ABSTRACT
Political, cultural, and religious differences continue to pose substantial challenges for a wide variety of social institutions, including schools. The internal diversity of both the Jewish and Arab populations of Israel exacerbates the challenges of intercultural understanding and communication. Among those challenges are the facts that most families live in culturally separate communities and that most children attend culturally separate schools. Opportunities for children to meet, talk with, and learn from those who are culturally or religiously different from themselves are thus restricted. In 2009, the Ministry of Education formulated a policy intended to promote a “shared life” for Jewish and Arab citizens and provided specific directions for how this might be achieved, including a recognition that both face-to-face and virtual encounters between Jews and Arabs are an essential part of achieving a shared life. This chapter will provide information, including new data, on the intercultural teacher education and school programs of the Mofet Institute’s Technology, Education & Cultural diversity program (TEC).
