Community resilience in the Jewish Community : a pre-adolescent point of view

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University of Amsterdam

Master Thesis

Community Resilience in the Jewish Community: A

Pre-Adolescent Point of View

J.S.H. de Leeuw

Department: Developmental Psychology Date: 26-07-2016

Student number: 10335978

UvA supervisor: Dr. Bianca Boyer

External supervisors: Dr. Luca Rosi & Sabina Giorgi, Phd. Second assessor: Marilisa Boffo, Msc

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Abstract

Community resilience is the ability of a community to positively adapt after hardship and is seen as a fundamental element in emergency preparedness. The current study aimed to provide insight in community resilience and its contributing factors with pre-adolescents, since research on this age-group was missing. The Jewish community was involved for their collectivistic beliefs, religiosity and strong community feelings. Four Italian middle schools were included, from two different samples: The Jewish community, (N=229, Mage, 12.98, SD = 1.08) and the non-Jewish community (N=168, Mage, 12.79, SD = 1.02), with a high community resilience expected for the Jewish community. Community resilience was measured by the administration of the Q-CoRe, an innovative (multilevel) tool designed specifically for the measurement of community resilience in (pre-)adolescents. No significant difference on community resilience was found between the two samples (t(395) = 0.03, p = 0.978), with both scoring an average community resilience.

Contributing factors to community resilience in the given age-group were found to be: sense of belonging to a community, grade level, participation in a community and religious observance. Keywords: community resilience, (pre-)adolescence, prevention, Q-CoRe, Jewish Community

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Community resilience research in the adult population has shown that community resilience can be perceived as a fundamental element in emergency preparedness and as a mean of ensuring social stability in the face of crises, including natural and human-made catastrophic events (Cohen, Leykin, Lahad, Goldberg & Aharonson-Daniel, 2013). Two different constructs form community resilience; the first is community, which, typically, is an entity with shared values and beliefs, with natural, social, economic, and built environments that influence one another in certain complex ways (Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche & Pfefferbaum, 2008). Examples of communities are not only geographical communities (an entity within the same geographical bounds) but also relational ones (e.g. workplace, religious, immigrant, student; Obst & White, 2005). The second construct is psychological resilience, which can be best described as “the capacity of a dynamic system to withstand or recover from significant challenges that threaten its stability, viability, or development” (Masten, 2011). In describing resilience on any level, two core concepts can be recognized: adversity (hardship or distress from either natural or manmade disasters) and positive adaptation (positive behaviour and symptoms of internal well-being; Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013; Pfefferbaum, Pfefferbaum & Norris, 2010). Putting together these two constructs, community resilience is considered a dynamic process, linking a set of adaptive capacities to be externally and internally well adapted to changing circumstances within a community (Ungar, 2011; Norris et al., 2008).

Community Resilience Measurement

To predict community resilience in case of an (perceived) emergency the Conjoint Community Resiliency Assessment Measure (CCRAM) has been developed, which is an innovative

multidimensional tool that serves as a baseline for community resilience profiling (Cohen et al., 2013). In a study including 886 Israeli adults, aged 18-86 years (Mage = 45.28, SD = 15.40) from different sized communities throughout Israel, the CCRAM results showed which factors matter for the composition of community resilience; social trust, collective efficacy, place attachment,

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emergency preparedness, and leadership (Cohen et al., 2013). Another Israeli study on 1,052 adults aged 18-86 years (Mage = 44.65, SD = 15.05) has shown that these five community

resilience factors can be used to gain a general sense of the community resilience construct and of the current strengths within the community (Leykin, Lahad, Cohen, Goldberg, & Aharonson-Daniel, 2013). These five factors are believed to have a significant influence in determining the behaviour of the members of a community in emergency situations. Furthermore, the CCRAM can serve as a tool for authorities and decision makers to assess and focus actions to enhance and restore community resilience for crisis situations. Previously mentioned studies on community resilience and CCRAM have a low generalizability due to relative low representation of different types of communities across Israel. Research outside these communities is therefore desired, as well as an expansion with respect to non-adults (<18 years), especially since research by Cohen et al. (2016) showed significant different patterns concerning several investigated age-groups in the rise of community resilience in relation to age (18-75 years).

