State-Controlled Education and Identity Formation Among the Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel

Abstract

In many modern nation-states, national identity is not inclusive of all of the state’s citizens; rather, it is limited (in varying degrees) to the members of the dominant group. Because such states are structurally unable to meet indigenous/minority groups’ basic human needs for identity, inclusion, and equality, the formation of ethnically based identity and political organization is a natural alternative. To the extent that such alternatives are considered threatening to the state, it will deal with indigenous/minority groups by developing systems of control, based on varying degrees of force, depending on the state’s claim (or lack thereof) to be “democratic.” In this article, the author examines the role the state educational system plays in identity formation and the state’s system of control among indigenous Palestinian youth in Israel.