"A SPACE OF FRICTION": INSTITUTIONAL BARRIERS, AGENCY AND EDUCATIONAL ACTIVISM AMONG ARAB STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN ISRAEL

Abstract

In recent decades, the Israeli higher education system has undergone a process of massification, which has been presented in institutional discourse as a promise of the democratization of knowledge and social mobility for the Arab-Palestinian minority. However, the academic encounter emerges as a Space of Friction, saturated with power relations, in which structural and institutional barriers function as "gatekeepers" that exclude minorities. This study seeks to deconstruct students' experiences by examining how institutional, structural, and socio-cultural barriers shape their agency, educational activism, and experiences of identity and belonging. Methodology: The study was conducted within a qualitative-interpretive paradigm using an extended case study approach. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 Arab male and female students from diverse higher education institutions and academic disciplines. The data were analyzed using an inductive thematic approach and triangulated against nine critical theoretical frameworks, including Critical Race Theory (CRT), Structuration Theory, and Intersectionality. The findings reveal a complex dialectic between institutional betrayal and the reproduction of inferiority, on the one hand, and the emergence of subversive agency, on the other. Students confront a language wall that produces professional muteness, as well as a campus transformed into a fortified space characterized by processes of escalating silencing and surveillance (a digital panopticon), particularly following the war events. In response, students enact "Authorial Agency", employing artificial intelligence (ChatGPT) as a form of linguistic body armor to circumvent power hierarchies, while establishing an "academy within the academy"- alternative knowledge infrastructures grounded in solidarity and academic "Sumud" steadfastness. The intersectional analysis further revealed that, for mothers, family status is transformed from a barrier into a pedagogy of demonstration and a driver of intergenerational excellence. The study challenges the deficit paradigm, which attributes inferiority to minority populations, and demonstrates the existence of "Resistant Capital" among Arab students. The findings underscore the need for a paradigmatic shift- from a model centered on fixing the student and cultural assimilation toward transformative leadership that advances epistemic justice and cultural humility in institutional governance. Students' successful navigation of the matrix of domination testifies to a form of collective resilience that transforms enforced transparency into sovereign political and intellectual visibility.