English as a gatekeeper: Inequality between Jews and Arabs in access to higher education in Israel

Yariv Feniger*, Hanna Ayalon

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Access to the universities and many colleges in Israel is conditioned on the attainment of a specific matriculation certificate that includes a passing grade in advanced level English. Arab students in Israel are required to study English in addition to Arabic and Hebrew, unlike Jewish students, who are not obliged to take a second foreign language in addition to English. This puts Arab students in an inferior position. An analysis of a large sample of high school graduates showed that the English requirement incurs larger gaps than two other subjects that were examined: history and math. Logistic regression models confirmed that the gaps in meeting the English requirement can help explain the Jewish-Arab discrepancy in enrollment in higher education.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)104-111
Number of pages8
JournalInternational Journal of Educational Research
Volume76
DOIs
StatePublished - 17 Jan 2015

Funding

FundersFunder number
Israeli Science Foundation367/08

    Keywords

    • Arabs
    • Higher education
    • Inequality
    • Israel
    • Jews

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