A model of intensity of multicultural relations: the case of teacher training colleges in Israel

Abstract

This study probes the practice of multiculturalism in two teacher training colleges, with ten interviews of high‐ranking officials in the colleges and mainly by questioning 439 students. The findings, according to nationality, point to the wish of Arab students towards the actualization of multicultural practices significantly more than among their Jews colleagues. This is expected as they wish to use it as a tool to improve their status. They advocate multicultural ideas (under the universal standards that multiculturalism implies) including towards other minority groups, such as religious Jews and Jewish new‐immigrants. The general tendency of the Jewish students is ethnocentric. Both the Jewish students and the staff are reluctant to adopt the multicultural approach, while the Arab students express their willingness to change the situation, which will improve their conditions as students and also as citizens in a democratic nation. We explain the results according to continuum of different levels of the intensity of multiculturalism that suits the relevant groups examined in this study.