University of Haifa
The Center for Multiculturalism and Educational Research
Maha Sabbah
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003
Empowerment of Parents and the Access to Higher Education Among Minorities:A Project in Palestinian Schools in Israel
Instituations of higher education like any other social institutions, often sit at the intersection of high-minded ideals and practical realities. Though intended to perform a substantive function in the society of which they are apart, they are, without question, the shadows of their founders and the embodiment of a particular social vision held by those who brought them into being. This vision is ultimately shaped by practical constraints such as the context of group struggle over access to resources and the existing relations of power in a society (Jewell,2000).They especially fall short of living by to their goals with regard to the issue of equal access for minorities. All this strengthes the idea that minorities need an enternal and external empowerment.
When we talk about minorities and education it's important to present Qgbu's distinction between two sorts of minorities - the immigrant minorities and the involuntary minorities. I am interested in th second sort
Since it represents the Arab minority whose members did not migrate with an expectation to improve their condition, but were incorporated into society against their will. They contrast their condition with that of the dominant group, and learn from those around them that they have limited jop opportunities, and so they put forth little effort toward success (Ogbu,1998).
Since education has been shown to be, at the micro level, an important means of improving one's economic and social prospects, and it's a main factor for indicating social justice at the macro level. It is important, therefore, to widen the minority access to the higher education (Leslie,2002).
The Role of Parents:
Studies in the sociology of education show that one of the main barriers to the access of minorities to higher education lies in the marginal role that parents play in their children's education.
Although, the results indicate about influential roles the parents may have in the development of a number of career-related attitudes and outcomes.
Mainly, their involvement was indicated by role-modeling, expectations, and encouragement (Ferry, Fouad, and Smith,1996). Direction and communication have been shown to be major factors in the vocational development of children (Young, Friesen of Dillabough,1991).
These supportive parental behaviors promote their children's information-seeking activities directly and indirectly.
The study of Dreher and Dreher(1985) on German students in middle track schools provided useful insight into adolescents knowledge about the means of solving the developmental task of occupational preparation. They found that developmental tasks varied with respect to the extent to which the individual's own initiative or assistance from others which were regarded as most efficient. One of the external help that was represented is their parents.
Kracke (2000) study on German ninth graders from middle-track schools reveald too that parental openness for adolescent issues as well as parental support regarding career-related issues were also good predicators and correlated positively with information-seeking behaviours.
As I mentioned before the parents can be a main factor by increasing the access of their children to the higher education especially when talking about minorities.Accordingly, parents need to be informed and educated
about the impact they might have, in order to ensure that everyone who has the ability and potential to go into higher education is encouraged to do so.
Arab minority in Israel and higher education:
At this presentation my concern is the Arab minorities in Israel. Which education is considered the most important issue among them. This fact stems from the unique status of the Arab population as an invulontary minority in an ethno-national state with a stratification system,which places the Arab citizens at its margins.Having no economic base of their own and being politically and socially dependent on the Jewish majority, the Arab citizens perceive education as an existential resource and a central asset for individual and collective empowerment. In this sense, education has replaced land as a source of dignity and as most important economic and social capital for the palestinian community in Israel(Al-haj,1995).
Since the establishment of Israel there have been quantitative as well as qualitative changes in Arab education in Israel.But, despite that Arabs are still considered the most disadvantaged group in Israel(Al-haj,1996).
Studies in the field of sociology conducted researches about racial discrimination in education among the Arab minorities but they never
talk about how parents can improve and widen their children's access to
the higher education.
Taking all this into consideration, there is a need to empower the Arab minority and widen their access to the higher education through strengthening the parents .
I will present a model which developed in the framwork of the Center for Multiculturalism and Educational Research at the University of Haifa.
The model aims at:
*Empowering the parents by exposing them to the mass information relating to institutions of higher education in Isreal.
*Guiding the parents in the best way to become involved in career planing and decisions-making relating to higher education by improving their support behaviors.
*support the parents and legitimatize their insecure feelings about the transitional period of their childrens and about the major development task they need in the academic career choice.
The program is the first of its kind among the Arab minority in Israel. It purpose to include schools from all sections:
Arab public schools, priviate Christian schools and Druze schools. In each school, we have formed a group of 15 parentes who meet for four sessions.
The four sessions is:
*The first meeting talks about the career choice process and the factors relating to this like values, attitudes and capabilities.
*The second meeting intends to expose the parents to the various information relating to the institutions of higher education in Israel.
*The third meeting is for both parents and their childrens; it aims to give an opportunity for both sides to talk about their expectations from each other in relation to their career choice.
*The forth meeting purposes at giving an advice to the parents and guides them how they can improve their support behaviors for encouraging their children's trasition to higher education.
From the first experience at the program, I received a very good feedback from the parents. For example, one mother wrote to me "the program gave me a lot of information relating to the higher education that I didn't knew before, and it gave me the tools that made it easier to discus with my son about his career choice".
In the future, this program will be expanded to a larger number of schools and will be developed according to the needs of the parents.
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