Halleli Pinson

Compassion, caring and justice: teachers’ strategies to maintain moral integrity in the face of national hostility to the “non‐citizen”

Refugees commonly have just one remaining identity – that of being stateless and statusless. They represent the ultimate “other in our midst”. The humanism of our teachers in helping the children of asylum‐seekers and refugees is tested by the state, especially its immigration policy. This paper offers preliminary research findings on teachers’ concepts of compassion and their responses to the needs of asylum‐seeking and refugee children.

Immigration and schooling in the Republic of Ireland: making a difference?

Globalisation can be best characterised as the age of mobility – mobility of goods, finances, knowledge, culture, and, perhaps most significantly for state education systems, the mobility of people (Castles and Davidson 2000; Castles, Miller, and Ammendola 2003). As a result of growing human mobility and global migration, schools around the globe and probably more profoundly in developed countries are faced today with the challenge of educating an increasingly diverse population. Diversity is reflected both in terms of ethnicity as well as students’ political status – that is, citizens, immigrants, permanent or temporary residents, illegal immigrants, transit students, asylum-seekers, and refugees. The role of schools within the context of such heterogeneous populations is made more complex. State education systems, which were designed initially to educate future citizens, must cater now for a population of students that is often in transit, temporary, and differing in terms of nationality, ethnicity, languages, and educational background. Schools and educators also have to navigate within the different logics and pressures of globalisation. The growing movement of people brought with it an extensive state activity around immigration control as well as other formal and informal boundary-making activities in which the inclusion or exclusion of migrants depended, to a large extent, on their perceived economic value (Carter 2001). At the same time, globalisation is also marked by an inclusive logic expressed mainly through the growing regime of human rights. Children in particular are one of the main groups to enjoy the effects of the international human rights regime, in terms of their ability to access the right of the child under the UNCRC (Brysk 2004). Therefore, schools have to deal not merely with growing diversity, but also with these contrasting logics. On the one hand stands the exclusionary logic of immigration policies, and on the other the inclusive logic of the rights of

Inclusive Curriculum? Challenges to the Role of Civic Education in a Jewish and Democratic State.

Abstract Against the backdrop of growing conflicts in Israeli society and concerns about its democratic character, the current curriculum guidelines and official textbook for civic education in Israel were set to offer a more inclusive civic education that would stress ideas such as pluralistic and democratic citizenship. However, this curriculum does not operate in a vacuum, and despite the language of inclusivity implied in the curriculum guidance, a discursive analysis of the curriculum materials and interviews with 13 officials in the Ministry of Education revealed the complexities and the competing messages that emerged from contemporary civic education in Israel. This article explores the ways in which Israeli citizenship and membership in the civic collective are defined by the official curriculum and textbook for civic education. In particular, it is concerned with the tension between inclusion and exclusion and the ways in which civic education acts as a space for both nation building and state formation.

The Excluded Citizenship Identity: Palestinian/Arab Israeli Young People Negotiating Their Political Identities.

This paper explores the ways in which Arab/Palestinian high school students in Israel negotiate their civic and national identities. The paper draws upon qualitative data that included semi‐structured interviews and focus groups with 20 students in an Arab Muslim high school. It focuses on the ways in which they make sense of the notion of citizenship and negotiate their position as Arab/Palestinian Muslim citizens in a Jewish state. The paper attempts to go beyond common conceptualisations of political identities of the Arab/Palestinian minority in Israel. It suggests that Arab/Palestinian students are aware of the politics of citizenship in Israel and draw upon different discourses of citizenship and meanings of inclusion in defining their belongings.

Local conceptualisations of the education of asylum‐seeking and refugee students: from hostile to holistic models

Sociological research on the presence and yet invisibility of asylum‐seeking and refugee pupils in the educational system in the UK is noticeably absent. This article offers insights into the ways in which the presence and the needs of such pupils are conceptualised by local authorities and schools. It draws on the results of a survey of 58 English local authorities and qualitative data from three case studies of LEAs and a sample of their schools. The ethical position adopted by officials and teachers in these three sites offers a compassionate model of social inclusion based on a holistic approach to the asylum‐seeking and refugee child. It contrasts with the restrictive and often hostile government stance on immigration, asylum and integration.

