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20 - The Cultural Context of Children and Adolescents: Peer Relationships and Intimate Friendships Among Arab and Jewish Children in Israel

from Part V - Friendships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2009

By
Ruth Sharabany
Edited by
Xinyin Chen ,
Doran C. French  and
Barry H. Schneider
Ruth Sharabany
Affiliation:
University of Haifa Haifa, Israel
Xinyin Chen
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
Doran C. French
Affiliation:
Illinois Wesleyan University
Barry H. Schneider
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
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Summary

The aim of this chapter is to identify unique features of intimate friendship and peer relationships in two cultures within Israel. It is assumed that both groups share core collectivistic characteristics, including a strong sense of belonging to their community, priority of the community over the individual in terms of interest and decision making, duty to the community, and norms of getting along with members of their community (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeir, 2002; Triandis, 1995). Generally, the Israeli Arab society is a collectivistic and traditional society that is moving toward modernity and thus adopting more individualistic features. The kibbutz society is perhaps an extreme example of a collectivistic society, composed of communes, with shared ownership of their properties and commitments to collective decision making about individuals (therefore, we use the terms communal to describe it). Today the kibbutz is moving rapidly toward privatization, letting go of its communal structure, but retaining its collectivistic features. These two societies are both minorities in a country where urban Jewish society and a Western economy predominate. We describe the two cultures within Israel, their similarities and differences, looking for possible common features (Sharabany & Schneider, 2004). The central premise considered in this chapter is that, based on two Israeli cultures, it seems likely that in some collectivistic societies dyadic friendship with a specific person, such as a best friend, may be characterized by reduced intimacy (French, 2004).

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Peer Relationships in Cultural Context , pp. 452 - 478
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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