Bilingual Education in Jerusalem – Hand-in-Hand School

Bilingual schools – Hand-in-Hand School Network

All the bilingual schools in Israel were established by non-profit organizations and private initiatives. In almost all cases, the Ministry of Education and the local authorities opposed the establishment of such schools from the get go, and did not support them financially. The Ministry of Education still has an ambivalent attitude to such schools. 

The bilingual schools established by Hand-in-Hand are an island of equality in a sea of inequality. In his doctoral thesis, Khalaf examined how Hand-in-Hand schools deal with the challenges of inequality, and tried to clarify the political and historical issues with which these schools have to contend, to evaluate the extent of the success of their educational strategy, and compare the situation in Israel with similar cases elsewhere. 

Bilingual schools, where pupils study and live together, are a highly significant measure in eliminating barriers, fostering friendship, and getting acquainted with another language. But even today, over 20 years after the establishment of the first such schools in the Galilee and in Jerusalem, there is no clear policy in regard to such schools. The Ministry of Education enjoys displaying them for all to see when presenting the face of Israel to guests from abroad, but in practice, they do not fund these schools, focusing mainly on deepening regulation as to questions of pupils’ identity, and on limiting the schools’ freedom of action. 

The curriculum taught in the school is that in-use in Israeli schools – and combines the curriculums for the Jewish and the Arab sectors in Israel, with some changes made in the study of History and Civics. The teachers undergo many training programs on how to make the necessary cultural adjustments – for example, regarding the choice of texts to teach. The Hand-in-Hand network operates one secondary school; the other schools in the network are primary schools.

Multiculturalism and Reciprocal Influences

The academic literature offers a number of different definitions for the concept of “multiculturalism”. There is disagreement regarding the question of the reciprocal cultural influence between different groups and the extent to which assimilation of one group within another is desirable. 

• It seems that most school principals currently actively espouse the notion of “liberal multiculturalism”, which brings individual talents to the fore while erasing expressions of identity. This approach ignores the issue of power relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and encourages each group to undergo change internally, and not to demand this from the other group. There is no significant difference in the way that Jewish and Arab principals regard multiculturalism. 
• Many Jewish principals wish to implement the partnership with the Arab sector without significantly changing Israel’s national and political structure. They wish to promote people as individuals, not necessarily as a national group.
• The status of the Arab language in schools is a concrete example of the delicate situation regarding multiculturalism in bilingual schools:

The state of Arabic teaching in schools is in line with the general discourse in Israel regarding the status of the Arabic language, which was recently changed under what is called Basic Law: Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People, from being one of Israel’s official languages to that of a “special status” language. Hand-in-Hand has always seen bilingualism as one of the cornerstones of its activity. Language is an integral part of one’s identity and reflects the power relations in society. This is why Hand-in-Hand developed the bilingual model, to strive toward language equality. But these efforts do not always bear fruit, and Hebrew continues to be the dominant language.

Hand-in-Hand School Network Achievements

• The schools’ most significant achievement is that they have been able to continue to exist in Israel’s complex reality, even when the political climate changed from an atmosphere of hope for peace, when the schools were first established in 1997, to the Intifada and to the current situation, in which a peace process is not even discussed. 
• The success of our alumni in their studies and in growing up to be involved, aware, complex individuals and contributing to society. However, no one claims that the schools have succeeded in bringing about significant change or in influencing the Jewish-Arab conflict, as was hoped for when they were first established. 

Multicultural Education – Israel vs. Examples from Abroad

In general, the educational system is a conservative system which operates as one of the state’s control mechanisms, especially in periods of conflict. This raises the question of whether the education system can be a place of change? Somewhere that enables the development of a different reality? Can it be influential? But the answer is that in order for this to happen, efforts must be concentrated at the grass-root level – from the bottom up. 

In Cyprus the countries of the EU required the establishment of intercultural schools. But in Israel and in Ireland such initiatives came from the ground, through non-profit organizations and private initiatives, that only received support from the Ministry of Education at a later stage. 

Conclusions

Major change within the system can occur in several instances: 

• When external coercion forces the system to change, as was the case in Cyprus
• When there is a change in the general atmosphere and a progress in the peace process, as was the case in Northern Ireland
• When the weaker group becomes strengthened and proposed an alternative to the existing system

Ignoring the power relations between partners cannot lead to change. If there is a lack in equality, then ‘even handedness’ which ignores differences will also not lead to equality. Hence there is a bigger chance of reaching equality, or at least moving toward a degree of symmetry, if an affirmative-action model which favors the Arab society is adopted. 

Questions and Answers