Neo-Liberalism and Practices of Selection in Arab Education in Israel: Between Control and Empowerment

Similar to other national contexts, in Israel since the 1980s we have witnessed the emergence of neo-liberal policies in education. However, very little attention has been given to the ways in which they affect the school level and even less attention has been given to the impact of these policy changes on Arab schools in Israel. This article offers a micro-politic policy analysis of the ways in which neo-liberal discourses and practices of selection are being interpreted and acted upon in one Arab high school in Israel as a unique example of minority education. It also examines the interplay between these policy changes and other discursive fields within which Arab schools operate, such as its marginalisation. In light of neo-liberal discursive shifts in education policy in Israel, this article revisits the control-empowerment explanation of the position of the Arab education system in Israel.

When Shortage Coexists With Surplus of Teachers: The Case of Arab Teachers in Israel

This article explores the nexus between pre-service teacher education polices and the supply and demand of minority teachers. It problematizes the recent reports on teacher shortages in Israel, which tend to focus on the shortage of Jewish teachers while dealing with the surplus of Arab teachers only tangentially. Specifically, this article examines how teacher education policy in Israel generates a surplus supply of Arab teachers through 3 mechanisms: (a) the disregard for the cultural needs of Arab teachers and their exclusion from policymaking circles; (b) the Ministry of Educations budgeting criteria, which entice colleges to enroll more Arab students, especially when the enrollment of Jewish students is in decline; and (c) the admission policies of teacher education colleges, which contribute to the overrepresentation of Arab students in these colleges and allow the enrollment of students above the quota approved annually by the Ministry of Education.

Peace as a surprise, peace as a disturbance: the Israeli–Arab conflict in official documents

The main question that is discussed in this paper is the way in which the Ministry of Education in Israel dealt with the changes in the political reality, and the shift from violent relations towards the possibility of peace agreements between Israel and its neighbours and the Palestinians. Drawing on the analysis of official documents – Director General Directives (DGDs) – this paper asks how the possibility for peace was understood by the Ministry of Education and how the role of the education system and educators was defined. It also asks to what extent changes in the political reality have altered the dominant discourses (militarism and peace‐loving society) while making room for a more positive form of peace education. The analysis reveals that the changes in political reality have led to the articulation of two unique responses, alongside the dominant discourses. They are peace as a surprise and peace as a disturbance. This paper focuses on these two responses and the ways in which they correspond to the militaristic culture and the image of Israel as a peace‐loving society, and how they might shape peace education.

The educational rights of asylum-seeking and refugee children within the neo-liberal state and inclusive schools in the UK

In the age of globalisation states exercise their power through the control of their physical and material borders, which has implications for the symbolic spaces of citizenship and belonging. Those seeking asylum are trapped within such spaces, not able to traverse the borders of hospitality and membership. Asylum-seeking and refugee children are defined as ‘a migrant first and a child second’ yet, as children, they carry rights to education and protection under the 1989 UNCRC. In the context of neo-liberal economic policies which define those ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ (Sales 2002) of protection, educational institutions become one of the few sites promoting human rights and ‘personhood’. This paper indicates what happens when asylum-seeking and refugee children cross these territorial and symbolic borders into liberal democratic educational systems. It reports the findings of a recent study of the ethico-political conditions affecting asylum-seeking and refugee children in the UK, contrasting inhospitable immigration policies that deny these children’s human rights with inclusive schooling approaches (Pinson, Arnot and Candappa, 2010). Teachers’ responses to such hostile agendas by drawing on child-centred approaches or on more radical interventions on behalf of the refugee child challenge these government actions. The paper raises the question about how the tension between the strong and weak aspects of the neo-liberal state has considerable significance for these young people’s lives.

Navigating Israeli citizenship: how do Arab-Palestinian teachers civicize their pupils?

ABSTRACT This study examines citizenship education in Israel from the point of view of Arab teachers, as they rework and negotiate the content and boundaries of their Israeli citizenship. Specifically, the paper studies how teachers of citizenship education in Arab high schools in Israel perceive their sociopolitical reality, how they respond to it in their classrooms, and how they conceptualize Israeli citizenship for their pupils. In doing so, the paper ponders the pedagogical strategies and emphases of these teachers, as they mediate the citizenship education curriculum, with its heavy emphasis on the ethno-national character of Israel, to their Arab pupils.