Where has the sense of ease gone? Ambivalent elite identity among Palestinian students in Israel

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores elite high school identities among Palestinian youth in Israel, a stigmatised national ethnic minority. Two research questions guide this study: how do high school students in an elite school perceive and encounter their identity and how does their elitism interact with their identity as members of a stigmatised national group? This qualitative examination is based on 15 interviews with high school students. While their elite identities bear some of the same characteristics of elites elsewhere, this research uncovered some aspects which are unique to this group including careful planning for the future and hyper-excellence, individualistic along with collectivist orientations and holding a critical social-political consciousness that reflects a sense of unease. Findings contribute to knowledge about the relationship between elite education, class, and the reproduction of elite identity by examining an under-researched case study: elites among the Arab Palestinian minority in Israel.