Pre-adolescents and Community Resilience

A new wave of global research on resilience has important influences for developmental science, because resilience studies aim to provide information on those key aspects associated with good adaptation after hardship (Masten, 2014). Furthermore, these studies try to differentiate healthy adaptation profiles from those who were comparatively less well-adjusted (Luthar, Cicchetti & Becker, 2000). By shedding a new light on psychopathology through the investigation of a child’s positive aspects, the outcome of resilience studies can be used for prevention measures (Braet, Prins, & Bijttebier, 2014).

Within developmental resilience studies different influences on a child were investigated, with the primary influence on child wellness being family, and peers and school environment gaining key influence throughout childhood. Preadolescence is regarded as the period from 10-13 year and generally ends with the beginning of puberty (Braet, Prins & Bijttebier, 2014). Starting in

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pre-adolescence, family importance and influence becomes less relevant but is not yet surpassed by peer importance and influence (Galván, Spatzier & Juvonen, 2011). The influence of social and community factors only becomes more important starting from adolescence (Pfefferbaum, Pfefferbaum & Norris, 2010; Bijlstra & Doornenbal, 2014). Because pre-adolescents spend most of their time outside their family, for the investigation of resilience in this age group looking at their broader community is essential (Khanlou & Wray, 2014). Research on this age level is supported by Ungar (2011), stating that the capacity to care for its most vulnerable members is another important element of community resilience, as it is to help young (vulnerable) people prosper despite any hardship. To see how the individual is essentially connected and interacting, with levels of increasing complexity, within the context of its socio-cultural environment, a multi-level perspective is needed (Khanlou & Wray, 2014). The present study will adopt a multimulti-level system approach as a theoretical framework, based on the macro themes by Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2006), which helps to show the interdependence between the individual (micro level) and community (macro level) within community resilience.

A microsystem level analysis suggests the assessment of factors like family and peer relationships, school connectedness, and school environment (Hong & Espelage, 2012). The selected school environment within this study is the middle school environment, which in Italy is for children from 11-14 years, and this fits well within the pre-adolescent age-range.

Furthermore, within the Italian school system, middle school is generally the final stage in which children follow the community guidelines especially when considering the fact that a large

number of students, upon completion of the middle school, choose a high school outside of their community more in support of their research interests and less bound by factors like religion, territory or even family.

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Within studies concerning resilience, the role of religion constitutes one of the most investigated factors. Religion is supposed to enlarge the confidence of its followers, to offer forgiveness, to strengthen the hope for the future and religion sets on to self-control and a religious community can offer support to their members (Braet, Prins, & Bijttebier, 2014). Religion brings together people and creates a membership from birth and can be seen as a positive factor within the enhancement of resilience after crisis (Sapienza & Masten, 2011).

Different religious communities tend to act in different ways when facing a crisis. For instance, research by Cohen & Hill (2007) showed that Jews believe in a certain religious

collectivism and when in need, Jews tend to turn to the community for help and this seems to be an inborn trait for Jews. On the contrary, Christians showed a higher sense of religious

individualism and are more individualistic and intrapersonal oriented (Fischer, Ai, Aydin, Frey, and Haslam, 2010; Sampson, 2000). These differences could reflect on the sense of community resilience for these communities.

The aspects mentioned above contribute to the idea to explore community resilience specifically within the Jewish community since it represents a community made up out of historic and religious motives, and also the fact that the Jewish community is a well-established formal and institutionalized community within a broader community while preserving its own

institutions, practices and culture (Areni, Giorgi, Pinter, Propersi, Rosi, 2016). Furthermore, memberships in formal groups (i.e. Jewish youth groups) and active participation (i.e. through Jewish youth activities) within their life context have a positive association with the perception of a resilient community (Pfefferbaum, Pfefferbaum & Norris, 2010). Participation and community involvement take an important place when talking emergency preparedness and resilience (Norris et al., 2008). Also, within the Jewish community the schools are part of a training system where the children will be educated to the knowledge, rules and history of the Jewish people. Pre-adolescence is considered a crucial time within the Jewish community, because Jewish girls and boys are being prepared for the Bat Mitzvah ceremony at age 12 (for girls) and the Bar Mitzvah

