This book is an in-depth examination of education and media under occupation. The contributors to this volume engage dialogue to explore these domains and their roles and functioning under occupation while keeping an eye toward resolution, using the on-going conflict between Palestine and Israel as the focus. The uniqueness of this collection is not limited to the willingness of its authors to investigate topics that have often been left out of the mainstream, but that they actually enter into dialogue with one another. Education and media are exemplified as domains that can either maintain the status quo of oppression when used by policymakers and governments to do so or can be utilized as mechanisms for change and peacemaking. These contradictory roles are highlighted throughout this book by multiple voices.
Ilham Nasser is an associate professor in Early Childhood Education at George Mason University. She has spent over 25 years in teaching and research in different educational settings in the US and the Middle East. She has researched and published on the topic of teacher development and teaching for peace.
Lawrence N. Berlin is Professor of Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language and Chair of Anthropology, Philosophy, and TESL/TEFL at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. He is the author of several publications, including Contextualizing College ESL Classroom Praxis (2005, Routledge) and Theoretical Approaches to Dialogue Analysis (Ed., 2007, Max Niemeyer Verlag), as well as the founder of the organization “Dialogue Under Occupation”.
Shelley Wong Ed.D . Applied Linguistics, Columbia Teachers College is Associate Professor Faculty of Education Emerita, George Mason University. A former TESOL International President, she authored Dialogic Approaches to TESOL: Where the Ginkgo Tree Grows; and co-edited (with I. Nasser & L.N. Berlin), Examining Education, Media and Dialogue Under Occupation: the Case of Palestine/Israel; and co-edited (with E. Snchez-Gosnell, A.M. Foerster-Luu & L. Dodson) Teachers as Allies: Transformative Practices for Teaching DREAMers and Undocumented Students. A Fulbright Scholar at Birzeit University in the Occupied West Bank, Palestine from 2018-2019, Shelley’s research interests include international education and solidarity, critical race and womanist ways of knowing and spirituality.