Intercultural differences and role perceptions of Israeli Arab and Israeli Bedouin teachers

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess to what extent social groups maintaining traditional-collectivistic or modern-individualistic lifestyles while sharing a similar nationality ethnicity and cultural origin, may be differentiated on the basis of their professional job perceptions and attitudes. Design/methodology/approach - Questionnaires were administered to 323 Bedouin teachers who live in the southern part of Israel while maintaining a rather traditional way of life and to 232 Arab teachers who live in modern towns where Arabs and Jews coexist. Findings - The results show that Bedouin teachers exhibit a higher degree of compliance and loyalty to the leader and are more conservative and emotional in comparison to Israeli Arab teachers. These results testify to the strong relationship existing between values and norms accumulated during ethnic socialization processes and individual role perceptions especially when individuals' lifestyles correspond to these values. Originality/value - In considering the framing influence that ethnic socialization has on individual work perceptions, it is argued that ethnic considerations should be taken into account in multicultural contexts and that some facilitating mechanisms should be established in order to increase tolerance for ethnical diversity and understanding among individuals coming from different ethnic groups.