The educational impact of Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim: A Sesame Street television series to promote respect and understanding among children living in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza

A pre-and post-test study assessed the effects of Israeli and Palestinian children’s viewing of Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim, a television series presenting messages of mutual respect and understanding. Israeli-Jewish, Palestinian-Israeli, and Palestinian preschoolers (N = 275) were interviewed abou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	International journal of behavioral development Vol. 27; no. 5; pp. 409 - 422
Main Authors:	Cole, Charlotte F., Arafat, Cairo, Tidhar, Chava, Tafesh, Wafa Zidan, Fox, Nathan A., Killen, Melanie, Ardila-Rey, Alicia, Leavitt, Lewis A., Lesser, Gerry, Richman, Beth A., Yung, Fiona
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications 01-09-2003 Taylor & Francis
Subjects:	Biological and medical sciences Cultural identity Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Gaza Strip Israel Jews Palestinian people Peer relationships Preschool children Prosocial behaviour Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry Psychology. Psychophysiology Respect Social attribution, perception and cognition Social judgments Social psychology Television programmes West Bank Asia Israel Human Preschool age Social environment Social perception Peer relation Attitude Daily living Prosocial behavior Stereotype Ethnic group Social conflict Arabic Television Social interaction Cultural environment Mass media Child Jew Judgment
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Summary:	A pre-and post-test study assessed the effects of Israeli and Palestinian children’s viewing of Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim, a television series presenting messages of mutual respect and understanding. Israeli-Jewish, Palestinian-Israeli, and Palestinian preschoolers (N = 275) were interviewed about their social judgments. Results showed that although some of the children had negative conceptions about adult Arabs and Jews, children, on the whole, did not invoke these stereotypes when evaluating peer conflict situations between Israeli and Palestinian children. Exposure to the programme was linked to an increase in children’s use of both prosocial justifications to resolve conflicts and positive attributes to describe members of the other group. Palestinian children’s abilities to identify symbols of their own culture increased over time. The results indicate the effectiveness of media-based interventions such as Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim on countering negative stereotypes by building a peer-oriented context that introduces children to the everyday lives of people from different cultures.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:	0165-0254 1464-0651
DOI:	10.1080/01650250344000019