Prof. Gavriel Salomon

The Center for Research on Peace Education (CERPE) was established in 1998 at the University of Haifa to promote peace and justice through the scholarly study of peace education. Peace education is perceived, broadly, as the inculcation of non-violent, democratic culture. Dr. Amalia Sa'ar, the incoming director of the Center, is a cultural anthropologist and a longtime activist in grassroots initiatives for peace. Her vision of the mission of the Center is the enhancement of a culture of peace and tolerance in Israeli society, with particular focus on Jewish-Arab relations and the advancement of a socially sustainable multi-cultural society. The center encourages and initiates research projects in a broad range of topics that aim to improve social justice, diversity, gender equality, and environmental responsibility.

Goals

Program Evaluation: Not much is known about the outcomes of typical peace education programs and projects: Do they have any lasting effects on participants’ attitudes towards and perceptions of the other side? Would they behave differently towards the other side? What happens when newly cultivated peace-oriented narratives conflict with the more widely held, conservative ones? CERPE is to evaluate prototypical peace education programs on the basis of newly formulated criteria.

Research: Peace education activities raise numerous new questions. For example, what would one need to incorporate into such programs to make their effects durable, resistant to adverse events, and events, and generalizable to other contexts such as school violence? CERPE is to formulate pertinent research questions; initiate, coordinate and carry out systematic research concerning the educational, psychological, organizational, and ethical aspects of the field, both within and across countries.

Theory construction: The local scene of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict serves as a unique “laboratory” for the study of peace education. However, our hope for CERPE is to serve as a focal point for more international research on peace education. Hence, evaluation and research findings would need to be cast in theoretical terms that transcend the local situation. CERPE is to develop theoretical frameworks to bridge between existing research in related fields and the practice of peace education in Israel and elsewhere.

International collaboration: In light of the above, CERPE is to become the hub for an international network of scholars and educators to pave the road for international exchange of scholarship and collaboration on joint research projects.

Publications

Salomon, G. & Cairns, E. (Eds.). Handbook of Peace Education. New York: Taylor and Francis.

Rosen, Y., Salomon, G. (in press). Durability of peace education effects in the shadow of conflict. Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal.

 Salomon, G. (2009).Peace Education: Its Nature, Nurture and the Challenges it Faces. In: De Rivera, J. Handbook for Building Cultures of Peace. (pp. 107-122). New York: Springer.

 Kupermintz, H., Rosen, Y., Salomon, G., Husisi, R. (2007). Mutual Perceptions of Jewish and Arab youth in Israel: 2004-2005. Center for Research on Peace Education, University of Haifa.

Kupermintz, H., Salomon, G. (2005). Lessons to be Learned From Research on Peace Education in the Context of Intractable Conflict. Theory into Practice, 44(4), 293-302.

Shechter, H., Salomon, G. (2005). Does Vicarious Experience of Suffering Affect Empathy for an Adversary? The Effects of Israelis' Visit to Auschwitz on Their Empathy for Palestinians. Journal of Peace Education, 2(2), 125-138.

Biton, Y., Salomon, G. (May, 2004). "Peace" in the Eyes of Israeli and Palestinian Youths as a Function of Collective Narratives and Participation in a Peace Education Program. (to be published in Peace Research).

Salomon, G. (2004). Does Peace Education Really Make a Difference?  Peace and Conflict: The Journal of Peace Psychology, 12(1).

Salomon, G. (2004). A Narrative-Based View of Coexistence Education. Journal of Social Issues, 60(2), 273-287.

Salomon, G. (2004). Does peace education make a difference in the context of an intractable conflict?  Peace and Conflict: Journal of  Peace Psychology, 10(3), 257-274.

Salomon, G., Nevo, B.  (2002). Peace Education: The Concept, Principles and Practices Around the World. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Salomon, G., Kupermintz, H. (April, 2002). The Evaluation of Peace Education Programs: Main Considerations and Criteria. Center for Research on Peace Education, University of Haifa.

 Research Projects

We have completed a number of research projects (Nos. 1-11) and are currently in the process of carrying out another set of research  projects (Nos. 12-15), as follows:

 1.  The Internet in the service of bridging over troubled waters (Ayelet Roth): An experimental study about new ways of using the internet to overcome inter-group animosity. 

 2.  Understanding "Peace" (Yifat Biton): A field study of the way Israeli and Palestinian youngsters understand the concept of peace as a consequence of participating in intensive PE programs.

 3.  Feeling of victimhood and empathy for the other (Hava Shechter): A study of the extent to which Israeli youngsters' visits to the Holocaust sites in Poland affects their empathy for the Palestinians' suffering.

 4.  Understanding "our" conflict through the study of a remote conflict (Ilana Lustig): An experimental study of the way youngsters can come to see the conflict through the eyes of their adversary as a function of learning another, unrealted conflict. 

 5.  From personal friendship to a new understanding of the collective "other" (Irit Bar-Natan): A study designed to answer the question of whether better relations between Israeli and Palestinian individuals generalizes to new ways of relating to the Israeli or Palestinian collective. 

 6.  Do peace education programs affect centrally-held beliefs and attitudes or peripheral ones only? (Yigal Rosen): Based on the distinction between more centrally-held convictions and more peripheral attitudes and beliefs, we study the extent to which peace education program affect both kinds or the latter kind only.

7.  Jewish and Arab Perceptions of each other as they change over the years. (Haggai Kuperminitz).  

8.  How to sustain the positive effects attained by peace education programs? (Yigal Rosen): Based on the suspicion that peace education programs have short-lived effects, we study their sustainability through "forced compliance" to make the programs' effects less likely to change back to their initial state. 

