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CHAPTER 6. THE ENCOUNTER PROGRAMS' DESIGNS: COMPONENTS OF THE INTERVENTION MODELS
- State University of New York Press
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6 The Encounter Programs' Designs zyxwvutsrqpo Components of the Intervention Models Arab-Jewish programs, as any other intervention models, have certain characteristics that describe the essential components of the intervention. (1) Participants are the beneficiaries of the program. (2) Assumptions underlie each program of intervention. (3) Goals of the programs are perceived by beneficiaries and intervenors. (4) The structure of the framework contains the interaction processes and the programs' contents (procedures, setting, and time frame). (5) Processes of interaction take place during the application of the program. These processes are presented and classified as they are perceived by both practitioners and beneficiaries. (6) The content of the program describes the issues and topics that are addressed during all activities. (7) The third party plays a role in the types of activities and strategies of intervention that are implemented or adopted in these programs. In addition to the above characteristics, this chapter addresses these questions: (a) What are the differences and common features of these intervention programs? (b) Does each program have its own separate model? (c) Is there a single common intervention model that has been implemented by the different intervenors? PARTICIPANTS (A) Students' programs: It is important to indicate that the Arab students who participate in such programs are usually selected by their educators and are well-spoken and competitive students. In four of the observed programs, the Arab students were from science classes; usually science classes include the best students of the school, who are competitive as well as socially and politically involved. On the other hand, Jewish students are not carefully selected because, as one facilitator explains, 63 The Encounter Programs' DesignszyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZY 64 64 In the Jewish side, because there is so much resistance to participate in such programs, we take any student who is willing to take a part, regardless of his/her level of awareness, social involvement, or school achievement. All the Jewish participants indicated that the people who did not agree to meet Arabs stayed at school or home on that specific day. The schools provide individuals with the opportunity to choose whether to participate, resulting in Jewish participants who are willing to participate and whose resistance or fear of Arabs does not prevent them from attending such encounters. This result supports the criticism raised by those who oppose this type of activity that these encounters only involve people who are already convinced of the importance of discussing Arab-Jewish relations, while the real need is to address the students and teachers who would not agree to take part in such encounters. In fact, this is one of the most difficult matters that face the organizers of these programs who basically work with the same type of participants again and again. They are not reaching out to those who refuse to meet at all, to those whose political and emotional attitudes prevent them from attending these programs (Hall-Cathala, 1990). According to all organizers, many of the Jewish students reject or resist taking part in the encounter, but the Arab schools always welcome the encounters because they perceive it as a privilege. Some organizers claimed that sometimes they are forced to reject Arab students because they do not have enough Jewish students to meet with them. The intervenors explain this difference in motivation to attend the encounter by the fact that the Arab participants usually lack opportunities to spend time outside their schools or to participate in extracurricular activities (Been, 1991). An additional support for such a finding is Hofman's (1986) report, which indicates that Jewish students are less willing to encounter Arabs and also are more prejudiced and have antidemocratic attitudes. (B) Teachers' programs: For the most part, Arab teachers are males and Jewish teachers are females . This situation influences the process, output, and content of the encounter. However, this issue was not addressed by any facilitator during the observed teachers' encounters. A Jewish facilitator describes the influence of the female-male relations in teachers' encounters: In fact, when we have Arab males and Jewish females who are young and have sexual chemistry, this eases the process of facilitation . But when there is no sexual harmony or attraction between several participants in the group, this mostly will increase the level of tension, anger, and frustration during the discussion. It will not [3.95.233.107] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:26 GMT) 65 zyxwvuts The Encounter Programs' Designs help us, as facilitators, in reflecting the similarities between the two sides of...