ABSTRACT

Fostering multiculturalism in educational systems requires striking a balance between two approaches: particularist education that empowers the unique cultural characteristics of specific cultural groups and the preservation of their identity, and pluralist education that cultivates cross-cultural tolerance and respect and promotes dialog between groups. The present study examines Israeli children’s literature as reflected through two official programs: Pajamas Library and Lantern Library for Jewish and Palestinian-Arab students, respectively. Specifically, the article reports the findings of a content analysis into the goals and the particularist versus pluralist contents of the fifty texts included in each program in order to assess their role act as socialization agents in promoting multiculturalism. The findings of the study show that the literary works that are included in the Lantern Library blur the particularist components of the Palestinian-Arab culture, which hurts the process of the collective national identity among the Arab students in Israel. These findings can benefit other Arab minorities in the global context by informing future studies on how children’s literature is used for minority socialization.

摘要

在教育系统中培养多元文化主义需要在两种方法之间取得平衡：赋予特定文化群体独特的文化特征并保护他们身份的特殊主义教育，以及培养跨文化宽容和尊重并促进群体之间对话的多元教育。本研究考察了通过两个官方项目反映的以色列儿童文学：分别为犹太和巴勒斯坦阿拉伯学生提供的睡衣图书馆和灯笼图书馆。具体而言，文章报告了对每个项目中包含的 50 篇文本的目标和特殊主义与多元主义内容的内容分析的结果，以评估它们作为促进多元文化主义的社会化推动者的作用。研究结果表明，灯笼图书馆收录的文学作品模糊了巴勒斯坦-阿拉伯文化的特殊成分，这损害了以色列阿拉伯学生集体民族认同的进程。这些发现可以为未来关于儿童文学如何用于少数民族社会化的研究提供信息，从而使全球范围内的其他阿拉伯少数民族受益。