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Higher Education Policy and Institutional Context: Evaluating Israel's National Initiative for Arab Student
- 1. The Dual Role of Institutional Context vis-a-vis National Higher Education Policy: A national program for Arabs in higher education in Israel Ayala Hendin Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute SRHE NR, December 2015
- 2. Pluralism and Equal Opportunity in Higher Education: A Holistic, Comprehensive, and Customized Plan High School Pre- Academia 1st Year BA 2nd – 3rd Years BA Advanced Degrees & Faculty
- 3. Method and Framework Questions • On-going empirical evaluation • Implementation • Satisfaction • Contributions • Outcomes Tools • Semi-structured interviews • 16 institutions • 45 interviews: Deans of students, Academic Program directors and coordinators • Online Questionnaire • 26 institutions • Observations • 8 peer-learning sessions • Work plans • 28 institutions Theory • Street-Level Bureaucracy • "Chilly Climate"
- 4. Institutional Climate Characteristics Type Size Location Housing options Student Composition Field of study distribution Gender Sub-groups Policy and Initiatives Affirmative action Academic calendar Arabic language on campus
- 5. The Dual Role of Institutional Context National Policy Local Implementation
- 6. The Dual Role of Institutional Context Context (Climate) • What? • How? • Where? • When? • Who? • Unified Policy / Quality Standards • Adjustable Budget • Programming Incentives Implementation Strategies National Policy
- 7. Implications Street-Level: Tailoring National Policy Policy: Reshaping National Policy Research: Context
- 8. Thank You! Ayala Hendin Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute and Ben Gurion University ayalah@jdc.org
Editor's Notes
- Slide 1 - Introduction: When we talk about higher education access policy, is an upward graph the ultimate indicator of success? And is the policy always top-down? or can local context and grass roots institutional initiatives have a wide national impact as well? Good morning! My name is Ayala and I am so glad to be with you today and have an opportunity to discuss a national access policy my colleague, Dalia Ben-Rabi and I, from the Brookdale institute in Jerusalem are currently evaluating. Let's start with the end – Upward graphs are nice, but aren't always the full picture. And as for local institutional context, it does have an impact on national policy - It's a two way street – top-down and bottom-up! Join me for the next few minutes, in a journey to the local context in Israel.
- Slide 2 - Local context and policy: in 2010, the Council for Higher Education launched a multi-year plan aimed at widening access for Arabs, Druze and Circassians who together, are the largest minority in Israel. These groups of citizens generally refer to themselves as Palestinian Arabs of Israel, which is different from Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel, who do not study in Israeli institutions, and who are not part of this research. To make it easier, I will refer to the relevant populations as Arabs. The Arabs who are citizens consist of about 26% of young adults ages 18-25. However, only 13% of undergraduate students are Arab, with even lower percentages of Arabs in advanced degrees. Different challenges along the path explain this under-representation, many of which are rooted in separate educational frameworks for Hebrew and Arabic speakers. K-12 Schools are not only taught in different languages, they also have different available resources and teaching techniques, and different outcome patterns with more graduates eligible for enrollment to higher education from Hebrew speaking schools. Also, those who successfully enroll in higher education, come with different life skills and experience: Arabs enter higher education on an average of 2-3 years younger than their Jewish counterparts, mostly leaving home for the first time and dealing with common challenges of adjusting to adulthood. As Jews and Arabs live for the most part in separate residential areas and study in separate schools, higher education is usually the first official meeting point between the groups. Institutions, set for the common experience of the Israeli-Jewish student, create a "chilly environment" often excluding Arab students directly and indirectly. The 2 main goals of the program were: To expand access of Arabs and to make sure those enrolled get the most out of their experience. The program took into account the many stages across the chronology of the student experience. It includes guidance prior to higher education, pre-academic preparation and a crash course for those already accepted, various academic, personal, social and economic support program throughout higher education, and lastly, vocational guidance and support for those continuing to advanced academic degrees and professions. The policy is set as a menu of programs, which each institution can choose from and can implement as best fitting to them.
