TY - JOUR
T1 - Resilience and political violence
T2 - A cross-cultural study of moderating effects among jewish- and arab-israeli youth
AU - Lavi, Iris
AU - Slone, Michelle
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by a grant from The Israel Education Fund.
PY - 2011/9
Y1 - 2011/9
N2 - Children in countries involved in violent national conflicts experience difficult and, at times, extreme events such as spending long hours in shelters, witnessing terror attacks, or having a family member absent or injured while participating in battle. This study explores the moderating effect of resilience factors, self-esteem, and self-control, on relations between political violence and children's difficulties. Children and mothers from 104 Jewish- and 108 Arab-Israeli families complete questionnaires assessing political violence exposure, self-esteem, self-control, and the child's social, psychological, and behavioral difficulties. Findings show that Israeli children exhibited heightened levels of psychological difficulties with high impact of political violence, a relationship that is partially moderated by self-control. In addition, significant ethnic group differences are found. First, political life events (PLE) are positively related to the child's social, psychological, and behavioral difficulties in the Arab group. Second, the relationship between political life events and the child's difficulties is moderated by self-control in the Jewish group and by self-esteem in the Arab group. Consequences of these results to understanding the impact of political violence and the role of individual resilience during conflict are discussed.
AB - Children in countries involved in violent national conflicts experience difficult and, at times, extreme events such as spending long hours in shelters, witnessing terror attacks, or having a family member absent or injured while participating in battle. This study explores the moderating effect of resilience factors, self-esteem, and self-control, on relations between political violence and children's difficulties. Children and mothers from 104 Jewish- and 108 Arab-Israeli families complete questionnaires assessing political violence exposure, self-esteem, self-control, and the child's social, psychological, and behavioral difficulties. Findings show that Israeli children exhibited heightened levels of psychological difficulties with high impact of political violence, a relationship that is partially moderated by self-control. In addition, significant ethnic group differences are found. First, political life events (PLE) are positively related to the child's social, psychological, and behavioral difficulties in the Arab group. Second, the relationship between political life events and the child's difficulties is moderated by self-control in the Jewish group and by self-esteem in the Arab group. Consequences of these results to understanding the impact of political violence and the role of individual resilience during conflict are discussed.
KW - Israel
KW - children
KW - ethnic
KW - political violence
KW - resilience
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79961184253&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0044118X09353437
DO - 10.1177/0044118X09353437
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AN - SCOPUS:79961184253
SN - 0044-118X
VL - 43
SP - 845
EP - 872
JO - Youth and Society
JF - Youth and Society
IS - 3
ER -