Existence and Coexistence in Acre: The Power of Educational Activism

Abstract

This article presents a five‐year action‐research project of systemic change toward coexistence in Acre, a mixed Arab‐Jewish city in Israel. Educational activism was the basis for this project. Because education in Acre was closely interwoven with discriminative politics, this project used a citywide systemic approach consisting of three layers: (a) work in schools that used cooperative learning to increase achievement, (b) work with parents in school‐family literacy partnerships, and (c) work with the city's educational and political leadership for citywide change. Data presented for each layer show the potential of this long‐term holistic approach to bring coexistence to the community even though regional and political factors worked against community coexistence.