Abstract
The aim of the research has been to evaluate the contribution of the genre of bilingual literature, Arabic and Hebrew, to citizenship education. Since the Israeli society is a multicultural society comprised of both nations, Arabs and Jews who live in conflicted environment, one must regard those textbooks as civic agents. Literature is a socialization agent and as such it is an active influential factor in children's mental environment. The responsible citizens act responsibly in their community. They obey rules and regulation, acts kindly to his surroundings and occasionally donates out of their own resources. The participatory citizen actually participates in the social life of the community, at local, state and national levels by joining established systems. The justice citizen calls for attention to matters of injustice and to the importance of pursuing social goals. The content analysis procedure, revealed that most the stories, hence, ten out the thirteen deal with the two elevated types of citizenship, namely, the participatory citizen and the justice citizen. Inspire of the fact  that we are dealing with children's literature, the authors of bilingual children literature do not belittle the capacity of children to grasp their role as citizens in multicultural society.
Highlights
The new genre of children’s books, namely, bilingual literature - in our case Hebrew and Arabihc simultaneously is characterized by the writing of two different authors who represent their mother tongues, or a sole bilingual author
The participatory citizen participates in the social life of the community, at local, state and national levels by joining established systems/The participatory citizen category is portrayed in the following books: The magic fiddle: Fiona, the protagonist, has decided to save deserted seals that she found on the sea shores of western Scotland The Green Ridley Turtle: The book describes the struggle of the green Ridley turtle to survive, after being caught in a fishermen’s net, its escape from captivity, and the laying of eggs, from which new green Ridley turtles will hatch Garbage can: The children decided to take care of the equilibrium of nature in ordinary way rather chemical spraying and killing of animals
Inspire of the fact that we are dealing with children's literature, the authors of bilingual children literature do not belittle the capacity of children to grasp their role as citizens in multicultural society
Summary
The new genre of children’s books, namely, bilingual literature - in our case Hebrew and Arabihc simultaneously is characterized by the writing of two different authors who represent their mother tongues, or a sole bilingual author. This article, based upon a literary research, aims at setting aside a unique place for books that were conceived as bilingual from their very inception as one organic unit, and not written first in one language and later translated into another. The advantage of a text that was conceived as a Hebrew-Arabic text from the very beginning is that one is spared the problems arising from translating from one language into another (Shavit 1996). The aim of the research has been to evaluate the contribution of the genre of bilingual literature, Arabic and Hebrew, to citizenship education.
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