towards a child-led deﬁnition of social cohesion a...particular kenan madi and besan abdelqader....

Towards a Child-led Definitionof Social Cohesion

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Towards a child-led definition of social cohesion

Executive Summary ................................................................................................................. 4

Background ......................................................................................................................................................4

Study objectives ..............................................................................................................................................4

Methodology ...................................................................................................................................................4

Key findings .....................................................................................................................................................5

Recommendations ..........................................................................................................................................8

Limitations .......................................................................................................................................................8

Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................................8

Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 10

Methodology.......................................................................................................................... 13

Literature Review ..........................................................................................................................................13

Key Informant Interviews: building on the literature review .....................................................................18

Dividing the demographics ..........................................................................................................................20

Developing the Tool .......................................................................................................................................21

Fieldwork ........................................................................................................................................................25

Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 28

Results ..........................................................................................................................................................28

Gender ..........................................................................................................................................................28

Nationality........................................................................................................................................................30

Joint effects .....................................................................................................................................................30

Themes within social cohesion ....................................................................................................................31

Adults ..........................................................................................................................................................32

Strangers .........................................................................................................................................................32

Familiarity ........................................................................................................................................................33

Consultation, freedom of expression and being heard ....................................................................................34

Participation .....................................................................................................................................................35

Equality ..........................................................................................................................................................35

Violence ..........................................................................................................................................................36

Bullying ..........................................................................................................................................................36

Peripheral spaces ............................................................................................................................................36

Table of Contents

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A Happy environment: activities ......................................................................................................................37

Process of cohesion ........................................................................................................................................38

Incidental findings ...........................................................................................................................................39

Proposed definition and indicators ....................................................................................... 40

Definition ........................................................................................................................................................40

Indicators .......................................................................................................................................................41

Assessment of existing UNICEF tools ................................................................................... 43

Assessing the questions in the toolkit ........................................................................................................44

Belonging and Inclusion ..................................................................................................................................44

Tolerance .........................................................................................................................................................48

Participation .....................................................................................................................................................51

Recommendations ................................................................................................................. 54

Programming .................................................................................................................................................54

Future research ..............................................................................................................................................56

Measurement .................................................................................................................................................56

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 57

Appendix one: Study Tool ...................................................................................................... 59

Four Corner Questions ..................................................................................................................................60

1, 3/4, all: the happy room ............................................................................................................................64

1, 3/4, all: being new .....................................................................................................................................66

IV Appreciative enquiry (if time) ..................................................................................................................67

V Final thoughts ............................................................................................................................................68

Appendix two: towards a tool ............................................................................................... 69

Survey ..........................................................................................................................................................69

1. Belonging and inclusion: the vertical axis ....................................................................................................69

2. Belonging and inclusion: the horizontal axis: ...............................................................................................69

3. Tolerance ......................................................................................................................................................70

4. Participation .................................................................................................................................................71

Behavioural Observation ..............................................................................................................................71

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Acknowledgements: This study could not have been possible without the dedication and enthusiasm of the Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation team at UNICEF Jordan, in particular Yumi Matsuda, Sungmi Shin, Dana Dhaher and the entire team of UN Volunteers, a hard-working team of young field monitors. Sungmi in particular ensured that the challenging field-work aspect of the study was a success. In this regard, thanks must go to every manager and coordinator of the Makani centres visited for their welcome and work to facilitate the demands of fieldwork, as well as the team coordinating the visits Makani centres and the Youth in UNICEF Jordan in particular Kenan Madi and Besan AbdelQader.

Special thanks must go to Robert Jenkins, the initial source of inspiration and proponent of the study, as well as a general champion of effective programming and robust research in social cohesion.

Key Informant Interviews were essential to the success of the study, with expert advice and wisdom from formal and informal interactions coming from the following: Arvind Singhal, Sholly Fisch, Ruth Simpson, Cait Lamberton, Julie Chinnery, Henrietta Wilson and Jadranka Stikovac Clark, together with input from staff at UNICEF Jordan, especially Razan Taha and Fatima Mughrabi. Data analysis was supported by computer learning methods with the generous assistance of Simon DeDeo.

Social cohesion from the point of view of the child is something hitherto unresearched despite the huge importance of the issue to every society across the globe. It is our hope that this study will initiate far closer attention to the subject from other researchers and practitioners; better programming for children across the world; and improved evaluation techniques to feed back into both research and programming, improving the environment and hence lives of children.

Lydia Wilson

Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict,

Harris Manchester College,

University of Oxford, UK

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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Executive Summary BackgroundJordan is currently host to nearly three million non-Jordanians.1 There were 3.8 million children under 18 (over 40 per cent of the population) in Jordan in 2015. Of these, almost 30 per cent were non-Jordanian, many of whom were refugees from neighbouring countries (UNICEF, 2017). The scale of the socio-economic challenges facing the country is commensurate with these numbers: the Government is under considerable strain in providing services, and all communities, Jordanian and non-Jordanian, face formidable challenges in social and economic integration. Yet it is vital that these challenges be faced, for the health of the individual and society alike.

The concept of social cohesion has received a lot of attention over the past few decades from academics and policy makers alike. Social cohesion is a key concern, for a number of reasons: children need to learn tolerance and pro-social behaviour in order to develop into positive members of society, skills even more vital for those generations who will be tasked with rebuilding their country’s social fabric; it is necessary to create a safe, harmonious and happy environment for learning and the protection of all children; and social cohesion in the centres will have a knock-on effect for the whole community and therefore country. That is, social cohesion is vital on the level of the individual, classroom, centre, community and country.

1 The Government of Jordan Department of Statistics, Employment and Unemployment Survey 2017

Study objectives Since the onset of the current Syrian crisis, UNICEF Jordan has been trying to reach the most vulnerable children throughout the country based on an analysis of disaggregated data mainly through over 200 UNICEF-supported Makani centres throughout the country. Through an integrated service provision in the areas of education, Early Childhood Development (ECD) and child protection to all vulnerable children, including Syrian, Jordanian and other nationalities at those centres, UNICEF aspires to achieve social cohesion, resilience building and stability at the community level in the long run.

There have been many attempts to define social cohesion but there is a notable omission: there is no study to explore what the concept is for children, with a corresponding lack of development of indicators. If we know what a happy and safe environment feels like for a child we are, it is posited here, closer to providing one.

The assumption is that UNICEF’s programming approaches and practices may not be adequate unless it starts with the ‘right’ definition of social cohesion for children. By this logic, if we have the ‘right’ definition for social cohesion for children, we will have better programming.

This study, therefore, attempts to establish the 1st definition and measurement for social cohesion from a child’s perspective by using existing well-grounded social cohesion theories.

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Towards a child-led definition of social cohesion Table of Contents

The study seeks to explore the following questions:

• What does social cohesion mean to a child?

• What are the indicators of successful cohesion as described by a child?

• What are the specific elements, e.g. identities, emotion, trust, threat, security, etc. to be prioritized in facilitating social cohesion for children?

• What are the implications for refugees’ integration into the community and society?

Measurement: Is the existing UNICEF monitoring/data collection mechanism sufficient to measure the level of social cohesion for children? If not, how can they be strengthened/improved? What indicators should be added (or modified)?

How should the tools to assess social cohesion for children look like?

MethodologyThe lack of discussion of children in the literature corresponds to a lack of guidance in research methods; instead, research methods known to be effectives with exploring children’s thoughts and attitudes in other domains were adopted.

After an extensive literature review and period of key informant interviews with stakeholders and other research and practitioner experts, two basic methods were chosen: the “1-2-4-all” and “the fishbowl.” The total of 287 children and youth between the ages of 10 and 24, of Jordanian, Syrian, Pakistani, Palestinian and Iraqi nationalities, were consulted as to their own perceptions and feelings of issues connected with social cohesion.

In order to cover 24 workshops in the tight timeframe of the study, especially with children as young as 10 and therefore without extensive concentration spans, it was decided that the fieldwork would be conducted in one-hour sessions, structured with a variety of activities (including movement, interaction, small group discussion and whole group circle time). Extra questions were included in the discussion guide, in case more time was available, or in case certain questions did not work with certain communities, or if some participants, for example the older youth, responded to the questions more quickly, with less explanation, thus freeing up more time.

The fieldwork was very successful, producing many unexpected contributions to our understanding

of what makes a harmonious environment for a child, and as such forms a contribution to research methods in this field as well as to programming in social cohesion for children.

