Resilience and political violence: A cross-cultural study of moderating effects among jewish- and arab-israeli youth

Iris Lavi*, Michelle Slone

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)845-872
Number of pages28
JournalYouth and Society
Volume43
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2011

Funding

FundersFunder number
Israel Education Fund

    Keywords

    • Israel
    • children
    • ethnic
    • political violence
    • resilience

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