Self-confidence and sense of belonging of minority preservice teachers teaching majority students via Zoom

The longstanding Jewish-Arab conflict poses a great challenge to the State of Israel and is the source of fear and mutual suspicion in Jewish and Arab societies. The Bedouins are part of the Arab society and face additional difficulties and challenges related to their low socioeconomic status and issues surrounding land encroachment. Israel has separate education systems based on the students' ethnicity and religion. However, the Ministry of Education encourages intercultural teaching in which teachers from one society teach in schools of another society. This study focused on science teaching encounters between preservice teachers (PSTs) from the Bedouin society and students from the majority Jewish society. We examined the influence of these encounters on the PSTs' self-confidence and sense of belonging. Since the meetings took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, most of them were held via Zoom. The Zoom platform allowed the PSTs and the students to "enter" each other's homes, reinforcing Allport's contact hypothesis. From the PSTs' descriptions of their experiences, the gradual change in their feelings can be observed from foreignness and fear to familiarity and closeness. Based on our findings and an online intergroup template, we propose a new 3-step intergroup contact model: indirect contact via Zoom designed to enhance familiarity between the groups in safe conditions; direct contact that helps develop closer relationships, and assimilation of the process into everyday life.