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¹The Center for Multiculturalism and Educational Research, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. E-mail: m.alhaj@univ.haifa.ac.il

This article analyses higher education among the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. It traces the main trends since the establishment of the state of Israel and examines the principal factors that have retarded the access of Arabs to higher education. These issues are analysed along with contextual factors that have to do with the structure of the Arab population and the formal policy adopted toward them. In addition, the relationship between higher education and cultural dominance and the prospects for multiculturalism in Israeli academic institutes is explored. The data are based on official statistics, the analysis of official documents, and a field survey conducted at the University of Haifa in 2001, on a representative sample of Arab and Jewish students. The analysis shows that despite the relatively autonomous status of Israeli academic institutions, formal policy on higher education is an extension of policy imposed at the elementary and secondary levels. Higher education reflects power relationships in the wider society, and this serves to reproduce the stratification system and to deepen the cultural hegemony of the majority. Genuine change in the formal policy on access and conditions of minorities in institutions of higher education entails a re-division of power in the wider society and a move towards a multicultural concept. Such change would secure cultural diversity and promote intercultural relations based on equality and equity.

Higher Education Policy (2003) 16, 351-368. doi:10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300025

empowerment; control; Israel; Arabs