New Article: Arar et al, Educational Leadership for Social Justice in Israel and Turkey

Arar, Khalid, Kadir Beycioglu, and Izhar Oplatka. “A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Educational Leadership for Social Justice in Israel and Turkey: Meanings, Actions and Contexts.” Compare (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2016.1168283

 

Abstract

The research compares principals in Israel (Jewish and Arab) and Turkey and how they perceive and practice their role in promoting social justice (SJ) in their schools in order to bridge socioeconomic and pedagogic gaps. It poses three questions: (1) How do Turkish and Israeli SJ leaders make sense of SJ? (2) What do SJ leaders do in both countries similarly and differently? (3) What factors facilitate or hinder the work of SJ in both countries? The qualitative study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews to collect the narratives of 11 school principals in Turkey and Israel. A comparative, holistic analysis was employed to identify the principals’ perceptions and daily practice of SJ in their schools. The principals reported different sociocultural, national and personal trajectories that shaped their perceptions of SJ, and described strategies used to promote SJ in their daily scholastic policies, processes and practices that meet the school stakeholders’ backgrounds and needs.

 

 

 

New Article: Gavrilă, Understanding Jerusalem in Delisle’s Graphic Novel

Gavrilă, Ana-Maria. “Understanding Jerusalem and its Cross-Cultural Dilemmas in Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem: Chronicles From the Holy City.” Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica 7.1 (2015): 133-44.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ausp-2015-0042

 

Abstract

Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City (2011) is a nonfictional graphic novel which narrates the experiences during a year that the Canadian artist and his family spent living far from home, in the occasionally dangerous and perilous city of the ancient Middle East. Part humorous memoir filled with “the logistics of everyday life,” part an inquisitive and sharp-eyed travelogue, Jerusalem is interspersed with enthralling lessons on the history of the region, together with vignettes of brief strips of Delisle’s encounters with expatriates and locals, with Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities in and around the city, with Bedouins, Israeli and Palestinians. Since the comic strip is considered amongst the privileged genres able to disseminate stereotypes, Jerusalem tackles cultural as well as physical barriers, delimiting between domestic and foreign space, while revealing the historical context of the Israeli-Palestinian present conflict. Using this idea as a point of departure, I employ an imagological method of interpretation to address cross-cultural confusions in analysing the cartoonist’s travelogue as discourse of representation and ways of understanding cultural transmission, paying attention to the genre’s convention, where Delisle’s drawing style fits nicely the narrative techniques employed. Through an imagological perspective, I will also pay attention to the interaction between cultures and the dynamics between the images which characterise the Other (the nationalities represented or the spected) and those which characterise – not without a sense of irony – his own identity (self-portraits or auto-images). I shall take into account throughout my analysis that the source of this graphic memoir is inevitably a subjective one: even though Delisle professes an unbiased mind-set from the very beginning, the comic is at times coloured by his secular views. Delisle’s book is a dark, yet gentle comedy, and his wife’s job at the Doctors Without Borders paired with his personal experiences are paradoxically a gentle reminder that “There’ll always be borders.” In sum, the comic medium brings a sense of novelty to the imagological and hermeneutic conception of the interpretation of cultural and national stereotypes and/or otherness in artistic and literary works.

 

 

 

New Article: Berger and Paul, Teaching Cultural Aspects of Trauma Practice in a Study Abroad Immersion Course

Berger, Roni, and Marilyn S. Paul. “Teaching Cultural Aspects of Trauma Practice in a Study Abroad Immersion Course: Challenges and Strategies.” International Social Work (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0020872815611198
 
Abstract

Advantages, phases, challenges, and strategies related to the process and procedures involved in planning, implementing, and evaluating study abroad programs, and addressing emergencies have been discussed as being issues in teaching trauma and diversity content. However, very little has been written about study abroad programs dedicated to specific topics and no studies address teaching trauma content by means of international immersion courses. This article discusses pedagogical and logistic aspects of teaching about trauma in diverse cultural contexts using a recent intensive immersion study abroad course in Israel to illustrate the issues under discussion.

 

 

 

New Article: Hareli et al, A Cross-Cultural Study on Emotion Expression and the Learning of Social Norms

Hareli, Shlomo, Konstantinos Kafetsios, and Ursula Hess. “A Cross-Cultural Study on Emotion Expression and the Learning of Social Norms.” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01501

 

Abstract

When we do not know how to correctly behave in a new context, the emotions that people familiar with the context show in response to the behaviors of others, can help us understand what to do or not to do. The present study examined cross-cultural differences in how group emotional expressions (anger, sadness, neutral) can be used to deduce a norm violation in four cultures (Germany, Israel, Greece, and the US), which differ in terms of decoding rules for negative emotions. As expected, in all four countries, anger was a stronger norm violation signal than sadness or neutral expressions. However, angry and sad expressions were perceived as more intense and the relevant norm was learned better in Germany and Israel than in Greece and the US. Participants in Greece were relatively better at using sadness as a sign of a likely norm violation. The results demonstrate both cultural universality and cultural differences in the use of group emotion expressions in norm learning. In terms of cultural differences they underscore that the social signal value of emotional expressions may vary with culture as a function of cultural differences, both in emotion perception, and as a function of a differential use of emotions.

