Abstract
ABSTRACTThe state of Israel has an indigenous minority of Arabs, distinguished from the Jewish majority by national, religious, cultural, and linguistic characteristics. Most Jews use Hebrew as their L1, while Arabs use Arabic, both official languages in Israel. Most Arabs tend to live in separate geographical areas and about 10% of Israel’s Arabs live in ‘mixed cities.’ Since neither side defines them as homogeneous, these cities may afford rich insights about Israeli reality. Recently, there has been a growing tendency among Arab parents in mixed cities to send their children to Hebrew-speaking educational settings, especially in preschool years. This study aimed at understanding this phenomenon from both sociolinguistic and psychological perspectives, viewing language as closely related to power and identity as well as to emotions and close relationships. Qualitative information was gathered from interviews with parents, focusing on parents’ motives to send their children to these educational settings and on the impact of this decision on the family’s language policy and emotional interactions. Overall, findings reveal how the external urban setting interacts with the internal family system. The mixed city context appears to invade the family dynamics in mixed ways, and sociopolitical dimensions interact closely with emotional ones.
Published Version
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