 9.  Does learning to give legitimacy to the "other's" collective narrative negatively affect adherence to one's own narrative? (Rabia Hsseisi): Peace education participants come to give greater legitimacy to their adversary's perspective. What does it do to their view of their own point of view?  

10.  Football for mutual understanding: How do bi-national clubs affect relations? (Baha Zuabi). The answer according to this study is a clear YES. Jointly trying to attain common and important goals (winning games) leads participants of bi-national football clubs to experience more positive attitudes toward the other side, reduced stereotypes and greater willingness for contact. Not so in uni-national clubs.                

11.  Does post-program reflection help to sustain the program's effects? (Michal Arnon) (IN PROCESS). 

12.  Does peer tutoring facilitate the endurance of a program's effects? (Wurud Ja'ussi) (IN PROCESS).  

13.  The perception of "enemy"  by Israeli-Jewish and Arab children (Nadira Yunis) (IN PROCESS). 

14.  Joint Jewish and Arab teams of youths design and shoot videos of each other's family life. How does this process affect mutual understanding and empathy? (Evana Ratner) (IN PROCESS).   

Staff

Dr. Amalia S'aar, Director

Phone: 04-8288176

Fax: 04-8240819

Mobile: 0523-802756

E-mail: saaram@soc.haifa.ac.il

Prof. Emeritus Gavriel Salomon, Founder and Former Director

Phone: 04-8249373

Fax: 04-8249372

Mobile: 0547-562337

14/02/2011

Dear CERPE-Team,

I want to thank you all for your help to make my internship in the CERPE an enriching, informative and all around great experience. It was a fantastic oportunity to know all your interesting research projects, that showed me the variety of the aproaches to research on Peace Education and the plurality of different aspects and perspektives of this research area. I will take home a lot. But especialy the awareness of the importance and fruitfullness of your work in this area of intracable conflict. I thank you so much for everything,

Lisa Gutenbrunner

Salomon, G. & Cairns, E. (Eds.), 2010. Handbook on Peace Education. New York, Hove: Psychology Press.

Welcome to PEACH (Partnership and Peace Education Advisory Clearing House)

This site's main aim is to create a stage on which updating and sharing of information and lessons learned by the NGOs, educators and researchers whose business is the advancement of peace and partnership between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Toward this end, the site collects materials that describe the activities and projects of NGO's and other organizations, research summaries and lessons learned that are placed under one internet-interactive roof. The site also includes relevant links and announcements about conferences, workshops and other events. Our infrastructure is WIKI (like Wikipedia), which affords (but does not insure) all interested parties to act interactively with the site and with each other. These parties, or shareholders - researchers and organizations - receive their usernames and passwords, which allow them to contribute, modify and update their contributions.

ברוכים הבאים לאתר

PEACH (Partnership and Peace Education Advisory Clearing House)

המטרה העיקרית של האתר היא ליצור במה שתאפשר התעדכנות ושיתוף במידע ובלקחים ע"י העמותות, אנשי החינוך והחוקרים העוסקים בקידום החינוך לשלום ולשותפות בין יהודים וערבים בישראל. לשם זה, ירוכז באתר חומר על העמותות, הפרוייקטים, והפעולות השונות שמטרתן הבנה הדדית, דו-קיום ושלום תחת קורת גג אינטרנטית אינטראקטיבית אחת, יחד עם תקצירי מחקרים רלוונטיים ולקחיהם הקונקרטיים, תקצירי מאמרים חשובים, מראי מקום וקישוריות רלוונטיים, וכן הודעות שוטפות על אירועים, ימי עיון, סדנאות, כנסים ופעולות. התשתית שלנו היא תשתית ויקי (בדומה לויקיפדיה) המאפשרת (אך לא מבטיחה!) אינטראקטיביות פעילה מצד כל בעלי העניין. אלה – החוקרים, העמותות, בתיה"ס, המרכזים, הארגונים והמוסדות - יקבלו כ"א מפתח שיאפשר להם כניסה לאתר, עריכה ועדכון של המידע עליהם, הוספת הודעות על אירועים, הוספת תקצירי מחקרים וכו'.

أهلاً وسهلاً بكم في موقع

PEACH (Partnership and Peace Education Advisory Clearing House)

(بيت التّبادُل للشّراكة/للمُشاركة والاستشارة في ثقافة السّلام)

يهدف الموقع إلى تركيز/تجميع الموادّ المتعلّقة في تحسين العلاقات بين اليهود والعرب في إسرائيل. يشتمل هذا الموقع على موادّ حول الجمعيّات والمشاريع والفعاليّات المختلفة الّتي تهدف إلى التّفاهم المتبادل، التّعايش، السّلام، التسامح، الشّراكة وغيرها. تمّ جمع الموادّ تحت سقف موقع تفعيلي واحد في الإنترنيت، إلى جانب مُلخَّصات لأبحاث ذات صلة في الموضوع مع استنتاجاتها الخاصّة، مُلخَّصات لمقالات هامّة ، مراجع وروابط إلكترونيّة، وكذلك إعلانات عن أحداث، أيام دراسيّة، ورشات عمل، مؤتمرات وفعاليّات. الموقع مبنيّ على نمط الويكي، يشبه الويكيبيديا، الّذي يمكّن مشاركة فعّالة لكلّ من لديه اهتمام بالموضوع. حيث يحصل كلٌّ من - الباحثين، الجمعيّات ، المدارس، المراكز، المُنظمات والمؤسّسات على كلمة دخول سرّيّة لتمكّنهم من الدخول إلى الموقع وإعداد المعلومات عنهم وتحديثها، مع إضافة إعلانات عن أحداث/فعاليّات وإضافة مُلخَّصات أبحاث وغيرها. تسرّنا مشاركتكم الفعّالة

Recent Research Findings by the Center for Research on Peace Education - July, 2009