Ethnicity Vs. Israeli National Culture in One Nationalized Educational Site: The Case of the Annual School Trip
Source: Critical Studies in Education
This study examines the interface between ethnicity and nationality in a nationalized educational site – the annual school trip – that took place in a Jewish high school in Israel that serves underprivileged ethnic groups. Based on ethnographic field work, I analyze how the Ashkenazi (central-eastern European origin) hegemonic national culture that is embedded in the field trip is worked out by the Mizrahi (Asian and north African origin) students, in light of their ethnic background and the ethnic Ashkenazi/Mizrahi division that characterizes the Israeli society.
Although both groups share the same national sentiment, the analysis exposes the different ways the pedagogical practices used by the trip represented the national hegemonic culture and the ways it has been contested and reshaped along ethnic lines while reflecting the existing ethnic borders that the pupils were trying to widen.