The Arab-Israeli education system is a separate but not autonomous system serving Israel's inhabitants whose first language is Arabic. These include the Muslim and Bedouin majority communities and smaller Christian, Druze and others, whose children attend schools in which the curriculum is determined by a Zionist perspective, taught in Arabic.…

The "world culture" framework posits a convergence in the organisation of education across the world. On the other hand, scholars observing teaching practices inside classrooms find significant variation among nations and regions of the world. This study examined the global change patterns of classroom practices at the between- and…

The purpose of this paper is to problematize the place of religious authority in politics and education. Specifically, this essay highlights the role of religious authority in establishing a moral order that values compliance and conformity at the expense of liberty and critique. In doing so, the essay reflects on Israeli politics and Islamic…

Survey data on comparisons between teachers in Russia and other countries show that the average Russian schoolteacher places a very high value on security and a very low value on the opportunity to enjoy life and have pleasure. Russia's schoolteachers are more often ahead of other Europeans when it comes to the importance of personal success,…

Local schools increasingly play a mediating role between intended curricular directives and actual classroom practice. This paper highlights how macro factors such as decentralized governance and subject's institutional status affect school-based decisions to diverge from official curricular policies. Specifically, it reports a three-dimensional…

State religious schooling in Israel constitutes a fascinating setting for examining forces of conformity and resistance. This study, which examines the identity formation of adolescent girls and their teachers in this complex cultural-educational setting during the Al-Aksa Intifada (1999-2002), highlights the complexities of agency within a…

This study tested the hypothesis that values, abstract goals serving as guiding life principles, become relatively important predictors of adolescents' self-reported violent behavior in school environments in which violence is relatively common. The study employed a students-nested-in-schools design. Arab and Jewish adolescents (N = 907, M age =…

President Carter's description of his negotiations with President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel at Camp David in 1978 was coded to illustrate the extent to which levels of creativity and types of pressures toward conformity were involved. Two sets of categories were used. (Author/ABB)

Problems with the oral Bagrut are discussed, including the complicated rating scale, complicated administration requirements, lack of conformity in materials, unsuitable tests, monologue approach, and scoring system. A suggested form for reporting scores is presented. (LB)

Examined the factors in the choice of a military career, using a theoretical model. A number of factors are identified, including a need for security, a tendency to conformity, role status, and professional development that may be lost upon leaving the army. (JAC)

Shows that sociolinguistic patterns reflect and transmit sociopolitical patterns. The modernization of Israeli Palestinian society, resulting in a heterogeneous social structure, will probably lead to little conformity to any one social code. Supporting evidence is found in the differentiation of Hebrew and English words in Palestinian Arabic. (24…

Noting that one would expect that members of cultural groups whose modes of child rearing foster individual autonomy would achieve more articulated perceptual functioning rather than persons reared in societies where conformity and emotional dependence are stressed, this article discusses a study which compared two Israeli sub-groups and two…