Political violence and its impact on Palestinian students' ability to learn.

• In Event: Curricula, Pedagogy and the Impact of Violence and Crisis on Learning

Proposal

This research, pivotal in the field of education under political or armed conflict, strives to elucidate the complex interplay between stressors, psychological well-being, resilience, and learning capacities among primary school students in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Additionally, it seeks to comprehend the role of school as a resilience-enhancing safeguard. By examining the vulnerability-stress model, the study hopes to inform future research and policy development in this crucial sphere.

BACKGROUND // With millions of children worldwide affected by past and present war and conflict, there is an urgent and growing need for research to inform efforts to understand, prevent, and mitigate the potential consequences of this violence for children, families, and communities, both for present and future generations. Political violence and armed conflict endanger people of all ages, however, developing children are a particularly vulnerable population to the negative and persistent psychosocial effects associated with these contexts (Nemeth & Glozman, 2020).

In 2019, due to political violence an estimated 51% of children in the Gaza Strip suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (Abo Hamza et al., 2019). A significant proportion of these children also suffer from anxiety and depression, emotional regulation disorders, as well as sleep disorders (Abo Hamza et al., 2019). This has important implications for their ability to fully access quality education, as well as to be able to complete their schooling without major disruption.

Numerous studies suggest a dynamic link between education and psychosocial support (Afana et al., 2020). Specifically, research shows that providing children with structured, relevant, and creative activities in a school or learning setting can help improve their emotional and behavioral well-being (Ager et al., 2011). In addition, although more research is still needed, some psychosocial support programs also appear to positively influence classroom outcomes (Betancourt et al., 2014; Layne et al., 2008; Woodside et al., 1999). However, the mechanisms that promote greater resilience in children remain less understood to date and a more detailed understanding of the effectiveness of different psychosocial programs appears necessary through future work (Burde et al., 2017). However, process-oriented research that studies children, political violence, and armed conflict remain very sparse.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK // The primary theoretical model advocated in this study is that of developmental psychopathology (Cicchetti & Cohen, 2006). This perspective, known as transactional, results from exchanges between an individual's characteristics and those of the environment that mutually evolve over time (Sameroff, 2010). Specifically, to better explain the role of stress on the development of psychopathology, the Grant et al. (2003) model was chosen.

This model is based on five assumptions: (1) stress is a factor that contributes to the development of mental health problems (Grant et al., 2006); (2) certain individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender, maturity, etc.) are likely to influence, in a positive way, the development of mental health problems (Grant et al., 2006). (2) certain individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender, maturity, etc.) can influence, either by mitigating or amplifying, the relationship between stress and mental health problems (Sameroff, Lewis, & Miller, 2000); (3) biological, psychological and social processes together explain the relationship between stress and the problem (McEwens, 1998) (4) by interacting with experienced stress, individual characteristics contribute to the establishment of a developmental trajectory unique to each person (Sameroff, 2010); and (5) evolutionary reciprocity exists in the interactions between risk and protective factors.

In this study, we use a sub-model of the psychodevelopmental model. This is the vulnerability-stress model adapted to the school context and which incorporates dimensions related to executive functions and learning, as presented in the accompanying figure (Massé et al., 2020). It brings together variables representing biopsychosocial vulnerabilities, the stress variable, variables related to protection, namely well-being and resilience, as well as skills related to executive functions and learning.

METHODOLOGY // At the conference we will present the results of a pilot study that preceded the full data collection. This pilot is a multi-case study. We recruited 6 students between the ages of 9 and 11, who are enrolled in UNRWA schools. To achieve our research objectives, we deployed a methodology consisting of seven data collection tools.

1. Stress
1.1 Diurnal cortisol secretion.
1.2 Perceived Stress Scale for Children (White, 2014);
2. Well-being
2.1 We used an Arabic questionnaire that has been adapted and validated for several years in the Gaza Strip (Joma, Dukhan, & Arvisais, 2021). It covers four different dimensions of the concept of well-being (physical, social, academic, psychological).
2.2 This questionnaire also identifies exposure to traumatic events in the past three months;
3. Resilience
3.1 Child and Youth Resilience Measure (Ungar, 2008);
4. Executive Functions (Participants' executive functions were assessed using three tests. These tasks were computerized on the interface of the online software Gorilla Experiment Builder);
4.1 Victoria Stroop Test (Kettani et al., 2020);
4.2 N-Back test (Kirchner, 1958);
4.3 Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Monchi et al., 2001).

RESULTS // Our data shows atypical cortisol profiles of depression, burnout, and chronic stress among 3/4 of the students. Furthermore, based on normative data, the executive functions that appears to be most affected are cognitive flexibility and working memory. The result regarding cognitive flexibility is particularly interesting because this function is not only important to perform in school but also key in social interactions. Indeed, it is linked to the development of empathy and conflict resolution. As far as cognitive inhibition is concerned, Palestinian pupils seem to perform better than their peers elsewhere in the world at the same age. This seems to be in line with the surprising hypothesis put forward by some researchers that, depending on the state of psychological health, certain executive functions can be improved (Eren-Kocak & Kilic, 2014).

Author

• Olivier Arvisais, Université du Québec à Montréal