Rakefet Erlich Ron

In this article we examined the phenomenon of women in leadership positions in the civil protest over the 2023 judicial reform protests. We focused on how women interpret social change, advance it, and act as its agents while facing tensions and gender-related obstructions in civil spaces. Using a qualitative study based on interviews with female founders and leaders of protest organizations, we chose the factors that influenced the establishment of female leaders within the protest. In our analysis, we relied on theoretic approaches that combine the Politics of Presence with Ambivalent Sexism Theory alongside terms of agency. We uncovered three central themes: the first – Politics of Presence and Representation – showed how female leaders used personality and gender characteristics to demand a place and authority while suggesting an alternative and varied leadership model that relied on their intersectional identity. The second theme – the inter-liberal struggle – exemplified their twofold fight against the government and the patriarchal patterns within the liberal camp itself. The third theme – hostile and benevolent sexism – depicted how they dealt with attempts at delegitimization whilst using their identity as a strategic resource. The main conclusion is that the assertive presence of these women was used as an agent of change that undermined patriarchal discourse both in the public and interior liberal arenas, thus promoting gender equality and a broader social political transformation. The study’s main contribution is in its presentation of female leaders as active agents whose varied voices do not reflect a unified essence as women but rather deconstruct existing power structures and broaden the boundaries of protest.

This quasi-experimental study employed Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) to examine the longitudinal changes in intergroup perceptions following a targeted Hebrew language intervention on intergroup perceptions among 119 Arab citizens of Israel, segmented into high school students (HSS; adolescents) and pre-service Teachers (PSTs; young adults). Focusing on instrumental language acquisition as a form of positive intergroup contact, the research measured changes in self-efficacy in Hebrew, endorsement of democratic influence strategies, hope for peace, and common ancestry categorization (Semitic/Abrahamic) across two time points (pre/post intervention). Results indicated a robust positive association between the time of intervention and four of the five tested outcome variables, supporting the instrumental pathway hypothesis. Complex interactions revealed that participants identifying as Palestinian, who exhibited lower baseline hopes and categorization scores, demonstrated the sharpest increase in both hope for peace and Abrahamic categorization. Conversely, sensitivity to inequality diverged by group, dropping significantly among PSTs but increasing among HSSs. These findings highlight that while language intervention bridges ideological divides, its impact is shaped by the professional socialization inherent in teacher training. For PSTs, the combination of linguistic proficiency and emerging professional identity appears to mitigate feelings of marginalization, offering a constructive pathway for negotiating identity, status, and belonging.

The research delves into the impact of a programme designed to retrain Arab teachers for roles in Jewish schools, followed by a year of teaching in a Jewish school. A comparative analysis with programme applicants reveals nuanced results, challenging initial hypotheses. Graduates showed higher scores in ‘teachers’ attitudes towards shared living’, yet they also felt more ‘perceived hostility’ from their Jewish counterparts compared to applicants, suggesting that being a boundary-crossing teacher for a year has a limited impact. Applicants lacking experience in Jewish schools exhibited significantly lower scores in ‘attitudes towards shared living’, aligning with the contact hypothesis. However, differences in other variables lacked clarity. The results partly stem from the teachers’ limited experience. However, given the persistent unequal conditions, these boundary-crossing teachers are likely to continue practising contact from an unequal position within Israeli society. As such, theoretical frameworks should evolve to accommodate the complexities of these phenomena acknowledging the persistent challenges faced by boundary-crossing teachers, particularly in terms of unequal status. Graduates showed higher ‘perceived hostility’ scores than applicants without prior experience, highlighting the intricate nature of contact and the impact of reality on optimism. The study also delved into identity dynamics, revealing consistent hierarchies across groups. While teachers working in Jewish schools rated their Palestinian identity lower, the balance within each group suggested a multidimensional approach to identity negotiation. The study’s findings call for a refined understanding of intercultural contact, acknowledging diverse outcomes beyond simplified success or failure.