Key findingsFollowing the example of the Council of Europe, we propose a description of social cohesion as a cluster of factors rather than confine this woolly concept to a single definition. Certain themes emerged strongly across all demographics leading to the following definition: that is, a child feels an environment is safe, happy and comfortable, and they can build bridges with other children, when:

1. They feel consulted, listened to and understood

2. They have good relationships with adults

3. They are treated equally

4. Friends are present

5. Trust is present both vertically and horizontally

6. They have and understand clear structures of help

7. There is freedom of expression and participation

8. Everyone is included in activities

9. There is an absence of violence and bullying, both vertical and horizontal

Within these themes, the details vary between genders, nationalities, and age-groups, particularly nationalities, leading to the suggestion that programming is tweaked for different groups, drawing on consultation with the children and facilitators of the communities.

Children had clear ideas about activities that would create such an environment:

• Art (on the wall and as an activity, as it makes people happy)

• Music and dance

• Story-telling (whether read or as films or cartoons)

• Social or group activities such as ice-breakers or games

• Educational activities and support

• Skills development (sewing, mechanics)

• Games (technological, non-technological, and sports)

The environment would include decorations with paintings and nice colours; comfortable furniture;

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Towards a child-led definition of social cohesionTable of Contents

technology for learning and entertainment; space for everyone.

The children were asked how they would know if an environment in a child or youth centre was a good one, and came up with the following indicators:

• Inclusion: if all children are playing together and no-one is left out

• Behaviour: if they are treating each other well, and the room well

• Facial expressions: if they are laughing and smiling a lot

• Body language

• Attitudes: if they are positive, taking things easily, have a sense of humour

• Attendance: if they are happy they will come back

• Activities: through drawing and music they will show their feelings

• Consultation: ask them what they like and don’t like and get feedback

Analysis was done on the language used by the participants, using machine learning techniques, and disaggregated with respect to gender and nationality (Syrian and Jordanian only, given the lack of numbers of the other nationalities). There were not enough in each age group to pursue differences according to age.

The results reveal basic differences in how the genders perceive their environments. Characteristic words associated with the boys indicated concerns with resources (computers, smart boards for teachers, toys such as the Sony PlayStation), self-definition (references to their personality, hobbies, religious beliefs) and respect (concerns, for example, that they are not being treated as “human” or given equal respect, that they are not being understood, and a desire for private spaces for things). Conversely, responses from the girls indicate that they are particularly attentive to relationships between the sexes (only female responses, for example, refer to “boys and girls”, rather than to just “friends” or “people”); girls tend to use “girls and boys” or “brothers and sisters” when they talk about their social environment, while boys, when they do use gendered terms, tend to refer to their own gender (e.g., “my brothers and I want [a place] to put some toys”).

This shows that concerns for safety are driven by nationality rather than gender as seen strongly in the Syrian responses; conversely, the drive for personal respect and self-definition appears more strongly in the Jordanian population.

Limitations The lack of literature on a child’s perspective on social cohesion involves a corresponding lack of research methods in the area; thus this report, valuable as it is as a contribution to research methods, can be seen as a foundational study, with fruitful lines of enquiry emerging from these initial findings.

The biggest limitation is to do with the age-range; more data from each of the groups is necessary before drawing firm conclusions to do with variation between age-groups. Similarly, nationalities other than Jordanian and Syrian were not interviewed in enough numbers to make meaningful comparisons. Finally, it was not possible to make any definitive statements concerning perspectives from disabled children: although sessions were run with differently abled children, the ranges of disability and the problems in communication limited any insights. Social cohesion among disabled children requires another study, given the range of adaptation of the tool required for the range of disabilities.

Although this study was commissioned to define social cohesion from a child’s perspective, the data collection took place at Makani and Youth Centres which target the most vulnerable children and hence, the sample was biased to begin with. Social cohesion may potentially have been differently defined if the better off children had been included in the data collection. Nevertheless, the established definition still serves its original purposes, as one of the proposed objectives of this study is to define social cohesion from a child perspective’s for better measurement of the UNICEF supported social cohesion interventions which target the most deprived children.

ConclusionsThe most notable feature of the definition arrived at in this study is that six out of nine factors are to do with belonging and inclusion (points 1-6 on the above list); two (7 and 8) are related to participation, and number 9 is related to tolerance. This is in contrast to the definitions in the literature, based on adult perspectives on social cohesion, and has implications for programming: children feel safest when they feel that they belong, rather than the emphasis the literature has on toleration for others. This has resonance with other research in the social sciences, which stresses belonging to groups as essential to wellbeing, with a corresponding lack of belonging leading to problems including radicalisation and violence.

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This necessary sense of belonging fundamentally involves extensive consultation with and listening to the child, as well as building institutional structures to build trust and equality, and to eliminate violence and bullying.

RecommendationsUNICEF has a well-developed tool-kit, “Compilation of Tools for Measuring Social Cohesion, Resilience, and Peacebuilding,” (April, 2014), which are assessed below. In general, many of the questions are suitable and valuable for this context; others are adaptable; some are recommended to be cut for the Makani context. The biggest addition suggested below is to include behavioural observation as a key role in assessing social cohesion, as suggested by both experts and the children. This requires strong expertise and knowledge of the children, making it a difficult form of evaluation. Similarly, qualitative methods are always to be valued, with the valuable follow up questions of “why do you feel like this/think this?” UNICEF Jordan is clearly providing effective and valuable programming and monitoring and evaluation: this study simply complements existing expertise to provide the child’s perspective and additions and revisions to existing tools.

Other recommendations for programmatic perspectives fall under three broad headings. UNICEF Jordan should consider:

1. Institutional structures in training and sensitization for adults (both duty bearers and rights holders), to minimize bullying and violence, to create and maintain structures of support, increase feelings of trust and a sense of belonging (both vertically and horizontally), improve equality and inclusivity in pursuit of social cohesion as defined by children

2. Awareness building among children for safeguarding, anti-bullying, and understanding structures of support and reporting mechanisms

3. Increase consultation of children wherever possible throughout programming, implementation, monitoring and evaluation

Reassuringly, these broad headings correspond remarkably well with what UNICEF is already aiming to achieve in Jordan, and so, after consultation, further specific recommendations to build on the findings are as follows:

• Test the social cohesion measurement tool and fine-tune behavioural observation elements of measurement

• Start systematic monitoring and institutionalization of data collection by using the measurement tool

• Advocate the child-led social cohesion definition to the National Authority, e.g. Ministry of Education and Ministry of Social Development, perhaps integrating the measurement into teachers’ performance appraisal

• Demonstrate the utility of the social cohesion measurement / definition by using a small scale projects as an entry point

• Plan the 2nd phase of the study, expanding the sampling framework to children with disabilities and a greater range of socio-economic backgrounds

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INTRODUCTION

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IntroductionSince the Syrian crisis descended into violence over 7 years ago, Jordan has received many hundreds of thousands of refugees: there are currently 1.368 million Syrians in the country,2 of whom 666,294 are registered as refugees,3 and more at border areas.4 In addition to the Syrian population, Jordan continues to host Iraqi and Palestinian refugees, and also economic migrants, for example from Pakistan: in total, Jordan hosts nearly three million non-Jordanians;5 nearly a third of its own population of 9.5 million. The scale of the socio-economic challenges facing the country is commensurate with these numbers: the Government is under considerable strain in providing services, and all communities, Jordanian and non-Jordanian, face formidable challenges in social and economic integration. Yet it is vital that these challenges be faced, for the health of the individual and society alike.

UNICEF has from the start of the Syrian crisis attempted to reach the most vulnerable of the children in all communities, whether refugees, economic migrants, or Jordanian citizens, through its system of Makani centres, of which at the time of research there were over 200 spread through the host communities, refugee camps, and informal tented settlements (ITS). In UNICEF’s own words: 2 Ministry of Interior briefing, September 2018. 3 UNHCR Factsheet, June 2018; regularly updated figures available at: https://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=107. Accessed October 2018.4 Jordanian military estimated the number of Syrians at Rukban alone at 45-50,000; Ministry of Interior briefing, September 2018. 5 The Government of Jordan Department of Statistics, Employment and Unemployment Survey 2017.

