Making Pedagogical Decisions to Address Challenges of Joint Jewish-Bedouin Environmental Projects in Israel

• In Event: Roundtable Session 110
  In Roundtable Session: Transnational and Intercultural Considerations in Environmental Education

Abstract

This interpretive study aims to identify the challenges of involving Israeli Bedouin and Jewish youth in two education-for-sustainability and place-based education multicultural projects according to the participants’ responses. It also describes the ways the adult leaders addressed these challenges. Participants included Bedouin and Jewish educators and middle-school students. Data collection included interviews and observations. Participants reported challenges related to intergroup differences in environmental views, knowledge and nature of learning and challenges related to Bedouin-Jewish interactions. To address these challenges the adults separated some learning activities, directed discourses, adopted bilingual teaching strategies and emphasized unique socio-cultural characteristics. Their satisfaction with their decisions is encouraging. They avoided discussing the broader socio-political Arab-Jewish conflict. The findings highlight dilemmas that multicultural environmental projects pose.

Authors

• Iris Alkaher, Kibbutzim College of Education

• Tali Tal, Technion Israel Institute of Technology