Cite: Sion, Arab-Palestinian Teachers in Jewish Schools

Sion, Liora. “Passing as Hybrid: Arab-Palestinian Teachers in Jewish Schools.” Ethnic and Racial Studies (online first: 2013).

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2013.851398

 

Abstract

In this paper I examine how Arab-Palestinians who teach Arabic in Jewish schools appropriate performative identity strategies through passing as hybrid to gain inclusion into the schools. The paradox is that although these teachers are recruited specifically because they are Arabs, they are expected by teachers and students to conceal their Arabness. I argue that because of the ethno-national bright boundaries in Israel, which do not encourage integration but hybridization into roles defined by the state, Arabs cannot and mostly do not want to pass as Israeli-Jews but as good Arabs who do not reside beyond the binarism Jew/Arab but are in-betweens.