The case of education in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Jaffa, Israel, demonstrates the dialectical role of education in conflict-affected societies. As scholars of transformative education and critical pedagogy have noted, education tends to serve as an instrument of the dominant ideology of social and political elites, yet it is also a significant arena of civil society, where diverse and often subversive identities and values can be asserted. This duality is particularly evident in conflict-affected societies, where, as Gallagher points out, education can either contribute to conflict or challenge it, through structure of schools, contents of the curriculum and the routes and opportunities available to young people. The education system in Jaffa demonstrates the ways in which schooling separation, lack of multiculturalism in the curriculum and discrimination in education enforce elite domination. At the same time, it demonstrates how community members and civil society organisations may use the education system as an arena for challenging the status quo of inter-community relations in conflict-affected societies, through initiatives that may occur due to necessity, response to negative change or ideological challenges to domination.