One country, two cultures – a multi-perspective view on Israeli chemistry teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning

Abstract

This paper presents a study focusing on differences in Israeli Jewish and Arab chemistry teachers’ beliefs regarding teaching and learning of chemistry in the upper secondary schools. Israel is a country experiencing the problems of diverse cultural orientation of its inhabitants but applying the same educational system to its diverse cultural sectors. Education includes the same curriculum in chemistry for both the Israeli Jewish and Arab cultural sectors as well as final examinations (matriculation) set centrally by the Ministry of Education. Thus, this study can serve as a striking case for other countries facing similar cultural diversity. The study is based on two different instruments that are both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The qualitative data stem from chemistry teachers’ drawings of themselves as teachers in a typical classroom situation accompanied by four open questions. The data analysis follows three qualitative scales: beliefs about classroom organization, beliefs about teaching objectives and epistemological beliefs. A quantitative study gives insights into teachers’ beliefs about what characterizes good education. The main goal of the present paper is to determine whether both groups of chemistry teachers with different sociocultural background in Israel hold different views about education in general and chemistry education in particular. The findings provide evidence that in Israeli chemistry classrooms, the beliefs of Arabic teachers differ from those of the Jewish teachers, although both groups live in the same country and operate the same educational system.