Makani (My Space in Arabic) is a comprehensive approach initiated by UNICEF in Jordan that allow children to access multiple services under one roof. The core principle of Makani space is that all vulnerable children and young people should have access to safe learning opportunities.

Programmes at Makani centres are designed to promote and contribute to children and young people’s full development and well-being – physical, cognitive, social and emotional. It links interventions in education – learning support services; child protection – psychosocial support services; adolescent and youth participation – life skills and innovation labs; and also integrates health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services.

Each Makani centre also has a community outreach component as well as referral services to refer special cases to appropriate services.

Education Life Skills

PsychosocialSupport

ReferralsSpecialized

Services

Outreach

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Makani centres are located in cities, urban centres, Syrian refugee camps and vulnerable settlements (ITSs) in all 12 governorates of Jordan. All services at Makani centres are free of charge and open to all children in the catchment community, especially vulnerable girls and boys, irrespective of their nationality, abilities or status. 6

The make-up of the Makani centres varies according to its location, with some very homogeneous (for example in the Syrian refugee camps) and others very diverse (for example in big urban areas). But regardless of the background of the children, social cohesion is a key concern for a number of reasons: children need to learn tolerance and pro-social behaviour in order to develop into positive members of society, skills even more vital for those generations who will be tasked with rebuilding their country’s social fabric; it is necessary to create a safe, harmonious and happy environment for learning and the protection of all children; and social cohesion in the centres will have a knock-on effect for the whole community and therefore country. That is, social cohesion is vital on the level of the individual, classroom, centre, community and country.

The concept of social cohesion has received a lot of attention over the past few decades from academics and policy makers alike. Termed a “quasi” or “hybrid” concept by pioneering researcher in the field, Jenson,7 it is a term with many elements and a corresponding number of indicators of its presence or absence. This has not stopped many people attempting a definition, as shown in the literature review below, or trying to find other ways of circumscribing what it is, such as establishing common factors. What many of these definitions have in common is the stress on an individual’s access to services which fulfil basic social and economic needs and rights. This frame of analysis is clearly of more relevance to an adult’s life than to a child’s, an individual usually lacking the necessary agency to access services independently in order to attain their own rights. Attention to what social cohesion might mean to a child is glaringly absent in the literature.

This report seeks to address that gap, going directly to children to probe what social cohesion might mean to them. Of course, this concept,

6 “Makani Integrated Approach: Overview”, https://www.unicef.org/jordan/overview_12172.html, accessed October 2018. 7 Jenson, 2010, p. 3.

“quasi” and “hybrid” even to experts, cannot be enquired about directly, especially when asking children. Instead, indicators and factors explored in previous research in connection with the absence or presence of social cohesion must be adapted so as to be comprehensible to children, and then probed indirectly to establish whether they are of importance or not. The project thus contributes to the field on a number of levels: most importantly, it seeks to support existing programming in the area of social cohesion through mapping a child’s view onto what is provided for them through programming; second, it seeks to provide robust measurements for such a purpose, and in the process examine existing tools developed by UNICEF; and finally it contributes to research methods in the field, through the development and revision of tools for enquiring into something never been explored before.

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METHODOLOGY

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MethodologyLiterature Review“Cohesiveness has been a topic of long-term interest in sociology and psychology as well as in mental health and more recently in public health,” according to sociologist J.G. Bruhn, going on to paint in stark terms the formidable challenges despite this extensive research: “While the concept of social cohesion is intriguing, it has also been frustrating because its multiple definitions prevent its meaningful measurement and application.”8 These multiple definitions arise because of different frames of reference and analysis which different disciplines draw on, such as social structure in sociology, small group analysis in social psychology, memberships of groups and their perceptions in psychology, group development and roles of members in mental health, and social and environmental context of individuals and societies for public health. This variety of theories and units of analysis create complications when designing policy or programming to promote social cohesion. Ritzen and Woolcock add to these frames of reference, noting that “much of the work and thinking on social cohesion is essentially focused at the community level, but … [we] have found it necessary to incorporate a macropolitical component. This is so because the quality of government—at the local, state, and national level—has a major bearing on the capacity of societies to negotiate solutions to their problems…”9

8 J.G. Bruhn (2009), “The Concept of Social Exclusion”, p. 9 Jo Ritzen and Michael Woolcock (2000), “Social Cohesion, Public Policy and Economic Growth: Implications for Countries in Transition,” p. 8.

Bruhn points out the difficulty in building a multidisciplinary, coherent approach out of so many competing definitions and theories of social cohesion, but Jenson and Beauvais take a more positive view of the diversity, arguing that the very ambiguity of the term gives a useful flexibility, which depends upon “its contribution to framing conversations, to helping to make sense of complex relationships, and to setting goals.” That is, the term may lack academic rigour but “remains valuable today and is likely to continue to serve us well in the years ahead.”10 Jenson (2010) points out a valuable contribution by the Council of Europe to avoid a definition: the Council’s “Strategy for Social Cohesion” of 2001 “does not define social cohesion as such but seeks to identify some of the factors in social cohesion.”11 It is a foundational document, yet in its emphasis on “access to fundamental social and economic rights,” is firmly adult-centric.

A further issue identified by Bruhn is the tendency to define by absence: “We seem to define cohesiveness best by identifying consequences when it is absent and are less clear about how cohesiveness is created, nourished, and sustained,”12 Bruhn concludes from his overview, and Larsen (2013) agrees: “it is often the absence of social cohesion that is central to the discussion,” leading him to suggest that “that we label the decline of social cohesion “social erosion”, a phenomenon of the reduction of belief in a given community that

10 Caroline Beauvais and Jane Jenson (2002), “Social Cohesion: Updating the State of the Research,” p. vii. 11 Council of Europe (2001). ‘Promoting the Policy Debate on Social Exclusion from a Comparative Perspective’.12 Ibid., p. 47.

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they share a moral framework which enables trust13 – a very adult-oriented conception of social cohesion, a point returned to below, but the point taken for the purposes of this study is to look at indicators in pairs of positive and negative indicators.

Despite the recognition of the ambiguity of the term, there have been many attempts to define social cohesion as well as its absence, most notably and successfully Bernard (1999) and Chan et al (2006), both drawing on Jenson’s own work at delineating, if not defining, the concept, and both efforts drawn on extensively in the rest of the literature. Jenson began with five dimensions of social cohesion:

1. affiliation/isolation (share of common values, feeling of belonging to the same community)

2. insertion/exclusion (a shared market capacity, particularly regarding the labour market; in other words, who has/does not have opportunities to participate in the economy)

3. participation/passivity (involvement in management of public affairs, third sector)

4. acceptance/rejection (pluralism in facts and also as a virtue, i.e. tolerance regarding differences)

5. legitimacy/illegitimacy (maintenance of public and private institutions which act as mediators, i.e. how adequately the various institutions represent the people and their interests).14

Bernard (1999) developed this approach by proposing a twin typology, based on spheres of human activity (economic, social, political), and natures of social relations, whether they are values and attitudes or behaviours and practices;15 Ackert et al took the intersection of these two domains of activity and social relations, together with Jenson’s indicators as summarised above, to produce the following schema of social cohesion:16

Domains Nature of relations

formal / attitudinal Substantial / behavioural

Economic Insertion / exclusion:a shard market capacity, particularly regarding the labour market

Equality / inequality: equality in chances and equality in conditions

Political Legitimacy / illegitimacy: maintenance of public and private institutions which act as mediators

participation / passivity: involvement in management of public affairs, third sector ( in opposition to political disenchantment )

Sociocultural Acceptance / rejection : pluralism in fact and also as a virtue i.e. tolerance in differences

Affiliation / isolation: share of common values, feeling of belonging to a same community

Source: Bernard 1999

13 Christian Albrekt Larsen (2014), “Social cohesion: Definition, measurement and developments.”14 From Jenson (1998)15 P. Bernard, (1999), “La Cohésion sociale: critique d’un quasi-concept,” summarised in Ackert et al. 16 Sylvain Acket, et al (2011), “Measuring and validating social cohesion: a bottom-up approach”, p. 5.

