Comparing Curricula Under Conflict: Palestinian Textbooks and Teacher Identity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem

• In Event: Reimagining Education in Complex Contexts: Curriculum, Community, and Teacher Capacity

Proposal

Conceptual Framework and Research Questions
The education system for Palestinians offers a revealing lens into the socio-political complexities faced by communities living under prolonged occupation. While the formal right to education is recognized, this system serving Palestinian students suffers from chronic budget shortages, institutional discrimination, and political censorship (Alayan, 2017, 2019). These structural challenges reflect broader issues of social injustice and educational inequality.
This study compares the content of Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks as used in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem under Israeli Control, investigating the ways that these textbooks construct Palestinian national identity and preserve collective memory (Mazawi, 2011; Alayan, 2023). It adds to the ongoing conversation about how textbooks shape historical, political and social consciousness.
Drawing on Apple’s (1979, 1982, 1993) critical theory of education, this research highlights how curricular decisions reflect and reinforce power relations between dominant and oppressed groups, privileging some historical narratives while marginalizing others. Textbooks become sites of ideological contestation, where knowledge is politicized and selectively legitimized.
This work aims to examines textbooks published by the PA that have been censored or modified by the Israeli government. The research questions are: 1. How have PA textbooks been modified by the Israeli authorities across the West Bank and East Jerusalem? 2. How do teachers make use of these modified materials in their classroom practice? 3. How do these materials and their use reflect and reproduce power dynamics between population groups in the West Bank and East Jerusalem?
Methodology:
This study analyzed 24 history and Civics textbooks published by the PA between 2000-2025. These textbooks are also used in East Jerusalem for the Palestinian residents. While the Palestinian Authority since the Oslo agreement 1993\4 is officially responsible for the curricula in East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities are acting to minimize the influence of any content, which has Palestinian national value by employing censorship or replace content with alternative version or to replace it entirely with Israeli curricula.
To understand the ways that these textbooks were used as part of classroom practice and the ways that teachers made sense of these modifications, 26 interviews were conducted over two years with teachers working in East Jerusalem. The interviews focused specifically on teachers who work with both curricula the PA textbooks that enter East Jerusalem and the Israeli curriculum imposed by the Israeli Ministry of Education. These teachers provided rich insights into how the dual systems influence not only classroom practice but also their own professional identity, and the identity development of their students. Insights from educators about their own classroom practice inform our findings about the ways educational materials shape or conflict with teachers’ roles and perceptions in a highly politicized context, and the ways the materials themselves reveal power dynamics present in the society that produced them.
Findings:
preliminary results indicate that both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities instrumentalize education as a political tool. School textbooks function not merely as pedagogical materials but as mechanisms for promoting competing national narratives.

The results also show a broader pattern typical of education systems under conditions of conflict and war: each authority systematically avoids presenting, and therefore legitimizing, the narrative of the other side. Israel, as the occupying and dominant power, exerts influence through two primary mechanisms: first, by censoring Palestinian content in the textbooks, and second, by replacing those books with Israeli curricula. This dual control ensures that the content taught in East Jerusalem aligns with the Israeli national narrative, demonstrating the extent of educational control and its significance in shaping identity and historical consciousness. The case of East Jerusalem thus exemplifies how education is used not only for instruction but also as a tool for domination and narrative suppression in.
Interviews with East Jerusalem teachers revealed a sense of inner conflict and emotional burden. Many described feelings torn between the imposed Israeli curriculum and their own cultural and national affiliations. Several teachers noted that teaching censored or politically neutralized materials undermines their credibility in the eyes of students and the community. Others expressed frustration at being unable to openly discuss key historical or national themes central to Palestinian identity. These tensions not only shape classroom dynamics but also influence how teachers perceive their own professional and personal identities. In some cases, teachers described using implicit or alternative strategies to introduce suppressed content, demonstrating subtle forms of pedagogical resistance within a tightly controlled system.
Scholarly Significance of the Study
The study demonstrates how curricula and textbooks are not merely tools for transmitting knowledge but, as noted by Apple, convey ideology and shape the political and national identities (Apple, 1982). Censorship, through omission or deliberate insertion of altered content is a tool of power and control the Israeli government uses to erase Palestinian identity and history. This study reveals how educational strategies by both the PA and Israel are intertwined with broader political objectives. Israelis’ censorship seeks to erase and alter Palestinian historical identity, while Palestinian educators use textbooks as resistance to preserve collective memory. Beyond instruction, these textbooks serve as strategic tools for self-determination and historical recognition.
References
Alayan, S. (2017). White pages: Israeli censorship of Palestinian textbooks in East Jerusalem. Social Semiotics, 28(4), 512-532.
Alayan, S. (2019). Palestine. The Palgrave Handbook of Conflict and History Education in the Post-Cold War Era, 457-467.
Alayan, S., & Riley, C. (2023). The new Palestinian textbooks: A strategy for national identity and self‐determination. Nations and Nationalism.
Apple, M. W. (1982). Education and Power. Routledge, New York and London.
Apple, M. W. (1979). Ideology and Curriculum. Routledge, New York and London.
Apple, M. W. (1993). The politics of official knowledge: Does a national curriculum make sense? Teachers college record, 95(2), 222-241.
Mazawi, A. E. (2011). “Which Palestine should we teach?” Signatures, palimpsests, and struggles over school textbooks. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 30, 169-183.

Authors

• Samira Alayan, Hebrew University Of Jerusalem and David Yellin Academic College for Education

• Emily Reich