Ideology, Policy, and Practice: Education for Immigrants and Minorities in Israel Today / Edition 1

by Devorah Kalekin-Fishman

Overview

Systems of state education are a crucial means for realizing the state’s focal aspiration of guaranteeing solidarity and civil loyalty (Van Kemenade, 1985 pp. 854ff. ). The means at hand include the state’s structuring and organization of schooling, determination of what education is compulsory, examinations that decide admittance to institutions of secondary and tertiary education, the design of educational aids, curricula, textbooks, didactic methods, and the general distribution of resources to schools. A further apparatus is that of teacher education and the regulations for appointment to the schools and remuneration (van Kemenade, 1985, p. 850). There are indications that the issue of equality and equity for all in education is a dilemma prevalent in systems of state education, among others, because the advancement of equity is liable to interfere with the state’s main goal. It is highly likely that the failing does not derive from contingent misund- standings, but rather from systemic contradictions. With this in mind, this book suggests a broad-spectrum approach to understanding how state education gets done, so to speak, and what in the process seems to obstruct impartiality. The case that I will examine is that of the state system of education in Israel. Underlying the study is the sociological assumption that an analysis of how one state system works is likely to bear a message that can be generalized.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402080739
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	06/23/2004
Edition description:	2004
Pages:	433
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.04(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction: Education in Israel as a Case Study.- Education for Immigrants and Minorities in the World.- Ideology: Theoretical Concerns and Their Implications for Education.- Ideology as a National Project in Israel.- Policies that Rely on Ideology - Enacting Legislation.- Celebrating Accomplishments - Publicizing the Fulfillment of Ideology.- Ideology Transmuted - Proclaiming Educational Goals.- Implementing Policies - Disseminating Instructions.- Interpreting Policies — From the Ministry to the Field.- Pupils from Russia and the Former Soviet Union in the Israeli School System.- Immigrant Pupils from Ethiopia: Perpetuating Difference.- Palestinian Israelis and their Schooling: Multiculturalism as Maintaining Distance.- Testing the System: Can it be Democratic? — Children of Temporary Immigrant Workers.- Conclusions: Overt Intentions and Manifest Outcomes.

Editorial Reviews

"This is not merely another book on education in Israel. Ideology, Policy, and Practice: Education for Immigrants and Minorities in Israel Today is an original and refreshing contribution to research in education - and this is so on several grounds. Above all, it presents a specifically sociological discussion of the Israeli educational system, of which in recent years there have been very few. At the same time it is a tract from the pen of a sociologist who knows her field thoroughly. It is obvious that the author has a wealth of experience both in her academic training as educationist and lecturer as well as in the field of education as a teacher. This book reaches out far beyond the interest of professional educationists. It will serve a great variety of different researchers and readers:

-those who are interested in Israel's policy in respect to the state's general policy towards its minorities;

-those who will profit from Kalekin-Fishman's methods to research the implementation-chain of any value-driven policy;

-those who are interested in questions in the realm of sociology of knowledge;

-those in Western countries whose field of research is multiculturalism or education for immigrants from non-Western cultures."

(Karlheinz Schneider, University of Applied Science Wiesbaden; University of Heidelberg)

From the Publisher