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Recent thinking in multicultural education can contribute to environmental education (EE) in culturally diverse societies. This article uses case studies of two minorities in Israel to illustrate the potential for bringing together these two areas of educational research that have developed significantly in recent years. After introducing the topics of EE and multicultural education, we discuss some compelling intersections between them. We then introduce the Arab and ultraorthodox sectors, and describe the ways in which issues of educational contents, representation, resources, and infrastructure affect EE in these sectors. We show how policies and concrete measures for forwarding EE in these groups in a multicultural manner can draw on their specific culture, education systems, and environmental situations.

In a national evaluation of environmental literacy in Israel, (Negev, Sagy, Garb, Salzberg, & Tal, 2008), the authors included both multiple choice questions and open questions. In this article the authors describe the qualitative analysis of the answers to an open question regarding a local environmental problem. Most participants specified solid waste, open spaces, or air pollution as the main issues. The perceived solutions were generally at the governmental level, including planning, infrastructure, legislation, and enforcement. The authors describe relations in these responses between the problems, their causes and solutions, and between the quality of these answers and the general environmental literacy of the participants. The authors end with a discussion of the special contributions and potential of open-ended questions for environmental education research. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

The authors conducted a national survey of 6th- and 12th-grade students in Israel to evaluate their environmental literacy, including the dimensions of environmental knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. In this article, the authors present the results of the survey, the correlations between these different dimensions, and their associations with demographic and experiential data. The authors did not find a significant correlation between knowledge and behavior. Ethnic and socioeconomic characteristics were moderately associated with environmental literacy, whereas the presence of an adult who mediated children's relation to nature was strongly related to environmental attitudes and behavior and weakly related to knowledge. The results suggest that the intended objectives of environmental education in Israel have not been achieved. The authors call for additional research to identify ways to improve environmental education in the Israeli public schools. (Contains 7 tables, 6 figures, and 9 notes.) [Research supported by the Lisa and Maury Friedman Foundation, the GM Foundation, and Brown University's Middle East Environmental Futures project.]

Abstract Recent studies have explored how professionals draw boundaries to reach workable solutions in conflictual and contested areas. Yet they neglected to explore the relationships and dynamics between how boundaries are demarcated in rhetoric and in policy. This article examines these relationships empirically through the case of medical cannabis (MC) policy-making in Israel. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders in the MC policy field, formal policy documents, and observations of MC conferences, this article sheds light on the dynamics between rhetorical boundary-work and what we term regulatory boundary-work , namely setting rules and regulations to demarcate boundaries in actual practice. Results show how certain definitions of and rationales for a discursive separation between "medical" and "recreational" cannabis and between cannabis "medicalization" and "legalization" prevailed and were translated into formal policy, as well as how stakeholders' reactions to this boundary-work produced policy changes and the shifting of boundaries. Both rhetorical and regulatory boundary-works emerge as ongoing contested processes of negotiation, which are linked in a pattern of reciprocal influence. These processes are dominated by certain actors who have greater power to determine how and why specific boundaries should be drawn instead of others. Highlights • Qualitative study exploring boundary-work in MC policy-making in Israel. • Most stakeholders draw boundaries between medical and recreational cannabis. • Rhetorical boundary work is translated into regulatory boundary-work. • Rhetorical and regulatory boundary-work are interrelated processes. • MC emerges as a classification system with distinct local meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel has been oriented towards economic development and industrialization, with a transportation sector increasingly focused on private cars. In 1961, initial awareness of environmental risks led to the adoption of the Abatement of Nuisances Law, which served as the platform for air pollution policy for several decades, even as population growth and growth of the industrial sector, including fossil fuel power plants, led to a continuous increase in air pollution. In the early 2000s, the environmental movement in Israel criticized local air pollution policy as being out of date and started to promote a new Clean Air Law. The law, which was adopted in 2008 and came into force in 2011, was a watershed in air pollution policy in Israel. It includes ambient air quality values for 28 contaminants, emission permits for the industrial sector based on best available techniques (BAT), an enforcement system, and a unified and transparent monitoring system. This paper reviews the history of air pollution policy in Israel from 1948, through the 1961 and 2008 landmark legislations and their strengths and weaknesses, to the present. The paper ends with recommendations for future air pollution policy in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]