Teacher education for classroom management in Israel: Structures and orientations

In our paper, we examine how classroom management is taught in teacher education in Israel. Three questions are addressed: (1) What is the structure of programs for classroom management (site, timing, duration, number of courses, mandatory/optional)? (2) How is classroom management conceived (technical/ pedagogical, individual/systemic)? (3) Does the preparation in classroom management relate to issues of cultural and ethnic diversity? Almost all teacher education programs offer at least one course on classroom navigation and management. However most of these courses are elective rather than mandatory. Classroom management is mainly treated as a technical/behavioural issue. Cultural issues, which are of major importance in the heterogeneous Israeli classrooms, are not on the agenda in most of these courses.