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Chan et al. (2006) developed this further, to produce the following definition: “social cohesion is a state of affairs concerning both the vertical and the horizontal interactions among members of a society, as characterized by a set of attitudes and norms that include trust, a sense of belonging, and the willingness to participate and help, as well as their behavioural manifestations.”17

Harb adopted this definition from Chan et al in a 2017 study for UNDP to develop a social cohesion index specifically for the Arab world. Harb suggested a three-tiered approach of core, medial and peripheral indicators, “a core measure of social cohesion as a composite score of horizontal and vertical attitudes as well as vertical and horizontal tendencies for collective action” (following Chan et al), with medial variables “strongly associated with the core variables: 1) identities (belonging); 2) emotions (motivation); and 3) trust.” Peripheral values include “perceptions of 1) threat (human security) and 2) justice, as well as measures of 3) contact and 4) levels of participation and representation.”18 In adapting the literature for a specific geographical area, Harb was following in the footsteps of Dickes et al, who sought to develop measures which would be applicable across the EU.19

Acket et al also included proxies for well-being, “Assuming that a cohesive society reports higher levels of well-being, we included the two proxies of subjective well-being in our study,” the two questions concerning happiness and life satisfaction.20 It seems appropriate to adopt similar well-being measures for children, working on the same assumption that a happy and safe environment can be seen through the happiness and wellbeing of the children in the environment.

There are also policy documents containing working definitions of social cohesion, such as the Canadian Policy Research Network’s: “the presence of basic patterns of cooperation, social action and core sets of collective values.”21 The Australian Scanlon Foundation states that social cohesion is “the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper,”

17 Chan, J., To, H. & Chan, E. (2006) “Reconsidering social cohesion: developing a definition and analytical framework for empirical research,” p. 290. 18 Charles Harb (2017), “Developing a Social Cohesion Index for the Arab Region: Background and Methodological Paper”, p. 5. 19 Paul Dickes et al (2010), “Construct Validation and Application of a Common Measure of Social Cohesion in 33 European Countries”.20 Acket et al (2011), op cit, p. 7. 21 Pauline O’Connor (1998), Canadian Policy Research Net work, quoted in Ritzen and Woolcock, op. cit.

assessing social cohesion in Australia assesses social cohesion along 5 dimensions: belonging, social justice and equity; participation; acceptance and rejection of legitimacy; and worth.22 The OECD “looks at social cohesion through three different, but equally important lenses: social inclusion, social capital and social mobility”.23

There is clear overlap and consensus among all these definitions, with a cluster of concepts around inclusion, participation, belonging and trust, but what is equally clear is that these indicators have been developed with an adult’s life and activity in mind: children have an entirely different way of being included/excluded, or participating within a community, or feeling a sense of belonging, because they do not possess the same agency nor social network an adult has access to. Children are in a very different situation regarding both vertical and horizontal integration: their vertical relations are governed by strict hierarchies in home, school and Makani centres, and the horizontal aspect involves integration with many people who they are not with through choice but necessity (such as a classroom or playground).

There are other areas of research in child development not directly related to social cohesion yet have some bearing on the study. “Shared intentionality” is a concept suggested by Michael Tomasello and Malinda Carpenter, describing a distinguishing set of social-cognitive skills which set us apart from other primates, and can be seen as the ability to share psychological states. They say: “…what makes human cognition different is not more individual brainpower, but rather the ability of humans to learn through other persons and their artifacts, and to collaborate with others in collective activities.” Children learn these skills very young, but crucially for this study it is the ability to see themselves in others which develops the ability to build social groups. This mutual element of development is seen in studies of children belonging to groups, where their sense of belonging has as much to do with their perception of how the group thinks of them as how they feel about the group.24 This work, together with the observation above that social cohesion is often felt or measured by its lack rather than its presence, led to the pairing of probes in the research tool developed as explained below: the questions were all followed up with a mirrored question, either about the opposite (“how safe do

22 http://scanlonfoundation.org.au/research/social-cohesion- index/23 OECD (2011). Perspectives on Global Development 2012: Social Cohesion in a Shifting World. 24 See, for example, Gellman.

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you feel?” was followed up with “when do you feel unsafe?”), or about being on the other side of a situation (“when you were new here, how did you feel, and what did you want people to do to help?” was followed up with “how would you welcome a new child to school?”).

Other work with children of tangential use to defining social cohesion was done by Kirby et al, in their work on involving children in policy and service provision,25 suggesting indicators of participation of potential use when considering Chan et al’s vertical integration axis. The most relevant indicators are as follows:

• Children and young people’s views are taken into account by adults

• Children and young people make autonomous decisions

• Children and young people share power and responsibility for decision-making with adults

• Children and young people are involved in decision-making (together with adults)

These factors were drawn on in a valuable study of disabled children’s participation by Franklin and Sloper,26 an aspect of social cohesion it is highly desirable to explore yet that comes with great challenges to research: a study of social cohesion from the point of view of disabled children and youth would be a whole extra study; research methods are suggested below.

Ultimately, the consensus over the factors in social cohesion in the literature was of great benefit to drawing up a shortlist of what to probe for, but starkly revealed the lack of consideration that children have heretofore received when thinking about social cohesion.

Key Informant Interviews: building on the literature reviewMany experts were consulted at different stages of the project in order to support the literature review in establishing key indicators, suggesting the differences for a child’s experience, develop and test research methods, and test the findings. Perhaps the most useful embodiment of expertise was that 25 Kirby, et al (2003), “Building a Culture of Participation: In volving children and young people in policy, service planning, delivery and evaluation.”26 Anita Franklin and Patricia Sloper (2004), «Participation of Disabled Children and Young People in Decision-making within Social Services Departments: A survey of current and recent activities in Social Services in England».

contained in UNICEF itself. I spoke to a variety of people involved in Makani and Youth Centres (which are run by the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Youth and local partners, with input from various stakeholders), as managers, programme managers, program officers and more. All spoke of their belief in the Makani system as promoting social cohesion, and were pushed as to what this actually means: what “social cohesion” and its absence look like inside a classroom or in a playground. Many provided key insights at an early stage.

“It’s very important to talk about a hero, a reference person that you trust, a strong personality – this is the most important thing.” As seen below, this turned out to be the case from the children’s point of view, as well. “When you walk into a successful Makani centre, there is always a strong manager,” this programme manager continued, before explaining that it’s not just about how they are in their Makani centre, but the presence of such a figure affects the child’s whole life: “If there’s an issue at school a child can come and complain to their Makani teacher or facilitator and talk in an honest way, which is not always available to children.”

For a youth development officer the primary feature of a happy youth centre is acceptance of each other, and, as part of this, understanding each other as individuals: “acceptance is number one” in promoting and achieving social cohesion, and it isn’t just about nationality, or refugee/non-refugee status. “There are problems in Jordan with tribalism, where you see children not interacting with people because they are from a different tribe, whereas we teach them to get over that attitude.” Social cohesion is about a whole range of issues, she continued, but acceptance of others is key.

A researcher at International Alert with extensive experience in both research and programming in social cohesion in the region, and also in monitoring and evaluation work in the field of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, (P/CVE) spoke of the problems and opportunities that come with the fuzziness of the concept as discovered during the literature review process: sometimes you can miss relevant work because they have simply been labelled something else, such as social stability (it was necessary to label social cohesion as such in a project in Lebanon, for example, for political sensitivities), or because the emphasis, and therefore labelling, is on one particular element such as resilience, which often has a strong social cohesion aspect. The researcher spoke of the

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field moving away from seeing social cohesion as relationships between children and towards looking into intergenerational relationships and formal structures such as schools and other institutions; “It’s still wanting people to get along with each other, but they’re in an environment with a lot of pressures, and the role of institutions and authorities of all sorts – schools, caregivers, other people who influence children’s lives in some way – it all controls how they behave as much as the children themselves.” That is, Chan et al’s vertical axis is proving to be as important as the horizontal, if not more so: this was suggested by the programme manager quoted above, and is fully supported by the data collected for this study.

However, the horizontal aspect of good friends was mentioned by two UNICEF staff, for example, “good friends are necessary to feel safe, relaxed and happy,” said one programme manager, with Sholly Fisch (President of Mediakidz Research and Consulting, with decades as a child psychologist at Sesame Street Workshop) echoing this: “you can tell a lot about their happiness simply by looking at their friendships.” This aspect suggests measurement techniques of behavioural observation, a point returned to below.

An evaluation consultant who regularly works with various UN agencies supported the literature review in stressing that the absence of social cohesion might be more observable, by adults and children alike, reinforcing the message from the literature

review of pairing an indicator with its opposite for research and measurement purposes.

