Higher Education In Israel Research Articles

Malingering and medicalization in Israeli higher education: A critical inquiry of students feigning learning disorders

This lecture stimulates new thinking about learning-disorders. Previous research in Israel regarding students with learning-disorders did not analyze the social processes through which students acquire the disability label. Therefore, the scenario of some students seeking the learning-disorder label in order to gain academic advantage has not been discussed in the professional literature within this context. The lecture is based on forty in-depth interviews conducted with self-testified malingering students who, nonetheless, were diagnosed as learning-disordered. Using sociological and narratological frameworks, the lecture discusses the strategies used by the students prior to, and during, their formal diagnoses, in order to influence the diagnosis outcome and convince the diagnosticians that they were genuinely “learning-disordered”. The strategies are divided into three clusters corresponding to the pre-diagnostic, diagnostic, and diagnostic-interview stages. The students’ stories challenge a number of assumptions that are embedded in the educational–academic and medical discourses regarding students with learning-disorders. Moreover, the lecture maps the reasons used by the interviewees in order to justify pretending to be learning-disordered. Prominent among these rationalizations are claims of “equal opportunity”, “objective science”, “lack of choice”, “everybody does it” and “it's a unique situation”, as well as minimizing statements. Finally, the clinical cases described are placed within the current Israeli educational and cultural context characterized by medicalization trends as well as the negative images of “effort” on the one hand, and the meritocratic ethos of “success” on the other. It is suggested that these may shed some light on the ever-growing number Israeli learning-disordered students.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.

The Moral Reasoning of Genetic Dilemmas Amongst Jewish Israeli Undergraduate Students with Different Religious Affiliations and Scientific Backgrounds.

The main objective of this study was to shed light on the moral reasoning of undergraduate Israeli students towards genetic dilemmas, and on how these are affected by their religious affiliation, by the field they study and by their gender. An open ended questionnaire was distributed among 449 undergraduate students in institutions of higher education in Israel, and their answers were analyzed according to the framework described by Sadler and Zeidler (Science Education, 88(1), 4-27, 2004). They were divided into two major categories: those whose reasoning was based on the consideration of moral consequences (MC), and those who supported their opinion by citing non-consequentialist moral principles (MP). Students' elaborations to questions dealing with values towards genetic testing showed a correlation between the students' religious affiliation and their reasoning, with religious students' elaborations tending to be more principle based than those of secular ones. Overall, the students' elaborations indicate that their main concern is the possibility that their personal genetic information will be exposed, and that their body's personal rights will be violated. We conclude the paper by offering several practical recommendations based on our findings for genetic counseling that is specifically tailored to fit different patients according to their background.

Factors in the Adjustment and Academic Achievement of College Students with Learning Disabilities in Israel

The number of students with learning disabilities (LD) who attend postsecondary education has increased steadily over the past 20 years. This study examines the contribution of internal (academic self-efficacy and attachment style) and external (social support and institutional support) factors to the adjustment and achievement of students with LDs in the academic setting. Participants were 674 students from 24 institutions of higher education in Israel. The experimental group (n = 338) consisted of students with self-reported LD, the control group (n = 336) were students who reported they did not have an LD. Our hypothesis that students with LD would report lower academic achievements and lower levels of adjustment than would students with no LD was confirmed. A further hypothesis, that internal and external factors would both be associated with adjustment and academic achievements of LD students, was confirmed by a Structural Equation Modeling Analysis. These findings emphasize the importance of social, family and environment in the success of students with LD in higher education.

From marginalisation to integration: Arab-Palestinians in Israeli academia

The Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, one-fifth of the country's population, has been underrepresented in Israeli institutions of higher education since the establishment of the state. This article focuses on the authors’ shared aim of promoting diversity and multiculturalism in institutions of higher education in Israel. It first introduces Arab marginalisation within Israeli society as a whole. Subsequently, it offers a critical overview of existing data and research on the challenges faced by young Arab-Palestinians in higher education institutions in Israel. Based on this indispensable analysis, which clearly shows the numerous obstacles that await Arab-Palestinians on their path to graduation, the article goes on to suggest some required changes. Presenting some useful policy transformations and courses of action, it subsequently introduces multicultural academia as a better conceptual and practical framework for achieving inclusive education.

Access to higher education and its socio-economic impact among Bedouin Arabs in Southern Israel

This paper explores minority access to higher education in Israel in general, and among the Negev Bedouin Arabs, in particular. The Negev Bedouin community has undergone major changes during the past 60 years, and has the lowest socio-economic level of any population group in Israel. Higher education plays a prominent role in determining a community's competitiveness in the world marketplace. In most societies, it is also recognized as a major avenue to greater economic rewards and social mobility, making it of vital importance to those groups on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder of society. The provision of public educational services to the Negev Bedouin, admissions procedures and standardized testing, financial assistance policies, and the socio-economic and political impact of higher education in Israel are examined in-depth. The paper concludes that the following structural and policy changes are needed to improve the access of the Negev Bedouin community to higher education: better quality elementary and secondary education, financial aid, removal of minimum age requirements, and culturally unbiased measures for admissions screening.

