Since 1997, Palestinian and Israeli university-based researchers have been working together to study social issues of importance to Palestinian society and find ways of ameliorating problems. Established with support provided from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS) in cooperation with MASHAV, the Center for International Cooperation of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Charles R. Bronfman Foundation in Israel, the PIN Program has been jointly administered with a steering committee comprised of academic scholars from the societies involved.
The PIN Program was established with the belief that coexistence and the promotion of peace among Palestinian and Israeli people must be rooted in shared positive experience and interaction -people working together to address problems of common concern in order to improve the quality of all people in the Middle East region. In a relatively short time period, the PIN Program has achieved considerable success through applied social research. The following examples of such interaction have been generated in a spirit of mutual respect and understanding among Palestinian and Israeli academicians.
Special education
1. A comparison of views of social justice and disability among Israeli-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian and Palestinian special and general educators.
Special education among the Palestinians is an emerging field where children with mild handicaps are often not identified as having special educational needs and so are educated in the regular classroom by a teacher with no special education training. The consultation-collaboration model for special education is being developed by working in three areas: a) the development of a cadre for special education consultations, b) provision of training to the general education teacher, and c) educating the community about the rights of the child with special needs to be educated in an inclusive setting.
2. Validation of the "creation axis" model: A diagnostic and therapeutic strategy with Palestinian and Israeli pupils.
The Palestinian school system lacks any disability test and hardly offers tools to facilitate the troubled child in the classroom. The "creation axis" model, an easily applied and language free model derived from creative arts therapy, displays a six-stage profile through observation of simple art created by the child. It is assumed that artistic activity based on the "creation axis" profile can improve the child's learning accomplishments significantly. The overall aim is to validate a new diagnostic and intervention tool based on the "creation axis."
Children: education
3. A comparison between sensorimotor and cognitive performance of Palestinian and Israeli children.
The objectives of the study are to investigate sensorimotor and cognitive performance levels and age-related norms for the Palestinian, Jewish-Israel and Arab-Israeli children. The ultimate goal is the adaptation of standardized assessment tools for both Palestinian and Israeli children to facilitate educational and health professionals in evaluating child school-readiness and/or planning consultations or interventions.
4. The attitude of special education teachers towards inclusion of pupils with special needs in regular classrooms.
At the first stage the researchers investigated the attitudes of special education and of regular classroom teachers in the Israeli and Palestinian communities towards education in general and, specifically, towards the inclusion of children with special needs in the regular classroom. At the second stage the researchers are planning an intervention among the teachers which focuses on conceptual level and need for inclusion. This intervention is supposed to change teachers' attitudes to positive inclination toward inclusion. The researchers plan to test teachers' attitudes again after the intervention, to find out whether there was any change.
Youth development: school drop-out, violence related issues, youth movements
5. Traumatic experiences and resilience in zones of organized conflict.
The study examines the impact of childhood traumatic events on later mental health in young adults and aims to understand the role or resiliency factors in mediating between the trauma and mental health. The resiliency factors measured in childhood include cognitive function (creativity, intelligence and cognitive capacity), activity and perceived parenting. The resiliency factors measured in late adolescence include capacity for adolescent attachment relationship and problem-solving ability.
6. Jerusalem as a shared city: recognition of the other's narrative as told in Palestinian and Israeli school textbooks.
Jerusalem has played a significant role throughout history and in the world's three monotheistic religions. During the last century it became a center for national struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. Today the city is a symbol of national identity for both peoples. In order to help both sides to know each other's story, school textbooks, used in grades 7 to 12, are analyzed to find out what and how much information about the city is available, how it is evaluated and what the role of the teacher is.
7. School-based violence among Palestinian youth: the nature of the problem and empirical evaluation of a treatment model to deal with it.
School-based violence has been receiving increased social, media, legal and scientific attention throughout the world in the last decade. There is a general consensus among community and educational leaders that violence in school is rampant. This study provides an initial profile regarding school violence among Palestinian children. Based on empirical data and on an ecological intervention program, a culturally-sensitive intervention model is designed to curtail this problem. Recommendations regarding dealing with school-based violence in Palestinian society will be submitted.
8. Perceptions of Palestinian and Jewish youth related to conflict and mediation.
Images based on social perception in a three-dimensional social-psychological field is located by using a trait questionnaire given to 600 high school and university students (half of them women) on the Palestinian side as well as on the Israeli (Jewish) side. The contribution of the research is to document the images that youth on the Palestinian and Jewish sides have of each other, since these youths are the ones most involved in direct conflict in the street, either as soldier, police or civilian.
Small business development
9. Small business development in the Palestine National Authority: Current situation and future prospects.
As an action-oriented research, this seeks to contribute to the promotion of the small business sector in the PNA through exploring its current situation in the West Bank and Gaza through identifying its features, strengths and weaknesses and through investigating the barriers to growth and potential growth strategies.
10. Ethnic entrepreneurship of Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel.
The research focuses on the economic and social foundations that enable individuals to establish businesses and become self-employed in the two Palestinian populations. By adopting a comparative approach, the study provides a unique opportunity for clarifying how group membership influences entrepreneurship and helps ascertain what factors conducive to self-employment are unique to specific groups.
Women: economic and political participation
11. Israeli and Palestinian women in the national and municipal civil service.
Within the developed and the developing democratic structures women are significantly underrepresented in both societies, especially in the higher echelons of the civil service. This study both examines and compares women's status in two neighboring populations in both local (Ramallah and Haifa) and national Palestinian and Israeli civil service. Structural impediments and inequalities are studied as well as internal motivation and social factors influencing women's status.
Public Health
12. Research of manualized outpatient after care services for opiate abusers.
This research identifies and assesses Palestinian drug service agencies, assesses patterns and problems of substance abuse among Palestinian addicts, and introduces manualized treatment protocol (a printed booklet) to Palestinian drug treatment personnel through training. The impact of the approach is researched among Palestinian addicts in Palestinian drug service locations and compared to a treatment facility that does not use this approach.
Youth: mobilization and education
13. Education for international cooperation: the Middle East water management case.
The study attempts to pave the way for changing public attitudes toward compromise and cooperation through an educational program based on improving the knowledge base of young citizens from both groups, Palestinians and Israelis, on topics related to the water dispute. A curriculum that focuses on water management issues is developed and implemented. The effect of the new educational curriculum and program is evaluated.
Language policy and dynamics of communication in a multi-lingual context
14. Studies in Palestinian multi-lingualism and language policy.
The objectives of the research are to study the socio-linguistic situation and repertoire of a West Bank Palestinian Arabic-speaking community by mapping the relations between macro-level variables, like demographic, sociological, political and economic factors, social psychological variables, like social and political and religious attitudes, and observable micro-level socio-linguistic behavior. The work develops socio-linguistic knowledge that is relevant to the development of appropriate language policies.
Vocational training
15. Evaluation of the vocational education and training system in Palestine: its implications for employment and development.
The study evaluates the existing forms of vocational education and training (VET) among the Palestinians in an attempt to identify the most effective form of VET from the standpoint of enhancing employment and providing skills needed for the emerging economy.
Workshops
The above examples of successful joint efforts among Israeli and Palestinian researchers, working together in order to solve social problems, were presented and discussed at two workshops held in Jerusalem, the first in June 1999 and the second in July 2000.