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Louis Cristillo is a lecturer in Anthropology and International and Comparative Education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Cristillo’s interests in-clude education and development in the Middle
East; religion and identity; education and social theory; and methods in educational research. Dr. Cristillo served as co-lead investigator of the study on undergraduate teaching practices in the West Bank and Gaza upon which this article is based.
Struggling for the Center: Teacher-Centered vs. Learner-Centered Practices in Palestinian Higher Education
Alongside the struggle for an independent Palestine, not to mention the internal power struggles between the rival Fatah and Hamas movements, another struggle — largely absent from local news headlines and talk on the streets — is unfolding in classrooms in Palestinian higher education. Faculty are pushing back against the hegemony of teacher-centered instruction and embracing, in principle if not in practice, the global movement toward learner-centered pedagogy.
