Applying International Human Rights Standards to National Curricula: Insights from Literature Education at Jewish and Arab High Schools

The paper presents an innovative way of exploring curricula by using a legal framework, based on one feature of the right to education in international human rights law – the adaptability of education to children’s circles of cultural
affiliations. It examines the ways in which the right to adaptable education is realized by high school literature curricula designed for the Jewish and Arabic sectors of the Israeli National-Education Stream. The methodology used is
two-layered: First, elements of adaptability in each of the texts are traced, and then a critical examination of aspects of adaptability in the curriculum is conducted. The main findings indicate that the curriculum designed for Jewish
students is much more adaptable than the curriculum designed for Arabic students. The conclusions specify the importance of practices that contribute to the realization of the right to adaptable education: allowing wide choice
between a variety of options, performing constant updates, designing a canonical corpus, referring to constitutive historical events, and exposing all pupils to the culture of other groups. These conclusions do not presume that curricula should be subjected to legal scrutiny. They offer, however, an additional tool that could help in the complicated process of shaping education policy.