Culture-based pedagogy in the Palestinian-Israeli College classroom

As part of a joint European-Israeli project for developing modernised curricula on migrants’ lives (DEMO), academic courses were adapted to meet the needs of a population served by a Palestinian teacher-education college in Northern Israel. Arab minority students, in many cases descendants of displaced people, attended two courses within the English (39 students), Early Childhood (20 students), and Science (20 students) departments brought the voice of students and interviewees into the classroom. Inspired by culture-based pedagogy, the courses guaranteed safe spaces for students to share lived experiences of marginalisation and family displacement. The research question, What happens when offering culturally-based learning spaces for student-teachers and inviting them to reflect on lived experiences?, and participatory methods allowed students to reflect on their daily lives. Data analysis highlighted cognitive, emotional and behavioural themes that illuminated experiences and feelings of marginalisation, silencing, female’s suppression, religious extremism, privilege, memory, and dis-belonging bringing oral testimonies of students’ displaced ancestors to the public sphere.