Short communication – Students’ attitudes toward boundary-crossing teachers before and after the May 2021 violence between Israelis and Palestinians: A ripple effect?

Abstract

Initial disruptions to a system can spread out to interrupt increasingly larger parts of that system, known as a ripple effect. The present study sought to examine whether intergroup violence affected attitudes toward tolerance as exemplified by attitudes toward boundary-crossing teachers. The main hypothesis was that after the May 2021 violence between Jews and Arabs in Israel, there would be a decrease in support for Jewish teachers in Arab schools and Arab teachers in Jewish schools. The study further sought to examine if there would be a decrease in support for secular teachers in ultra-Orthodox schools and vice versa (a ripple effect). 402 Jewish Israeli high-school students (grades 10–12) responded to a questionnaire in March 2021, and then again, a month after the May violence. The main hypothesis was partially supported, in that there was a decrease in the support for Arab teachers in Jewish schools across the board, and a decrease in the support for Jewish teachers in Arab schools among religious youth. The study provides modest support for a ripple effect demonstrated by a decrease in support for secular teachers in ultra-Orthodox schools among religious youth. In accordance with integrated threat theory, we suggest a phenomenon of retreating into one’s ingroup following violence, in this case rejecting the notion of interaction between Arabs and Jews, and then extending these walls to discard other forms of intergroup contact. We argue that such crises should be countered with comprehensive intercultural interventions rather than a circumscribed appeasement between groups.