After the establishment of the state, there was a radical change in the life of the Bedouin Arabs in the Negev. They were not allowed to continue their traditional way of life in a short time. Bedouins are a destitute minority in a Western-oriented country. This change created the need for a formal education system that would deal with the new…

The United States retains many aspects of a healthy open society, but there are indicators of trouble and deep divisions around the meaning and importance of democratic values. This debate has significant repercussions for universities and their academic communities. In the most-simple terms, there is a red and blue state divide over the role and…

This article discusses common geopolitical issues, such as globalisation, decolonialisation, and economic pressure that affect the development of teacher education policy in England, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Russia, Israel, Jamaica, Portugal, Japan, Poland, and China. It goes on to describe these nations' responses to these pressures and…

Birzeit University (BZU)--established in 1924 by the Nasir family--was born out of struggle and developed as a microcosm of the Palestinian national movement against the Zionist settler colonial state of Israel. This article explores specific moments of solidarity with BZU and beyond. I map out a genealogy of three modes of solidarity with…

The Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, one-fifth of the country's population, has been underrepresented in Israeli institutions of higher education since the establishment of the state. This article focuses on the authors' shared aim of promoting diversity and multiculturalism in institutions of higher education in Israel. It first introduces…

This annual publication serves as a forum for new ideas and dialogue between scholars and the larger public. Essays explore ways that students, administrators, and faculty can initiate and sustain an ongoing conversation about the public life they share. Following a Foreword by Deborah Witte, this issue of the "Higher Education Exchange"…

Comparative international tests of students' achievements have become increasingly popular over the past decade. An outcome of this widespread practice is the tendency of various countries to evaluate their national status according to their pupils' international ranking in such achievement tests, partly due to the common belief that high ranking…

This article discusses the interrelations between ideology, politics, pedagogy and curriculum theory and their possible impact on curriculum transformations. Indeed the development of Secondary School Curricula in Israel supports an observed notion that curricular developments are not independent activities. They are rather organically rooted in…

This article offers a critical appraisal of the role played by cultural identity in intercultural bilingual Arabic-Hebrew schools in Israel. While engineered as oases of interculturalism amidst a life of ethnic segregation, such schools ultimately confront serious difficulties in escaping the constraints of identity politics and representation.…

The Naphtali Herz Imber Jewish Day School proudly proclaimed its commitment to Israel, yet many of its students experienced profound ambivalence toward the Jewish State. Why? The school was committed to a series of contradictory values which surfaced in its approach to Israel education. This article outlines three distinct yet interrelated…

The tension surrounding Barnard College's determination of whether to grant tenure to anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj was resolved this fall. Barnard reached a positive decision. The affair, however, leaves a number of important issues open. At the center of this controversy stands Abu El-Haj's first book, "Facts on the Ground: Archaeological…

During recent decades master's studies have mainly become professional, but in some countries, like Israel, they still are a stepping stone toward doctorate studies. Changes in that respect may however occur due to recent university marketization processes. Using Tel Aviv University as a case study, we focus on the executive master's programmes…

The 1968 structural reform of the education system in Israel was part both of a global process of democratization of education launched after the Second World War and of a larger modernization project in which the social sciences played a crucial role. This dynamic was an expression of a conjunction of interests, in which political forces used…

Along with patterns of neo-liberal transformation spreading through Israeli higher education, a distinctive element of Israeli academe is the extent to which university staff and researchers actively or more often tacitly support the broader aims of the government and the Occupation, including its daily murders, abominations and indignities…

This article details the emergence of Palestinian universities in the 1970s in the conditions of Israeli occupation. Palestinian universities grew during the first intifada in 1986. An outline of the present controls on and around these universities is given--controls that are contrary to academic freedom and the basic right to education. Israeli…