Minority higher education in an ethnic periphery: the Bedouin Arabs

This chapter deals with education, higher education in particular, among the Bedouin Arabs who live in the peripheral region of the Negev desert in southern Israel. Higher education plays a prominent role in determining a community's competitiveness in the world marketplace. In most societies, higher education is also recognized as the key to greater economic rewards and social mobility, making it of vital importance to those groups on the socioeconomic periphery of society. The chapter reviews the changes that the Negev Bedouin have undergone in recent history, and the effect of these changes on the Bedouin's position in both Arab and Israeli society. It examines how the provision of educational services and opportunities relates to the peripheral status of the Bedouin in Israeli society, and their potential for development. The socioeconomic returns for the investment in higher education among the Negev Bedouin are limited, as for the rest of the Arab minority in Israel.