This paper reports on a study that examined a Shared Education program recently implemented in Israel based on the Northern Ireland model. Sixth-grade children from two schools -- one Jewish and one Arab, who study in separate education systems and have very limited contacts with one another -- met to learn English (as an additional language)…

Protracted conflict presents students with an unfamiliar and often puzzling context. Why do negotiations sometimes succeed, while at other points, actors are unable to reach agreement on key issues, even in the face of deadly costs? In this article, I introduce an extended role-playing simulation designed to enhance student understanding of…

Living in a pluralistic society where groups are ethnically, nationally and religiously different and sometimes live in conflict with one another requires teachers to be prepared to deal with conflict-laden issues. In such societies, educational institutions in general and especially teaching colleges should not be ethnocentric but should…

Interfaith education appears to have a strong potential for prejudice reduction and for overcoming Islamophobia and antisemitism. Common in-group identity theory contends that awareness of interreligious similarities would reduce intergroup streotypes and anxiety. However, optimal distinctiveness theory assumes that pointing to similarities would…

The reactions of learners who read literature together in multicultural groups shed light on how their interpretations are interweaved in the sociopolitical context. The present study describes such dynamics in mixed Arab-Jewish teacher groups in Israel. The study's raw data were group discourse transcripts, group and individual written comments…

The contact hypothesis, initially formulated in 1954 to delineate conditions conducive to addressing entrenched intergroup differences, has undergone continuous evolution. Originally based on face-to-face interactions, it began incorporating virtual contact from 2006 (Amichai-Hamburger & McKenna). The subsequent proliferation of blended…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the responses and perceptions of Israeli Arab teachers toward multicultural and educational issues concerning Jewish-Arab relations. Design/methodology/approach: This study is a qualitative research. The study included 44 novice Arab teachers, who teach Hebrew in the Arab sector and are currently studying toward…

This article examines the impact of contact-based educational encounter strategies of shared learning on Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. It analyses a programme of education for shared life that takes place in a mixed (75% Jewish/25% Arab) city at the centre of Israel since 2012. The programme aims to mitigate Jewish-Arab relations in the city…

The reader is taken on a journey spanning some 30 years devoted to the author's involvement in practicing, teaching and studying peace education. The core concept in this journey is active "bystandership," which implies the capacity to disengage from our ethnocentric narratives and perceptions and to face the emotional challenges of…

Much of the concern with young people's historical knowledge centres on factual attainment or disciplinary skills. However, relatively little attention is paid to the relevance that young people attribute to history and how they use the past, and various social representations of history, to relate to the present. Research in this realm tends to…

This study explores the applicability of psychoanalytic trauma-centered perspectives and social psychological intergroup comparison perspectives to difficult histories of the Israeli context. The study describes 2 test cases of difficult histories in the Jewish-Israeli context at the levels of curriculum policy, teachers, and learners. The first…

This paper describes an educational intervention program between 12 Arab and 12 Jewish students who were studying to become teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Israel. The study reports on the ways in which the program impacted the participants, and focuses on the role of English, the Lingua Franca and language of communication, in…

The purpose of this paper is to exemplify a "grass-roots" change based on Dewey's experimental progressive education model employed in the "Bridge over the Valley" bilingual school, a Palestinian-Arab and Jewish school in Israel. In order to identify the progressive "approach" underlying this change, the…

This interpretive study identifies challenges of working with Bedouin and Jewish Israeli youth in two multicultural projects: education for sustainability and place-conscious education. It also describes the ways the adult project leaders addressed these challenges and their views on the effectiveness of their decisions. Participants comprised 16…

In the last decade, the issue of teaching the Palestinian perspective on the Jewish-Arab conflict in Israeli schools gave rise to considerable debate and competing curricula. A quasi-experimental study compared the effects of these competing approaches on learners' attitudes to out-group narratives and perceived in-group responsibility (IR). A…