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Transformation of Central and Peripheral Beliefs in the Eyes of the ‘‘Other’’

Journal of Transformative Education Volume 7 Number 2 April 2009 134-145 # 2009 The Author(s) 10.1177/1541344609339023 http://jted.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Challenges for Peace Education Yigal Rosen Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Peace education in the context of intractable conflict involves conflicting collective historical narratives and underlying beliefs. Could it be that peace education is coping with transformation of different types of beliefs rooted in the collective narratives of the conflict? This study suggests differentiation between central and peripheral beliefs and their connection to the behavioral patterns toward the ‘‘other.’’ A total of 546 Jewish and 410 Palestinian 10th grade male and female youth (aged 15–16) from Israel participated in this study. The study identified and characterized the perception of central beliefs from the collective narrative of the ‘‘other’’ as well as more peripheral ones. In addition, it was found that the central beliefs are more connected to the readiness for social contact with the other side as compared to the peripheral ones. Implications for peace education in regions of intractable conflict are discussed. Keywords:

peace education; collective narrative; intractable conflict; central beliefs; peripheral beliefs

Intractable conflicts are characterized as lasting at least 25 years, having goals that are perceived as existential, being violent, perceived as unsolvable and of zero sum nature (see Azar, 1990; Bar-Tal, 1998; Coleman, 2003; Kriesberg, 1993). In the regions of intractable conflict such as Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, or the Middle East, a significant part of the common experience is highly related to the events within the conflicts. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians and the Israeli-Jews experienced different significant events, that is Jewish immigration to Palestine/Israel and the purchase of the land, World Author’s Note: The author is grateful to Professor Gavriel Salomon who generously supervised his doctoral dissertation, which served as a platform for this article. Special thanks go to Dr. Haggai Kupermintz who offered his help with ideas and suggestions. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yigal Rosen, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105; e-mail: [email protected].

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War I, the Balfour Declaration, World War II, the UN Partition Plan, the 1948 War, the 1967 War, the first and the second Intifadas, and so on. These major events contributed to the design of the collective narratives creating meaningful stories (Polkinghorne, 1988). These narratives of the conflict provide a common platform for the functioning under the conditions of protracted conflict (Bar-Tal & Salomon, 2006; Rouhana & Bar-Tal, 1998). The narratives provide information about the conflict, create a sense of differentiation and superiority, delegitimize the opponent, and play a crucial role in fueling and sustaining the conflict (Cairns & Hewstone, 2002). They become embedded into everyday life: media, culture, national and religious festivals, and educational systems. The role of these societal mechanisms is to ensure that these narratives will not change. Changing beliefs based on collective narratives of the conflict, emotional orientation, and behavior toward the ‘‘other’’ to a more peaceful outlook can promote a route to reconciliation (Bar-Tal & Rosen, in press; Salomon, 2002, 2004). The major question that should be asked in light of this needed psychological collective transformation is: Can peace education change these narrative-based beliefs? The distinction between so-called convictions and peripheral beliefs made by Abelson (1986, 1988) can be highly relevant for understanding the potential impact of peace education on youth’s beliefs that have emerged under conditions of intractable conflict. Convictions are described by individuals as valued are highly important issues. People are often willing to sacrifice a lot to hold onto them, and as a result, the high importance of these beliefs is stable over time. It was found that attitudes and beliefs reported as more central are more extreme than peripheral ones, are more stable over time, are held with high confidence, are more strongly associated with behavior and show greater and are more likely to influence other attitudes and beliefs (see for summary: Thomsen, Borgida, & Lavine, 1995). Individuals hold central beliefs as a basis of their belief system. Due to their relevance, these central attitudes and beliefs are used relatively frequently as a base for a wide range of the individual’s evaluations, decisions, and judgments. Could it be that in the context of intractable conflict some of collective narrativebased beliefs take a central place in the societal psychological framework whereas others are perceived as more peripheral ones? Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) enumerate five core beliefs in the context of intractable conflict: superiority, injustice, vulnerability, distrust, and helplessness. Bar-Tal and Salomon (2006) provided a list of conflict-oriented central beliefs, such as beliefs about security, justness of one’s own goals, victimization of one’s own society, and delegitimization of the rival. The configuration of these central societal beliefs is defined by Bar-Tal (2000) as an ethos of conflict. These societal beliefs are of greater importance over other societal beliefs as they affect the contents of other attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of society members. According to Bar-Tal (1998), in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the following eight themes comprise Israeli-Jewish central beliefs (an ethos), while each theme includes a number of societal beliefs referring to the same topic: (a) societal 135

