“Our problem is two problems: That you’re a woman and that you’re educated”: Gendering and racializing Bedouin women experience at Israeli universities

Abstract

While the relevant literature customarily links higher education with development and progress, this paper reveals the racial-gender conflicts that the first educated Muslim Bedouin women experienced at Israeli universities and recommends several practices to be carried out on campus and in the community, involving in-group and out-group members alike.The study sheds light on the experiences of Muslim women who acquire higher education at Western universities, suggesting that these experiences are gendered and racialized. The Israeli university is perceived as an alien racial space, with discriminating ethnic and gender values that marginalize Bedouin women as educated women on campus, as educated women at home, as a poor racialized minority and as Arab Bedouin women.