Negotiating social belonging through language acquisition in conflict-affected areas: The case of adult Palestinian learners of Hebrew in Israel

• In Event: Tricky Pathways: The Intricacies of Education’s Relationships to Conflict, Violence, and Peace

Proposal

Substantial socio-economic inequalities exist between the Jewish and the Palestinian-Arab populations in Israel, manifested in high rates of unemployment and poverty among the Palestinian-Arab populations (Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research 2022). The lack of proficiency in the Hebrew language, the official language of Israel and the almost exclusive language of the labor market and higher education, is considered by the Israeli government and policy makers to be one of the predominant barriers to the integration of the Palestinian-Arab populations into the Israeli labor market, higher education, and Israeli society at large (Aaron Institute for Economic Policy 2020). The necessity to acquire proficiency in Hebrew to access employment creates great demand for Hebrew language courses among adult Arabic speaking Palestinian-Arab citizens and residents of Israel. These courses are offered by government employment centers, private language schools, and NGOs.

This paper contextualizes Hebrew language acquisition by Palestinian-Arab adult learners within the context of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the social reality of the conflict, Jewish and Palestinian-Arab populations mostly live geographically and socially segregated from each other (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics 2023, Falah 1996), and are inclined to consider each other’s members as threats to national and personal security (Rouhana & Bar-Tal 1998). As such, Palestinian-Arab Hebrew learners are members of a non-dominant group acquiring the dominant language, which some consider the “language of the enemy” (Suleiman 2004). This paper explores how, under these circumstances, learners make meaning of the act of acquiring Hebrew. It asks how the learning experience shapes their sense of social belonging and self-identity vis-a-vis the dominant Jewish-Israeli culture, to which they are exposed through the language curriculum and the encounter with Jewish teachers. The study seeks to highlight the social implications of language learning in conflict-affected contexts, and consider the potential of vocational, non-formal language learning frameworks to serve as spaces of intergroup interaction fostering social change.

This paper draws on classroom observations, textbook analysis and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with learners, teachers and program managers in adult Hebrew language education frameworks in Israel, to create a holistic picture of the individual learning experience, from institutional agenda, to curriculum and pedagogy, to teacher-learner interaction. Informed by the framework of the politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2011, Abu Al-Haj 2015) which advances the notion that social belonging is constructed at the intersection of various identities and through the agency of the subject, the study explores how the act of language acquisition may be considered an agentic act of negotiation against an exclusionary language policy which marginalizes native Arabic speakers in the social contexts in which Hebrew is essential.

The study synthesizes several fields of inquiry, namely language education, education in conflict, and adult education, shedding light on a population which has received scant academic attention and on an educational framework which has been overlooked in the study of education in conflict-affected areas. The paper thus underscores the importance of contemplating the role of language education in adult educational frameworks as a possible venue for conflict amelioration.

Author

• Liora Tamir, New York University