Schools In Israel Research Articles

Arabs in segregated vs. mixed Jewish–Arab schools in Israel: their identities and attitudes towards Jews

ABSTRACT In Israel, the majority of Jewish and Arab students attend ethnically-segregated schools. However, a new phenomenon has emerged in recent decades: ethnically mixed schools – either because they are intentionally designed to be bilingual and multicultural, or the circumstantial outcome of a demographic mix. The research compares the self-identifications of Arab students attending segregated schools and mixed schools of various kinds, and examines their attitudes toward Jews. The findings suggest that students attending mixed schools tend to define themselves in national terms, as social identity theory predicts. In addition, while Arab students attending circumstantially-mixed Hebrew schools tend to define themselves as Israelis, those attending multicultural and segregated schools tend to define themselves as Palestinians. The “Arab” self-definition is common to all research participants. Additionally, Arab students who identify as Israelis tend to have more positive attitudes toward Jews, but no significant correlation between Palestinian self-identification and negative attitudes toward Jews was found.

Principals’ systems thinking and school effectiveness: The mediating role of collective teacher efficacy

Relying on the social cognitive theory, which postulates that human behaviour is due to social experiences and cognitive interpretation, the current study seeks to investigate the mediating role of collective teacher efficacy (CTE) in the relationship between principals’ systems thinking (PST) and school effectiveness in terms of academic emphasis and student academic achievement after accounting for students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. A three-source survey design with self-report and non-self-report data was used, from a sample of 423 participants from 71 elementary schools in Israel. The sample included school management team (SMT) members and teachers who were not SMT members. Data were aggregated at the school level of analysis. The results from structural equation modelling and bootstrapping analysis indicated that CTE partially mediates the relationship between PST and academic emphasis, irrespective of the students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Moderating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's and adolescents' substance use, digital media use, and mental health: A randomized positive psychology addiction prevention program

ObjectivePrevious research suggests that well-being interventions are effective in moderating substance and digital media use and improving mental health. This study evaluated the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a school-based Positive Psychology Addiction Prevention (PPAP) intervention aimed at reducing substance and digital media use and increasing the mental health of school children during the COVID-19 pandemic. MethodsThe sample was composed of 1,670 children and adolescents (Mean age = 12.96, SD = 2.01) from six elementary and secondary schools in Israel who were randomly assigned to the PPAP intervention (n = 833) or the waiting-list control conditions (n = 837). A three-year longitudinal repeated-measures randomized control design was used to examine modifications in substance use, digital media use, and psychological symptoms in the intervention and control groups assessed on the pre-test (before the outbreak of COVID-19, September 2019), the post-test (May 2021), and the 12-month follow-up (May 2022). ResultsThe 12-month prevalence of tobacco use, alcohol use, and cannabis use decreased significantly from the pre- to the follow-up period in the intervention group, and increased significantly in the control group. Daily digital media use increased during the pandemic period in both groups, with a significantly higher increase in the control group. The intervention group reported significantly lower psychological symptoms and negative emotions, and greater positive emotions and life satisfaction after the intervention and at follow-up compared to the control group. ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted the lives of children and adolescents. Well-being and addiction prevention interventions may be effective in improving the mental health of school children during pandemics and crisis periods.

Factors Affecting Palestinian High School Students’ Career Choice after Covid-19 Pandemic Outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has created a new complicated reality and brought diverse challenges to education systems and students as well. The present study aimed at examining the factors that students have used in identifying career choices among Palestinian high school in Israel in the new era. Career choice questionnaire was used to assess the factors affecting career choice. 455 Palestinian high school students took part in this study. A convenient sampling technique was implied to collect the data. Descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that the student’s interests and hobbies, and student’s personality and tendencies attained the highest value among the internal factors of career choice. Furthermore, the future progress and advancement opportunities, job security were the prominent external factors. Findings showed that the internal factors were significantly associated with economic situation. The findings will assist school counselors to raise the self-awareness to the importance of the internal and external factors, thus students may make better future career decisions.

Correction to: Context Matters: Differential Gendering of Physics in Arabic-speaking, Hebrew-speaking, and Single-Sex State Schools in Israel

Correction to: Context Matters: Differential Gendering of Physics in Arabic-speaking, Hebrew-speaking, and Single-Sex State Schools in Israel

Teachers' perspectives toward integrating special education need learners in normal classrooms: A case study of Arab teachers in Israel

This paper constitutes a relatively new area that has emerged from the relationship between Special Education Need (SEN) students in normal classrooms and teachers’ perspectives. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that could contribute to differences in attitudes of public-school teachers toward the inclusion of students with special needs in general education classes in the Arab schools in Israel. The study used a quantitative methodology, adopting an online survey method of data collection, addressed to a total number of 237 teachers working in government public schools. The findings indicated that teachers who hold a master’s degree were more likely to accept the idea of integrating SEN students in regular settings and suggested that teachers' education level affected their emotional attitude towards SEN integration. These findings embody significant practical meanings. A change is needed in the way Arab society perceives students with SEN, and how this society treats their integration into the framework of regular students. A practical recommendation of this study is that the Ministry of Education should offer intensive training for a wide range of teachers to be able to deal with students with special needs.

