Assimilating Ethiopian-Israeli Children in Schools #999238

There are people who remark that the Beta Israel community is the most written about community in the world. Interestingly enough, however, most of the material is not written by members of the community, but by outsiders. The reason is that, as the community lived in the countryside of Ethiopia, it was not exposed to modern education until its arrival in Israel, and had few educated members. This book, nonetheless, is written by a member of the community who understands the language, culture and mentality. It is a great advantage to see things from the inside and make a deeper and more accurate analysis. The research is on the education of Beta Israel students in Israel, and the first of its kind. These factors make the research sui generis. It compares the academic success of students who studied in boarding schools with that of students who studied in regular day schools. The main purpose of this book is to deal with the question of which ones are more successful and why.
Universally, immigrant communities face cultural and identity crises, and the Beta Israel, too, face those crises. The crises are double and acute, specifically for children who learn at school and struggle to understand the material in the new language and culture. In this book, a great effort is made to analyze the issue in depth. Both the qualitative and quantitative approaches of research are used. Theories like hegemony and multiculturalism are utilized to keep the research focused and meaningful.
Dr. Mehretu Yosef