The Challenge of Diversity in Teacher Education Institutions in Israel: Students’ Sense of Relatedness and Perceptions Regarding Being a Minority or Majority

In Israel, students from various minority groups study together in teacher education institutions. This study examines how students from different minority groups perceive the social-cultural relationships with other groups, whether they feel relatedness, and what characterizes their perceptions regarding being a minority or majority within and outside the college. The research paradigm is qualitative and the genre is phenomenological. The participants are 50 students from various minority groups from 7 teacher education colleges. The results show that most participants report good relationships with students and lecturers from other ethnic groups, which leads to a deep sense of relatedness in the college. Among Ethiopian and Arab students, social connections in the college form mostly with students from the same ethnic group. Among Arab students, the sense of relatedness draws from interactions with friends from the same culture and from studying in Arabic. Our findings indicate distinct views among Arabs and Jews regarding being a minority or majority. The Jewish students defined the terms minority and majority mostly in quantitative terms, while Arab students referred to their social meaning, considering themselves as an underprivileged minority outside the college but as a majority in the college. In general, the results show that colleges facilitate caring conditions, detached from the reality outside the college. The findings have implications on the role of teacher education colleges in promoting equal opportunities and a sense of relatedness among their students, both within the college and in the general society.