Deborah Court

Preschool Teachers' Narratives: A Window on Personal-Professional History, Values and Beliefs.

This study investigated 10 Israeli preschool teachers’ reasons for choosing their profession and their perceptions of the teacher’s role. A narrative approach was chosen because teachers’ narratives can reveal their practical knowledge and the meanings they ascribe to their teaching. Data were subjected to content analysis and linguistic analysis. The content analysis revealed that choice of profession flowed from personal history and family background and reflected the needs, priorities and ambitions of each teacher. Most of the participants chose this profession at an early stage, in childhood or adolescence, and were influenced by close family members. An ongoing connection was revealed between key events and people in the preschool teachers’ narratives, their perceptions of the teacher’s role and their professional selves. The linguistic analysis revealed beliefs and values expressed through figurative language, and especially metaphor. Metaphoric themes related mainly to the nurturing of children and were consistent with beliefs and values expressed directly.

Coping Strategies of High School Students with Learning Disabilities: A Longitudinal Qualitative Study and Grounded Theory.

The authors interviewed 20 Israeli high school students with learning disabilities over a three‐year period to identify the students’ core coping strategies. Four emotional–cognitive strategies were identified: ‘Avoidance,’ ‘Rebellion,’ ‘Reconciliation,’ and ‘Determination.’ These strategies appeared in hierarchical order, leading to students’ integration of, acceptance of, and coming to terms with their difficulties. Interventions of early and accurate diagnosis of difficulties, accompanied by remedial teaching and social support, were important in the students’ developing effective coping styles. Results, in the form of a hierarchical continuum, provide a map within which school counselors and teachers may place their students’ current functioning, and help students progress toward coping strategies effective for attaining emotional and academic success.

Whose Interview Is It, Anyway? Methodological and Ethical Challenges of Insider–Outsider Research, Multiple Languages, and Dual-Researcher Cooperation

This article focuses on the methodological challenges in one interview of the 60 in-depth interviews that comprise a research study of Israeli Druze currently underway. The study is being conducted by a pair of researchers, one a Canadian living in Israel, an English and Hebrew speaker, and one an Israeli Druze woman, a Hebrew and Arabic speaker. The interview examined here involves two interviewers, two interviewees, three languages and at least two cultural frameworks. The analysis treats the interview as an intrinsic case in order to expose the various contexts of the interview and how they affect the construction of meaning in this complex research situation.

Religious experience as an aim of religious education

This article presents a model for religious education based on three central elements. First, it is argued that religious experience, or direct experience of the Divine, is an essential part of a full religious life, that religious experience is based in, enabled by and examined against, the body of knowledge in a given religion, and that religious experience is itself a form of knowing. Second, it is suggested that there be three sets of aims in religious education curriculum: knowledge aims, moral value aims and spiritual aims, the last of which encompasses religious experience, which religious education should aim to encourage and facilitate among students. Third, the teacher is presented as the central factor in such facilitation, and the pedagogical and personal characteristics of this ideal teacher are described.

Education in a Troubled Democracy: Voices from Israel.

Abstract Democracy offers no automatic principles for a decent and civilized life. Its principles require interpretation and compromise, and must be balanced between the welfare of individuals, groups, and the state. In Israel, the situation is made even more complex by the fact that Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. Surrounded by hostile forces, Israel must attempt not only to maintain peace and security but to offer democratic rights to its Jewish, Moslem, and Christian citizens. Jewish and Arab Israelis’ lives are woven together against this difficult background through complex patterns of commerce and trust. These patterns have been disrupted during the recent hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. This article presents a window on the Israeli democracy in this turbulent time through in-depth interviews with six Israeli educators, two Jewish and four Arab. They analyze the Israeli democracy and discuss the problems of their own population sectors in particular, giving special attention to the role of education in closing gaps between different groups, increasing trust and understanding, and improving the state of the nation. John Dewey’s ideas on democracy and education are used as a framework for analysis. The level of individual interactions between citizens is suggested as significant for the building of trust and the ground-up strengthening of democracy. Suggestions are made for how education can contribute at this level. The author, an immigrant to Israel, adds her own voice as she struggles to balance objectivity with authenticity in this passionately felt arena.

What Happens to Children's Faith in the Zone of Proximal Development, and What Can Religious Educators Do about It?.

Abstract 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 childrens Religious Education. The stories are meant to illustrate, among other things, the purity and innocence of young childrens faith, which is largely untroubled by fact. Then, using Vygotskys notions of childrens spontaneous concepts and the development of more mature and accurate conceptions in the “zone of proximal development,” a central dilemma in Religious Education will be explored. How can religious educators help young people acquire accurate historical information, textual skills, and theological methods of inquiry, while at the same time nurturing the precious flame of faith? Can we do better at combining systematic learning with pure faith? Toward this purpose, three complementary goals of Religious Education will be suggested: cognitive, practical/moral, and spiritual.

Role of Druze high schools in Israel in shaping students’ identity and citizenship:

This study investigated how two Israeli Druze high schools shape the identity and citizenship of adolescents through curriculum, teaching, discourse, social activities and national ceremonies. Data were collected through interviews with teachers, the two school principals, policymakers for Druze education in the Ministry of Education, and students, as well as through observations and document analysis. The research found that the Israeli Druze school system plays a significant role in shaping students’ identity and citizenship in the difficult Israeli context, developing adolescents who are firmly rooted in both Druze and Israeli identity. Four central mechanisms were found to infuse the schools in order to accomplish these goals. These were characterized as multi-faceted values education, multi-faceted development of students’ identity and citizenship, meaningful learning and the community good. The commitment of Druze educators to building strong Druze-Israeli identity in their students was seen to spring from Druze religious beliefs and from the unique position of the Druze among other Arab groups in Israel.

Qualitative Research as Cultural and Religious Mirror: What Do Researchers Really Learn?.

Abstract This article explores the interaction between the work and lives of five religious qualitative researchers whose research studies investigate both culture and religion. The ways their personal backgrounds, experiences, and values affect their choice of research topics and their relationships with research participants and with data, are revealed through the stories they tell about their work. Implications are drawn both for the conduct of qualitative, cultural study and for religious education.

How Shall We Study Religious School Culture

Abstract In this article the author suggests that a vision of the “ideal” underpins all educational work. The complex web of interactions and activities that make up school culture must be studied in order to find “ways in” to effecting change and approaching the ideal. Religious school culture may be especially complex, built as it is on both religious and academic ideals and often operating within a secular common culture. The author proposes a model for studying religious school culture, based on a vision of what the “idea” school culture might look like.

A Jewish Core Curriculum to Live By

Like most religious traditions, Judaism is diverse. Perhaps especially in Israel, where I live (although certainly not only there), debates about what Jewish knowledge is important and who has the right to define the parameters of religious education are passionate, sometimes angry, often political, and ongoing. The politicized and highly emotional nature of Israeli debate brings general issues of Jewish education into relief. In Israel it is visceral; outside of Israel it is perhaps more genteel, but the issues are the same. What do young Jews need to know to go out into the world as identified Jews, to stay Jewish, teach their children and contribute to the continuation of their religion?