Self-Regulated Learning and Motivation Among Gifted and High-Achieving Students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Disciplines: Examining Differences Between Students From Diverse Socioeconomic Levels

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is an active process that assists students in managing their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions to navigate their learning experiences successfully. The study examined the differences in motivation and SRL between gifted and high achievers (GHAs) and typical achievers (TAs) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines by addressing the contribution of socioeconomic status (SES). A sample of 151 students in 11th and 12th grades from two high schools in Israel were divided into four study groups based on their general intelligence, school grades, and SES. Participants completed SRL and motivation questionnaires. The results indicated that among GHAs, all motivation measures were significantly higher than those of TAs, especially among students from low-SES environments. GHA students reported using more SRL strategies than TA students regarding organization, metacognition, time and learning environment, peer learning, and effort regulation. Students from low-SES environments reported using more organization strategies than those from high-SES environments, whereas TA students surpassed their GHA counterparts in critical thinking.

Community physicians’ attitudes towards meetings with representatives of pharmaceutical companies: a pilot study

BackgroundMarketing by pharmaceutical companies has become an increasingly controversial issue for the medical community and the public. This controversy stems from the potential influence that pharmaceutical companies can wield through marketing on the medical community. This study assesses community physicians’ attitudes towards pharmaceutical companies and their representatives to get a better understanding of how their activities affect daily work in community clinics.MethodsA cross-sectional anonymous questionnaire-based study of 170 community physicians in southern Israel was conducted via convenience sampling. The questionnaire was designed to assess physicians’ attitudes about the nature of their relationships with representatives of pharmaceutical companies and possible associations with physicians’ demographic and professional profiles. The questionnaire was distributed, at weekly staff meetings in the study clinics, to a convenience sample of physicians, who agreed to participate in the study.ResultsMost physicians did not have an extreme attitude on interactions with representatives of pharmaceutical companies. Interestingly, while they thought that pharmaceutical companies play an important role in medical progress, they did express concern regarding the risk of misleading information. While they believed that interactions between physicians and representatives of pharmaceutical companies had a negative effect on the clinic workflow, they were not in favor of prohibiting such interactions. Physicians who graduated from medical schools in Israel held a less sympathetic position towards these interactions.ConclusionThe anticipated heterogeneous attitudes of community-based physicians on interactions with representatives of pharmaceutical companies reflect an inherent complex relationship, with aspects that are specific to the Israeli medical field. Interestingly, physicians trained in other countries than Israel also have divergent attitudes, further affecting the socio-cultural impact on practitioner’s attitudes towards this intricate and often politicized topic. Open professional dialogue and targeted educational programs on the physician–pharmaceutical relationship, with more explicit regulation, could potentially ease the discomfort experienced by physicians, especially in the Israeli context and result in a clearer framework of interaction that would leverage the potential advantages while accounting for ethical and regulatory pitfalls.

Teachers' Demographic Characteristics and the Principals Leadership Styles in Bedouin Schools in Israel

Teachers' Demographic Characteristics and the Principals Leadership Styles in Bedouin Schools in Israel

The relationship between school ethical climate and school effectiveness in Israel 2020

The current research discusses the ethical aspects that were currently not studied yet in the context of the teacher attrition phenomenon and its impact on school effectiveness, which is measured in this research by promoting achievements basing the assumption that teacher perception of ethical climate might explain teacher attrition behaviors, including leaving teaching (Rosenblatt & Shapira-Lishchinsky, 2017). This research has examined teacher perceptions of school ethical climate through three dimensions found to be relevant in the 21st-century era in the aspects of organizational climate in general and school climate in particular, caring ethical climate, law and code ethical climate, and instrumental ethical climate. For this purpose, quantitative research is based on the pioneer researchers Victor & Cullen’s (1987, 1988) questionnaire and self-report of teachers regarding teacher tendency to leave the teaching profession, and their perception of learner achievement promotion in the context of ethical climate in their school was used. To deepen and expand the understanding of teacher perceptions, qualitative research including in-depth interviews was also performed. The research population consisted of 223 teachers from elementary and junior high schools in Israel. The current research indicates a principal finding that expresses the influence and importance of a caring ethical climate in reducing attrition behaviors and teacher attrition intentions and promoting learner achievements. Moreover, it was found that law and code ethical climate is correlated with promoting student achievements, and therefore integrating these two ethical climate dimensions will be the foundation for a program for new and senior teacher preservation in the education system. The research findings are currently relevant since the education system in Israel faces a severe shortage of teachers due to increased teacher attrition of teaching.