Higher education between government policy and free market forces: The case of Israel

Abstract. In recent years Israel's system of higher education has undergone a revolutionary transformation, leading to a sharp rise in the number of students, establishment of new degree-granting institutions, and shifts in legislation and policy. All these have changed dramatically, arousing profound public debates centering on one major issue: how to reconcile academic freedom, as manifested in a free academic market, with the regulation of higher education. This study explores three main processes that occurred within Israel's higher education system since the reform in the early 1990s and attempts to identify their causes. The research findings show that it was the government's decision to carry out a reform, rather than free market forces that led to the considerable rise in the number of applicants for academic studies. However, free market sources were found to affect admission terms to the various departments, guided by trends of demand and supply.Key words: Public Policy, Higher Education, Israel, free market forces, regulationJEL classification: A2, I2IntroductionIsrael's system of higher education has undergone an extensive process of development since the state was established. During this time, the number of degree-granting institutions has risen, with a concurrent rise in the number of undergraduate and graduate students1 (Davidovitch & Iram, 2014).The agency responsible for promoting this system is the Council for Higher Education (CHE), headed by the Minister of Education, and most of its members are high-ranking higher education professionals. In addition, the CHE operates the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC).In 1993 these agencies, in charge of formulating higher education policy, initiated a reform2 that for about a decade led to an extensive transformation of structured opportunities for acquiring an academic education in Israel. As a result of this reform, Israel's system of higher education changed dramatically, and since the early 1990s the universities were joined by many colleges, creating a more extensive and open framework of higher education encompassing a wide range of fields.The meteoric growth in Israel's higher education had negative impacts on the system as well, with a decrease in the quality of academic instruction and learning, cutbacks in government funding of schools and universities, and a drop in the ratio of students to senior faculty, which had been about 16 students to each senior faculty member in the mid-1990s and dropped to 25 students per senior faculty member in the first decade of the 2000s.Moreover, the entrance of foreign extensions, the establishment of nine new privately-owned institutions, and the expansion of the number of public colleges led to fierce competition, with a detrimental effect on the quality of both students and faculty. All these had a negative impact on Israel's system of higher education and aroused criticism.This criticism of the quality of higher education and of the constant budgetary crises (voiced predominantly by the universities) led the government to establish a committee that in 2007 presented its recommendations on improving higher education (Volansky, 2007).In light of these trends and effects, the current study shall attempt to analyze the justifications underlying regulation processes undertaken within Israeli higher education and to determine whether these intervention processes stemmed from a preplanned and defined government policy or whether they were simply responses to actions and failures of the free market. First, however, we shall present the basic justifications for the regulation processes undertaken towards the activities of the free market.Fundamental justifications for regulationThe fundamental justifications for regulation processes derive from the nature of the government's activities vis-a-vis the free market. Advocates of government intervention in activities of the free market offer several justifications for regulatory actions:1. …

English as a gatekeeper: Inequality between Jews and Arabs in access to higher education in Israel

Access to the universities and many colleges in Israel is conditioned on the attainment of a specific matriculation certificate that includes a passing grade in advanced level English. Arab students in Israel are required to study English in addition to Arabic and Hebrew, unlike Jewish students, who are not obliged to take a second foreign language in addition to English. This puts Arab students in an inferior position. An analysis of a large sample of high school graduates showed that the English requirement incurs larger gaps than two other subjects that were examined: history and math. Logistic regression models confirmed that the gaps in meeting the English requirement can help explain the Jewish-Arab discrepancy in enrollment in higher education.

Higher education among minorities: The Arab case

Coupled with ethnic moves from traditionalism toward modernity, the issue of minority groups in higher education has become central to societal transformation on a global level. This article aims to review the contributions to this special journal issue on higher education amongst Arabs in Israel, both evaluating how the authors shed light on one another, and how their work is positioned within the larger body of international research. Barriers to Arab access to and success in institutions of higher education in Israel are explored, and a special focus is put on the Bedouin-Arab community. The article presents recent attempts to improve both structural and cultural barriers to higher education in Israel, and proposes a far-reaching and internationally proven paradigm shift in higher education.