 

 

New Article: Perkins, Translating the Television ‘Treatment’ Genre: Be’Tipul and In Treatment

Perkins, Claire. “Translating the Television ‘Treatment’ Genre: Be’Tipul and In Treatment.” Continuum 29.5 (2015): 781-94.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2015.1068730

 

Abstract

In Treatment (2008–2010) was the first Israeli series to be remade for US television, and its largely positive critical reception established a reputation for Israel as a home for quality drama – setting the stage for the remake of Hatufim (Prisoners of War, 2009–2012) into Homeland (2011–). This article takes up the case of In Treatment to examine how the process of transnational television remaking can illuminate the concept of US quality television in the millennial era. Arguing that the aesthetic and industrial brand of ‘quality’ is defined by the theme and device of transformation, the article analyses how the American remake gradually diverges from the original series Be’Tipul (2005–2008) to accentuate this concept in its stories and narrative style. The resulting text presents the quintessential contemporary example of what I call the television ‘treatment’ genre: a mode of programming that operates by centripetal narrative complexity to present ‘serial selves,’ or characters whose time in therapy produces progressive or regressive modifications in their emotional state. When read against the more halting and circular narratives of Be’Tipul, this format demonstrates a clear socio-cultural remapping of its topic: where therapeutic culture in America is presented as a site that is underpinned by contested neoliberal ideologies on the government of subjectivity.

 

 

New Article: Zanger, Between Homeland and Prisoners of War: Remaking Terror

Zanger, Anat. “Between Homeland and Prisoners of War: Remaking Terror.” Continuum 29.5 (2015): 731-42.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2015.1068733

 

Abstract

The Israeli series Prisoners of War (Hatufim, Keshet, Israel, Gideon Raff, 2009–2011) and Homeland (Showtime, US 2011–2013; developed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa based on the Israeli series with Gideon Raff as one of the producers) is a special case of hypertextuality (Genette 1982). Both serial dramas revolve around prisoners of war who have returned home and their families, intelligence agency operatives and terror organizations operating behind the scenes. In these serializations of the thriller genre, narratives of paranoia and conspiracy render invisible terror visible on the screen. The focalization of the various plots and sub-plots as well as their reception spaces are different however. Prisoners of War tells the story of three soldiers who are kidnapped, held captive for 17 years and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder on their return home. The series was broadcast at a time when intensive negotiations were underway for the release of three IDF soldiers who had been kidnapped. Homeland, on the other hand, places centre stage a female CIA operative (Claire Danes) who suffers from bipolar disorder. The first season was broadcast in post-9/11 America while American soldiers were still fighting in Iraq. Both series therefore directly address their audiences and relate to the public sphere outside the studio. The reception of these texts incorporates their meaning as reconstructed by their publics. Thus, while both series involve a ritual of scapegoating as a means of resolving conflict, each reflects and produces its own repertoire of reality (‘realemes’). Interestingly, a traumatic excess is inscribed on both male and female bodies as each series rewrites its own society’s myth: the binding of Isaac in the Israeli Prisoners of War and Joan of Arc in the American Homeland.

 

 

New Article: David and Schiff, Trauma Intervention for Infants and Young Children

David, Paula and Miriam Schiff. “Learning from Bottom-Up Dissemination: Importing an Evidence-Based Trauma Intervention for Infants and Young Children to Israel.” Evaluation and Program Planning 53 (2015): 18-24.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2015.07.012

 

Abstract

This article describes a pilot study of a “bottom up” dissemination process of a new evidence based intervention for treating early childhood trauma. Clinicians applied to learn Child–Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), imported to Israel from the U.S. A focus group of six graduates of a CPP training program responded to questions concerning their experiences learning and using CPP. All 39 CPP graduates from two cohorts also completed a cross sectional survey related to their use of CPP. Within the focus group, the openness of the workplace and the intervention’s characteristics were considered major factors impacting CPP use; the training program was perceived to promote CPP implementation, and lack of supervision and secondary traumatic stress were the major inhibiting factors. Using CPP-informed therapy, as opposed to CPP with fidelity, was perceived to be one of the main outcomes of the training. Survey results showed that 53% of graduates were using CPP in over three cases, and almost all intended to use CPP within the next year. Ninety-five percent were using CPP principles in their therapeutic work. The implications of importing a new evidence based intervention to a foreign country that utilizes a different dissemination system within a different professional culture are discussed.