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Collaborative environmental projects in a multicultural society: working from within separate or mutual landscapes?

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Abstract

A multicultural socio-environmental project that is framed in the ideas of education for sustainability brought together Jew and Arab students was investigated to identify the participants’ views of the program’s objectives and their accomplishments. We investigated the project’s strengths and weaknesses according to the participants’ views and the way culturally diverse students addressed the main local socio-environmental conflict related to conservation versus development of a local creek. The participants agreed that the environmental objectives were properly attained, while the social objectives were accomplished to a limited extent. All the participants emphasized the importance of multicultural knowledge and expected to learn and work together. We found different views of the Jewish and the Arab participants regarding expectations, collaboration and overall satisfaction, with higher expectations of the Arab students and leaders. The students’ views of the local conflict varied but were not associated with their ethnic background. We suggest that the differences between the groups result from the different positions and needs of each community, and mainly as a consequence of the difficulties that the Arab minority faces in Israel. Overall, we found that the project allowed the expression of multiple voices of both groups, and suggested an applicable program for education for sustainability in a multicultural society.

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Notes

  1. In fact, in 2008, intra communal riots in Akko occurred in a mixed Jewish–Arab neighborhood during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

  2. All the names provided are pseudonyms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education in Technology and Science, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, 32000, Haifa, Israel

    Tali Tal

  2. Department of Biochemistry, The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Iris Alkaher

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  1. Tali Tal
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  2. Iris Alkaher
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Correspondence to Tali Tal.

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Tal, T., Alkaher, I. Collaborative environmental projects in a multicultural society: working from within separate or mutual landscapes?. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 5, 325–349 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-009-9202-9

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