Source: The Online Journal of New Horizons in Education Volume 7, Issue 3
This study examines changes in feelings of school belonging and social engagement of Israeli-Ethiopian pupils, linking them to achievement and inclusive-supportive school environment. The study brings forward the pupils' voice, the home class teacher's assessment and the school's head master conceptions, on inclusion and support in one elementary school in Israel. The school's environment is focused on social-emotional support, aiming to promote achievement, by enhancing feelings of school belonging and social engagement.
The study was part of a longitudinal intervention, aimed to assess a support program, PACT+. PACT (Parents and Children Together) is a program for Ethiopian-Israeli pre-school children and their parents aimed to advance successful integration in the education system and Israeli society. The program was implemented in the end of the nineties, addressing the language and cultural gaps which led to considerable differences between the achievement performance of the Ethiopian-Israeli children and their non-Ethiopian counterpart. In 2002/3, PACT+, was added, providing additional support to Ethiopian-Israeli children in elementary schools (Habib,Ben-Rabi, Somekh, Konstantinov, Angel, 2013). This study focused on the impact of PACT+ in one elementary school, in a southern city in Israel.