- Slide 3 - Methods and framework: We went in to this program as evaluators, with typical evaluation questions: How is the program implemented? Are students satisfied with the program? What are the perceived contributions? And what are the outcomes? Currently, we finished the first stage of the research, which focused mainly on the implementation. We conducted in-depth interviews with key figures such as deans of students and program academic and administrative coordinators. Then, based on these interviews, we put together an on-line implementation questionnaire that we sent to all 28 institutions in the program. We also participated and documented national and local peer-learning sessions with representatives of all institutions, and analyzed the work plans of the institutions. Analyzing the 4 sources of data allowed us to put together different parts of the policy and implementation puzzle with the intention to contribute both to national policy initiators and to the local implementation teams, and ultimately, the Arab students. After some fieldwork, a main theme emerged regarding the dual role of institutional context as a 2-way-street influencing both the national policy and the local implementation. Going back to the literature, we tried to understand this duality from two perspectives: policy and education. As to policy, the implementation team, or the street-level bureaucrats who come in direct contact with the policy population, have much leeway in shaping the policy de-facto and acting on it. And as for the Education perspective, educational environment, often referred to as a "chilly climate" for women and minorities, is key in understanding the student experience that the policy is trying to impact. We wanted to trace some of the "chilly" characteristics in the implementation stage, so we can re-visit them later in our research while shifting our focus to satisfaction and outcomes.
- Slide 4 – Institutional climate: We looked at 3 aspects of education environment which interact with the policy implementation process: Contextual characteristics inherent to each institution. Are we talking about 3,000 Arab students or 20 students? Is the institution an urban or a rural campus? The composition of the students within the institution. Are Arab students concentrated in specific fields of study? What is the gender and sub-group composition – specifically their geographic, religious and ethnic background? And the last aspect is the policy and grass roots initiatives initiated either by institutional leadership or by the street-level bureaucrats.
- Slide 5 – Main message: our main finding is that it's a two-way-street: the national policy, through the climate, shapes the implementation models, and at the same time, feed-back to the national policy and re-shape it.
- Slide 6 – Findings: the findings can be presented as a matrix of context, or climate components, and policy developing, and implementing implications: The climate as the implementation team perceives it, determines: What will be implemented – For example, vocational guidance for professional fields of study, or housing assistance and dorm programing depending on campus location; How to implement – As voluntary for those interested in additional support, or as a requirement for those studying in particular fields of study or enrolling with a challenging academic background? And adding the Where to the How - As a universal program offered to all Arab students or as a particular program offered only in departments with a concentration of Arabs? When – Academic preparation before enrollment, or is that not realistic in situations of rolling enrollment where acceptance continues until the first week of the academic year? And Who – Should the programs be implemented by Arab Academic and professional staff? And is that possible? So the relationship between institutional context and implementation – not so surprising. A bit more surprising is the dual role - where local context plays a role in reshaping national policy. For example, attention to the variation in student composition between institutions, helped reshape the budget formula and shift from equal budgeting per student, to differential financial treatment, more needs-based. A second example is of local institutional initiatives redefining quality standards in the national policy. As implementation teams realized the need to make the institution more welcoming to the Arab population, some initiated various language accessibility efforts. These included translating parts of the institutional websites and signage into Arabic. Other institutions added Muslim and Christian holidays to the academic calendar. The national policy embraced such initiatives and defined language accessibility standards, and incentives for making the academic year friendlier to a diverse body of students.
- Slide 7 – Implications: Wrapping up and thinking about the implications of our findings to all of you, my main message is context, context, context! An upward accessibility graph alone is not the ultimate indicator of a successful program! Success requires tailoring policies to local institutional context. Institutions on their side can actively reshape national policy by advocating for consideration of context characteristics in the overall policy structure. And how about us, Higher education policy researchers? Understanding the full policy picture must take into account what's happening on the institutional grounds that is feeding back up to the nation and painting the full picture.