The rise and fall of school integration in Israel: Research and policy analysis

Abstract

School integration (desegregation) was introduced in Israeli junior high schools in 1968 with the aim of increasing educational equality and decreasing (Jewish) ethnic divides. While never officially abandoned, a de facto retreat from this policy has been observed since the early 1990s, despite the voluminous research that revealed its positive, though moderate, educational outcomes. This shift in educational emphases reflected profound societal changes, fed by global neo-liberal trends and educational consumerism, which research-based arguments supporting integration were too weak to resist. The ascent and waning of school integration in Israel provide an instructive case for analysing the interconnection of educational policy, educational research, and societal changes, demonstrating the weakness of research in sustaining educational policy in the face of counteracting social and political developments.

Underrepresentation of Ethiopian–Israeli minority students in programmes for the gifted and talented: a policy discourse analysis

“…In the Israeli society, one example of this is the close reciprocal relations, mutual influences and reciprocal discourse between the acade mia and the Ministry of Education. These two 'elite' groups, which for decades used a similar language and held similar ideologies, directly influenced the nature of the curriculum in Israeli schools and excluded alternative interpretations (Resh and Kfir 2004;Resh and Dar 2012). A similar phenomenon has been identified in Britain (Ball and Exley 2010), highlighting the role and influence of knowledge actors from think tanks and academia in shaping the educational policy.…”

“…Stakeholders in these networks are directly or indirectly involved in the promotion of EIMS and, accordingly, the resulting discourse focuses almost entirely on the 'problems' and 'difficulties' of the El minority. The discourse among knowledge actors and political players in the educational policy domain influences the focal points of policy issues (Ball 1990;Resh and Kfir 2004;Ball and Exley 2010;Resh and Dar 2012). Thus, it promotes investment in reinforcing programmes for underachieving and challenged populations (Fischer 2003), disregarding the need to also accommodate for highlevel and excellent EIMS.…”

“…For instance, evidence suggests that the three central players in the Knesset committees possess shared and reciprocal interests, that their meetings with parliament members interested in being re-elected may introduce bias, and that academics and senior service providers are co-dependent and share a common language (Resh and Kfir 2004;Resh and Dar 2012). This policy network may have thus paved the way for establishing a consensus on issues raised in the public-political discourse regarding EIMS at the Knesset committees.…”

“…Nevertheless, despite these efforts, EIMS have persistently demonstrated low level of achieve ments throughout the years. This was suggested to result from ignoring the different starting points of sub-groups in the Israeli society (Resh and Dar 2012) and the low motivation of EIMS to attend 'specialized programs' during or after school hours, claiming that such programmes label them as 'weak' and enhance their exclusion (see, e.g. Lifshitz, Noam, and Habib 1998;Lifshitz and Tzubari-Kaplan 2010).…”

“…It is this process, as we will demonstrate below, that has shaped the public policy regarding the El community and has persistently constructed the image of EIMS based on the difficulties they face, their low academic achievements and their limited resources. Due to the ability of elites and various interest groups to shape decisions according to agreements and compromises (Jansen 2002; Resh and Kfir 2004;Nachmias, Arbel-Gantz, and Meydani 2010;Resh and Dar 2012), this sit uation has not significantly changed throughout the years. The following section will discuss how such policies affect the perceptions of EIMS of themselves, as well as their teachers' attitudes, and generate a troubling stereotype threat leading, through a negative Pygmalion effect, to low achievements.…”