The Foreign Invasion of Israeli Higher Education

can be paid for out of future earnings, but the economists who addressed the Royal Economics Society were convinced that their evidence pointed to increased fees being a considerable disincentive to less-advantaged students even with a more favorable loan scheme. Moreover, while the report is notably balanced in the way it presents its arguments and in particular in the way it advocates the redirection of fee income into bursaries for the disadvantaged, it does not address the probable plight of those universities that are at the bottom of the league tables but that are addressing the government’s access agenda as vigorously as those at the top are addressing its research agenda. Their position offers the sharpest conflict between the government’s twin policies of market orientation and social inclusion. The introduction of higher fees would certainly favor the top universities but at the expense of the bottom; the bottom are delivering social inclusivity, but the top are not for the reasons described above and, once freed from government constraints, might be even less likely to do so. The debate will no doubt continue until after the next general election, but the fear must be that attitudes will polarize either because one or the other of the main political parties endorses some elements of the debate or because the argument becomes increasingly institutionally self-interested. The dilemmas it exposes are not, of course, limited to the United Kingdom.

Demonstrating the validity of three general scores of PET in predicting higher education achievement in Israel.

The Psychometric Entrance Test (PET), used for admission to higher education in Israel together with the Matriculation (Bagrut), had in the past one general (total) score in which the weights for its domains: Verbal, Quantitative and English, were 2:2:1, respectively. In 2011, two additional total scores were introduced, with different weights for the Verbal and the Quantitative domains. This study compares the predictive validity of the three general scores of PET, and demonstrates validity in terms of utility. 100,863 freshmen students of all Israeli universities over the classes of 2005-2009. Regression weights and correlations of the predictors with FYGPA were computed. Simulations based on these results supplied the utility estimates. On average, PET is slightly more predictive than the Bagrut; using them both yields a better tool than either of them alone. Assigning differential weights to the components in the respective schools further improves the validity. The introduction of the new general scores of PET is validated by gathering and analyzing evidence based on relations of test scores to other variables. The utility of using the test can be demonstrated in ways different from correlations.

Ethno-Religious Differences in Israeli Higher Education: Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions

The worldwide expansion and diversification of higher education systems has sparked growing interest in the stratification of students according to higher education institution and field of study. This article focuses on Israel, where higher education has experienced significant expansion and diversification during the past two decades. Using generalized ordered logistic regression models, the study analyses vertical and horizontal ethno-religious inequality. The findings indicate that Ashkenazim, the privileged Jewish group, remain the most advantaged regarding enrollment in higher education, but their advantage over other veteran Jewish groups is mainly owing to areas of specialization in high school and achievement on the tests that serve as admission criteria to the higher education institutions. Among the enrollees, controlling for high school history reveals that the disadvantaged Jewish groups, Mizrachim and new immigrants, have higher odds than Ashkenazim of enrolling in lucrative programmes. Muslim, Druze, and Christian Arabs are disadvantaged regarding both the vertical (access) and horizontal (fields of study) dimensions, regardless of high school history and previous achievements.

Regulation, Globalization, And Privatization Of Higher Education: The Struggle To Establish A University In Israel

The foundations of higher education in Israel were established in the 1920’s with the opening of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925, after numerous difficulties and opponents were overcome. Not only were the pioneers of higher education plagued by these difficulties, it appeared that they were an integral element in the history of every other institution that has since sought recognition as a university in Israel. Every institution that sought to penetrate the gates of the ivory tower has encountered fierce opposition and the perpetual argument that Israel needs no more universities. Surprisingly, each time, the heads of the existing universities stood at the forefront of such opposition. Any attempt to establish a new university prompted them to issue warnings about the dangers inherent in establishing yet another institution of higher education in Israel.

The Drive to Internationalize: Perceptions and Motivations of Israeli College Directors

Given the relatively high degree of academic freedom granted to institutions in Israel in conjunction with the lack of governmental policy on internationalization, directors of higher education institutions comprise key agents in the institutional internationalization process that is taking place in Israeli higher education. In this study, we took a qualitative approach to explore the views and attitudes of seven college directors in Israel. We show that motivation for internationalization is a multifaceted phenomenon influenced by the college directors’ personal characteristics as well as by the colleges’ contextual factors. Moreover, it seems that second-tier colleges use internationalization to promote themselves towards the status of first-tier research universities. The study provides a first insight into the perceptions and motivations of Israeli educational institutions’ leaders regarding the development of institutional-level internationalization strategies.

