Conference Program

In divided societies marked by protracted conflict, structural inequality, and normalized forms of symbolic and relational violence, educational leadership is often required to manage crises while operating within systems shaped by fear, hierarchy, and reactive authority. These challenges are particularly acute in Arab schools in Israel, where school leaders work under conditions of political marginalization, chronic uncertainty, and heightened social tension. In such contexts, educational institutions are frequently pressured to prioritize control, compliance, and rapid response, often at the expense of care, reflection, and shared humanity.

This paper advances the concept of caring literacy as an institutional and pedagogical capacity that enables educational leaders to resist escalation, transform professional language, and re-humanize organizational practices. Caring literacy is understood not as an individual moral trait, but as a set of learnable, collective practices embedded in professional routines, decision-making processes, and leadership discourse. It offers a way to address conflict, fear, and anger without reproducing the very structures of domination and exclusion that sustain violence.

Drawing on a multi-case qualitative study conducted in two Arab localities in Israel, the paper examines the design and implementation of empathetic inquiry as an architecture of critical professional development within municipal leadership forums and school-based professional learning communities. Empathetic inquiry is a structured dialogical methodology that supports leaders in working with emotionally charged professional dilemmas through four recurring stages: creating a holding space, articulating a live dilemma, engaging in multi-perspectival reframing, and generating de-escalatory courses of action. Through this process, emotional experience is not suppressed or privatized, but translated into collective professional judgment.

Methodologically, the study integrates ethnographic observation, longitudinal documentation of leadership discourse, and design-based research. Within this framework, moments of crisis and conflict are treated as opportunities for institutional learning rather than as failures to be managed through coercion. Empathetic inquiry functions as a mediating practice that enables leaders to slow down reactive responses, attend to relational dynamics, and reframe authority as ethical and reflective rather than hierarchical.

The findings highlight three interrelated transformations. First, a shift in professional language from blame, urgency, and moralization toward precision, responsibility, and relational accountability. Second, the emergence of reflective authority, grounded in care and shared meaning-making rather than control. Third, the institutionalization of caring literacy as a mechanism of de-escalation, allowing schools to interrupt cycles of symbolic violence and respond to conflict in ways that sustain dignity and trust.

By conceptualizing care as a form of literacy rather than a personal virtue, this study contributes to broader debates on education in divided societies. It demonstrates how caring literacy can operate as a counter-force to securitized, patriarchal, and media-driven narratives that normalize domination and obscure shared humanity. The paper argues that embedding care within institutional practices offers a viable pathway for educational leadership committed to reducing violence and fostering ethical responsibility under conditions of conflict.