In this commentary, I have attempted to address several conceptual, methodological, and ethical issues which I believe are relevant to research on exposure of Palestinian children to political violence. Although I believe the issues and challenges discussed here have relevance beyond Palestinian children and their families, I have identified some of the problems in the two articles discussed here, as well as in most of the empirical literature that has dealt with these phenomena in relation to Palestinian children. Indeed, I believe it would be unfair to expect the two articles to overcome all of the problems raised here. However, I hope I have succeeded in highlighting some challenges for future research on these phenomena and initiating a discussion of some issues that are relevant to investigation of Palestinian children's exposure to political violence and traumatic events.

The article focuses on definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse among undergraduate social work students in Israel. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. The vast majority of students in Study 1 acknowledged acts thought to constitute wife assault and disapproved of a husband's use of force against his wife. The majority of students in Study 2 did not justify wife abuse nor tend to believe that battered women benefit from beating, although they tended to blame the violent husband for his behavior. Significant amounts of the variance in dependent variables were explained by the students' marital role expectations (Study 1) and their attitudes toward women and sex role stereotypes (Study 2). The students' year of study and participation in family violence or wife abuse courses did not contribute toward explaining the variance in their beliefs. Results are discussed in light of the students' patriarchal ideology, and implications for future research are presented.

המחקר בדק את הנוסח המקוצר להערכה ולאבחון ילדים, שפותח בארצות הברית. הכלי מיועד למעקב אחר התפקוד הפסיכו-חברתי וההתנהגותי של ילדים בגילאים 18-5 במערכות רווחת הילד. מטרת המחקר הינה לתאר את המאפיינים הפסיכומטריים של הכלי בתרגומו העברי ואת התאמתו לאוכלוסיית הילדים והנוער בסיכון בישראל.(מתוך המאמר).

בשלושת העשורים האחרונים פותחו מודלים לא מעטים להתערבות פרטנית וקבוצתית עם נשים מוכות. המשותף לכל המודלים הוא ההנחה כי לאלימות נגד נשים אין מקום במערכת יחסים אינטימית, וכי לנשים יש זכות בסיסית ובלתי מעורערת לביטחון. כמעט כל המודלים הללו פותחו בחברות מערביות בעלות אופי אינדיבידואליסטי, ולעיתים מתעוררות שאלות ותהיות אודות מידת הלימתם להתערבות עם נשים מוכות בחברות קולקטיביסטיות. מאמר זה מנסה לעמוד מקרוב על מאפייניהן של חברות קולקטיביסטיות, תוך אימוץ מסגרת קונספטואלית שבה "העצמי", "עמדות", "ערכים" ו"פעילויות והתנהגויות" הם מימדים מרכזיים. המאמר דן באופן שבו מימדים אלה יכולים להיות בעלי זיקה לבעיית האלימות נגד נשים בחברות קולקטיביסטיות, כיצד הם עשויים להשתקף בהתמודדותן של נשים מוכות עם האלימות נגדן בחברות אלה, וכיצד ישפיעו על האפשרויות להתערבות מקצועית. המאמר ממשיך ודן באפשרויות יישום ההעצמה, כתיאוריה וכפרטיקה, בהתערבות עם נשים מוכות בחברות קולקטיביסטיות (מתוך המאמר).

With the universal ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child societies have recognized children as human beings entitled to their own rights. This recognition calls for a thorough investigation of children's understanding of the concept of children rights at large and their own rights in particular. It further calls for an examination of the role of context in the formation of the concept of children's rights. The study reported here, examined adolescents' approach to children rights among three ethnic and national groups: Jewish adolescents, Palestinian adolescents from Israel (PI) and Palestinian adolescents from the Palestinian Authority (PA). The results indicated that for most of the items Jewish adolescents have higher agreements with children rights than PI and PA adolescents that were similar to each other in their acceptance of most aspects of children rights. However, this trend was not consistent over all types of children rights examined in the study. For instance, PA adolescents were more similar to Jewish adolescents than to PI adolescents in supporting the idea of children rights. Also, the three groups were similar in their low agreement with the idea of giving children rights in governmental matters. The paper discusses several interpretations and assumptions to explain these findings, such as the statehood conditions of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and cultural values of each group. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

