Ideology Through Education: Otherness, Dehumanization, and Official Knowledge in Israeli and Palestinian High School Textbooks

This presentation will critically examine conceptions of the other found in Israeli and Palestinian high school textbooks. This analysis will demonstrate the extent to which constructing and perpetuating Otherness through curriculum has led to a dehumanization of the other. In the first part of the presentation, a discussion of the evolution of otherness as a concept and its inseparable place within modern society will be introduced. Next, national narratives, one of the main sources of otherness and self in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, will be evaluated as the official knowledge of each respective state. This official knowledge will be analyzed in each nation’s respective high school textbooks, both through words and pictures. In conclusion, Israeli/Palestinian high school textbooks show the dangers inherent in dehumanizing the other through education