High school students’ perceptions of science and attitudes towards intergroup cooperation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Science education projects are being used to improve attitudes between conflicting groups, but it is not clear which aspects of science make it an effective agent for this purpose. This paper investigates how attitudes towards intergroup cooperation relate to different perceptions of science. Regression analyses are conducted on questionnaire data (N = 246) collected from Arab-Palestinian minority high school students in Israel, comparing students who identify primarily as Israeli, Palestinian, and pan-Arab. The analyses indicate that perceiving science as global and international is strongly associated with a preference for mixed work or study environments. The paper suggests that for many students, science and technology in Israel have become globalised and internationalised to the point that science education represents a distinct social space from mainstream Israeli society. By border-crossing into the science classroom, students enter a ‘global space’ wherein the challenges associated with minority status and poor minority–majority relations are less salient.