More specific indicators were suggested by a variety of people, again most usefully by UNICEF staff: “You can sense the level of acceptance [of each other] by observing and talking to them…before programmes, they point to each other and use labels, ‘The Syrian’ or ‘The muhejaba’ (“the one wearing a hejab”), but after the programmes they stop doing that, they treat each other like individuals.” Again, this would be measured by behavioural observation.

Another key indicator is far more simple to understand and to measure: “they don’t have to come to a Makani centre, it’s not like school, so the biggest indicator of happiness is actually their attendance.” There are other things that keep them coming of course, such as the resources and activities they cannot get anywhere else, for example tablets and toys; and of course communication and friendships with others. But these all feed into social cohesion: extra-curricular activities help build up their personality and confidence, with clear effects: “Makani children look totally different from people who don’t go to Makani, because of their positive energy, the honesty, they look happy; they treat each other well, they have sympathy for each other,” one program manager told me. The questions remain: how do the children see this, and how do we measure it?

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Dividing the demographicsThe age range specified at the outset of the study, 10-24 was split into four separate age groups: 10-13, 14-16, 17-20, and 21-24. A large age range in one workshop can inhibit responses, especially from the younger members of such a group who can be shy or nervous around older children or youth, feelings exacerbated if the others in the group are unknown, but it was impossible to split 250 any more finely, such as into year groups, given the other demographic constraints; namely, gender and type of Makani centre (whether in a host community, refugee camp or Informal Tended Settlement (ITS)). Makani centres are not evenly distributed over these three types of communities because numbers of vulnerable children are not evenly distributed, so taking these numbers into account, the number of children to be tested (specified at the outset as 250), was segmented as follows:

Age GroupHost ITS Camp

Total Male FemaleMale Female Male Female Male Female

(10-13) 12 12 9 9 11 11 64 32 32

(14-16) 12 12 9 9 11 11 64 32 32

(17-20) 12 12 9 9 11 11 64 32 32

(21-24) 12 12 9 9 11 11 64 32 32

Table one: initial segmentation of population for fieldwork.

Initially, it was anticipated that genders would be kept in separate groups, but as fieldwork unfolded, this gender division was not maintained; logistically it proved too difficult, and in any case it was found that with the methods developed neither gender dominated except in a few cases which were noted.

Developing the ToolThe lack of discussion of children in the literature corresponds to a lack of guidance in research methods; instead, research methods known to be effective with exploring children’s thoughts and attitudes in other domains were adapted to explore the cluster of indicators of social cohesion shown by the literature review.

In order to cover 24 workshops in the timeframe of the study, especially with children as young as 10 and therefore without extensive concentration spans, it was decided that the fieldwork would be conducted in one-hour sessions, structured with a variety of activities (including movement, interaction, small group discussion and whole group circle time). Extra questions were included in the discussion guide, in case more time was available, or in case certain questions did not work with certain communities, or if some participants, for example the older youth, responded to the questions more quickly, with less explanation, thus freeing up more time.

The tool was developed with extensive consultation with experts as well as previous experience of the team in evaluation of programmes. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were held with a variety of researchers and practitioners, which included sharing documents not in the public domain and so not included in the literature review, although the information did inform the process of developing the tool and is presented here.

The main resource drawn on for the techniques was the theory and practice of “Liberating Structures,”27 learnt initially by the author from observations of and work with a leader in the field, Arvind Singhal at the University of Texas at El Paso, and applied here with his guidance.28 Liberating structures “introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another,”29 offering a menu of 33 types of interactions that anyone can learn to utilise, aiming to allow for easier communication and sharing of expertise than traditional methods such as presentations, focus groups, workshops and so on. It is important to note that the UNICEF resource of nine youth UN Volunteers (UNVs), who are dedicated to field monitoring and data collection, made these techniques not only possible but successful; since they frequently visit Makani centres for monitoring

27 For a full range of tools, resources and explanations, go to http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ 28 For an example of how the methods were used by Singhal to great effect see http://borderzine.com/2015/06/utep-profes sor-leads-health-collaboration-exercise-at-white-house/. 29 http://www.liberatingstructures.com/

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purposes, trust has already established between them and some children, and they are extremely experienced at putting children at their ease, which meant that the children were more easily able to share their views, and also that the UNVs could reliably report when questions were not effective.

In consultation with Singhal, two basic methods were chosen: the “1-2-4-all” and “the fishbowl.” 1-2-4-all is to promote discussion. A concept, idea or question is introduced by the facilitator, participations are given a minute (timed) to think about it in silence, and then shares the thoughts they had with a partner. Pairs are then paired again, so they share in groups of four, but each person shares not his or her own idea, but their partner’s idea, ensuring that the emphasis is on true listening, sharing, communication and development of ideas in a safe space. Finally, each participant shares one thought from the discussion to the whole group.

The fishbowl can take the same central question or concept to develop it further, or it can be used with an entirely new question. Essentially, four participants are chosen (through volunteering or observation from previous activities) to sit in a circle inside the big circle of all participants and facilitators. They discuss the issue, with the people in the outer circle silent but listening, for a fixed amount of time (for children this was fixed at 4 minutes). The participants in the outer circle then have an opportunity to ask a single question, though each had to be different. Depending on availability of time, discussions can continue after each question, a few questions, or all questions from the outer circle.

In addition to these two techniques, an initial exercise was piloted to open the sessions with movement (after the necessary introductions of participants and project): “the four corners”. Animal faces representing different emotions (happy, excited, sad, scared) were held up in four different corners by four different UNV field monitors (youth UN Volunteers who are dedicated to field monitoring), and the children moved to the animal which best represented the answer to the question: “how do you feel when you come to the Makani centre/Youth centre?” Once they were in the corners, the children were divided into equal groups regardless of their answer so that the four field monitors could work with small groups to capture the more telling information in response to “why do you feel this way?” As suggested in the literature review and KII process, the questions were then followed up with the opposite or negative indicator:

“When do you feel unsafe?” Initially proposed as a form of ice-breaker, this exercise proved so generative that it was expanded to include school and home, with children tracked through a numbering system to compare their answers, and then all three (Makani, school, home) were repeated for “how happy do you feel?” The actual answer of how many children went to each corner was recorded but was of less value than the detail of the reasons why they felt as they did.

It is important to close these sessions well for the sake of all people in the room, so each session was wrapped up by being in the big circle and sharing a single word of how they felt about the session. This, designed to make the children feel respected and valued, proved unexpectedly fruitful in generating further ideas of how much they value which aspects of social cohesion the most, and underlined one major finding that what children hope for and need to feel included is to be consulted and listened to.

These techniques were piloted in one Makani Centre with four groups of the four different age-groups, with mixed genders in each. Selecting the indicators was vital given the time constraints, but a wide range was attempting during the testing phase to feed into that decision. It was decided that out of the cluster of indicators included in definitions from the literature as summarised above, it was a straightforward decision to include well-being as expressed by happiness and comfortableness (paired with sad and uncomfortable indicators); safety/unsafe feelings; inclusion/exclusion, which, when explored both from the child’s point of view and the point of view of a stranger, aimed to also cover acceptance and tolerance at the same time; and belonging/alienation. Very quickly it was clear that inclusion and belonging were often conflated by the children and could be covered by the same questions, and so the last pairing was dropped. Participation/passivity was felt to be more suitable to an external measurement, such as records of attendance, teachers’ reports, or behavioural observation. Legitimacy/illegitimacy was felt to be difficult to probe, and in the event came up spontaneously from the open-ended questions. Crucially, although the indicators elicited from the literature review were drawn on to frame the survey tool, it was attempted at all stages to keep the questions as open as possible to allow a “bottom up” definition to emerge.

“Well-being” was probed through the “four corners” exercise. Inclusion/exclusion was covered by questions to do with being new and welcoming

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a new child to the Makani centre. Finally, questions were attempted to explore the entire concept of social cohesion through general questions probing their conceptions of happy, safe, comfortable environments. The breakthrough with this came after the testing, in the development of “the happy room” question, as described below.

The techniques worked very well in that all age-groups were encouraged to share many of their ideas, a result which came back in their feedback about the session, and this was positive; however, definitions and indicators proved elusive in the testing phase, meaning the questions were not fit for purpose, rather than the techniques. At this point, another round of KIIs was held to redesign the content of the questions.

