Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:35:17.719Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The dangers of prejudice reduction interventions: Empirical evidence from encounters between Jews and Arabs in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2012

Ifat Maoz*
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. [email protected]

Abstract

This commentary focuses on Dixon et al.'s discussion on the dangers of employing prejudice-reduction interventions that seek to promote intergroup harmony in historically unequal societies. Specifically, it illustrates these dangers by discussing my work in Israel (now mentioned in Dixon et al.'s note 6) on the processes and practices through which reconciliation-aimed encounters between Jews and Arabs mitigate sociopolitical change.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu-Nimer, M. (1999) Dialogue, conflict resolution and change: Arab-Jewish encounters in Israel. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Allport, G. (1954) The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Bekerman, Z. (2007) Rethinking intergroup encounters: Rescuing praxis from theory, activity from education, and peace/co-existence from identity and culture. Peace Education 4(1):2941.Google Scholar
Dixon, J., Durrheim, K. & Tredoux, C. (2005) Beyond the optimal strategy: A “reality check” for the contact hypothesis. American Psychologist 60(7):697711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, J., Durrheim, K. & Tredoux, C. (2007) Intergroup contact and attitudes towards the principle and practice of racial equality. Psychological Science 18:867–72.Google Scholar
Halabi, R. & Sonnenschein, N. (2004) The Jewish–Palestinian encounter in a time of crisis. Journal of Social Issues 60(2):375–87.Google Scholar
Maoz, I. (2000a) Power relations in intergroup encounters: A case study of Jewish-Arab encounters in Israel. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 24(4):259–77.Google Scholar
Maoz, I. (2000b) Multiple conflicts and competing agendas: A framework for conceptualizing structured encounters between groups in conflict – The case of a coexistence project of Jews and Palestinians in Israel. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 6(2):135–56.Google Scholar
Maoz, I. (2004) Coexistence is in the eye of the beholder: Evaluating intergroup encounter interventions between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Journal of Social Issues 60(2):437–52.Google Scholar
Maoz, I. (2006) Between coexistence and conflict: Jewish–Arab encounters in Israel. In: Arab–Jewish Relations: From conflict to resolution? ed. Podeh, E. & Kaufman, A., pp. 319–41. Sussex Academic Press.Google Scholar
Maoz, I. (2011) Does contact work in protracted asymmetrical conflict? Appraising 20 years of reconciliation-aimed encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Journal of Peace Research 48(1):115–25.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, T. (1998) Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology 49(1):6585.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. & Turner, J. (1986) The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In: Psychology of intergroup relations, ed. Worchel, S. & Austin, W., pp. 724. Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar