Teaching Arabic in Israel : A Linguistic Challenge in Majority–Minority Relations

Throughout Israel’s history, Jewish and Arab children have, with few exceptions, attended separate schools, each conducted in the native language of its pupils. The Arab school system teaches children Arabic, English and Hebrew as mandatory subjects from elementary school through to matriculation, along with other Jewish national and cultural elements. The study of Arabic in the Jewish educational system is, however, minimal or non-existent. Despite the fact that Arabic is an official language in Israel and the native language of over one million of the state’s citizens, laws mandating its study are not enforced and the proportion of Jewish students who can actually speak it after graduating school is tiny. Read more