Near and Middle Eastern Journal of Research in Education - Volume 2011, Issue 1

Textbooks reflect a national consensus regarding the knowledge, values and perspectives that a society wants conveyed to their students. Through textbooks, students are exposed to a dominant narrative that presents an official story that shapes contemporary patriotism (Hein and Selden, 2000). This paper centers on how the narratives of textbooks portray the Arab–Israeli conflict and other relevant events. Textbooks from Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and the United States are examined to determine what knowledge is transmitted to students about the Arab–Israeli conflict. Findings indicate that the conflict is oversimplified, important information is omitted and textbooks provide limited narratives of the conflict. The authors of this study suggest the implementation of a narrative-based approach to teaching history so that students are provided with opportunities to develop a critical analysis of textbook knowledge and to discover that historical events are composed of multiple narratives that should be examined.

The increase in pressure to teach English as a foreign language from an early age, and the privatization of education, are two issues discussed in education literature which are more advanced in Lebanon than in other Arab countries. This article reports on the first stage of investigation into English language teacher education in Lebanon. The research project begins by identifying who Lebanon’s English teachers are, how they have been trained and how they perceive the usefulness of their training. The results of a survey of 715 teachers are discussed along with insights from four semi-structured interviews, three with teachers and one with an official from the Ministry of Education. The discussion highlights issues of concern such as, the low status of the profession, the female majority among teachers, as well as the poor perception many teachers have of the usefulness of most training, whether pre- or in-service. It is argued that this last point is related to the varied contexts produced by such a private and public mix in the educational system and the difficulty of making any training immediately relevant to a specific situation. It is recommended that English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) providers plan a reflective, practice-based approach, exploiting the knowledge of local expert teachers in order to develop critical reflection skills for teachers in training. Such an approach should make it possible for knowledge and practice to be integrated consciously by teachers themselves, in whichever situations they are employed.

This research study investigates the effects of using a research-based curriculum, the Rational Number Project (RNP) Curriculum, on the acquisition of basic rational number concepts by 5th grade students in contrast with those using the traditional Lebanese curriculum. The study sample comprised five schools randomly selected from a population of 14 schools. Eighteen 5th grade classrooms were randomly assigned to experimental (RNP) and control (TRAD) groups. Two instruments were used for data collection: a RNP post-test and a school test. Both tests were administered to assess students’ achievement after curricular intervention. After a series of six-hour professional training sessions, RNP teachers were given a culturally relevant Arabic version of the RNP curriculum lesson plans and materials for implementation. Three techniques were employed for data analysis: reliability, fidelity and multi analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results showed that students instructed using the research-based curriculum outperformed their counterparts, who were taught fraction concepts using the Lebanese traditional curriculum, on both RNP and school tests.