Career Choices of BSW Graduates of an Older Adults Concentration: An Analysis of Twenty Cohorts

ABSTRACT Most of the studies exploring social work education’s impact on working with older adults (OA) examine intentions among students. This study goes beyond expressed intention and focuses upon the actual post-graduation career choices of 20 cohorts (1996–2016) of BSW graduates of an OA concentration at an Israeli school of social work. The 203 study participants comprise 60% of all the concentration`s graduates. Findings showed that 47% of the graduates never worked with OA after graduation, 25% reported that they had but this was no longer the case, and 28% are currently working with OA. Graduates distanced themselves from the aging field primarily because they found it uninteresting or unappealing and viewed social work with OA negatively. However, most of those currently working with older adults associated this work with positive feelings toward OA and work with them, favorable workplace conditions, and a commitment to advancing the field of social work with OA. Social work educators now need to rethink how to better expose students to work with OA during the concentration in ways that increase their positive experience and attitudes toward working with this population and that can increase the likelihood of a career choice to work with them.

Hematologist Bracha Ramot (1927-2006): Between the bedside and the bench.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem opened the first medical school in Israel in May 1949. One of the select 45 students of its first class was Bracha (Chweidan) Ramot. After completing her medical studies with distinction, she went on to specialize in internal medicine and hematology and soon became a central figure in the development of hematology in Israel. In 1958, Ramot established the Hematological Institute at Tel-Hashomer hospital and served as its director until 1991. She devoted much of her time and effort to researching environmental and genetic factors that influence hematological conditions: deficiencies in coagulation factors, glucose metabolism disorders, and especially leukemias and lymphomas, including the type known as Hodgkin's disease. In 2001, Ramot, "The Doyenne of Israeli Hematology" as she was called in publications of the Albert Einstein Institute, was awarded the Israel Prize in Medical Sciences, the country's most prestigious prize. Her biography personifies the ability to overcome obstacles and challenges in one's personal life while concurrently becoming an exceedingly successful physician and researcher of extraordinary achievement.

Digital Leadership: Managing Schools’ Virtual Spaces in Times of Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic changed schools’ reality and posed a wide range of challenges for school leaders, such as a re-examination of principals’ and teachers’ authority and leadership in the schools’ virtual spaces. Teaching methods and social-emotional aspects of learning were challenged as well. The school faculty had to redesign their pedagogical environments to provide an extensive and complete response to these new challenges. The main difficulty lay in the need to create an immediate distance-learning environment that would provide solutions for the pedagogical, emotional, and social challenges in the new and virtual space that had been created. We investigated teachers’ perceptions of their and their principals’ roles as digital educational leaders (e-leaders) in the schools’ virtual spaces. The research was conducted using a qualitative method with a population of 16 female teachers in elementary schools in Israel. Data analysis yielded four major themes: new virtual space in the school's organization, principals’ and teachers’ roles in managing virtual spaces, opportunities in virtual space management, and challenges and difficulties. These themes were closely interrelated in the context of schoolwork. Findings highlight the importance of more fully understanding the role of extensive digital leadership, i.e., the management of virtual school spaces. It is proposed that management of schools’ virtual spaces can enhance overall school effectiveness, which in turn can help achieve better cooperation between school faculty and the surrounding community.

Difficulties of Students from the Palestinian Authority who Learn in an Arab High School in Israel

The aim of research is to investigate high school students who have moved to Israel from the Palestinian Authority in order to study. We used qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews. The research participants of this study were students and teachers affiliated with a high school in the North of Israel. The paper discusses those students’ experiences of identity crisis between their self-identity and their national identity. The paper also voices the students’ feelings of alienation and disconnection to their school community, leading to gaps in the academic, social, and familial difficulties. This study shows that these difficulties lead to a conflict of identity between their original identity – the Palestinian Authority – and their new identity as students in an Arab school in Israel. This situation might lead to feelings of disconnection and alienation, that must be addressed by the entire school community.

Principals' systems thinking and teachers' withdrawal behaviours: The intervening role of school structure and principal–teacher gender (dis)similarity

AbstractRelying on the contingency theory, the present study examines the influence of school characteristics and principal–teacher gender (dis)similarity on the relationship between principals’ systems thinking (PST) and teacher withdrawal behaviours of absenteeism and intent to leave. Data were collected from two sources: 111 school management team members and 109 teachers (220 participants in total) randomly chosen from elementary schools in Israel. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that principal–teacher dissimilarity and a bureaucratic school structure moderate the relationship between PST and teachers’ withdrawal behaviours. These findings indicate that the organisational conditions under which principals practise systems thinking can affect teachers’ withdrawal behaviours. Therefore, this study may advance theory and practise regarding the implications of PST on withdrawal behaviours, which are an important determinant of teachers’ performance and a school's success.

