Immigration policy vis-à-vis teachers’ views regarding immigrant students: the Israeli case

Over the years, perspectives in Israeli society on the integration of immigrant students into the country’s education system have moved from a melting-pot to a multiculturalist principle. We investigate whether and to what degree the official discourse on education policy endorses either of these approaches and the extent to which teachers’ views about the integration of immigrant students correspond to the mainstream education policy. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of 20 interviews with teachers who work with immigrant students. Findings show that the official policy and teachers’ views alike manifest three major profiles, which we term ‘melting pot,’ ‘multiculturalist,’ and ‘dualistic.’ Data suggest that, in today’s era of globalization, marked by a prevalence of multicultural discourses, both the education policy and teachers’ views concerning social integration in Israeli society are ambivalent, and not necessarily multiculturalist.