Integrating Bedouin Children into a Kibbutz Kindergarten: Maintaining Genuine Co-Existence or Preserving the Old Order?

Bedouin early childhood education lacks substantial resources and budgets, and so the adjacent Jewish education seems more appealing. Given the existing tensions between Arabs and Jews and the need to change the obscure future of co-existence, this paper examines the integration of Bedouin children into the early childhood education of a kibbutz, and the attitudes of the Jewish parents toward this integration. Fifteen Jewish parents whose children attend the kibbutz kindergarten were interviewed individually, and content analysis was performed on the interview transcripts. Findings show that the interviewees had positive attitudes toward the educational integration, which they expected would promote coexistence. However, there was clear evidence of a patronizing attitude toward the Bedouin children, who were perceived as the beneficiaries of the integration and not as legitimate partners. Genuine future integration should initiate programs in order to close gaps in general, and gaps in education in particular, by allocating finances and resources to developing infrastructure and services, so that choosing Jewish education will be on an ideological basis, and not for considerations of receiving a better education.