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ceremony at age 13 (for boys) to enter the religious community. Research on American Jewish communities showed that Jewish communities show a certain distinctiveness in terms of demographic and socio-economic characteristics, but also the way their ethnic and religious identity are intertwined and in terms of their particular religious and non-religious beliefs and behaviour (Hartman & Sheskin, 2013). Furthermore, the fact that the Jewish community and its leaders currently feel more threatened and secluded than in the last five years, with the feeling of an increased chance of disaster and adversity and a growing pessimism on anti-Semitism across Western European countries, adds to the choice to investigate this particular community

(Kosmin, B.A., 2016). Given all these aspects and because religion constitutes such an important factor in community resilience profiling, the Jewish community was expected to have a high community resilience because of their religion and collectivistic ideas, whereas the non-Jewish community was expected to show a low community resilience.

The Current Study

Consequently, the current study measured community resilience on a pre-adolescent age level. Field research on community resilience within this specific age group so far has only been conducted within a pilot study (Areni et al., 2016). The current study aimed to provide further empirical exploration on community resilience from a pre-adolescent point of view, by including four schools; the Jewish middle schools in Rome (Scuola secondaria di primo grado paritaria “Angelo Sacerdoti) and Milan (Scuola secondaria di primo grado “Mario Falco”). And two non-Jewish schools; Scuola secondaria di primo grado “Giovan Battista Valente” and Scuola

secondaria di primo grado paritaria “Sacro Cuore Sorelle della Misericordia”, both based in Rome. This study aimed to (1) to assess and portray the community resilience profile for the Jewish community from a pre-adolescent point of view and (2) to identify factors that could be enhanced in order to improve the community resilience and to enhance positive adaptation within each community by means of specific actions and intervention plans.

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The main research question of this study was as follows: “What is the community resilience of the Jewish community from a pre-adolescent perspective?” From this, another research question has been derived; “Which factors contribute to the community resilience within the Jewish community?” and one can assume that an individual’s grade level, the sense of belonging to a community, religious observance (following, obeying or confirming to a religion), the amount of participation in a community and earlier emergency involvement significantly contribute to community resilience.

From these questions, the following hypotheses have been derived:

(1); the Jewish community will score high on community resilience and in comparison the non-Jewish community are expected to score lower on community resilience.

(2); Grade level, the sense of belonging, religious observance, community participation and emergency involvement contribute to community resilience.

Methodology The Research Context

The current research was performed under the organization of PENTA, a joint laboratory formed by Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS; Rome, Italy) and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Beer-Sheva, Israel), and under the scientific coordination of Dr. Luca Rosi (ISS, Rome).

Participants

Participants in the study included 397 pre-adolescents aged 10-15 years (Mage = 12.84, SD = 1.04)1_{. Within the Jewish community (}_{n = 229) the Roman sample included 169 participants and} the remaining 60 participants came from the Milan school. Within the non-Jewish community, the Valente school involved 118 participants and the Sacro Cuore school 50, thus forming a total of 168 participants.

1_{Data on the age of participants from the Roman Jewish pilot-study is missing, therefore the mean age has been calculated using} the remaining 228 participants.

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Procedure

The participant selection was based on intent, since the research was aimed on a particular group. All participants participated on a voluntary basis and in order to perform this research no

approval of an Italian ethical commission was needed. At the start of the research, parents were asked, with the help of each school’s (vice-)principal, to sign an informed consensus. Only those participants were included that could present this parent-signed informed consensus at the beginning of the questionnaire administration.

