School Textbooks And Stereotypes

For better or for worse schooling has a direct effect on children’s educational achievement and on their knowledge about the world later on. School textbooks consider being the most influential interaction between the child and the outside environment. What textbooks contain helps in understanding the behaviors of children, due to these facts scholars intent to inject certain ideologies in school textbooks to control how children think and behave. This paper argues the representation of Palestinians in Israeli history, geography and civic studies curricula. It also examines the negative images and stereotypes that Israeli scholars inject elementary and secondary schools with, and discusses how these stereotypes create violence between

One of the most important methods that the Zionists used to achieve what they have planed is education. Their ultimate goal was to create chauvinistic generations who will do what it takes to keep Israel as a state nation of all Jews and only Jews. The Israeli scholars intent to promote negative images and stereotypes about Arabs in school textbooks throughout history in order to manipulate the young Israeli students. They used their history as an instrument to control their children they are also use their collective memory to ignite their superiority over the Palestinians in adopting the ideology orienalists in dealing with both Palestinians and their children in considering them as an oriental entities. Hebrew school books represent Arabs in many ways, verbally and visually, explicitly and implicitly they also differentiate between self-representation and other-

The pre- state period was the very first attempt for Israeli scholars in corporation with the Zionist movement in injecting prejudice ideologies about the Palestinians. They used school books written by Zionists in 1990 to justify the rights of the Jewish people, and to deny the rights of the Arab inhabitants (Bar-Tal). Such ideas and many others were and still formulate the teaching methods that Israeli scholars follow in inventing blind patriotism in younger generations. To begin with the methods that Israeli scholars used throughout history to validate their right to the land by representing themselves as the original inhabitants, modern, superior, and at the same time as victims. They used their history as a control stick to manipulate not only their children but also to manipulate the world community. Any reader of the Israeli history can notice the deep connection between history and religion, in almost every Israeli history textbooks there is a religious inter text about the promise land, the chosen people, and the exile “Galut”. Due to this connection for school children history books become the ultimate truth. For example, there is a