Since the last few decades of the twentieth century, increased independence and autonomy of local schools through the implementation of school-based management (SBM) have become widespread in Western education. SBM is designed to operate within a more general framework of decentralisation of the educational authority. This research set out to investigate to what extent SBM in Arab-Bedouin elementary schools has impacted local curriculum development. Ten Israeli Arab-Bedouin elementary schools participated in the study. A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were used as research tools, and the data analysis revealed that because of a complex set of cultural and political factors, there is no curriculum development in these schools. This paper concludes with specific recommendations for enabling Arab-Bedouin SBM schools to create curricula while taking into consideration the cultural, political and social contexts in which they operate. (Contains 4 tables.)