This paper examines two research questions: How do teachers refer to historical figures when teaching difficult past events? Which approaches to teaching difficult past events are reflected in teachers' ways of talking about historical figures? The paper is based on an analysis of lessons by three 11th grade history teachers in Israel on the…

The objective of this research was to analyse poetry written by Israeli high-school students during or after visiting Poland within the framework of Holocaust education. I describe first the stages of shaping the discourse of Holocaust memory in Israel, and of Holocaust education; the Holocaust's place in the world of young Israelis; and the…

This study examines changes to Jewish day school students' narratives of the history of Israel after a two-and-a-half-week trip there. Seventeen students were interviewed about the history of Israel before and after the trip. Before the trip, most students' accounts lacked logical connections among the different events. The observations on the…

Oslo Accords have stringently underscored that both rivalries, the Palestinians and the Israelis, must abstain from incitement to terror and violence. Their educational systems, consequently, have to refrain from convulsive, fundamentalist, and heinous skirmishes leading to stalled reconciliation. History school textbooks are deemed, from both…

This article explores the way gender resonates in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" through an active study of live performance. Combining pedagogy with performance as an interpretive methodology, this research focuses upon using my unique classroom situation, teaching ultra-Orthodox Jewish adolescent females, as a platform for analysis.…

This "think-aloud" study examines how a group of American Jewish teenagers read historical documents that addressed what it has meant over time to be American and/or Jewish. It demonstrates that students use a variety of sense-making strategies as they read about the past, many of which fall beyond the boundaries of critical historical…

Civic studies in Israel and elsewhere are unlike any other school subject. This course of study has a higher purpose--to transform students into good citizens. In contrast to other core subjects, civics, in essence, strives to realize ethical goals. While other subjects perceive the instilling of values as a secondary outcome, in civics the…

Following the political assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in 1998 Israel's national theater Habimah produced the play "Civil War." The play addressed the religious/hawkish-secular/dovish rift in Israel through a critical reading of events from Jewish history and raises the potential of civil war and political violence in…

The transmission model of religious socialization was tested using a sample of American Jewish parents and adolescents. The authors expected that measures of religiousness among parents would be associated with those among their children. Interaction effects of denominational membership were also tested. Data were collected from a sample of 233…

Religion could play a positive role in intergroup relations. However, this potential is usually overlooked and religion is often perceived as divisive and polarizing, perhaps even a source of intergroup conflict. This study examined religion as a possible tool for achieving positive intergroup encounters. A randomized control trial research design…

Background: Great efforts are made to develop and implement contact activities for groups in conflict, yet studies of effects of planned contact interventions yielded mixed results. Previous attempts to explain why contact interventions do not fulfill their promise focused on the contact itself. However, the main focus of the present study was the…