Negev Bedouin and Higher Education: At the Crossroads of a Community in Transition

Combining relevant literature with qualitative data drawn from in-depth interviews with Bedouin students and academics, an impression is given of the complex power relations affecting the role of higher education in the context of social change.

The analysis shows how state control over the Bedouin forms a major barrier towards social change. Furthermore it shows how traditional values which characterized the Bedouin's former mobile lifestyle live on in their current immobile setting, preventing them from developing the sense of unity crucial for the empowerment of the collective. These two inextricably entwined factors block the way for collective solutions.