Sholly Fisch, child psychologist and President of Mediakidz, had practical advice (keep the questions simple; record everything, whether you think there is value or not in the response) and also some big ideas about behavioural observation, mentioned above. “They are more telling, but there is a danger; you need the observers to be extremely well-trained so that they can spot and record everything systematically, in a standardised way, and a lot can go wrong – but it could be an exceptional way to uncover attitudes and measure social cohesion.” One to one interviews were also discussed as a way to measure social networks, with a question as basic as “who are your three best friends?” and coding the responses for gender, nationality, ethnicity and so on with the help of teachers or follow up questions. (There is of course a difficulty in selecting which children to interview, given the necessity to cover both the mainstream experience and the extremes.) Both of these techniques were impracticable for the purposes of this study but are explored below in discussions of future research.

Another KII was with communications and marketing researcher, Cait Lamberton at the University of Pittsburgh. Another suggestion came up of using drawing, with colour, a suggestion echoed by Arvind Singhal at the University of Texas, who has used drawing to great effect in research.30 Many discussions were held as to whether imaginary scenarios or practical, grounded questions were going to have more success with this population. Lamberton suggested the use of visual metaphors which have had great success in America (“if your experience was an ocean, how would you get to safety?”), but after some discussion of 30 Arvind Singhal and Elizabeth Rattine-Flaherty (2008), “Pencils and Photos as Tools of Communicative Research and Praxis: Analyzing Minga Peru’s Quest for Social Justice in the Amazon”.

the variety of life experiences and education these children have had, grounding in the practical would be likely to have more success. This suggestion was also made by Fisch, with examples such as: “how much do you feel part of this group?” or “tell me about a time when you felt part of a group/excluded from a group.” But a certain compromise could be made with imagination and practical experience, in the use of scenarios, and this was the most productive feature of these KIIs. Eventually, through a discussion of what social cohesion might look like for children from the point of view of the indicators chosen from the literature review,

As described above, it was hoped from the outset of the study that the children would come up with their own definition, not shaped by the research into adult conceptions and experiences of social cohesion, and so throughout the testing of the tool different questions to do with the concept of social cohesion as a whole – the existence of a happy and safe classroom or playground – were trialled. This led to the creation of the scenario of “the happy room,” which proved to be the most valuable of the questions.31 This is as follows: Imagine you are the King or the Queen, and you are setting up a new Makani Centre (or youth centre). You have the job of creating just one room in this centre, so that every child in it, 30 children who don’t know each other, are happy in this room, and comfortable. What would you put in it? What things, people, activities would you include? This scenario was probed with the 1-2-4-all method, and then a follow-up question was asked to find out the children’s own indicators of a happy and safe environment: “How would you tell that you had done a good job, that this room was a success?” The answers were illuminating.

Another feature of the techniques emerged very quickly during the testing of stage: more information was going to be generated and recorded in smaller groups with facilitators in each small group rather than in whole-room discussions. Thus four field monitors plus one field monitor as facilitator were used in each session, to capture the thoughts of children as they discussed them in small groups. This generated a vast amount of data, which influenced the shift in data analysis as described below from the straightforward qualitative analysis initially planned to a system aided by computer learning.

31 Credit for the initial idea must go to Cait Lamberton at the University of Pittsburgh.

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FieldworkThe first round of fieldwork took place in host communities in three separate places in Jordan (in Amman, Salt and Jerash governorates), in Makani and youth centres with a variety of diversity, from a youth centre in Jerash which was not only 100% Jordanian but the participants were all from the same tribe, to a nearby Makani centre in Souf with Palestinian, Jordanian and Syrian children. Ten sessions were held, with the following numbers including the day of testing:

Date Time Age Group

Planned Number Actual Target reached

Centre IDNo. of

male

No. of

female

No. of

male

No. of

female

1st of July 9-11am 10-13 5 5 7 5 021-EAC-Host

(Amman)9-11am 14-16 5 5 5 6

1-3pm 17-20 5 5 7 9 Youth Center Amman1-3pm 21-24 5 5

3rd of July 9:30-11:30am 17-20 5 5 6 9 Youth center Salt (Balqa)

9:30-11:30am 21-24 5 5

1-3pm 10-13 5 5 5 4 111-YBC-Host

(Baqa’a)1-3pm 14-16 5 5 5 9

4th of July 10-12pm 10-13 5 5 9 11 045-ICCS-Hos

(Jerash)10-12pm 14-16 5 5

1-3pm 17-20 10+ 10+ 21 1 Youth Center Jerash1-3pm 21-24 10+ 10+

5th of July 10-12pm 10-13 5 5 13 12 031-ICCS-Host

Zarqa10-12pm 14-16 5 5

1-3pm 17-20 10 10 12 8 Youth Center Zarqa

1-3pm 21-24 10 10

160 164

Table two: numbers of participants from host communities

The next stage was two days spent in the Syrian refugee camps Azraq and Zaatari (in general, more homogeneous communities than in host camps) and two further days were spent in ITSs in the Amman area, the most deprived areas visited for the purposes of this study. The final numbers were:

Male Female

Age Group Azraq Camp

Zatari Camp

ITS Day 1

ITS Day 2 Total Azraq

CampZatari Camp

ITS Day 1

ITS Day 2 Total

10-13 20 27 5 15 22 1 7 11 108

14-16 18 7 2 29 13 6 75

17-20 38 10 10 8 66

21-24 7 1 8 13 1 8 38

Total 90 68 74 55 287

Table three: numbers of participants from camps and ITS communities

Finally, two days was spent in working in Makani centres with high numbers of disabled children, valuable experience for learning what preparation and methods would be useful in a future study, but the information received too patchy and poor quality to be used in data analysis. This will be discussed further below.

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DATA ANALYSIS

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Data AnalysisThe responses from all the children were analysed in two ways: the first was with machine-learning techniques, counting the number and the type of words in each category, and then looking for “characteristic words” of a group: words that are used by one group more often than by other groups. Characteristic words for a group are both common in that group, and relatively uncommon in the others. We do not include “stopwords” (e.g., words like “he” or “and”, that are very common and have little meaning independent of context).

Originally the aim was to do this according to gender, nationality and age, but once all the data was gathered it was clear that statistically speaking it was only possible to look at gender and, within nationality, Syrian and Jordanian children only. There were not enough Palestinian, Iraqi or Pakistani children to make a valid comparison, and the age groups were too diffused over the ages of 10-24 to draw solid conclusions. Thus the transcripts were also analysed using more traditional qualitative methods of grouping similar responses, illustrated by verbatim responses throughout the analysis below. The second method was guided by the clear results from the first.

ResultsThe analysis by machine-learning, with code written especially for the project, shows extremely clearly that the nationality, rather than gender,

appears to be the stronger driver of differences in what students discussed with the the UNV Field Monitors. Syrian students showed higher levels of emotion, and were concerned with loneliness and physical safety. Conversely, Jordanian students responded to questions with accounts self-definition, equality, and personal respect; they were also more concerned with improvements to their material environment. But, gender differences remain important. Boys reported higher levels of concern for bullying between peers, and a desire for personal control over their environment; girls showed higher levels of emotion words, greater sensitivity to differences between the genders, and discussed the role of teachers in providing safety and opportunities for trips.

Gender The following table shows the characteristic words associated with each gender; in each of these cases, the words associated with a gender are not only unusually common for that gender, but in fact never seen in a response associated with the other gender.

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Gender Characteristic words

Male interests*, bully*, understanding*, walls*, understood*, protected*, personal, bullying*, develop, board, cooperate*, human, [Sony Play]station*, safety*, positive

Female girls*, university*, trips*, girl*, street*, started*, happiness*, sad*, situation*, lights*, icebreaker*, harm*, cultures, according*, society*, danger, socialize*, advise*, languages*, listened*

Table 1. Characteristic words in question responses. Words marked by * appear only in that gender’s resonses (e.g., boys never used the word “university”, girls never used the word “bully”).

The results reveal basic differences in how the genders perceive their environments. Characteristic words associated with the boys indicated concerns with resources (computers, smart boards for teachers, toys such as the Sony PlayStation), self-definition (references to their personality, hobbies, religious beliefs) and respect (concerns, for example, that they are not being treated as “human” or given equal respect, that they are not being understood, and a desire for private spaces for things).