This mixed-methods study examined the sense of belonging of Russian-speaking immigrant teachers, who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s from the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The study has two methodological parts. In the first part, 57 Russian-speaking teachers were compared to a national sample of Hebrew-speaking teachers on demographics and self-efficacy. In the second part, 34 of the 57 Russian-speaking teachers answered an acculturation questionnaire and two open-ended questions. The findings, both quantitative and qualitative, indicate positive integration of FSU immigrant teachers in Israel. Their feelings towards the school team and management were no different than those of other teachers. The teachers described a sense of belonging through shared care for students, shared content-related teamwork, friendships and school events. Differences were found in favour of veteran Israeli teachers in the percentage of homeroom teachers and managerial positions. Conclusions about migration and accommodation within the education system are discussed.

The world is ever changing with the advance of social media and the production of alternative truths posing new challenges. Teachers’ role vis-à-vis handling controversial political issues (CPI) has changed in light of this new reality, especially in instructing their students how to navigate the civic realm, to equip students with skills to counter manipulations, with emotional, epistemological, and democratic resilience. In this book summary, we address the ways teachers, teacher trainers, and researchers form three elements that can lay the foundations for a more resilient generation of students and for strengthening democracy. These three elements need to work together and feed off one another. Teacher training feeds off the research in order to better guide teachers in ways that are based on scientific evidence. Teacher training needs to be connected to the field, and guide teachers in ways that will give them the self-efficacy and skills that they need to educate and not just teach. Finally, teachers need to be attuned to the fluctuations in children’s culture, changing epistemology, and the ways that students consume information, in order to accommodate their teaching strategies that will in turn become grist to the mill of research and teacher training.

In this chapter, we present our findings from a study comparing teachers’ handling of controversial political issues (CPI) in elementary schools in Israel and in Switzerland. The study presents a model of comparison that examines multiple parameters including socio-political characteristics, policy regarding CPI, education systems’ structure, teacher training, school–community relations, and the position of the principal. Finally, we present the teachers’ accounts of their experiences in the two countries. Teachers in both countries were presented with a vignette whereby they overhear a student saying that “Islam is bad” and were asked how they would respond. The findings demonstrate that teachers in both countries fluctuate between the postmodern inclination to say that all opinions are acceptable and a positivistic approach that would draw a line in the sand. Despite the stark differences between the two countries in the various characteristics mentioned above, teachers’ dilemmas were quite similar, as were the strategies that they chose. For example, both Swiss and Israeli teachers insisted on disbelieving that students believed what they were saying, and many avoided labeling the statements as racist and tackling them directly.

This chapter lays the foundation for the rest of the book by establishing the importance of CPI in schools. There is a broad consensus in the literature attesting to the benefits of discussing CPI in the classroom. Classroom discussions are both a means of learning – of exploring a particular subject from a variety of angles – and a way of developing skills, including the ability to listen respectfully and to present and defend one’s argument with evidence and logic. The chapter is organized into three main categories of benefits that CPI discussions have been shown to promote: (1) The development of cognitive capacities, including analytic skills like the ability to construct and assess arguments, and to recognize and examine assumptions, intellectual agility, creative thinking, and other critical thinking skills. (2) The enhancement of socio-emotional skills including intrapersonal skills like self-awareness, emotional regulation, and self-efficacy, as well as interpersonal skills like communication and empathetic listening. (3) The cultivation of democratic values and an appreciation of civic discourse, including political knowledge, civic competence, and an understanding of discussion as a central instrument in democratic societies.

In the past decades, teachers’ job description has changed to include many social-emotional aspects that coincide with the rise of social-emotional learning (SEL) as a field of practice, theory and research. We argue that SEL and CPI go hand-in-hand and feed off one another. Teachers who train in SEL become better at CPI discussions, and CPI discussions train and develop students’ SEL skills. We present our research showing that teachers resort to rudimentary SEL skills that are not congruent with the lofty skills that the literature describes. Namely, the teachers in our research exhibit a limited repertoire of SEL skills. Thus, we restructure the SEL skills repertoire, and suggest focusing first on basic SEL skills. The advanced skills are divided into three branches: intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, and civic skills. We describe each skill and connect it specifically to the practice of CPI. We suggest that teachers (and vicariously the students) should begin with using the basic skills, and only then develop more sophisticated skills that they can transfer to students.