultural activities, given their (mostly unarticulated) fear that their children's Jewish identity will be eroded as a result of participation in a binational program.