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beliefs about justness of the Israeli goals; (b) societal beliefs about security; (c) societal beliefs about positive image of the Israeli-Jews; (d) societal beliefs about delegitimization of Arabs; (e) societal beliefs about one’s own victimization; (f) societal beliefs about patriotism; (g) societal beliefs about the importance of unity; and (h) societal beliefs about peace. These beliefs are maintained by societal, political, and cultural institutions and are transmitted to the young generations mainly by the educational system (e.g., F & Teichman, 2005). The collective narratives of each side and their underlying social beliefs (e.g., stereotypes, prejudices, and emotions) not only contradict each other they also delegitimize each other’s histories, goals, values, and humanity (Bar-Tal & Teichman, 2005; Salomon, 2004). Thus, for example, comprehensive analysis of the Palestinian and Israeli narratives, regarding the 1948 Palestinian refugees as presented in textbooks, illustrate two different narratives (Firer & Adwan, 2004). Although Israeli texts put most of the blame on the Palestinians and the Arabs for their plight, the Palestinian texts blame mainly the Israelis and the British for their plight. Israeli texts state that there were 600– 700,000 Palestinians who became refugees as a result of the 1948 war, whereas Palestinian texts state that there were more than 1 million Palestinians who became refugees as a result of the 1948 fightings. The 1948 war in the Israeli texts is called the War of Independence, whereas the Palestinian text calls it Al Naqbah (the Catastrophe). Although Israeli texts refer to the first Jewish immigrants to Palestine as the pioneers, the Palestinian texts refer to them as gangs and terrorists. Peace education can be seen as a major societal tool for achieving reconciliation within societies involved in intractable conflict (Abu-Nimer, 2004; Asmal, Asmal, & Roberts, 1997; Gordon, 1994; Kriesberg, 1998). However, peace education programs that take place in regions of ongoing conflict face socio-political environments that for many decades cultivated negative perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and emotions toward the adversary (Salomon, 2002, 2004). Can peace education programs succeed in changing the psychological repertoire that fueled the conflict through the years? Series of studies reported by Kupermintz and Salomon (2005) show that peace education programs in regions of intractable conflict can be highly effective. Thus, for example, several studies showed that participation in peace education programs led to a greater acceptance of members of the other collective, more positive emotions, and willingness for contact with the ‘‘other,’’ and greater legitimization of the ‘‘other’s’’ collective narrative. However, it was found that the effects of peace education programs are temporary, reverting to their original state not long after the completion of a program. The question that should be raised following the results of studies on effectiveness of peace education programs is: Could it be that the challenges facing peace education, on one hand, and the observed programs’ positive impact, on the other, address different kinds of beliefs? Is it possible that the real roadblocks of peace education are the perception of the core beliefs (convictions) that stand in the center of the 136


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groups’ collective narratives? Although the positive impact of peace education programs relate to the perception of more peripheral beliefs, which less connected to the actual behavior of youngsters? Examination of this potential pattern can promote better understanding of the possibilities and the limitations of peace education in the context of intractable conflict.

Research Hypotheses This study investigates Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian adolescents’ perception of the beliefs from the other side’s collective narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the readiness for social contact with the ‘‘other.’’ More specifically, the following hypotheses were tested: Hypothesis 1: Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian adolescents’ perceptions regarding the other sides’ collective narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict consist of both central (convictions’) and peripheral beliefs. Hypothesis 2: Israeli and Palestinian adolescents’ perceptions regarding the other sides’ central beliefs will be more connected to the readiness for social contact, as compared to the peripheral beliefs.