Conversely, responses from the girls indicate that they are particularly attentive to relationships between the sexes (only female responses, for example, refer to “boys and girls”, rather than to just “friends” or “people”); girls tend to use “girls and boys” or “brothers and sisters” when they talk about their social environment, while boys, when they do use gendered terms, tend to refer to their own gender (e.g., “my brothers and I want [a place] to put some toys”).

Female responses also tend to reference emotions (both positive and negative), and show greater tendency to use words associated with social inclusion, and the sharing of advice. The one reference to material things in the characteristic list for female responses, “lights”, refers to wanting lights to host a party for the group as a whole.

Female responses express greater concern for danger and harm; these mentions are related in part to references to opportunities provided to them for safe trips and outdoor excursions.

Nationality The divide between Syrian and Jordanian responses is not as clear-cut as the male-female divide: most characteristic words, though used unequally, were shared by both nationalities.

Nationality Characteristic words

Syrian society, play, chairs, teacher, alone, afraid, helps, leave, won, always, boys, smile, street, room, language, class, sisters, harassment, sexual, toys

Jordanian classroom, university*, management, share, initiatives, house, awareness, change, interact interests, treated, walls, provide, engage, personal, years

Table 2. Characteristic words in question responses. Words marked by * appear only in that nationality’s responses (e.g., Syrians never used the word “University”.)

Characteristic words for the Syrian students included words associated with fear and feelings of being alone. Teachers are mentioned both as a relief from loneliness and providers of security and safety; the word “street” is associated with danger, and they feel protected by not being out on it. Characteristic words for the Jordanians were notably more sophisticated (more elevated diction, such as the word “initiative”), perhaps reflecting the slightly older age of the students in this sample.

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Joint effects The effects of nationality and gender are mixed together in the above analysis: Syrian students report greater levels of fear, for example, but this could also be because female students in general experience greater levels of fear, and there were more girls in our sample of Syrian students. To split these effects, table 3 shows the characteristic words for all four groups (male, female, and Syrian, Jordanian).

Syrian Jordanian

Male sexual, harassment, respect, siblings, safety, smile, language, treat, encourage, physical, toys, lonely, bully

interests, personal, positive, ping-pong, religious, participants,

friends, thinking, computers, classes, family, free, pool

Female society, alone, chairs, afraid, street, girl[s], sisters, play, boys, class, happy students, kind, teacher

university, community, opinion, icebreaker, socialize, trips, activities, community, happy, share, respect, change, equality

Table 3. Characteristic words by sex and nationality.

This shows that concerns for safety are driven by nationality rather than gender; conversely, the drive for personal respect and self-definition appears more strongly in the Jordanian population. Therefore, within a community which is mixed with respect to nationality, programming targeting social cohesion among a diverse population has to work at targeting the varying concerns of different nationalities in the classroom, a feature explored below in recommendations.

Themes within social cohesion The above shows the need of breaking down populations to understand and address needs and concerns, but now the analysis turns more to what these needs and concerns actually are, in order to develop a working definition of social cohesion for the purpose of programming. To do so, the qualitative data, in the form of transcripts supplied by the UNV Field Monitors, were broken down and grouped into the themes that the children themselves came up with; those mentioned by more than half the participants are presented below, with minority responses also recorded where relevant.

Themes emerged at different points during the workshops, with the most valuable responses coming from: 1) the open-ended questions concerning feelings of safety in different environments (Makani/youth centre, school and home), 2) the “happy room” question, where the children were asked to design a room in a Makani or youth centre in which the 30 beneficiaries would be happy together), and 3) being or welcoming a new kid in the Makani/youth centre, or moving between communities (for example imagining moving from a camp to a host community or welcoming a child into an ITS).

AdultsSafety and its converse are strongly linked to adults across all age-groups, and this emerged in many different parts of the sessions. The open-ended questions in particular yielded unprompted mentions of favoured and feared facilitators and teachers, or, for the older youth, the manager or principal. The “happy room” question often involved the inclusion of favourite teachers: one Syrian child in a camp said he would include his Arabic and Science teachers; in an earlier part of the workshop the same child had remarked that English and Math teachers were violent and were the reason school felt unsafe.

In the camps and ITSs, favourite teachers are sometimes taking the place of role models for the children, who see education as the way out of their predicament as refugees, but they are just as often condemned as unqualified and under-trained for the job, and blamed for a lack of future of the children, linked as it is in their minds to a strong education. The words characteristically used for such role models are around friendliness, trustworthiness, responsible, approachable, caring, thoughtful: that is, they cluster around making a child feel supported as an individual, for example: “The facilitators are the main reason I feel safe, when I have any problem, whether small or big they will help me solve it,” or “facilitators show respect and support

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us constantly.” Another child in the same group said about his negative feelings towards school: “I would feel safe when we have dedicated teachers who are passionate about teaching us rather than just punishing us,” a 15 year old male said his “teachers threaten and scare us to a point where we never want to come back.”

StrangersStrangers loomed large in the fears of children from all communities, but especially amongst the Syrian populations, from the stories of kidnappings from children going to school near the ITS visited, to stories of thieves breaking into tents in the camps, to harassment and violence from strangers on the way between home and Makani centres, schools or universities from children in host communities, to stories of strangers in school playgrounds offering money to go with them. Many times children expressed this fear even without such examples, most often from Syrians, for example a 15-year-old Syrian female: “I am afraid of strangers and the unknown,” or “I am afraid of people coming into the camp from the outside who I don’t know.” This is in marked contrast to the equivalent responses in the unprompted responses to do with safety from Jordanian children, who might be scared of specific adults but do not abstract it to a general fear in this way.

FamiliarityA close look at the experiences in the ITS communities shows the converse of this fear of strangers, as the children in ITSs often expressed the feeling that their communities felt safe precisely because they were closed: everyone knew everyone inside the community and indeed the communities were often formed entirely of extended kinship groups, that is, the safety was formed from the presence of people you knew and the absence of people you don’t. Attitudes to work (there is a lot of child labour in the ITSs) also show the importance of familiarity: a 14-year old male said he enjoyed work, that 7 hours was not too long, but crucially: “I work with my family so I always have them around me.” The worry here could be that these children are therefore less willing (and therefore less able) to build bridges to other children, outside their ITS. But this does not seem to be the case as seen from the “new kid” question, which was adapted for this population to: “If a new family were to arrive in the ITS tomorrow, and there was a child your age,

what would you do to make that new child feel welcome?” It was followed up with questions to do with whether it would make a difference as to whether the new kid was male or female, a different nationality, disabled, or a different religion.

A comparison with school would give more indications about how willing ITS children were to integrate, and how that looks like to them, but many don’t go to school, and the violence from teachers clouds the issue as it makes school feel unsafe. There were no indications that the children were good at making friends outside their community (they travel together to school) but nor was it mentioned as an issue or difficulty, precisely because the adults control more of the feeling of safety. There are thus many more things to ask about in these travelling communities; a particularly valuable study would follow them when they move and repeat the research to see how they feel about new schools and new people in the schools.

There are further reassuring signs that children from these relatively closed communities are open to a wider social experience come from an anecdotal observation during fieldwork, when holding a session in a mixed community of Pakistani and Syrian families. The Pakistani children spoke Arabic with a Syrian accent, the Syrian girls were often dressed in Pakistani dresses, and friendship groups often spanned the nationality divide, showing that strong communities can built from diverse populations with the right conditions, even amongst the most marginalized and traumatized.

Familiarity was mentioned by children throughout the sample population in terms of friends and family, with family mentioned more often, and home safer than either Makani centres or schools. Nevertheless, friends are a significant part of safe feelings for many children.

Consultation, freedom of expression and being heardA fundamentally important finding from across the whole exercise is that children value highly being listened to and being heard. This is not in itself a surprising finding, but the links to feelings of safety perhaps are, and the finding that it is so high up the agenda for so many. This is seen in many of the comments about the adults which make them feel safe, mentioned above, such as “I can go to [the facilitators] with any problem, big or small.”

The clearest but most unexpected source of support

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for this was from the “final thoughts” section: almost all sessions closed with going round the circle of all children and asking for just one or two words each on what they took from the session: across age-groups, but most of all in the older age-groups, children mentioned how grateful and happy they were to have their opinions listened to: “sharing opinions,” “We spoke our inside thoughts”, “opening up,” “free to express my feelings,” “to speak free of fears,” “sharing ideas” - all of these came up in most sessions, in many variations on the themes, often with gratitude: “You cared about our opinions,” “thank you for listening to me.” Part of being heard is of course being accepted, with one child summarizing this as: “We got to share all our opinions and you accepted all of them.”