The administration of the Q-CoRe was done with the help of the PENTA team. Before each administration, an introduction to the research and the questionnaire was given to the participants and they were told that the estimated time for the completion of the questionnaire would be around 60 minutes, but that there was no maximum time limit. Upon completion, each questionnaire was individually checked on any missing answers, before permitting a participant to leave the room. In the Jewish school in Rome the administration was done in all nine school classes separately and the administration process was spread out over three days. The second school was Milan, where the administration took place in the school’s canteen so all participants could fill in the questionnaire at the same time. The third school was the Valente school, where the administration took place in the school’s theatre room. Because of the large number of participants and the limited available space, the administration was divided into three shift of 100 minutes, all in one day. Finally, on the Sacro Cuore school the administration started at the same time for all participants, but the participants were seated in their own classrooms.

Material

The tool used in this research was the Q-CoRe, developed specifically for the measurement of the community resilience by the PENTA lab (Areni et al., 2016) with respect to the (pre-)adolescent age group, including a special annex on the Jewish community. Within this

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questionnaire, a short-form of the CCRAM (Leykin et al., 2013) was included (see Appendix for two example questions). This short-form was translated from Hebrew to Italian using a two-way translation and was adapted for implementation in the Italian community. The descriptive statistics for the Q-CoRe have been evaluated, with a high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .95), and a high convergent validity with two questions directly aimed at assessing community

resilience (r = .72, p < .001). To incorporate the multidimensional levels from the bio-ecological framework within the questionnaire, several question answer possibilities have been expanded with respect to the different sub-dimensions (family, friends, school, territory & religious system).

The questionnaire included three thematic areas. The first area was on gathering

background information, such as: socio-demographic data (8 items); information on location and choice of school (2 items); membership in formal groups of aggregation (volunteering

associations, sports and leisure) and active participation in the activities of their life contexts (family, group of friends, etc.) (2 items); use of social networks (2 items).

The second area, called ‘community’, included questions designed to explore: the perceived level of community (3 items, with two on a five-point Likert scale; 1 = disagree, 5= very strongly agree); the bonds of community, investigated by mapping people, groups, institutions/associations with which the interviewee relates in everyday life, and drawing up ties inside and outside the community, specifying the strength (weak, strong, stressful); the community resilience, measured by the ten CCRAM questions with answer possibilities on a 5-point Likert scale(1 = disagree, 5= very strongly agree) and on five different levels (family, friends, school, territory, and religious system; 10x5 items); previous experience of emergency situations, risk perception and attitudes and reactions to alleged events (5 items).

The third area was called ‘wellness’, and contained a question on bullying and a 5-point Likert scale question on individual resilience. The final area was an annex, with specific questions about the Jewish community (10 items), aimed to investigate elements of the Jewish community in a more detailed way, with questions concerning the following of traditions like the Shabbat and

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eating kosher or questions on Jewish decent. This annex was only included during the administration at the Jewish middle schools.

For the calculation of a total community resilience score, the average of the 50 CCRAM items was calculated for each participant. A participation index was calculated by taking the average of three questions (no. 10, no. 11 & no. 48; 9 items)2_{directly concerning community}

activities (i.e. “Do you take part in (Jewish) youth activities?”). Since comparable research is missing, the following labels have been given to the scores on community resilience: 1-2= low community resilience, 3=average community resilience, 4-5=high community resilience.

Missing Data

To minimize data loss and to increase the power of the sample, a stochastic regression analysis was used to impute missing values. These missing values were imputed using several plausible variables as predictors of the missing values. These predictors included the following variables: all CCRAM items, gender, grade level, sense of belonging, religious observance, the participation index, and emergency involvement.

Statistical Analysis

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS; version 23.0) was used to conduct all data analyses, starting with a descriptive statistics analysis aimed at a sample description. For the first

hypothesis, whether there is a difference in community resilience between the Jewish and the non-Jewish community, an independent t-test was used to examine the difference between the two mean community resilience scores. For the second hypothesis, whether grade level, the sense of belonging, religious observance, community participation and emergency involvement

contribute to community resilience, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used with community resilience as dependent variable. If after the first hypothesis no difference on

2_{Since the annex was left out from the Q-CoRe for the non-Jewish community, the participation index for this sample was} calculated by taking the average of two questions (no. 10 & no. 11; 8 items).

