Academy breaking boundaries[sbnd]the effect of integrative learning on the acceptance of others

Abstract

Integrative learning crosses the formal boundaries between academic disciplines, allowing learners to form a comprehensive and holistic understanding of subjects. This pedagogy encourages integrative thinking, which has the potential to influence life outside the classroom and to transcend cultural and social boundaries. In this study, we examined whether an integrative learning pedagogy of literature and science can improve communication and understanding across cultural boundaries to create tolerance toward the other, in the experience of 15 Bedouin Arab preservice teachers (PSTs) who taught in Jewish schools in Israel. The study was based on several qualitative tools: reflective diaries, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires answered by the PSTs. The collected data show that integrative learning of literature and science had an impact beyond the academic content. The integrative learning pedagogy influenced the PSTs’ perceptions, causing them to reevaluate prejudices, lower their anxiety level, and increase their tolerance toward the other. These feelings enabled the creation of interpersonal relationships between the Bedouin PSTs and their Jewish students. The uniqueness of this study is in the examination of the effect of the integrative learning of literature and science on an everyday life challenge―the degree of tolerance in multicultural learning groups―and in the conclusion that this pedagogy has the potential to promote tolerance.