Education, Democracy and Social Justice Research Group
Group Members
Dr. Assaf Meshulam
I am a senior lecturer in the School of Education at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (PhD UW-Madison). My research orientation is critical education studies and education for social justice. My current research projects focus on schools educating for democracy, particularly two-way bilingual schools in Israel and the US; educational policy, particularly school choice of parents from minoritized communities; and democratization of the educational space.
Dr. Towibah Majdoob
Dr. Towibah Majdub is a scholar of education and society. She conducted her postdoctoral research at the Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, under the supervision of Dr. Assaf Meshulam. Her project focused on school choice among Arab-Palestinian parents in Israel. She holds a PhD in Sociology and Anthropology from Tel Aviv University, where her dissertation examined experiences of late singlehood among Palestinian women and men. Her research interests include Palestinian society, education, culture, gender and singlehood, as well as racism and inequality.
She is currently a Fellow of Europe in the Middle East — The Middle East in Europe (EUME) for 2024/2025, at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. Her second host institution is the Department of Sociology at Freie Universität Berlin.
Orwa Sedawi
I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Education at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. My research focuses on identity characteristics of Palestinian high-school graduates who attended Israeli-Jewish schools. Over the past few years, my professional experience has included working as a cluster coordinator and as a facilitator of pedagogical processes in schools in the Southern District of Israel. I have also taught science and mathematics in Bedouin schools and professional development courses to teachers and pedagogical coordinators.
Siwar Abu Much
I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Education at Ben-Gurion University. My current research is focused on social and educational aspects of Arab society in Israel, from which I come, focusing on a possible mechanism that can be activated in the relationship between Arab and Jewsh society. I have an MSc. in science teaching (Hebrew University) and an MA (Tel-Aviv University) in educational administration and leadership. In an addition, I am a teacher and have worked in areas of innovative pedagogy over the years.
Yasmin Abu Saad
A doctoral candidate in the Education department at Ben Gurion University, working as a high school English teacher in the Negev. I am interested in alternative education, particularly in the Palestinian Arab community in Israel. Alternative education is a relatively new phenomenon in the Palestinian Bedouin community; thus, my thesis aims to take a deeper look at alternative education in this community and research how this phenomenon adds a new layer to alternative education in the general Israeli context.
Yifat Hillel
Yifat is a doctoral candidate at the School of Education at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a fellow in the Azrieli Fellows Program. Her research examines the political imagination shaping Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. This interdisciplinary study explores the elements that enable and inhibit the collective capacity to create and envision democratic, peaceful, and egalitarian potential futures. The study analyzes the lived experiences of members of the Hagar community in Be’er Sheva—an educational community formed around bilingual institutions established by the Hagar Association, which promotes shared Jewish-Arab life in the Negev.
Yifat is a co-founding member of the Hagar Association and held key voluntary leadership roles during its first twelve years. She has extensive experience leading processes of change and innovation in both social and educational sectors, including civic education within schools.
Her master's thesis explored the role of the "social" and the "political" as organizing categories in the thought and practice of school principals in Israel. In addition to her academic work, Yifat has co-authored policy papers on education and social justice through the Mizrahi-Civic Collective. She is also a member of the Van Leer Institute’s research group “Inclusive Democracy, Expanding Democracy".
Zohar Sitner
I am a doctoral candidate at the School of Education at Ben-Gurion University. My research focuses on the ways in which culturally relevant pedagogy manifests in multicultural encounters in Arabic-Hebrew bilingual educational frameworks. For my MA thesis, I conducted a study of visual images exhibited in Arabic-Hebrew bilingual kindergartens. I am currently a lecturer and pedagogical training coordinator in HaMidrasha Faculty of Arts at Beit Berl College. My research interests focus on connections between art and visual culture education, on the one hand, and critical multicultural education, on the other.
Naama Harlev
I am a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at Ben-Gurion University, as well as a high-school homeroom teacher and history teacher. My research focuses on high-school teachers with a critical agenda, whose educational work manifests a pedagogy that challenges the structure and contents of the traditional public school so as to foster critical thinking in their pupils. My study examines the educational work in the school in all of its educational spaces, including outside the classroom in interactions between staff and pupils and in supplementary education frameworks like school trips and workshops. My interest in this research developed from my experience, in recent years, as part of the administrative staff at a large high-school in central Israel, where I encountered the tension between the aspiration to educate for critical thinking and the inflexibility of the education system and its agendas.
Dr. Avy Hemy
Dr. Avy Dwight Hemy is a researcher and lecturer specializing in Photovoice, a methodology that uses photography as a tool for expression, dialogue, and empowerment in educational and community settings. Drawing on his rich background as a documentary filmmaker, he weaves photography with critical pedagogy to foster inclusion and equality in education and to illuminate meeting points between students and teachers as a foundation for social change. He currently teaches at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and is completing a postdoctoral project that focuses on dialogue encounters between Jewish and Arab students during periods of conflict.
Shlomi Amsalem
I completed my MA thesis in the Department of Education at Ben-Gurion University, on the considerations of masorti parents in choosing an elementary school for their children. I am a workshop facilitator for youth and teaching staff and am a motivational speaker on appearing before audiences and in the media. I currently run Kvutzat Mastik, a company that engages in development and implementation of educational processes through task experience and ODT.
