Seeing and Hearing the Other: A Jewish Israeli Teacher Grapples with Arab Students' Underachievement and the Exclusion of Their Voices (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
Utilizing a critical ethnographical methodology, this dissertation explores the experiences and practices of professors and administrators towards accommodating disabled students mainly in Palestine, but also taking into consideration the importance of the both political and disability contexts of the United States, primarily in light of critical disability studies, while also drawing from critical discourse analysis in regard to aspects of language, power hierarchies, and identity. Elements of teacher development theories are used in relation to transformational ways of thinking and the role of educators in combating stigma and promoting/adopting inclusive pedagogical practices towards accommodating disabled students in higher education. My understanding of experiences and practices of Palestinian and American faculty and administrators in higher education is derived from semi-structured interviews, observations, field notes, and pictures between October 2015 and December 2015, and September and December 2017. My findings show that disability in Palestine is associated with Israeli apartheid, creating what I call “a triple matrix of maiming Palestinians.” Such a matrix begins with targeting the Palestinian body, then continues to destroy the Palestinian infrastructure, and finally maintaining dominance. It creates internal divisions and scattered efforts towards disability services and also impacts the ability of the Palestinian Authority to serve the Palestinian people. Secondly, the complexity of stigma in Palestine includes heroic stigma, resulting from Israeli practices, which is positive, and stigma that is associated with disability from birth, which is perceived negatively. Most importantly, my findings show that Palestinian higher education institutions are a promising arena for providing an educationally inclusive environment under apartheid conditions. My study also shows that Palestinian faculty and administrators advocate for disabled students on campus and local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) contribute to serve disabled Palestinians, but the work of the NGOs still exhibits discrepancies. In the U.S., unclear policies for professors on how to handle accommodations for students with disabilities and lack of training on inclusion create ableism. Stigma is still salient in the academic discourse and is connected to race and social status, generating “racialization of disability.” Keywords: Israeli apartheid, Palestinian higher education institutions, faculty and administrators, stigma, advocacy, community, NGOs, American higher education.
Separate but Not EqualDiscrimination Against Palestinian Arab Students in Israel
American Behavioral Scientist, 2006
Palestinian Arab education in Israel receives inferior allocations for training, supervision, nature, and art lessons. In general, the physical conditions in the schools are bad and they lack basic study aids. The Palestinian Arab schools have significantly fewer of the unique programs in which the Ministry of Education invests. But discrimination in budgets and "how many" questions cannot lead to an understanding of the whole picture of inequality. Employing questions and methods used by various waves of feminists to explain and combat inequality between men and women, the author asks, How could the education system benefit from equal representation of the voice of Arab leadership? Borrowing from feminist discourse that raises the importance of the diversity of voices and multiculturalism, the author explores and proposes ways of respecting and reinforcing diverse cultural and national identities in the Israeli education system.
Disability and Higher Education in Palestine
2019
Disability in Palestine and the experiences and practices of professors and administrators on accommodating disabled students in Palestinian higher education institutions are captured through critical ethnography mode. Disability in Palestine is discussed within the context of what I, as the researcher, call “segregating democracy.” The term segregating democracy refers to the political bonds between Israel and the United States of America that often lead to exclusion of the indigenous Palestinian community from the rest of the world. Segregating democracy and its consequences on disability in Palestine are the context in which the experiences of the Palestinian faculty and administrators are analyzed. Using critical disability studies, while also drawing from elements of teacher development theories, this paper identifies transformational ways of thinking about disability as well as the unique role of educators in promoting/adopting inclusive pedagogical practices towards accommod...
Defying Exclusionary Democracy through Resilience in Palestinian Higher Education
2019
Through a mode of critical ethnography, this article analyzes disability in Palestine and the experiences and practices of professors and administrators on accommodating disabled students in Palestinian institutions of higher education. I discuss disability in Palestine within the context of what I as the researcher call "segregated/exclusionary democracy." The term "segregated/exclusionary democracy" refers to the political bonds between Israel and the United States of America that often lead to exclusion of the indigenous Palestinian community from the rights and privileges of civil government and from participation as members of a nation in the affairs of the world. Segregated/exclusionary democracy and its consequences on disability in Palestine are the context in which the experiences of the Palestinian faculty and administrators are analyzed. Using critical disability studies while also drawing from elements of teacher development theories, this paper identifies transformational ways of thinking about disability in which Palestinian educators defy exclusionary democracy through promoting/adopting inclusive pedagogical practices toward accommodating disabled students in higher education.
Disability Studies Quarterly, 2023
Academic neoliberal ableism has considerable negative implications for all disabled academics, but specifically for the marginalization, liminality, and weakness of disabled graduate students. This is particularly true for the understudied and underrepresented disabled graduate students who are not native English speakers and who live in regions that are geographically and culturally distant from the English-speaking academic hegemony. This article addresses this gap by presenting a collaborative autoethnography of two disabled Israeli doctoral students. The analysis raised two themes. The first includes the complex aspects of learning to perform new academic roles – teachers, conference presenters and researchers – as disabled academics. The second includes our marginality in two contexts, namely our studied disciplines, which fail to see disability as a critical object, and the developing Israeli community of disability studies in which disabled scholars are underrepresented. On the basis of these themes, we identify four combined environments that mirror the intersection between global neoliberal ableism and the specific ableist culture found in Israel, which exacerbate our weakness, marginality, and liminality: The Israeli disability studies community, our discipline, the Israeli academy, and the English-speaking academy.
From marginalisation to integration: Arab-Palestinians in Israeli academia
International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2015
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 Arab marginalisation within Israeli society as a whole. Subsequently, it offers a critical overview of existing data and research on the challenges faced by young Arab-Palestinians in higher education institutions in Israel. Based on this indispensable analysis, which clearly shows the numerous obstacles that await Arab-Palestinians on their path to graduation, the article goes on to suggest some required changes. Presenting some useful policy transformations and courses of action, it subsequently introduces multicultural academia as a better conceptual and practical framework for achieving inclusive education.
Disability, the Politics of Maiming, and Higher Education in Palestine
2019
Different pieces of a puzzle are put together to unpack the implications of biopolitical forms in relation to disability in Palestine. Tracing the political connections between Israel and the United States of America (the U.S.), both countries give themselves the right to maim the Palestinians in different forms. Israel maims the indigenous Palestinians in more direct ways, while the U.S. is the guard and supporter of Israel in the process of maiming the Palestinians. Yet, successful, disabled Palestinians have emerged from under the rubble in different fields and in academia and higher education in particular. In this paper, Critical Disability Studies (CDS) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) are used as theoretical frameworks to examine disability in Palestinian higher education in light of political implications. The paper also reveals a dearth of research on disability in Palestinian higher education.
2021
This study examines what difficulties undergraduate Education students from the Arab sector in Israel face in their academic studies and how they cope with them. The study is based on the qualitative paradigm of data collection and analysis, with a focus on a homogeneous group of Arab students attending a Jewish academic institution claiming to be multicultural. The study is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 33 students. Findings show that the difficulties the students experience in their academic studies are: a linguistic-cultural barrier, lack of prior preparation for academic studies, a low socioeconomic status, and among the female students-the gender lifestyle expected of women. The students interviewed reported that the strategies they used to cope with the difficulties they encountered in their studies were: receiving support from the college, particularly supportive and encouraging lecturers and the opportunity the college provides for learning in a homogeneous group on a multicultural campus, support from close family, desire for social change, and a serious need among the female students for self-actualization.