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community resilience can be found between the two communities, for the second hypothesis both communities will be merged into one in order to enlarge the power in community resilience scores and increase the spread in the sample’s distribution.

Results

A high community resilience was expected for the Jewish community, and subsequently a lower community resilience was expected for the non-Jewish community. As shown in Table 2, no difference on community resilience was found between the two communities, with both showing an average community resilience, with the scores corresponding to the 5-point Likert-scale somewhere between “somewhat agree” and “strongly agree”. When taking the sub-dimensions in consideration, only Territory and Religious System showed a significant difference between the two communities. All in all, these results do not support the first hypothesis.

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics of Study’s Sample Variable Jewish community Non-Jewish community N total 229 168 Age M(SD) 12.98 (1.08) 12.79 (1.02) Gender Male N (%) 119 (51.97) 77 (45.83) Female N (%) 110 (48.03) 91 (54.17) Grade level I N (%) 94 (41.05) 52 (30.95) II N (%) 53 (23.15) 57 (33.93) III N (%) 82 (35.80) 59 (35.12) Religion Jewish N (%) 229 (100) - Catholic N (%) - 144 (85.72) Muslim N (%) - 1 (0.59) Other N (%) - 13 (7.74) None N (%) - 10 (5.95) Emergency Involvement Yes 64 (72) 66 (60.50) No 164 (28) 101 (39.50)

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Table 2 Summary of Results from Comparisons Between the Two Communities Variable Jewish community M(SD) Non-Jewish community

M(SD) Statistic test Significance

Effect size Community Resilience 3.66 (0.58) 3.65 (0.59) t (395) = 0.03 p = .978 d = 0.01 Family 4.34 (0.59) 4.27 (0.78) t (395) = 0.95 p = .342 d = 0.10 Friends 3.57 (0.79) 3.66 (0.74) t (395) = -1.15 p = .252 d = 0.12 School 3.38 (0.85) 3.48 (0.77) t (395) = -1.14 p = .255 d = 0.12 Territory 3.12 (0.86) 3.44 (0.81) t (395) = -3.75 p < .001 d = 0.38 Religious system 3.86 (0.85) 3.42 (0.84) t (395) = 5.19 p < .001 d = 0.53 Predictors Grade level 1.95 (0.88) 2.04 (0.81) χ² (2) = 6.77 p = .034 φ = 0.13 Sense of Belonging 3.68 (0.93) 3.90 (0.91) t (395) = -2.34 p = .020 d = 0.24 Religious observance .72 (.45) .68 (.47) χ² (1) = 0.53 p = .020 φ = 0.04 Participation .65 (.18) .67 (.16) t (395) = -1.32 p = .188 d = 0.14 Emergency Involvement .28 (.45) .40 (.49) χ² (1) = 5.72 p = .017 φ = 0.12 Note. t = independent samples T-test; χ² = Pearson Chi-Square test; d = Cohen’s d; φ = Phi’s

statistic.

Table 3 Linear Model of Predictors of Community Resilience, with 95% Confidence Intervals Reported in Parentheses Predictor b SE β ∆R2 _p Step 1 Constant Sense of Belonging 3.08 (2.85, 3.31) 0.16 (0.10, 0.22) 0.12 0.03 .26 .07 p < .001 p < .001 Step 2 Constant Sense of Belonging Religious Observance 2.96 (2.72, 3.20) 0.15 (0.09, 0.21) 0.24 (0.12, 0.36) 0.12 0.03 0.06 .24 .19 .04 p < .001 p < .001 p < .001 Step 3 Constant Sense of Belonging Religious Observance Participation 2.69 (2.39, 2.99) 0.14 (0.08, 0.20) 0.21 (0.09, 0.33) 0.47 (0.14, 0.80) 0.15 0.03 0.06 0.17 .23 .17 .14 .02 p < .001 p < .001 p = .001 p = .005 Step 4 Constant Sense of Belonging Religious Observance Participation Grade level 2.89 (2.56, 3.22) 0.13 (0.08, 0.19) 0.20 (0.08, 0.32) 0.50 (0.17, 0.82) -0.09 (-0.16, -0.03) 0.17 0.03 0.06 0.17 0.03 .22 .16 .15 -.14 .02 p < .001 p < .001 p = .001 p = .003 p = .004 Note. R2 _{for the entire model is .14.}

