המניעים מאחורי שינוי קריירה בקרב סטודנטים ערבים בישראל

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a marked rise in the number of students enrolling in teacher
training courses at the various colleges of education, designed to train teaching staff for
various educational establishments. Many students, both male and female, arrive at the
course from various disciplines – often from professions that are considered more
“masculine,” or more prestigious. This paper sets out to establish the reasons for career
change among Arab academics in Israel who opt to retrain as schoolteachers. This study
examined the motivations behind such career changes among Arab students in Israel,
taking into account their electives during high school, their bachelor degree studies, and
their chosen specialization during teacher training. The findings reveal that the
respondents’ personal inclinations, their desire for job and financial security and
satisfaction, their gender and the socio-cultural context all influenced their career choice
over time. These findings have ramifications for teacher training colleges – for those
retraining to become teachers as well as for those for whom teaching is their first career
choice – in that the curriculum should be designed to challenge the students, while
recognizing the prior knowledge, skills, experience and professional identity acquired by
retrainees in their previous professional capacity and integrating these into the course’s
educational theory and practice. In addition, the teaching curriculum for students who
chose teaching as their primary career choice should be structured around a varied, broad
and dynamic core to enable the students to avoid overly abrupt changes and integrate
other disciplines into their studies, thus providing them with a foundation for other
educational paths while preserving their original inclination and choice of teaching as
their desires.