In spite of the importance of the topic, there are few comparative studies of the aims of history teaching, even in Europe. Domain-specific epistemic beliefs are relevant for understanding the teaching and learning of history and the development of deliberative thought. We studied epistemic beliefs in the context of the general aims of history…

Jewish education in Israel's non-religious state ("Mamlakhti") schools is intended to support an open-ended, pluralistic dialogue surrounding the question of Jewish identity. The distinct features of Knowledge Building Communities (KBCs) set them apart as a pedagogical approach that is particularly suitable for achieving this educational…

Civic studies in Israel and elsewhere are unlike any other school subject. This course of study has a higher purpose--to transform students into good citizens. In contrast to other core subjects, civics, in essence, strives to realize ethical goals. While other subjects perceive the instilling of values as a secondary outcome, in civics the…

This study investigated the tension that exists between promoting an educational agenda and practising an educational approach which emphasises autonomy within the framework of religious education. Our main thesis is that every educational deed contains a dialectical tension between endorsing an educational agenda and the promotion of autonomy.…

This article examines the educational objectives of parents who homeschool (or practice home education) in terms of the widely accepted division of primary educational objectives, namely, socialisation, acculturation, and individualization. Using qualitative methodology and in-depth interviews, 30 homeschooling mothers were interviewed about their…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of a study on the way that two sample group of teachers, one in Israel and one in Cyprus, perceive forgiveness. The study is grounded in moral-philosophical ideas about forgiveness and the data is collected via interviews and focus groups. The findings show that participants in both samples…

This article mingles stories and concepts of young Jewish Israeli children about God, with reflections on the roles of faith, memory, imagination, and cognitive development in children's Religious Education. The stories are meant to illustrate, among other things, the purity and innocence of young children's faith, which is largely untroubled by…

This research compares the official Israeli Ministry of Education's curriculum goals of studying geography with the perceptions of Israeli Jewish and Arab junior high school students who study the subject. In addition, the perceptions of Jewish and Arab students about the importance of studying geography are compared. In the first stage of…

This paper offers a reading of the Dovrat Report with the aim of assessing the convoluted and dialectical manifestations of the state--"the weak and the strong state"--in the era of global neo-liberalism. The Dovrat Report (Ministry Of Education 2005) includes a set of recommendations aiming to bring about structural and comprehensive…

The founding fathers of the new Jewish community in "Eretz Yisrael" (the Land of Israel, or Palestine) as well as many philosophers, public figures, educators and authors both in Israel and in the Diaspora were preoccupied with the image of the new Israeli Hebrew. The educational system was seen as an instrument to create the "new…

In this essay I critique two influential accounts of rational autonomy in common schooling that conceive liberalism as an ideal form of life, and I offer an alternative approach to democratic education that views liberal theory as concerned with coexistence among rival ways of living. This view places moral agency, not rational autonomy, at the…

Argues foremost challenge to humanistic educators is to address seriously, both in theory and in practice, issues of meaningful values education and social action. Presents four domains of the educational process and three levels of values education, then integrates the two models into a 12-field grid of holistic learning processes. (Author/NB)

A typical day's activities at an Israeli kibbutz high school are described: Students live on the school premises, and study, work, and engage in social and cultural activities there. The kibbutz educational system fosters the values of cooperation, equality, and mutual aid. (PP)

Most Americans continue to place great faith in the social capacity of the public school system and to displace onto the schools responsibility to resolve some of our most urgent social issues. Israel was selected for observation in order to view American "educational messianism" from a distance. Cultural displacement as practiced in the…

In Israeli school culture, the school class is a social group in which "gibush" or cohesion is cultivated. A highly cohesive class has clearly demarcated boundaries, has high integration, is internally undifferentiated, and presupposes particular conditions for formation. The gibush model reflects an ideal of communal participation and…