Doctoral Dissertation Research: How Children Learn Identity and Difference

新学院大学的博士生佐哈尔·罗特姆将在劳伦斯·赫希菲尔德博士的指导下，研究以色列儿童如何发展他们内化的“犹太人”和“阿拉伯人”的社会类别。社会类别差异，表现在信仰、态度和行为上，通常被认为是理所当然的。然而，它们是习得的区别，并不是很好地理解这种学习是如何发生的。研究人员将关注儿童如何将这些社会规定的区别纳入他们的日常生活中，以使其具有意义，并研究这些信念是如何被教授和学习的。这项研究将在以色列的一所犹太和阿拉伯学生的双语/双文化学校进行，在学校之外的儿童之家和更广泛的社区进行。研究人员将对这些环境中儿童的生活进行人种学描述。此外，改编自认知发展心理学的实验方法将被用来评估儿童的信念(例如，关于这些种族-民族类别在多大程度上是自然的)，否则儿童很难表达出来。这项研究既及时又重要，因为它将阐明在暴力和棘手的种族冲突背景下，族裔-民族差异如何出现在儿童的生活中，并在社会中再现。这项研究还将为寻求缓解群体间紧张和敌意的教育工作者的工作提供信息。

New School University doctoral student Zohar Rotem, under the supervision of Dr. Lawrence Hirschfeld, will conduct research on how Israeli children develop their internalized social categories of "Jew" and "Arab." Social category distinctions, manifested in beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, are often taken for granted. Nevertheless, they are learned distinctions and it is not well understood how that learning takes place. The researcher will focus attention on how children incorporate these socially prescribed distinctions to make meaning in their daily lives, examining how such beliefs are taught as well as learned. The research will be conducted in Israel, in a bilingual/bicultural school for Jewish and Arab students, and outside the school, in children's homes and the wider community. The researcher will construct an ethnographic description of children's lives in these settings. In addition, experimental methods, adapted from cognitive-developmental psychology, will be used to assess children's beliefs (e.g., about the degree to which these ethno-national categories are "natural") that children otherwise have difficulty articulating. This research is both timely and important, as it will shed light on the ways in which ethno-national differences, in the context of violent and intractable ethnic conflict, emerge in children's lives and are reproduced in society. The research will also inform the work of educators as they seek to alleviate inter-group tensions and enmity.