Thinking Styles among the Arab-Minority Teachers in the Arab Education System in Israel

Jamal Abu-Hussain,Nadia Abu-Hussain

doi:10.12691/education-6-1-5

Abstract

This study examined the thinking styles prevalent among Arab teachers, given their status as members of a minority, in the Arab education system in Israel. Examination of thinking styles very important for predicting a person's behavior in different situations, and teachers’ thinking styles predict some of their professional behavior when at work in school. The teaching profession demands certain personal characteristics, skills, and a wide professional knowledge base together with appropriate thinking and perceptions and thinking styles are considered to be an important aspect of the teacher’s work. A central aspect of a person’s personality is their thinking style and another, parallel aspect, is their characteristics. Each of the two have their unique contribution and defining structure. A person’s thinking style is influenced by culture and social characteristics and different cultures and societies are characterized by different thinking styles. As members of a national minority in Israel, the thinking styles of Arab teachers have not been previously studied, despite the fact that Arab society is undergoing rapid change in the social, economic, political, cultural, and familial spheres and despite the fact that thinking styles of teachers have an important impact on their day-to-day work in school. It is therefore important to study this subject and to examine the prevalent thinking styles among Arab teachers given their status as a minority in the education system in Israel. The study was conducted among 185 Arab teachers who answered a questionnaire about thinking styles. Their responses were analyzed using the SPSS statistic software. The principle findings showed that the most prevalent thinking styles were Type 2 (executive, local, conservative, and oligarchic) and Type 3 (monarchic, anarchic, internal, and external). The least prevalent was Type 1 (legislative, judicial, global, liberal, and hierarchic).

Highlights

The main goal of an education system is to create a learning and educational environment, which enables maximal learning and development for students in the cognitive, social, emotional, and movement spheres
Sternberg [1] notes that thinking styles are a group of strategies and methods used by people and professionals for problem solving and for task performing and they are considered to be an important aspect of teachers’ behavior at work
The senior teachers have the highest mean in the first thinking styles group, and the new teachers have the highest mean in the third thinking styles group

Summary

Introduction

The main goal of an education system is to create a learning and educational environment, which enables maximal learning and development for students in the cognitive, social, emotional, and movement spheres. Sternberg [1] notes that thinking styles are a group of strategies and methods used by people and professionals for problem solving and for task performing and they are considered to be an important aspect of teachers’ behavior at work. Sternberg [1] defines thinking styles are a group of strategies and methods used by people for problem solving and for performing tasks and dictating the way in which they perceive, absorb, process, and conceptualize the information. Thinking styles are the product of a socialization process; they change over a period of time and are measurable. There is no such thing as a preferred style, nor are there good or bad ones, there are only different ones

Objectives

Results

Conclusion