Mediating and moderating effects of inter-group contact: Case studies from bilingual/bi-national schools in Israel

Bilingual, bi-national schools in Israel aim to educate, together, children from linguistically and culturally diverse Arab and Jewish backgrounds. They reflect an ideological commitment to a more peaceful society and are based on the theoretical premises of the contact hypothesis. In its earliest manifestation, contact theory identified conditions under which inter-group contact was likely to improve negative social attitudes. More recently, and as a consequence of various critical analyses, the theory has evolved to focus more on process or intervening variables during contact, and wider contextual factors that can facilitate or impede the development of better relations. Based on qualitative research in two bilingual/bi-national schools in Israel, this paper examines the nature of the contact experienced by Arabs and Jews in the schools, as well as some of the contextual and process variables that seemingly mediate the quality, and moderate the effectiveness of the inter-group setting. It argues that, whilst commitment to school objectives and mechanisms for delivery are variables that seemingly affect responses to the out-group in the school, relationships between Arabs and Jews in the wider society present a potentially countervailing force.