Entangled in Citizenship(s): Arab and Jewish Young Adults and Civics Education in Israel

Every modern state confronts the tension between nationhood and citizenship, yet in constitutional democracies at least, the legal system leans towards granting citizenship primacy over nationhood. Yet, in Israel, between the late 1970s to the current decades, despite seeming trends towards liberalization, civic education has changed in the opposite direction. Under the recently enacted Basic Law: Israel -- The Nation-State of the Jewish People (2018), nationhood trumps citizenship. Against this backdrop this research is set to explore how do young adults (19-22 years old) conceive of their citizenship, and how have their civic education shaped their knowledge and understanding of citizenship. Based on a mixed method research, conducted in 2018 and 2020-21, this chapter demonstrates how citizenship is understood differently by Jewish and Arab young citizens, and how the education system contributes to a lacking conception of citizenship.