Abstract

Conflicts between different racial, ethnic, national and other social groups are becoming more and more salient. One of the main sources of these internal conflicts is social and economic inequality, in particular the increasing disparities between majority and minority groups. Even societies that had been successful in dealing with external conflicts and making the transition from war to peace have realized that this does not automatically resolve internal conflicts. On the contrary, the resolution of external conflicts may even sharpen the internal ones. This volume, a joint publication of the University of Haifa and the International Center for Graduate Studies (ICGS) at the University of Hamburg, addresses questions of how to deal with internal issues of social inequality and cultural diversity and, at the same time, how to build a shared civility among their different national, ethnic, religious and social groups.

“…this volume makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the various dynamics and manifestations of conflict underlying majority-minority relations in Israel and Germany. Furthermore, the book makes a unique contribution in its application of democracy education as a means of empowering minorities and alleviating tensions. For these reasons, the book will likely appeal to both policymakers and scholars alike in its reference to a wide range of issues such as education, immigration, and gender issues.” • H-German

Majid Al-Haj is Head of the Center for Multiculturalism and Educational Research at the University of Haifa and lectures at the Department of Sociology at the University of Haifa. He has published extensively on the social and political structure of the Palestinians in Israel, Palestinian refugees, Russian immigrants in Israel, and freedom of expression. His books include Social Arab Local Government in Israel, co-authored with Henry Rosenfeld (Westview Press, 1990); Education, Empowerment and Control: The Case of the Arabs in Israel (SUNY Press, 1995), Sociology of War and Peace in Israel in a Changing Era (co-editor with Uri Ben Elezer- Haifa University Press , 2003) and Immigration and Ethnic Formation in a Deeply Divided Society: The Case of the 1990s Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel ( Brill, 2004).

Rosemarie Mielke is Professor for Educational Psychology at the University of Hamburg. She has published books on attitude and behavior and self related concepts like control, self-monitoring, self-efficacy and social identity. Her present research projects deal with strategies to cope with "negative" social identity, the influence of (minority/majority) group membership on self-evaluation and achievement behavior and the relationship between self-concept, values and the ethics of biogenetics.