Context and Methods

This chapter presents the context of the Israeli education system. The study methods are described in detail. The nationally representative sample of all students grades 4-11 in the official public school system consists of 15,916 students (10,441 religious and nonreligious Jewish and 5,475 Arabs), 603 classes in 232 schools, 197 principals (a third of which are Arabs), and 1,509 home-room teachers (a third of which are Arabs). The student self-report questionnaire administered in class was an adapted version of the California School Climate Survey and contained the following information: personal victimization by peers and staff (over a range of low-level behaviors, such as pinching and shoving, to severe, such as extortion, serious beating and gun threats, including sexual harassment in secondary schools); weapons in school; risky behaviors in school; feelings and assessments regarding school violence; and school climate (teacher support, policies against violence, student participation). The principal's and the home-room self report questionnaires were developed by the authors of this chapter and contained the following: school policies and coping with violence; school climate; violent acts; interventions; training needs; relationships within school and the outside; and background information on the school and its staff (such as turnover rates). Context data were collected on the schools and their neighborhood from the Ministry of Education and the Israeli Bureau of Statistics.