The Zweig Center for Special Education

Summary

The Zweig Center for Special Education, based on the heritage and history of kibbutz special education, is a model for the school-university partnership and of the professional development school. This model integrates kibbutz education with special education in a unique way.

Kibbutz education is traditionally non-selective, emphasizing an educating society/environment; the integration of educational factors; the integration of society, studies, and work; active learning; informal methods; autonomy in the children's society; and autonomy of educational staff. These make possible schools as laboratories of community partnerships, training opportunities, and action research that show the varieties of school-university partnership and professional development schools.     

The Project for the Education of Israeli Children in the Kibbutz Movement

Summary

In Israel there are various settings in which children can be raised if for various reasons they cannot live with their families. This article describes one of these programs, The Project for the Education of Israeli Children (Mif'al Lehahsharat Yaldei Israel) (Brashi, 1994), and focuses on the role of the kibbutz movement. The Project is special in that children are placed in foster families (or family homes), offering them not only warmth and love but also the opportunity for a remedial experience of family life in functioning families that provide physical and emotional support. The first part presents a general outline of the Project, and the second part describes the development of the Project in the kibbutz movement: the absorption procedures, the foster families and foster family homes, and the advantages and difficulties of absorbing children within a kibbutz framework.     

Collectivistic and individualistic motives among kibbutz youth volunteering for community service

About one third of each age cohort of high school graduates in the Israeli kibbutz opt for a year of community service before enlistment into the military. The motives that underlie this volunteering were explored from the perspective of kibbutz youth's prolonged transition to adulthood. The analysis revealed a blend of individualistic and collectivistic orientations linked with expectations of satisfying instrumental as well as explorative and expressive needs within a context of moratorial and liminal experience. Particular combinations of motives were also found to vary by the intended field of activity during this year.Received Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Research interests in sociology of youth and sociology of kibbutz education.Received Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Research interests in sociology of schools and youth in Israel, and in the sociology of kibbutz society and education.     

Kibbutz youth: Recent past and present

The article deals with the changes that have taken place in the kibbutz in recent years, particularly with regard to the family and the social and educational context in which the adolescent lives. These changes, specifically those related to the closer interdependence between parents and children at the expense of the former community predominance, have created a state of transition, with the need for new definition of the spheres of mutual influence of the community, the family, and the individual. Characteristic adolescent problems show distinct differences according to family context, while periodic intergroup youth differences are related to the specific kibbutz sociocultural circumstances in which the adolescent grows up.He specializes in family therapy, particularly in the complex mental health issues that are related to the kibbutz population of all ages. To date, he has published—together with his associates—over 150 articles in professional journals and books dealing with family therapy and with the characteristics of psychiatric problems within the kibbutz context.     

Ideology,deprivation, and adolescence: A psychoanalytical,clinical point of view

This paper relates to some aspects and some moments in the disengagement and reengagement process in adolescence within the framework of kibbutz life. The data for this paper are based on observations of the internal representations and metaphoric understanding of adolescents and young adult kibbutz patients who were treated through psychoanalysis by the author or brought to her for supervision. The cases under discussion grew up on kibbutzim at a time when the ideology required a communal sleeping arrangement for children. The author emphasizes the importance of the function of holding at the stage of absolute dependence that facilitates the establishment of integration and satisfactory development of the ego. The author discusses the problematic holding environment for the patients discussed in the paper when the kibbutz ideology led to separation of young infants from their parents' homes and to their placement in collective children's houses under the care of other kibbutz members. Most of the cases under discussion in this paper are young adults who chose to leave the kibbutz and immediately entered psychoanalysis. The author presents the hypothesis that the intensive framework that psychoanalysis offers provides a holding environment and the continuous presence of the same person as a parental figure and perhaps represents the patient's longing for something that was lost in childhood.Received Ph.D. in psychology from the Sorbonne. Research interests include generations of the Holocaust—children and adolescents in time of war and social violence, and emotional developments in babies and toddlers.     

