This study investigated the relationship of attitudes and cultural background to reading comprehension in the second language (L2) of eighth‐grade students in three different social contexts: Israeli Arab students (n=73) learning Hebrew as their L2, Israeli Jewish students (n=83) learning English as their L2, and Canadian Arab students (n=52) learning English as their L2. Eighteen stories were selected for reading, six for each of the three groups, as follows: Israeli Arab – three Arab stories in Arabic and in Hebrew translation, and three Jewish stories in Hebrew and in Arabic translation; Israeli Jewish – three Jewish stories in Hebrew and in English translation, and three western stories in English and in Hebrew translation; Canadian Arab – three Arab stories in Arabic and in English translation, and three western stories in English and in Arabic translation. The results showed that the motivation of the students to learning their L2 was instrumental rather than integrative, regardless of social context. Furthermore, in the two Israeli groups, Arab and Jewish, students better comprehended their own culture's stories regardless of the language of the story. By contrast, the results for the Canadian Arab group showed that text language, not text content, was the strongest factor affecting reading compre