Teaching About Israel-Palestine in the United States: An Interdisciplinary Approach

• In Event: The Trickle-Down Effect: Working in Teacher Education to Create a Culture of Peace

Abstract

This paper articulates a particular theoretical foundation for creating a course to teach about Israel-Palestine in the context of the United States. Four theoretical assumptions structure the approach to designing this course: 1) recognizing that the challenges we face and the relationships we foster are structured by political, discursive and institutional systems; 2) precepts of critical pedagogy lead to confronting and breaking through mythologizing ideologies 3) the significance of critical whiteness studies for understanding the relationship between peoples in the United States and Israel-Palestine; and 4) interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies bring to light multiple dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Moving from these theoretical assumptions, this paper outlines the content for a course on Israel-Palestine.

Author

• Elizabeth Tauba Ingenthron, Graduate Theological Union