Teachers’ views about forgiveness in Israel and Cyprus: mapping the prospects of forgiveness as an educational goal

The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of a study on the way that two sample group of teachers, one in Israel and one in Cyprus, perceive forgiveness. The study is grounded in moral-philosophical ideas about forgiveness and the data is collected via interviews and focus groups. The findings show that participants in both samples focus their discussion on what forgiveness is not and describe the conditions that make forgiveness (im)possible. At the same time, the variability of teachers’ views on forgiveness identified in these two settings provides indications of the complexities that exist in finding a way forward from a situation of trauma and conflict in both society and schools. Both the “differences” and “similarities” in what teachers from Israel and Cyprus think about forgiveness have important implications about the place of forgiveness in schools.