Training for Civics Teachers in East Jerusalem: Compliance, Compromise or Resistance?

Educators who share knowledge deemed ‘dangerous’ by the state face unique pressures to comply with repressive policies, while at the same time uniquely positioned to resist them. In East Jerusalem, public schools are subject to coercive policies aimed at ending the use of Palestinian Authority (PA) curriculum. New policies tie school funding to the use of Israeli curricula and teacher certification to standards set by the Israeli Ministry of Education. In response, “retraining” programs for in-service teachers with degrees and certifications issued in areas under PA without formal training or experience with the Israeli curriculum have opened. Leaders staffing and designing these programs must balance their responsibility to the teachers they serve with the costs of refusal. Drawing on critical policy analysis, this study examines one such program at the Hebrew University for Palestinian teachers from East Jerusalem currently teaching the Israeli civics curriculum. Based on interview and questionnaire responses from over half of all program graduates, as well as interviews with teacher-educators, administrators and internal documents, this study details the ways that program leaders and graduates engaged and resisted the aims of the Israeli government in their work. Program administrators exploited what agency they had to ensure the program gave teachers the pedagogical permission and knowledge of ministry restrictions to continue teaching the Palestinian narrative within the constraints set by the Israeli government. Moving beyond binaries of resistance or compliance, this study offers one answer to how educational leaders might consider their conflicting responsibilities when confronting undemocratic policy.