Asian Curriculum Studies, Continental Overview

Israel

In the case of Israel, where multiculturalism is related to its political origins and sustained conflict, a number of published papers have been connected to broader social changes. Julia Resnik, for example, undertook a historical study of the curricula in Jewish schools and assessed how national ideology with regard to particularistic versus universalistic content had varied over time. Four national images were portrayed: “nation with a right to a state,” “nation by right of religion,” “a state for a persecuted nation,” and “a state for all its citizens.” Amos Hofman, Bracha Alpert, and Izhak Schnell have identified three stages of curriculum development: promotion of hegemonic national goals, emphasis on academic structure of knowledge, and multiple conflicting [Page 55]goals. They call for a transcultural approach in which a core curriculum is offered to all groups and beyond which each group may display its uniqueness. On the other hand, Ruth Firer in 1998 analyzed the values and perspectives of human rights education in history textbooks, civic texts, and peace education manuals published from the 1950s onward, and Halleli Pinson recently examined the tensions between inclusion and exclusion in civic education. In addition, Majid Al-Haj, based on the content analysis of the new history textbooks in Jewish schools, explored the status of multicultural education in light of fluctuating conflict and peace in IsraelPalestinian relations, and Deborah Court, using John Dewey's ideas on democracy and education, examined the role of education in helping build trust and enhancement of democracy at the level of individual interactions between citizens. Jonathan Cohen adopted Joseph Schwab's practical and eclectic arts to derive educational implications from two rival theories by Harry Austryn Wolfson and Julius Guttmann in preparing for the discipline of Jewish philosophy for instruction at the high school level.

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