Attitudes towards Palestinian resistance literature and practicing the resistance behavior of students and teachers: Jerusalem city as a model

Abstract

The term "Palestinian resistance literature" became popular after 1967, following the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The duty of Palestinian intellectuals towards their cause was to awaken the idle culture in the countryside, where they played a key role in shaping an advanced state of awareness. Attitudes are generally considered an introduction to people's behaviors, which requires the attention of governmental and non-governmental entities as they relate to many educational issues with students and teachers at schools. Therefore, it threatens the main objective that schools aim to attain, which is academic achievement within the suitable educational framework, in addition to its direct impact on social interaction between individuals and on society. Students and teachers are faced with various attitudes, resulting in different behavioral challenges. Attitudes represent the emotional dimension of educational goals; they are linked with the learner's feelings, sensations and emotions and how to be directed in the right path in order to accomplish the objectives of education. The study and identification of attitudes have been addressed by many specialists in the fields of humanities and sociology. The individual obtains his/ her attitudes from various sources including religion, traditions, media, family and school The main contributions of this thesis are firstly, to identify the attitudes of students towards the Palestinian resistance literature and to measure the degree of resistance behaviour among Palestinian students with test the role of some variables (gender, stage and place of residence) in determining students’ attitudes and behaviour. Secondly, to identify the attitudes of teachers towards the Palestinian resistance literature and to measure the degree of resistance behaviour among Palestinian teachers with test the role of some variables (gender, specialisation, academic qualification and experience) in determining students’ attitudes and behavior. To measure the attitudes and behavior of students and teachers we have built two questionnaires. First, for students, we developed two sections to measure a scale for students’ attitudes towards Palestinian resistance literature comprised 58 items and the degree of practicing resistance behavior comprised 43 items based on Palestinian curricula and references related to Palestinian resistance literature. Second for teachers, we developed two sections to measure a scale for teachers’ attitudes towards Palestinian resistance literature comprised 58 items and the degree of practicing resistance behavior comprised 43 items based on Palestinian curricula and references related to Palestinian resistance literature. The study population consisted of all students (n = 68,493) and teachers (n = 4,562) in the schools of Jerusalem. The sample was withdrawn using the cluster random method after obtaining the official records endorsed by the Ministry of Education for students registered in academic year 2012/2013. The sample consisted of 1,302 students and 299 teachers. we used the descriptive correlation method as a research methodology for this study.