David Bargal

Personal and intellectual influences leading to Lewin’s paradigm of action research Towards the 60th anniversary of Lewin’s ‘Action research and minority problems’ (1946)

The idea of action research and social change was the last conceptual topic to engage Kurt Lewin’s attention and energy prior to his untimely death in February 1947. In this article we commemorate the 60th anniversary of his 1946 paper ‘Action research and minority problems’. In the present article, eight principles of action research which were extracted from Lewin’s writings are presented and discussed. We attempt to show that the action research paradigm derived from four aspects of Lewin’s personal and intellectual background: his personal history as a Jew and an immigrant to America; his field theory and its meta-theoretical principles; a deep commitment to the idea of democracy; and his theory of social change.

Action Research : A Paradigm for Achieving Social Change

Action research was originally introduced by the late Kurt Lewin, who coined the term and who frequently used it in the realm of intergroup relations. Eight principles of action research based on Lewins writings, and adopted by leading theorists and practitioners, are elaborated on in this article accompanied by illustrations of how they have been used in the study reported in this special issue.

Helping Characteristics of Self-Help and Support Groups Their Contribution to Participants’ Subjective Well-Being

This article deals with outcomes of self-help and support groups, based on the relationships between the groups’ helping characteristics (i.e., instilling hope, caring and concern) and two variables: participants’subjective well-being and general satisfaction with the group. It was hypothesized that the contribution of the helping characteristics to the participants’subjective well-being would be mediated by the extent of their overall satisfaction with the group. The study also compared 12-step self-help groups to other support groups. The research sample consisted of 117 participants belonging to 11 groups meeting in Israel. The results supported the mediation hypothesis. Comparison of the 12-step groups and the other support groups revealed that 12-step group members were far more satisfied with the group and gave higher evaluations for most of the helping characteristics. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

Perception of job satisfaction, service effectiveness and burnout among Arab social workers in Israel

Over the past three decades, the topics of job satisfaction and burnout have become a major focus of interest in research and professional training in the field of social work. However, there is a serious lack of studies focusing on these issues in the context of Arab social workers in Israel. This paper presents the results obtained from a subsample of Arab participants in a national study of Israeli social workers. It focuses on the correlations between several career outcomes and organizational conditions such as role characteristics, work conditions, job mastery, and power. Challenge at work and job mastery were found to be the most significant and consistent predictors of the outcome results. The implications of the results are also discussed.

The process of self‐renewal among women headteachers in mid‐career

The purpose of this study was to expose the phenomenon of self‐renewal and its dynamic aspects among women headteachers in mid‐career. Based on findings from an exploratory study conducted among Israeli primary school women headteachers in their mid‐career period, the study presents the phenomenon of self‐renewal that was experienced by these headteachers. This phenomenon included elements such as coping with burnout crisis, critical inner reflection, reframing managerial perspectives, elation and energy replenishing and reinforcing innovative behaviors. A conceptual frame is presented in order to understand the process of self‐renewal and its contextual and biographic determinants which enable the existence of the phenomenon in mid‐career

Structure and Process in Reconciliation-Transformation Workshops Encounters Between Israeli and Palestinian Youth

This article presents a detailed blueprint for conducting reconciliation-transformation workshops among Jewish and Palestinian youth. The workshops are based on interventions that deal with intragroup and intergroup dynamics. Conflict management workshops, which at one time utilized small group interventions to create a bridge between two conflicting parties, are no longer effective. The recent escalation of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has resulted in a vicious cycle of deaths and casualties on both sides. Thus, in the attempt to generate a dialogue between the two groups, reconciliation-transformation measures should be used as a means of reducing the cognitive distortions, anger, hostility, fear, grief, victimization, and humiliation that have developed. The workshop structure and process proposed in the article reflect the ideal design based on interdisciplinary knowledge and experience gained from efforts to build peace in other conflictual contexts such as those of South Africa and South America.

Exposure to Family Violence, Perceived Psychological Adjustment of Parents, and the Development of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms Among Palestinian University Students

The article presents the results of a study on the relationship between exposure to (i.e., witnessing and experiencing) different patterns and types of family violence during childhood, during adolescence, and during young adulthood, on one hand, and adult post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), on the other. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1,969 Palestinian students using a self-administered questionnaire. The results reveal that the more the participants witnessed and experienced psychological aggression (PS) and physical violence (PH) in their families of origin, the more they exhibited PTSS. Furthermore, the results indicate that a significant amount of the variance in the participants’ PTSS could be attributed to their exposure to family violence, over and above the amounts of variance that were explained by their sociodemographic characteristics and by their perceptions of their parents’ psychological adjustment. The limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed.

An Introduction to the Project Rationale and Development

This introductory article begins with a presentation of the focus of this special issue: a participatory action research project titled “Enabling Adolescents in Culturally Diverse Environments to Peacefully Resolve Ethnic Group Conflicts.” The rationale for the project as well as its conceptual and theoretical foundations are indicated. After this, the authors note the steps taken to develop the project. The article concludes with a description of the other articles included in this issue.

Summary and Implications for the Next Stage An Epilogue

This epilogue summarizes the articles presented earlier in this issue and indicates directions the project is likely to take in the future.

A Practical Theory for Optimal Intergroup Initiated Encounters: The Arab Jewish Case

The social, political and geographical reality in Israel dictates the inevitable coexistence of Arabs and Jews. Although the socio-political forces of the macro level have been crucial in shaping Arab-Jewish relations in Israel, the impact of occurrences at the micro level—in natural situations or in initiated, planned and manipulated settings—on Arab-Jewish interpersonal and intergroup relations, should not be ignored. Moreover, appropriate and constructive micro-level intervention programs aimed at improving Jewish-Arab relations should be considered as important means of counteracting the increasingly negative impact of the highly complex, unresolved political problems at the macro level. Such programs—if expanded in scope and properly handled—may change the attitudes and behavior of individual Arabs and Jews towards each other for the better. Mutual trust, respect and understanding, the main goals of the intervention programs, are necessary cornerstones for a working peaceful and normal coexistence between the people of the two nations destined to live together in the State of Israel.