shared-education
Filtering by topic shared-education(1)Clear all filters
- PaperELT Journal5 Mar 2026
Linguistic landscape for joint learning amid conflict in Israel
Brigitta R Schvarcz, Dafna Yitzhaki
Two ELT initiatives in Israel used linguistic landscape (LL) pedagogy to foster contact between Jewish and Arab teachers and students amid intractable conflict. Teachers planned projects exploring cultural narratives through LL, and students collaborated on studying each other's LL environments following the Shared Education model. The initiatives demonstrate LL's potential to unite politically divided communities during severe tensions.
Original abstract
This article describes two ELT initiatives in Israel, offered by the English Inspectorate, aimed at learning about ‘the other’ in an area of intractable conflict. These initiatives create contact between Jews and Arabs, teachers and students, where the two school systems are separated, and contact between the communities is scarce. Both initiatives are based on linguistic landscape (LL) pedagogy that fosters activism and critical thinking. In the first initiative, teachers planned projects for learning about cultural narratives through LL. The second initiative involved collaborative work of Jewish and Arab students who met to study each other’s LL environments, inspired by the Shared Education model. The manuscript integrates visuals from the projects. We show how LL can be used to bring politically divided communities together, enabling contact in times of severe tension in long-standing conflict.