新时代大中小学劳动教育一体化构建的意义、现状及实施路径

中国特色社会主义进入新时代后,大量学校的劳动教育取得了丰硕成果,但由于劳动素养培育 的渐进性和具身性,我国劳动教育目前存在学段间系统性欠缺、协同性不足等问题。由于时空壁垒和学段目标 的限制,各学段劳动教育一体化在没有科学规划之前,难以全面落实。本研究以教育系统论为根本依据,针对 我国大中小学劳动教育在结构上逐级延伸且次第整合、在知识和技能上有所偏重却又有序耦合的特点,建议各 大中小学劳动教育始终契合学生本身的内在需求和身心发展的规律,围绕各学段学生生活和学习的真实情境, 在劳动知识传授和实践教学中以学生的个体基础为前提,递进式地提高学生的劳动素养,从而可以有效打破劳 动教育的时空壁垒。同时,通过纵向进阶、横向协作的方式,打造区域性学校共同体,全面绘好劳动教育一体 化的经纬图。     

From adolescence to adulthood: Development of psychopathology in kibbutz and town subjects

The unique contribution of the National Institute of Mental Health—Israeli longitudinal high-risk study is the comparison of the development of children at high risk for schizophrenia from two divergent socialization environments: the Israeli urban nuclear family and the collective education in the kibbutz. The study began with 100 preadolescent children who were followed up into adolescence, with outcomes measured in their 20s and 30s. No difference in the prevalence of schizophrenia was found at the last follow-up phase, with subjects at an average age of 32, but a higher incidence of major depression was found in the kibbutz than in the urban high-risk group. The data suggest adolescence as the period in which the differential effects of environment began to appear. Environmental factors, related to the social structure of the kibbutz, which may have led to this outcome, are discussed.Received Ph.D. in psychology from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Engaged in research on socialization in the kibbutz as well as in the NIMH-Israel High-Risk project, and is a practicing psychotherapist.Member of Kibbutz Biet-QeshetAn educational psychologist practicing within the Jerusalem school system. Has taken a leading part in the fourth phase of the NIMH-Israel High-Risk Study and currently completing a doctoral dissertation in psychology.Received Ph.D. from Columbia University. Has served as Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Education of Israel. Involved in the NIMH-Israel High-Risk Study from its start and has served as the Israeli principal investigator during its fourth phase.     

Kibbutz adolescence: Relevance to personality development theory

The paper presents the child-raising model of the Israeli kibbutzim and describes the modal kibbutz adolescent. The relation of some of its significant constituents (multiple mothering, peer group living, institutionalization of values, and role expectations) to the course and the outcome of adolescent maturation is reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of the extended psychosocial moratorium are considered, and it is suggested that time-limited adolescence may be a favorable factor on healthy personality growth. Kibbutz experience also seems to disprove the established concept that adolescent turmoil is a developmental necessity. It is hypothesized that the extension of the period of adolescence contributes to turmoil and that, as a result of this, healthy development may be partly endangered.Received M.D. from Vienna University, Austria. Current research interests are adolescent psychopathology and schizophrenia.Received B.S. from Western Reserve University and M.D. from Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School. Current research interests are personality development of kibbutz children, development of children of schizophrenic parents, and other issues of early child development.     

Kibbutz adolescence: The vicissitudes of ideology,communal upbringing,and self-experience

The kibbutz, in the early 1990s, presents a collective community in transition. Changes in social ideology are reshaping certain aspects of developmental processes of individuals who were brought up in a communal community. This special issue highlights the unique interaction between cultural context and personality development processes in kibbutz adolescents and young adults. Certain social, affective, and cognitive changes that contribute to identity formation in the kibbutz context are explored from multidisciptinary perspectives.Received Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Current research in the cognitive-psychodynamic aspects of parent-child relationships through adolescence and adulthood.     