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For the second hypothesis, whether grade level, the sense of belonging, religious observance, community participation and emergency involvement contributed to community resilience, the two samples were merged into one. The results (see Table 3) showed a model where community resilience is the constant variable, and, in order of importance, the sense of belonging, religious observance, participation in the community, and grade level were the significant predictors of community resilience, with grade level as the only negative predictor. Emergency involvement was not found to be a significant predictor of community resilience. The entire model explained 14.4% of variance. These results implied four factors that contribute to community resilience and these findings provided strong evidence to support the second hypothesis.

Discussion

In this study community resilience within the Jewish and non-Jewish community was investigated from a pre-adolescent point of view. To do so a large group of pre-adolescents from different Italian middle schools were involved in this study. The results however showed no support for the hypothesis that the Jewish community would show a high community resilience and subsequently the non-Jewish community would score a lower community resilience in comparison to the first. Yet, the results confirmed the hypothesis that sense of belonging,

religious observance, participation and grade level contribute to community resilience in the given age-group. The following will discuss these results.

Contrary to the hypothesis, no difference was found between the community resilience scores for both communities from the pre-adolescent point of view. Both communities showed an average community resilience. An understanding of the results lies perhaps in the impact of religion on community resilience. A religious system was seen as one of the primary factors in resilience profiling (Sapienza & Masten, 2011). This is in line with the result that religious observance contributed to community resilience. However, a difference between the two

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communities on the religion sub-dimension was found. This difference can be accounted for by research of Cohen & Hill (2007), which showed that Jews believe in a certain religious

collectivism and when in need, their sense of coherence tends the Jews to turn to the community for help, hence their higher score on the religion sub-dimension (see Table 2). And on the contrary, with Protestants and Catholics showing a higher sense of religiously individualism (Fischer, Ai, Aydin, Frey, and Haslam, 2010; Sampson, 2000) and most part of the non-Jewish community identified themselves as Catholic (see Table 1), their lower score on the religion sub-dimension can also be accounted for (see Table 2). However, since both communities showed equal community resilience scores, religion cannot purely be seen as a primary factor in resilience profiling. Quite possibly the impact of religion for pre-adolescents shows different patterns concerning each community. A religious environment can function alternatively as a stepping stone or a stumbling block for children’s development, depending on factors like parental religiosity, the family’s religious environment and religious harmony between parents

(Bartkowski, Xu, & Levin, 2008). By including a non-religious community and other religious communities in future research, the impact of religion can be further investigated to see if religion and which kind or religion is important for community resilience profiling.

In a way, the result of an average community resilience for both communities is puzzling, since the general perception of pre-adolescents places them amongst those most vulnerable within a community (Cohen et al., 2016; Ungar, 2011). Possible explanations for this could be that the perception of danger and emergency is too abstract for this age group, since only few of them might actually have been involved in an actual life-threatening emergency situation. Or, as Olsson, Bond, Burns, Vella-Brodrikc & Sawyer (2003) stated in their research on individual resilience in adolescents, that the emotional difficulty of serious threat to personal values can only truly be measured after actual hardship. Also, adolescents strive for more independence from teachers and parents and start choosing their own strategies and ideas and develop a stronger sense of esteem, with no desire to belong to neither one of the sub-dimensions, hence the

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average community resilience (Braet, Prins, & Bijttebier, 2014). In addition, in search of

important elements for the composition of a community resilience profile with pre-adolescents, family is the most important sub-dimension for both communities (see Table 2). This result is in line with research by Cowen (2000) suggesting that family constitutes the main factor in the daily life of a (pre-)adolescent, and in case of emergency it is family where will be relied upon by this age-group (Ungar, 2011). With the influence of social and community factors primarily being indirect during early infancy and childhood, gaining more importance and becoming more apparent as of adolescence (Pfefferbaum, Pfefferbaum & Norris, 2010), quite possibly the sense of belonging to a community is not yet perceived as an important factor in the perspective of a pre-adolescents (Bijstra & Doornenbal, 2014). If so, these explanations apply to both

communities and the results imply the need for further investigation of the community resilience construct within (pre-)adolescents to see how this developmental trend continues.