This article presents a study conducted among 148 men from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel. A self-administered questionnaire was utilized to examine their definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse. The definitions provided by the majority of the participants were highly consistent with definitions that are accepted in the professional literature. The majority of participants tended to view wife abuse as unjustified and held violent husbands responsible for their behavior. They were also in favor of helping women who were abused. At the same time, however, some participants showed a tendency to blame women for violence against them and indicated that the reasons why women stay with husbands who are abusive can be attributed more to external factors than to her internal situation. Substantial amounts of the variance in the participants' definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse can be explained by the extent of their patriarchal ideology. Limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.

With the nearly universal ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children's rights have become a cornerstone of discussions in relation to human rights and human services around the world. Although the concept of children's rights is now broadly established, the meaning of this concept and its significance for policies and programs are apt to vary across nations, cultures, religions, and age groups. With the close proximity of diverse national, ethnic, and religious groups and seemingly omnipresent political conflicts about the meaning of rights among them, the Middle East presents unusual opportunities to understand the effects of such variables on attitudes toward children's rights. Drawing from samples of Jews from Israel, Palestinian Muslims from Israel, and Palestinian Muslims from the Palestinian Authority, surveys were conducted of adolescents, young mothers (mothers of toddlers), middle-aged mothers (mothers of adolescents), and grandmothers. Attitudes toward children's rights were more strongly affected by the respondents' ethnicity and nationality than by their age.

Objectives: This article examines the "geography" of reported cases of child maltreatment in Israel by determining its frequency and rates according to nationality, area of residence, and size and type of locality. Method: The study collected data at the local level in Israel based on reports to social services of cases of child maltreatment during 2000; locality is the unit of analysis. Results: The rate of reported cases of child maltreatment was 17.8 per 1,000 children in Israel in 2000. The rates varied, however, among different localities. They were lower in Arab localities (9 per 1,000 children) than in the Jewish ones (20 per 1,000), higher in large cities and other socioeconomic affluent localities (19 per 1,000), and varied according to the geographic area. Conclusions: This study demonstrates considerable variation in rates of reported cases of child maltreatment by locality and by population makeup. Thus, to fulfill the Israeli legislation of mandatory reporting of any reasonable suspicion of child maltreatment, the state should better develop policies and services that encourage reporting of child maltreatment among the Arab and ultraorthodox populations and in smaller or socioeconomic disadvantaged localities. Furthermore, the social services must build a bridge to the minority populations in Israel, developing their trust in these services and increasing their propensity to use them.

Social work development in Taiwan over the past five decades has been analyzed according to professional elements, historical background and the challenge of globalization and civilization. It also offers the factors that influence the process of professional formation of social work globally and the concern of social work indigenization.

This article examines the prevalence of violence in primary schools attended by Arab children in Israel and the relationship between such exposure and violent behavior among these children. Participants are 388 Arab children (aged 10 to 12 years) living in three localities in Israel. The research focuses on three of the child's roles in relation to violence: witness, victim, and perpetrator. An adapted Arabic translation of the Violence Exposure Scale-Revised is administered to children in group settings. The children report more exposure to moderate levels than to severe levels of violence. Boys are exposed to more violence as victims, and witness and perpetrate more violence than girls do. Multiple regression analysis shows that the experience of being a victim predicts violent behavior in the children, above the effects of age and gender. The limitations of the study and its implications for future research and theory development are discussed.

A self-administered questionnaire was filled out by 349 Jordanian men to examine the correlation between their patriarchal ideology and their beliefs about wife abuse. The results revealed that high percentages of Jordanian men tended to justify wife abuse, to blame women for violence against them, and to believe that women benefit from beating. In addition, the Jordanian men expressed low levels of willingness to help battered women, and very small percentages of them tended to believe that husbands are responsible for their violent behavior and that violent husbands should be punished. The findings indicate that significant amounts of the variance in those six beliefs can be explained by the six predictors investigated in this study, which derive from patriarchal ideology, over and above the amount of variance in those beliefs about wife abuse that can be attributed to the men's sociodemographic characteristics. The implications of the results for future research and theory development are discussed.

