The social role of language education amidst ongoing conflict: Hebrew-language education for adult Palestinians in Jerusalem

Liora Tamir

The lack of proficiency in Hebrew, the official language of Israel, among its Palestinian Arabic-speaking citizens and residents is central to the deep socio-economic gap between Palestinians and Jewish-Israelis and a barrier to their participation in the Israeli labor market and higher education (Tehawkho & Kalisher, 2023). Accordingly, Hebrew-language education (HLE) for adult Palestinians in Israel is informed by instrumentalist perceptions of second-language acquisition and teaching as a means for economic integration. My dissertation contextualizes HLE within the ongoing and escalated Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jewish-Palestinian power discrepancies in Israel. Conceptualizing language as a core component of individual, group and national identities (Giles & Byrne,1982; Anderson, 1983), and language-learning as a process of negotiating identity boundaries and shaping intergroup interactions (Gardner & Lambert,1972; Norton, 2013), I explore the unattended social implications of HLE. Focusing on the city of Jerusalem as one of the conflict's most contested sites, the study asks: how does adult HLE for Palestinian learners in Jerusalem inform Jewish-Palestinian intergroup relations in the city? Through a mixed-methods design encompassing classroom observations, interviews with learners, teachers and managers in multiple institutions, participants' diary-entries, textbook analysis and surveys, the study offers a holistic examination of how Palestinian learners and Jewish and Palestinian teachers navigate Hebrew-language learning and teaching amidst conflict. Concurrently, it explores associations between HLE and intergroup attitudes and behaviors. The study highlights the potential in reconceptualizing adult language-education as a mechanism that can either ameliorate, perpetuate, or exacerbate intergroup tension with implications for language-education policy and pedagogy.

About Liora Tamir

Liora Tamir is a Ph.D. candidate in the International Education program at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Her interests lie at the intersection of language education, education in conflict and intergroup relations and draws from various fields, including international and comparative education, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and second-language teaching and learning. Liora's doctoral research is the culmination of over a decade-long experience as a Hebrew-language teacher in formal and non-formal settings in Israel and the US, as an instructor in language teacher-training programs, and as a pedagogical consultant in the field of Hebrew-language education for Palestinian learners. In this capacity, she has worked with Palestinian and Jewish collaborators in grassroots organizations and labor unions in Jerusalem to build Hebrew language programs and curricula focused on the exercise of social and labor rights. Her professional experience fostered deep interest in the interrelationship between the state of protracted conflict and language education, and in the social function of language education in conflict-affected contexts. Liora is a graduate fellow at the NYU Taub Center for Israel Studies. She holds an MA in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and a BA in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and Linguistics, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.