When taking in consideration the amount of time spent in school, the enhancement of community resilience within (pre-)adolescents could take place within a school’s context (Khanlou & Wray, 2014). Especially when considering that the results show a decrease in community resilience with a rising grade level, an intervention could be aimed at school level to increase community resilience. By engaging children in the community and providing a resilience perspective in education and through the development of a resilience curriculum in early and primary education, schools could play an important role in the enhancement of community resilience. Schools make an ideal place for building social and emotional competences such as resilience skills for children (Cefai et al, 2014). The key for the enhancement of community resilience lies in bridging the gap between school and pupils when it comes to trust and resilience training, especially since school is where children spent most of their time (Khanlou & Wray, 2014).

There are limitations to the current study. Even though the sample is large, for more specific conclusions sampling should be broader and include different age groups. Nevertheless,

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the Q-CoRe provided a significant potential as a predictor of community resilience within this population. Yet, the construct validity of the Q-CoRe needs to be assessed in an independent validity research, in order to test the degree to which the test measures what it claims to be measuring. Also, the current study might have put a lot of strain on the imaginative power of the participants, since the aim of the questionnaire was on emergency and how to respond in the face of crisis, but the study was in a non-emergency period. Thus the current study is valuable as a baseline measure, but the long-term application is uncertain (Cohen et al., 2013). Repeated measurements are needed to further confirm the Q-CoRe’s potential and deal with limitations.

Despite its limitations, the current study can serve as an asset in global resilience studies with respect to pre-adolescents. Being one of the first studies with a focus on community resilience rather than individual resilience, new insights have been formed with respect to the current age-group on their behaviour in the face of an emergency. This research can be used as a tool by authorities and decision makers to assess and focus actions to enhance and restore community resilience focussing on pre-adolescents. All in all, the ability to get a community resilience profile aids in a child’s development during adversity processes. Even though the capacity for adaptation and the resilience of a person is always changing (Masten, 2014), this study offers a first step in pre-adolescent community resilience studies. This is a step towards more knowledge on how these young individuals cope in sight of an emergency which could be instrumental in faster post stress recovery and positive adaptation.

Acknowledgment

I wish to thank the entire team of ISS for their help during the research set-up and the data collection, entry & analysis, with special thanks to Dr. Luca Rosi for mentoring and guiding me through the entire process and to Sabina Giorgi for supporting me and steering me in the right direction. Also special thanks to Dr. Bianca Boyer, at first for guiding me from a distance but in the end helping me rewrite and restructure.

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Appendix

X. There is mutual assistance and people care for one another:

within my family Disagree Slightly Agree Somewhat Agree Strongly

agree

Very strongly agree

within my group of friends

Disagree Slightly Agree Somewhat Agree Strongly

agree

Very strongly agree

within my school Disagree Slightly Agree Somewhat Agree Strongly

agree

Very strongly agree

in the place where I live

agree

Very strongly agree

within my place of worship

agree

Very strongly agree

Y. Good relationships exist between people and groups:

in my family Disagree Slightly Agree Somewhat Agree Strongly

agree

Very strongly agree

in my group of friends

agree

Very strongly agree

at school Disagree Slightly Agree Somewhat Agree Strongly

agree

Very strongly agree

in the place where I live

agree

Very strongly agree

in my place of worship

agree

Very strongly agree

Note. Two questions of the CCRAM short-form scale, with their multilevel framework answer

Community resilience in the Jewish Community : a pre-adolescent point of view

University of Amsterdam

Master Thesis