Separate but Not Equal

Abstract

Palestinian Arab education in Israel receives inferior allocations for training, supervision, nature, and art lessons. In general, the physical conditions in the schools are bad and they lack basic study aids. The Palestinian Arab schools have significantly fewer of the unique programs in which the Ministry of Education invests. But discrimination in budgets and “how many” questions cannot lead to an understanding of the whole picture of inequality. Employing questions and methods used by various waves of feminists to explain and combat inequality between men and women, the author asks, How could the education system benefit from equal representation of the voice of Arab leadership? Borrowing from feminist discourse that raises the importance of the diversity of voices and multiculturalism, the author explores and proposes ways of respecting and reinforcing diverse cultural and national identities in the Israeli education system.