A Qualitative Examination of School Counselors' Experiences of Sextortion Cases of Female Students in Israel.

Sextortion (a portmanteau of "sexual" and "extortion") is a relatively new phenomenon of sexual exploitation, which occurs when a person threatens another with the distribution of sexual content on the Internet, to obtain more pictures or videos, money, or have some other demand met. The current study examined how school counselors in Israel perceive the phenomenon of online sextortion. To this end, we conducted a qualitative study based on 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews with school counselors working in middle schools and high schools in Israel, who treated adolescent girls blackmailed over the Internet on sexual grounds. Findings indicate that the school counselors had difficulty in identifying and defining the cases they treated as instances of sextortion, and that in their view the harm was slight. Findings also indicate that school counselors associated the causes of sextortion with the victims and their backgrounds. We found differences between the Arab and secular and national-religious state education in the way Jewish counselors treated the victims and involved additional actors such as the victim's parents and the police. This underscores the importance of providing educational staff with adequate knowledge and tools that are culturally suited to the victims.

How organizational management supports instructional leadership

PurposePrevious studies found that principals must be involved in both instructional leadership and organizational management, yet they did not explain how the former supports the latter. To narrow this gap in the available research-based knowledge, the current study explored the contribution of organizational management to instructional leadership.Design/methodology/approachThis study was qualitative in nature. The study participants were 28 principals of elementary schools in Israel. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Data analysis, based on coding, aimed to cluster the eight organizational management functions according to how each function supports instructional leadership.FindingsThe present study revealed that the eight functions of organizational management support four main aspects of instructional leadership: (1) Developing a positive learning climate; (2) Improving teaching quality; (3) Realizing the school instructional vision; and (4) Enabling instructional leadership.Originality/valueThe findings of this study reinforce the argument that although instructional leadership is the critical component of effective school leadership, it should be supported by other frameworks.

In the same boat: Parents’ and teachers’ role in protecting elementary school students’ online rights

The study offers a socio-legal typology describing how parents and teachers facilitate or hinder the protection of elementary school children in the online world. Drawing on interviews with 75 elementary school students, 15 parents, and 20 teachers in four Israeli schools, the findings distinguish four patterns of adult practices: restricting children’s rights, mobilizing children’s rights in cases of rights infringements, fostering children’s rights consciousness, and waiving children’s rights. The findings showed that most children held a favorable view of practices that protected their rights and were critical of adults who waived their rights. The conclusions delineate the importance of applying rights terminology to analyze parents’ and teachers’ practices. A terminology of rights underscores that restrictive practices should be embedded in principles of proportionality, highlights the balance between autonomy and protection, clarifies the implications of ignoring online injury, distinguishes between practices whose implications differ although they co-occur, and provides a relatively stable framework that can be adapted to changing online contexts. The conclusions also underscore that parents’ and teachers’ roles in fulfilling young children’s online rights are inherently intertwined and complementary. This mutual responsibility can afford opportunities for effective collaboration but might also lead to waiving children’s rights to protection in the online world.

Difficulty is an opportunity: the coping of alternative schools in Israel during COVID-19

ABSTRACT COVID-19 has had an extreme impact on schools. Although the effects of COVID-19 on schooling have been a topic of research, non-mainstream schools’ coping has not received critical attention. This paper provides an evidence-based account of how non-mainstream (alternative) schools coped with the COVID-19 breakout. The study’s data collection methods included interviews and observations of educators and students in five alternative schools in Israel. Qualitative measures revealed a three-stage model of coping: stress and helplessness; action and recuperation; discovery, and growth. The model delineates the evolution of schools who were grappling with the complexities and challenges of the pandemic. What began as stress and practical adaptations to cope with lockdown circumstances led to creative education and growth. Thus, the pandemic created an opportunity for educators to rethink educational processes. Findings showed the progression between stages depended on creative thinking and collaboration amongst educators. The study sheds light on the factors promoting growth in schools. Discovering alternative educational pathways is significant. For education to be more dialogic, flexible, and responsive, opportunities to reflect on these ideas should be embraced.

THE PRINCIPALS’ STRESS IN BEDOUIN SCHOOLS IN ISRAEL DURING CORONA PANDEMIC

The aim of this research is to explore the stress of the principals in Bedouin sector schools in Israel concerning remote teaching during COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews included eight (8) open–ended questions and were conducted with three (3) principals from different Bedouin schools in Negev concerning stress at work in the shadow of COVID-19. The main finding of this research is that the school principals in Bedouin were experiencing high levels of stress concerning distance teaching in the shadow of COVID-19 pandemic. The research findings also show that there is a lack of resources for remote learning among students in the Bedouin population, which was associated to the lack of the school principals’ control over teachers during the COVID-19, and was related to changes in the students’ behavior.