Method DESIGN AND PROCEDURE The study used self-report questionnaires that investigated the perception of Jewish and Palestinian adolescent citizens of Israel regarding the other sides’ collective narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the readiness for social contact with the ‘‘other.’’ The study focused on the perception of the individuals regarding the importance of the issues from the collective narrative of the other to the individuals from the other side. It is not the importance individuals themselves attribute to the issues but rather the importance they think that the other side attributes to those issues. For example, Jews—following peace education program—begin to see that the Palestinian belief that East Jerusalem ought to become their capital as more important to the Palestinians. That is, they come to acknowledge the importance of that issue in the eyes of the Palestinians. The administration of the questionnaires consisted of approximately 40 min and was carried out in the Israeli schools by the researcher in the presence of classroom teachers. The data were collected in October 2004. 137


PARTICIPANTS The participants in the study were 546 Jewish (258 males and 288 females) and 410 Palestinian (197 males and 213 females) 10th grade youth (aged 15–16) from 14 Israeli high schools from different urban regions of the country. Schools were selected on the basis of their willingness to participate in peace education programs in the future.

MEASURE Perception of the centrality of collective narrative of the other side. Participants reported on a 5-point scale the perceived importance of each beliefs from the other group collective narrative in the eyes of the ‘‘other,’’ related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (extremely important, very important, fairly important, somewhat important, and not at all important). The Jewish participants responded to the relative importance that Palestinians attribute to 16 beliefs taken from the Palestinian conflictrelated collective narrative. The Palestinian participants responded to the relative importance attributed by the Jews to 16 beliefs taken from the Jewish conflictrelated collective narrative. The beliefs from both collective narratives of the conflict were formulated by a team of Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian researchers.1 The Palestinian perspective on the conflict included beliefs such as

The 1948 Catastrophe (Al Naqbah) marked the beginning of a long period of dispossession for the Palestinians; As the indigenous people of Palestine, the Palestinians aspire to establish an independent state; Some of the Jewish communities after 1948 were built over Arab villages and towns; A large Arab-Palestinian majority constituted the population before the establishment of Israel; Palestinian rights of self-determination are based on UN resolutions and international recognition; The Palestinians always wanted peace with the Jews, however, the Jews did not want peaceful coexistence.

The Israeli-Jewish collective narrative of the conflict included the following beliefs: 138

The Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and Diaspora resulted in the world’s support for the establishment of the State of Israel; Throughout 2,000 years of Diaspora, Jews aspired to rebuild their national homeland of Israel; The land of Israel was given to Abraham, the nation’s father, by divine authority;


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The Balfour Declaration affirmed the international community’s commitment for a Jewish homeland; All means are justified to secure Israel’s safety; The Jews always wanted peace with the Palestinians; however, the Palestinians did not want peaceful coexistence.

Pilot study was carried out with the purpose of examination of the Cronbach’s a reliability coefficient of the questionnaire and for creation of the central and peripheral categories for Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian beliefs. In this study, which included 120 10th grade Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian youth (52 males and 68 females), the Cronbach’s a was .92 in this questionnaire and .93 in the main study. The beliefs were sorted into central and peripheral categories by their relative importance as reported by the participants of the pilot study. The beliefs below or equal to the overall mean were coded as peripheral (seven items, for each narrative) and the items above the overall mean were considered as central ones (nine items, for each narrative). Readiness for social contact. A questionnaire adapted from Masalha (1985) was used to examine readiness for social contact with the other group. Items in this questionnaire were phrased appropriately for each group of participants. The four items presented to the Palestinian group were phrased to relate to Jews, and those presented to the Jewish group related to the Palestinians citizens of Israel, such as: ‘‘I agree to learn with Palestinian/Jewish youth’’ or ‘‘I agree to meet Palestinian/Jewish youth.’’ This questionnaire included four items on the Likert scale 1–5 (1 ¼ strongly disagree, 5 ¼ strongly agree). In the pilot study, which included 120 participants the Cronbach’s a was .86 in this questionnaire and .94 in the main study.

