Place-based education in diverse urban communities: The case of Israel

Abstract

Place-based education (PBE) is a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the connection between a learning process and a physical place. This mixed-methods study aims to explore how urban communities deliver PBE in Israel. We compared communities with high and low socioeconomic status, as well as Arab, Jewish, and Bedouin schools, to analyze the availability of appropriate learning spaces in proximity to schools, combining these results with interviews and focus groups of teachers and students aimed to explore the actual use of PBE. Despite the found disparities in the availability of facilities across the country, schools’ vision, coupled with teachers’ autonomy and guidance, were found most critical to successful PBE implementation, while other variables such as ethnic differences, socioeconomic differences and local differences had little effect, if any, on it.