Fostering Bedouin Students’ Sense of Place in the Light of Place-Based Education and Third-Space Theory

Place-based education takes place outside school walls, in the students’ local environment, and is therefore strongly based in a paradigm of outdoor learning. The learning experience is designed to develop a sense of responsibility and encourage students to become involved in the goal of achieving local ecological and cultural sustainability. Our study followed a group of young Bedouin students (fifth graders, aged 10) throughout a three-year, place-based education program that was conducted in their local environment, examining that program’s influence upon the students’ sense of place. These students live in small, rural villages along the banks of the Hebron Stream in Israel’s Negev Desert. The stream is an environmental hazard—contaminated by sewage runoff and mounds of waste that are dumped along its banks. The program was conducted in tandem with an extensive project designed to rehabilitate the contaminated environment in which these students live. Creating an authentic place-based program that was relevant to the environmental, social and cultural issues that concern these students required a detailed characterisation of this particular place and the students’ relationship with it. Our study shows the critical role that third space theory can play in creating a meaningful place-based education program, and in gaining an accurate and comprehensive understanding of its results.