Cultural Identities of Adolescent Immigrants: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study Including the Pre-Migration Period

This article investigates the cultural identities of adolescent immigrants in the pre-migration period and during the first 3 years after immigration. The target population consists of high-school Jewish adolescents from Russia and Ukraine participating in an Israeli immigration program. In this program, Jewish adolescents immigrate to Israel without their parents, live in kibbutzim and boarding schools, and study in Israeli schools. Participants filled out questionnaires four times: half a year before their departure from the homeland and once a year for three consecutive years after their arrival to Israel. Changes in the cultural identities during immigration were curvilinear. Three stages were distinguished: devaluation of the homeland and idealization of the country of immigration in the pre-migration period, disillusionment with the receiving country and strengthening of the homeland cultural identity in the first year after immigration, and the formation of an inconsistent bi-cultural identity in the later post-migration period. Throughout the entire post-migration period, immigrants’ attitude towards the receiving country was more positive than their attitude towards their homeland; however, immigrants’ sense of belonging to the homeland was stronger than their sense of belonging to the receiving country. Pre-migration cultural identities and perceived discrimination in the receiving country predicted post-migration cultural identities of immigrants. Immigrant adolescents from ethnically homogenous Jewish families had a less positive attitude towards Russia/Ukraine, a more positive attitude towards Israel, and a weaker sense of belonging to Russia/Ukraine as compared to immigrants from ethnically mixed families.

The 1944 Education Act and Second Wave Feminism

ABSTRACT

The women articulating Second Wave Feminism in Britain emerged from the environment created by the 1944 Education Act, which ensured that all girls completed secondary school, with a minority accessing academic girls' grammar schools. For some, the Act also provided a route to professional education in universities or teacher training colleges. A legacy of earlier feminist movements, such all-female residential institutions exercised control, but nevertheless encouraged women's achievements. This article explores the opportunities, tensions and contradictions created by this educational culture from 1945–65, reflected in the views of my contemporaries and the writers, Margaret Cooke, Anne Oakley and Margaret Forster.     

Family and Community Determinants of Educational Attainment in Mexico

Using hierarchical linear modeling, this article investigates the effect of gender, parental capital, and community context on school-age children's educational attainment in Mexico. Data come from the Mexican Migration Project; this study investigates the contribution of various micro- and macro-level determinants. To measure schooling, the amount of education completed by two different age groups of children in Mexico was examined. In sum, male respondents were found to attain fewer years of education than females, contrary to the gender-effect model. But the study lends firm support to the parental capital model which stresses the significance of parental education and household wealth. The community context argument was marginally upheld for younger respondents but exerted a more meaningful impact on older respondents, signaling the need to emphasize age and community ecological factors in assessing educational outcomes in Mexico.     

Chapter 7. “Learn What You Like and Like What You Learn”

Abstract

Mark Twain once famously quipped, “I never let schooling get in the way of my education.” Paul Simon, the American folk singer, begins one of his songs “When I think back on all the crap I learned at high school, it's a wonder I can hardly think at all.” These men could just have easily been discussing schooling in Ireland, for this is the way many Limerick children and youth felt about formal school life prior to their involvement with St. Augustine's Youth Encounter Project. But it is prior to their involvement.

This chapter provides a demographic profile of the pupils of that project and explores aspects of the day-to-day life of the project as a child and youth care intervention by examining some of the influences of risk replacement or resiliency projects that have influenced provision of services. This Limerick YEP attempts to alter the approach from one that is risk, deficit, and psychopathology-oriented to one that is protection, strength, and asset focussed. A question posed is, “Has the early intervention enrichment programme assisted the pupils to reintegrate successfully within the community?” By reintegrate I mean the ability to attend a regular school, hold a job, live again with their family and such things. This chapter also explores the establishment of the Youth Encounter Projects in Ireland in the context of an important but largely overlooked study completed by Egan and Hegarty over two decades ago (1984). No official review has been published since.     

