Citizenship education to promote civic engagement among Arabic speaking student teachers in Israel

Abstract

This study explores how teacher educators promoted Israeli Arab student teachers’ civic engagement through a multifaceted service-learning program. They worked on a project named ‘Challenges’ that supported service-learning, and provided knowledge about societal issues and Palestinian heritage. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 teacher educators. Additionally, 1608 freshmen students answered a questionnaire about their level of agreement with different reasons for, and objections to, volunteering, which was used as a measure of civic engagement. Among the students, 853 participated in the project, and 755 were not exposed to it yet. Scholarships were awarded to 399 students for their service and 109 expected one. Working as a team, the teacher educators achieved a system-wide change within the Arab teacher education curriculum. Participating students’ knowledge and civic engagement increased. Their level of agreement with reasons for volunteering was higher than that of students who were not exposed to the project yet and were not expecting a scholarship.