ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the educational policies of the State of Israel and the influences which dictate and transform them. Educational policy in Israel is hugely influenced by the political agenda of the governing political party. The Ministry of Education supervises several systems, the 1953 State Educational Law had separate Palestinian and Hebrew institutions, and the Hebrew institutions were divided into religious and secular branches, with enclaves of autonomy for ultra-orthodox Jews and for the kibbutzim. Palestinians' frustration with the continuous disregard of their children's education dates back to Ottoman rule, when the language of instruction was Turkish, as this served the Turkish Empire. The gaps in resource allocation and investment between the Palestinian and Israeli education persisted and deepened under the State of Israel. Aschaffenburg and Maas explain that social inequalities are perpetuated when initial differences in cultural capital become systematically encoded in educational credentials, which then channel these students into social-class positions similar to those of their parents.
