English as a gatekeeper: Inequality between Jews and Arabs in access to higher education in Israel

Access to the universities and many colleges in Israel is conditioned on the attainment of a specific matriculation certificate that includes a passing grade in advanced level English. Arab students in Israel are required to study English in addition to Arabic and Hebrew, unlike Jewish students, who are not obliged to take a second foreign language in addition to English. This puts Arab students in an inferior position. An analysis of a large sample of high school graduates showed that the English requirement incurs larger gaps than two other subjects that were examined: history and math. Logistic regression models confirmed that the gaps in meeting the English requirement can help explain the Jewish Arab discrepancy in enrollment in higher education. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.