This study examined whether negative group stereotypes similarly affect adolescents' reasoning about peer and spousal retribution in interpersonal situations. Findings from cognitive domain theory, school violence, family violence, and group stereotyping and prejudice literatures were used to examine this. The sample of adolescents was drawn from northern and central Israel and consisted of 1,168 Arab and Jewish students (grades 7-11). A quasi-experimental between-subject design was used, in which the students in each grade were randomly assigned to one of two peer retribution scenarios and one of two spousal retribution scenarios. In each scenario, only the ethnicity of the peers and married couples depicted in the story was systematically altered. The study was a 2 (Arab/Jewish respondent) × 2 (peer retribution scenarios) × 2 (spousal retribution scenarios) factorial design. The findings provide evidence that Arab and Jewish students have negative stereotypes about one another; however, these group stereotypes did not affect their judgments and justifications about peer and spousal retribution. Jewish and Arab students judged peer retribution similarly, but differed in their judgments of spousal retribution. However, altering the ethnic background of the individuals in the scenarios did not affect respondents' judgments. This suggests that respondents in both groups did not base their judgments on negative stereotypes about the out-group, but instead were focusing on the behavioural act itself. Overall, the vast majority of respondents condemned retribution based on moral, social conventional and personal reasons. This inquiry provides evidence that it was the number of justifications endorsed within a specific domain that distinguished Arab and Jewish respondents. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Despite the recent increase in public and professional interest in the problem of wife beating in Arab society, in Israel, and in the rest of the Arab world, there is a serious lack of empirical research on different dimensions of the problem in those societies. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted among a systematic random sample of 362 Arab husbands from Israel, in an attempt to examine the contribution of patriarchal ideology toward explaining their beliefs about wife beating. Although about 58% of the participants indicated that there is no excuse for a man to beat his wife, 15-62% still justified wife beating on certain occasions (e.g., adultery, failure to obey husbands, disrespect for parents and relatives). In addition, although the participants tended to perceive abusive and violent husbands as responsible for their behavior, 52% still expressed understanding of that behavior and, on some occasions, 23-43% even blamed the wife for violence against her. Regression and multiple regression analyses revealed that over and above the participants' age and level of education, their masculine sex-role stereotypes, negative and traditional attitudes toward women, nonegalitarian marital role expectations, and familial patriarchal beliefs were the most significant predictors of beliefs about wife beating. Implications of the results and limitations of the study are also discussed.

This study examined the effects of negative group stereotypes on adolescents' reasoning about peer retribution. The sample of adolescents was drawn from central and northern Israel and consisted of 2,604 Arab and Jewish students (ages 13-17; grades 7-11). A quasi-experimental, between-subject design was used, in which the students in each grade were assigned randomly to 1 of 4 peer retribution scenarios. The findings provide evidence that Arab and Jewish students have stereotypes about one another and that in-group bias affected their approval and reasoning about peer retribution only in specific situations. This inquiry provides evidence that it was the number of justifications endorsed within a specific domain that distinguished Arab and Jewish respondents. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Objectives: First, to examine the rates of Palestinian adolescents' exposure to (i.e., witnessing and experiencing) different patterns of psychological aggression and physical violence in their families of origin; and second, to examine the correlation between this exposure and sociodemographic characteristics, parents' psychological adjustment problems, and family exposure to political stressors. Method: A cross-sectional survey was carried out among a sample of 1,185 Palestinian secondary school students. Results: The study reveals very alarming rates of witnessing interparental and parent-to-sibling aggression and violence, and high rates of experiencing aggression and violence by parents and siblings during childhood and adolescence. In addition, these rates were found to be intercorrelated, and correlated significantly with several sociodemographic characteristics such as parents' levels of education, place of residence, family size, religious affiliation, family income, and housing conditions, as well as with parents' psychological adjustment problems and with family exposure to political stressors. Conclusions: The results of the study reveal strong evidence that emphasizes the importance of studying violence in the family from an integrative, comprehensive, and ecological perspective that incorporates intrapersonal traits, family stress theory, family resources theory, social learning theory, and sociological and environmental factors, to explain the risk factors and predictors of violence in the family.