ABSTRACTIt appears as if a discussion about the need for patriotic education is relevant not only for the Western countries, which have many nationalities and cultures, but also especially for the State of Israel, whose social cohesion is being weakened and there is a fear that the different factions in the society are unable to work together. In this paper, I take a much-needed first step for a systematic study of the issue of education for patriotism, as a solution for (...) the construction of social solidarity between and within groups of Israeli citizens. I examine the justification and the practicability of a cosmopolitan-patriotic education as a substitute for a unique local patriotic education in contemporary Israel. My main argument is that cosmopolitan patriotism education is inadequate for the current societal and political atmosphere in Israel. Not even in a Zionistic-Jewish-Israeli cosmopolitan version of three Jewish thinkers: Herzl Levinas, and Gur-Zeev. (shrink)

Educating students to become participatory citizens in their country is one of the explicit tasks of public education in a democratic-liberal state. In this article, I use civics education in Israel as a case study for the examination of the justification and the practicability of implementing political education in schools, as opposed to implementing its rivals –ideological education or a-political education. I argue that a liberal-democratic stance and its educational implication—political education—are two concepts submerged in ideology, and, as a result, (...) political education in schools is not ideology-free. I also argue that the common kind of political-civic education in Israel is irrelevant for the significant minorities of Palestinian and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish citizens. Revealing the emptiness and futility of present-day political-civil education leads me to propose to separate this education into different ideological-educational streams, allowing each of them to emphasize its ideology in civil-political education. (shrink)

Educating students to become participatory citizens in their country is one of the explicit tasks of public education in a democratic-liberal state. In this article, I use civics education in Israel as a case study for the examination of the justification and the practicability of implementing political education in schools, as opposed to implementing its rivals –ideological education or a-political education. I argue that a liberal-democratic stance and its educational implication—political education—are two concepts submerged in ideology, and, as a result, (...) political education in schools is not ideology-free. I also argue that the common kind of political-civic education in Israel is irrelevant for the significant minorities of Palestinian and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish citizens. Revealing the emptiness and futility of present-day political-civil education leads me to propose to separate this education into different ideological-educational streams, allowing each of them to emphasize its ideology in civil-political education. (shrink)

Educating students to become participatory citizens in their country is one of the explicit tasks of public education in a democratic-liberal state. In this article, I use civics education in Israel as a case study for the examination of the justification and the practicability of implementing political education in schools, as opposed to implementing its rivals –ideological education or a-political education. I argue that a liberal-democratic stance and its educational implication—political education—are two concepts submerged in ideology, and, as a result, (...) political education in schools is not ideology-free. I also argue that the common kind of political-civic education in Israel is irrelevant for the significant minorities of Palestinian and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish citizens. Revealing the emptiness and futility of present-day political-civil education leads me to propose to separate this education into different ideological-educational streams, allowing each of them to emphasize its ideology in civil-political education. (shrink)

Solidarity between the citizens of a country is both good and desirable, and public educational institutions are the clear site of education for such civil solidarity and its natural place is in Civics lessons. Nevertheless, this paper argues that it is impossible to educate for solidarity for all citizens in a liberal-democratic state when civic classes teach basic civil laws that exclude groups or minorities and expel them from the general civil population. Therefore, we can ask: What are the modes (...) of action that are open to Civics teachers and other educators who are caught in this trap when trying to educate for solidarity? As a reply to this question and by borrowing ideas from Michel Foucault’s thought, this paper equips teachers with some guidelines for pedagogical resistance to the excluding wave, that enable strengthening an inclusive civil solidarity, and demonstrates the applicability of these guidelines in the Israeli reality. (shrink)

Numerous articles and books focus on questions about teaching controversial issues in the classroom, and these controversial issues are on the educational agenda in many countries. The modest goal of this essay is to lay the necessary groundwork for a discussion and study of the goals for teaching controversial issues in schools, in order to examine the practicability of achieving them in the educational reality, and to study possible ways for raising such subjects in the classroom. It refines and adds (...) to the concept of “controversial issues” from a particular, timely, perspective. The rise of “fake news” and “illiberal democracy,“ including empowered illiberal subgroups in liberal democratic polities demands a reconsideration and new delineation of some of the major tenets proposed by previous scholarship. The delineation that is proposed here moves through three stages. The first stage separates and distinguishes between the controversial issues and the assertions that according to the criteria that logical positivists have coined are meaningful. The second stage proposes the main criterion for defining a topic as controversial, and this is the epistemic-rational criterion, as defined in this essay. The third delineation stage proposes seeing a subject as being controversial if it is currently relevant for social and political life. Moreover, the essay asserts that the result of the examination of these three stages is dependent upon the context – time and place – in which the educational act occurs. (shrink)