The Effect of Ethnicity on Parental Involvement in the Israeli Educational System

So far, no comparison was made between the Arab and the Jewish educational system regards parental involvement. The study attempts to examine the perceptions about parental involvement as described by the pedagogic staff and to compare between the two sectors and between the principals and the teachers. In this study, 16 staff members from 4 elementary schools (two of them were Jewish schools and two of them were Arab schools) were interviewed. In each school, the principal, the principal deputy and teachers were interviewed. The research method was semi structured interviews that enabled the pedagogic staff to describe how they percept the concept of parental involvement, the advantages, disadvantages, difficulties and how to improve the parental involvement. The findings indicates that parental involvement in the Arab sector is lower than in the Jewish sector. Parental involvement in the Jewish sector has changed over the course of time and the involvement is more for personal interest (the child benefit) and less desire to contribute to the school. This trend is weakening the authority of the teachers and the school management. In the Arab sector, the parental involvement is for the benefit of the school and the involvement is directed by the principals to acquire resources from the village local council because of the parents kinship relations (the “hamula”/ extended family). In both sectors the principals and teachers express resistance towards parental involvement in the pedagogic contents and the curriculum and view it as an intervention.









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