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The reactions of learners who read literature together in multicultural groups shed light on how their interpretations are interweaved in the sociopolitical context. The present study describes such dynamics in mixed Arab-Jewish teacher groups in Israel. The study's raw data were group discourse transcripts, group and individual written comments and interviews. These data were analyzed using qualitative approaches with reference to Levinas' ethical approach to the Other. The findings suggest that despite willingness to talk and share feelings on various issues, the participants find it difficult to see the Others, and acknowledge responsibility for them. Minority political opinions are silenced or blurred in the group discourse, and excluded from the group texts to avoid public disputes, but they resurface in the individual writings. The findings are significant for understanding learning/teaching processes in academic multicultural contexts and call lecturers' attention to the complexity of ethical reading in a conflictual reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates how experiences of voicing traumas in Israeli society are reflected in art through Ezekiel's World, a graphic novel by Michael Kovner. The novel explores relations between Holocaust survivors and their children (and grandchildren), whose complexity embodies the moral significance of Holocaust memory for Israelis. Both generations are preoccupied with the Holocaust as an existential crisis that determines contrasting generational attitudes towards military service and the occupation, resulting in the sacrificing of children and conversely, the abandonment of parents. The polyphonic novel voices these interrelated traumas via intertextual relations between painting, narrative, poetry, and documentary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to present and exemplify to the qualitative researcher the term intertextuality as a concept and as a method that may offer a framework for the analysis and interpretation of short narratives or life stories. Intertextuality as a central concept in the study of culture is particularly suitable for qualitative research, central to which is the subjectivity of the narrator, the story, and the listener/researcher, as well as the relative and indeterminate dimension of knowledge. However, using intertextuality as an interpretative method in various types of texts mandates the researcher’s awareness and abilities in areas that this article discusses. In light of the methodological objective of the article, we selected narratives that represent different types of intertextual linkage on different interpretative levels, on different levels of complexity, and on different levels of ideas. The intertextual reading to be demonstrated detects the combination of various types of cultural components in the narrative as a means of representing the world of the narrator; it takes into account a possible macro context in the narrator’s story, its style and structure, the narrator’s implicit personal interpretation, and the researcher-interpreter’s option to reread the narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the authors' analysis of the process of change in two science teacher educators' thinking toward the goal of learning about the professional development of the subjects. The authors explain that they used qualitative methodology based on semistructured, in-depth interviews. The authors explain that their research is set in Israel and they describe the country's two forms of teacher education. They provide their research questions and explain the theoretical framework of the study together with their methods, data analysis, and results. They examine continuous experiential learning and change and professional development, provide profiles of the participants, and explain implications for change in teacher educators' knowledge.

Literature teaching aims at providing the tools for meaningful reading. This relies on active reading which, in turn, is based on background knowledge of language, culture, and literature and on thinking habits and dispositions. Intertextuality expands the scope of text interpretation beyond the reader, carrying it to the meeting place of texts. The term intertextuality disrupts notions of meaning. Using in-depth, synoptic reading of “Sigi & Threads” (Zarch, 1995), this study presents intertext in children’s literature. The complex challenge of developing intertextual aptitudes in learners has conceptual, curricular, and methodological perspectives. In addition to constructing knowledge of literature and culture, the instructional processes should include repeated modeling of thinking in the act of intertextual reading, accompanied by coaching in metacognitive processes. Furthermore, instruction should foster thinking development, the use of broad lateral thinking, associative thinking, focusing, and critical thinking. The challenge is to arrive at a state of mindfulness, using intertextual aptitudes frequently and spontaneously until such use becomes a habit of mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the ways in which the disciplines of science and literature influence concepts related to thinking among teachers at colleges of education. Tools were developed to distinguish between what teachers declared to be important in the thinking skills necessary for their discipline and the skills the teachers actually used. A quantitative and qualitative analysis was carried out of the findings. Thinking skills unique to each discipline and common thinking skills were found. The study revealed the discrepancy between the declared views of thinking skills held by teachers and their active use. Results of this research can help build an environment that develops a culture of thinking among both teachers and future teachers in educational colleges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]