Community-engaged courses in a conflict zone: a case study of the Israeli academic corpus

This article is based on an action-oriented study of 13 community-engaged courses at 11 institutions of higher education in Israel. These courses were not part of peace education programs but rather accredited academic courses in various disciplines, all of which included practice and theory. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how these courses provided transformative learning experiences, allowing Jewish and Arab students to reexamine social issues in a micro-climate of openness and intellectual rigor, thereby developing their commitment to engaging with the ‘other’ and the ‘otherized.’ By providing opportunities for reflection, the courses allowed students to build new networks of relationships within a deeply divided society. Nevertheless, the research reveals that though the students in these courses were highly aware of inequalities in society, they tended to self-define as non-political both in their theoretical learning and their action for change. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict and questions of war and peace were almost absent from the academic classroom. The reluctance to engage in political discussion or activism – even in Partnership classrooms where students are given the opportunity to encounter the ‘other’ first hand – speaks volumes about the fear that prevails on campuses in Israel and other conflict zones.

What Can We Learn from Rethinking ‘Multiculturalism’ in Social Work Education?

In recent decades, social work has become increasingly engaged with issues related to multiculturalism on theoretical, practical and pedagogical levels. However, discussions regarding the ways in which discourses of multiculturalism are constructed have received little professional attention. In this paper, we present findings from a research project that examines prevalent discourses of multiculturalism in social work education within institutions of higher education in Israel. In-depth interviews were conducted with 33 social work educators, and 30 academic course outlines dealing with multicultural social work were analysed. Data analysis indicated that social work educators conceptualize ‘multiculturalism’ as containing three distinct attributes: descriptive, practical and socio-political. We discuss the construction of ‘multiculturalism’ as evolving in two opposite directions: from theory and from reality, and we conclude with practical implications for multicultural social work education.

Professional Commitment in Novice Social Work Students: Socio-Demographic Characteristics, Motives and Perceptions of the Profession

The article attempts to define the characteristics of students at the beginning of their social work studies in institutes of higher education in Israel, including demographic characteristics, motives for choosing the profession, perceptions about the profession, and commitment to the profession. The study was conducted among a sample of 450 students, all beginning their first academic year, at four social work schools in Israel. Study findings show a demographic range, such as: nationality, level of religiosity, and political attitudes. Findings indicate that three of these socio-demographic variables predict commitment to the profession at the onset of academic studies: psychometric score, level of religiosity, and previous academic learning experience. Findings indicate two profiles of novice students: students who choose to study social work out of a desire to bring about social change; and students who choose to engage only in clinical social work. The latter are not committed to the profession in its essence, but rather recognize the importance of its professional individual activities only. The article discusses these findings and implications with regard to both the social work profession and social work training.

Paradigmatic changes in perceptions of disciplinary and multidisciplinary teaching in Israeli higher education system: fad or challenge?

The Israeli academic world has not yet determined its attitude to multidisciplinary approaches, which leads to a lack of institutionalization and regulation in research and in curricular development. The fashion in the 1990s has become a fact, yet the challenge persists: academic institutions offer their students multidisciplinary programmes, considered to be less prestigious, while at the same time displaying scepticism of multidisciplinary research and scholars working in diverse areas of knowledge. The world outside academe has already endorsed multidisciplinary approaches; academe itself is still trying to have its cake and eat it too.

Family Language Policy, Language Practice, Motivation, and Planning among Israeli Arab Students in Wingate Institute's Preparatory Program

Family language policy (FLP) and language use in different domains and relationships wasinvestigated in thirteen Israeli-Arab students enrolled in an institution of higher education inIsrael. Participants came from Arabic FLPs, communities, and schools. The study wascompleted through semi-structured interviews. Our research objectives were to investigate theFLP of the sample and a possible presence of differences in the ideologies concerning theirparent-led FLP and their future family's FLP, among other things. Our findings point to apossible change in ideologies toward the instrumentally oriented FLP which incorporatesHebrew language to a greater degree. Further investigations should focus on effects ofgenerational FLP change on identity and related psychological factors.

Higher education abroad

Purpose – This study aims to expand the authors’ exploratory qualitative study, describing the characteristics of the flow of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (PAI) to Jordanian higher education (HE) institutes as an alternative to HE studies in Israel (Jordanization).Design/methodology/approach – At this stage of the study, 460 PAI studying in six Jordanian universities answered a questionnaire indicating the factors that led them to seek HE in Jordan. Respondents’ comparisons between the Israeli and Jordanian HE systems were analysed.Findings – Results showed that Jordanian HE attracts PAIs for practical reasons: lenient acceptance policy and better chances to graduate, while cultural and linguistic similarities between the PAI and Jordanian societies are less influential. Israel's HE is attractive for financial reasons and employment qualification.Research limitations/implications – Future research should compare the absorption of these graduates of Jordanian universities in Israel's labour market w...

Commitment to the Profession of Novice Social Work Students

The article attempts to define the characteristics of those students at the beginning of their social work studies in institutes of higher education in Israel, including demographic characteristics...