Results In the first stage of the study, potential differentiation of perceived beliefs based on the other side’s collective narrative of the conflict was examined. According to the first hypothesis, perception of the other side’s collective narrative of the conflict within societies involved in intractable conflict consists of central and peripheral beliefs. Table 1 reports the statistics of perceived importance of central (most important) and peripheral (less important) beliefs from the other side’s collective narrative in the eyes of the ‘‘other,’’ as well as readiness for social contact with the ‘‘other’’ among Jewish and Palestinian youth. As hypothesized, not all the beliefs from the one side’s collective narrative are perceived as equally important to the other side. Table 1 shows that there is a significant difference in the intensity of the perceived importance of central and peripheral 139


Table 1 Means, Standard Deviations, and Effect Sizes of the Main Measures by Nationality

Measure Perception of central beliefs from the other collective narrative Perception of peripheral beliefs from the other collective narrative Readiness for social contact

Jews

Palestinians

M (SD)

M (SD)

Effect Size

t (df)

3.16 (1.50)

4.21 (1.24)

–.77

–11.32** (923)

1.95 (1.64)

3.34 (1.28)

–.95

–14.68** (938)

2.85 (1.53)

3.58 (1.50)

–.48

–8.56** (952)

Note: ES ¼ effect size computed by Cohen’s d. * p < .01. ** p < .001.

beliefs among Jewish and Palestinian beliefs (M ¼ 3.16 vs. M ¼ 1.95 and M ¼ 4.21 vs. M ¼ 3.34). The core of the Palestinian collective narrative as perceived by Jewish youngsters was related to the War of 1948 (Al Naqbah according to the Palestinian narrative) and Palestinian rights of self-determination in Palestine, whereas beliefs related to distrust and stereotypic images of both sides in the conflict were perceived as peripheral ones. Similar results were found among Palestinian youngsters. The beliefs related to the War of 1948 (the Independence War according to the IsraeliJewish narrative), the Holocaust and the rights for a Jewish state in Israel, were seen as the central beliefs in the perception of the Israeli-Jewish collective narrative by Palestinian youngsters. Beliefs related to distrust and images of both sides in the conflict were perceived as peripheral ones. In addition, it was found that the Palestinian participants saw both types of the beliefs from the Israeli-Jewish collective narrative as significantly more important to the Israeli-Jews as compared to the perception of the Palestinian collective narrative in the eyes of the Israeli-Jewish youth. It was determined that the Israeli-Jewish youth’s perception of the importance of the central beliefs of the Palestinian narrative of the conflict corresponded to the Palestinian youth’s perception of the importance of the peripheral beliefs of the Israeli narrative (M ¼ 3.16 compared with M ¼ 3.34). Moreover, a low level of readiness for social contact with the ‘‘other’’ was found among Jewish youth compared to the Palestinians (ES ¼ .48, t(952) ¼ 8.56, p < .001). According to the second hypothesis, the central beliefs from the collective narrative of the ‘‘other’’ will be more connected to the readiness for social contact, as compared with peripheral beliefs. The results shown in Table 2 confirm this hypothesis as 140


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Table 2 Pearson Correlation Coefficients of Measures by Nationality Readiness for Social Contact Measure

Jews

Palestinians

Perception of central beliefs from the other collective narrative Perception of peripheral beliefs from the other collective narrative

.46** .13*

.34** .07

*

p < .01. p < .001.

**

well. From the table of correlations, it can be concluded that among both nationalities the perception of central beliefs from the other’s collective narrative were connected to the extent of readiness for social contact with the ‘‘other’’ (r ¼ .46, p < .001 among Jews and r ¼ .34, p