The Mentoring Factor

Abstract

Across Ages is a comprehensive, intergenerational mentoring program designed to reduce adolescent drug abuse and to help older adults (55+) maintain active roles in their communities. For an outcome evaluation, students in classrooms from Philadelphia public schools were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: A curriculum and community service condition (Program Group), a curriculum, service, and mentoring condition (Mentoring Group), or a Control Group. Eight modified scales and three original scales were completed by 562 students in a pretest and posttest design. Results suggest that the Program Group participants, as compared to the Control Group participants, showed significant improvement in their sense of well-being, knowledge about elders, reactions to situations involving drug use, and attitudes toward community service. Participants in the Mentoring Group also improved in their attitudes toward school, the future, and elders. Implications for further research and practical considerations for program replication are discussed.     

Female education and full-time employment in Guinea: an ambiguous relationship

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the direct and indirect effects of female education on full-time labour market employment using Guinean demographic and health surveys. It addresses potential endogeneity of female education, unobserved heterogeneity and sample selectivity concerns using the control function model and a non-self-cluster identification strategy. Results show that female education has a diminishing direct effect on full-time employment, with the inverted-U-shaped relationship portraying that women with seven-plus years of schooling are less likely to be regularly employed than their counterparts with less years of schooling. Interacting female education and its square with the corresponding reduced form residuals increase the probability of full-time labour market employment – an indication that female education and unobserved correlates are complementary. Thus, highly educated Guinea women do not increase their full-time market engagements – a pointer of the importance they may be attributing to home-produced goods and services that push them to perhaps prefer flexi-work arrangements such as occasional or seasonal market engagements.     

Parental Aspirations for Their Children’s Educational Attainment: Relations to Ethnicity,Parental Education,Children’s Academic Performance,and Parental Perceptions of School Climate

This study examined parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment in relation to ethnicity (African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic), parental education, children’s academic performance, and parental perceptions of the quality and climate of their children’s school with a sample of 13,577 middle and high school parents. All parents had relatively high educational aspirations for their children, and within each ethnic subgroup, parental education and children’s academic performance were significantly and positively related to parental aspirations. However, moderating effects were found such that Caucasian parents with lower levels of education had significantly lower educational aspirations for their children than did parents of other ethnicities with similar low levels of education. Although the strength of the relationship between parental perceptions of school-related factors and parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment was not strong, it was most predictive of non-Caucasian parental aspirations for their children.

Gendered Outcomes of Socio-economic Restructuring: A Tale from a Rural Village in Iceland

Demographic dynamics are immanent in societal changes. However, recent research on work-related mobility and regional development indicate that translocal commodity chains have changed the formation of class and gender to such an extent that spatial constructions of belonging have not only become more complex in local communities but are also, to an increased extent, the main deciding factor in women's reflective decision-making processes on where to live. This article explores the reasoning behind women's choices about how to live and work, across functional occupations, age, and educational background, in a small peripheral village in north-east Iceland. The community aspect is crucial in this respect. How do they perceive their own function and embeddedness in the community? The findings indicate that the key reason for staying and living in a community with few occupational opportunities is the existence of family and social ties, although jobs suited to their educational backgrounds and economic needs are also of crucial importance.     

Sex role strain among kibbutz adolescents and adults: A developmental perspective

In spite of a commitment to equality, the kibbutz is a male-dominated society with highly differentiated sex roles. Has this gap between ideals and reality created sex role strain for kibbutz-born adolescents and adults? Previous kibbutz studies have suggested that sex role strain may be the most intense among adult kibbutz women. Based on Erik Erikson's developmental model, however, we hypothesized that adolescent females would experience significantly greater sex role strain than other kibbutz members, including adult women. Adolescent and adult males and females were tested using Loevinger's ego development test. The sex role items of the test were used to construct a new measure of sex role strain. The global index included the following submeasures: avoidance of sex role issues; expression of intellectual, emotional, or behavioral sex role conflict; and evaluative attitudes toward male roles and female roles. Significant cohort or sex differences were found on the global index and on all submeasures of sex role strain. The findings indicate that sex role strain is greatest among adolescent females, followed by adolescent males. Adult kibbutz women, however, are significantly more likely to focus their dissatisfaction in the area of actual role behavior rather than in terms of how they intellectually conceptualize kibbutz sex roles, as is the case for adolescents and adult males.