But the real evidence came in the more extensive elements of the sessions, especially the design of the “happy room”. Many children spoke of asking the children what they wanted rather than assuming that all children want the same thing; ask what they enjoyed doing. When asking the question for eliciting indicators, “How would you know that this room was a success?”, these children said “Well I asked them to begin with what they would want, so I would ask again at the end.”

One element of being heard is being seen as an individual, an issue which did not emerge explicitly with clarity but was nevertheless seen as aspects of other responses, for example the tendency to include birthday gifts as part of the “happy room”, or the answers about being a new kid saying “I just want them to see me as me, not a Syrian,” or in responses to do with equality: “Teachers should treat us equally as we are all people, even if we don’t get as good grades as others.”

ParticipationAn element linked to the above cluster of “consultation and freedom of expression” is participation, or rather being free to participate: children mentioned this in both horizontal (“engaging freely with other children,”) and vertical (“If the teachers treat us well and let us all participate”). This was also clearly seen in the indicators developed from the “happy room” question: if the children are participating in the activities on offer was a common way to measure the success of the room.

Equality There were many stories about teachers in school

who favour some children over others (because they are better students), which resulted in responses such as “I just want them to treat us all the same.” Similar feelings were extremely common in the question about being or welcoming a new kid, with Syrian children and youth stressing again and again that they did not want to be labelled as “Syrian” or “refugee” (“I wouldn’t like to hear the word Syrian…”) but treated the same as everyone else (the same child carried on: “even if that’s being ignored,” that is, it is better to be treated badly but equally than to be singled out for being Syrian.) There were even explanations as to why they shouldn’t be separated or treated differently, along lines of “we were all one country once anyway,” or “We share more culture than we don’t.”

The “new kid” question also stressed this point, in follow-up questions to do with difference: after explaining what children would do to welcome a new kid, they were asked: “Does it make a difference if they are male/female; Muslim/non-Muslim; Syrian/Jordanian/another nationality; disabled.” Responses almost always were about treating everyone the same, but these responses were probed further because it is understood that the children were aware this was the “right” answer i.e. there are social desirability effects. When they were probed in this way, they admitted that some cultures might be a problem but could also be interesting and a point of conversation; that in their cultures genders don’t mix well together so that would make a difference; and for the Jordanians, anti-Shia sentiment was high. It is no surprise but still important to note that methods for integrating new children have to be gender and culturally aware.

ViolenceA near-universal theme across ages, nationalities and genders is violence. Whether actual, threatened, or its absence, violence was mentioned by most children in every group during the open-ended initial questions of the sessions concerning safety. The level of violence in public schools is reported as high, and when teachers are not violent it is seen as important enough to mention: “I feel safe at school because the teachers do not hit us,” is a common response for that minority of children in the sample who are happy at school. Similarly, homes are seen as safe because they are not violent, often spoken of in contrast to school; or the unsafe features are violence between parents or from older siblings. A typical response from an 11-year old male in a camp was: “When there is no violence from both the

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teachers and other children I would feel safe, as well as not having the teacher constantly threatening us.” This is noteworthy because it was such an obvious and recurrent feature of the sessions and the children’s lives.

BullyingLinked to violence, though with the added “verbal bullying” mentioned by some, bullying is a major obstacle to feeling safe. This is where the clear-cut distinction between vertical and horizontal factors in social cohesion becomes complicated, or perhaps bullying constitutes a shared factor: the reported bullying is performed by children, whether peers or (more commonly) older children in the school, home or Makani environment, and can therefore be described as a “horizontal” factor, but it reflects an institutional problem in the inability to prevent or stop it, thus also making it a “vertical” problem.

Peripheral spacesAlthough outside the control of authorities which run Makani centres, schools or universities, the spaces between these places and home are often seen as a threat to safety and are vitally important to how the places themselves are perceived. The most common fears on the streets travelled are from harassment (especially for the girls), kidnapping and violence. Fears in homes stem from being alone, and focus on wild animals and thieves, especially in camps and ITSs. Many children in ITS spoke of how the Makani centre felt safe “because it is close to my tent.”

A happy environment: activitiesArt and music figured prominently in responses to the “happy room” question, whether as main activities (“I would put in musical instruments such as guitars or a piano because everyone loves music,”), or as background, such as including paintings on the wall and including music for dancing. Music and art were invoked both for making people happy (“Pictures for happiness,” “Paintings of nature make people happy”, “dancing makes people happy and dibkeh [Arabic dancing] is part of our culture,”), and also checking that people were happy (“through drawing and music they will

show their feelings”), that is, they are activities to promote happiness and also measure it. Storytelling too was often mentioned as a method for learning and also for happiness.

There was a strong emphasis on education even though it was not specifically referred to in the question; Syrians in particular see that value lies in providing education to a child, and safety for the future (conversely, there is a fear among many Syrian children that their education is not good enough, or will not be recognized in Syria on their return). Two children mentioned building a science lab for people to learn science and for inventing things; many mentioned Arabic and English as most useful to the future; the Arabic phrase “knowledge is light and ignorance is dark” (العلم نور والجهل ظلام) was used” …I wouldn‘t grow in life if I couldn‘t study“.

Some of this education was applied ,such as mechanics or sewing ,but suggested for the same reason as education :that these activities would be useful to the future of the children ,giving them useful skills for working.

Many children developed ideas to make learning fun ,with televisions ,cartoons ,games ,computers all mentioned regularly .Technology ,as mentioned above ,was more popular with the boys ,with only boys mentioning computer games such as Gameboys and X-boxes.

Group activities such as ice-breakers ,group games, and” activities involving cooperation “were often discussed both as ways for people to get to know each other and ways to increase the happiness inside the room because” people can participate “or ”to include everyone“.

Football was mentioned by a sizeable minority of boys ,both in terms of playing and watching ;table tennis was mentioned by a few males and females, but in general sport was not a major feature of creating a happy environment.

There was a clear split between children in camps and host communities and children in ITSs :the latter group found this question very hard to answer spontaneously ,and their answers were limited to basic amenities) chairs ,notebooks ,pens, whiteboards (and food and water ,or ,for a few children ,there were horses and places to grow vegetables .People chosen for the happy room were friends and family ;activities were mostly paintings and learning school subjects .It is suspected that because the sources of information in their lives are

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very limited their imagination is likewise narrow, another effect of the segregation of this community: they chose what is in their lives and what they would want more of rather than thinking more broadly.Still,it is encouraging to note that education is valued as highly as valuable for the future as for the children in other communities.

Process of cohesionThe “new child” question, whether asked as how to treat a new child coming into their environment, or how they would deal with being in a new environment themselves, aimed to elicit the process of becoming included and/or being inclusive for a child, as well as to understand more general themes as outlined above. Many were baffled by the questions which therefore needed a lot of extra explication and pushing by both the facilitator and field monitors, but valuable insights were gained, not least the fact that at least half the children surveyed were baffled by the problem: perhaps more activities involving ice-breakers and social skills would improve the situation of reaching out and building bridges.

There was talk of fear of new places both directly (“I would be nervous that people would not like me,”) and indirectly, (“I would not want people to know I was Syrian.”). These same children had very clear ideas how to welcome another child, showing that self-awareness leads directly to empathy when discussed.

Responses were in keeping with all the themes listed above. Again, participation, inclusion and listening are key: “Respect them by listening to them talk;” “Ask them questions about themselves and their culture,” “playing with us,” “allowing them to participate” were typical responses, “no discrimination, we would share good times and bad.” Similarly, equality was a constant theme: “Mix with us, no Syrians together and Jordanians together,” “I wouldn’t like to hear the word Syrian,” “Make sure there was no discrimination.” Practical advice was also suggested, “I would show them around at school and sit with them so they got to know my friends.”

Incidental findings There were some themes that are less relevant to social cohesion but worth noting in terms of feelings of safety and wellbeing. The first was heard from children in camps and ITSs about infrastructure: a lack of electricity and/or water makes them feel unsafe. In the same populations, trauma was in evidence as seen in mentions of hearing planes overhead as linked to feeling unsafe, or seeing angry people, even if the anger is not directed at them. The risk of family illness is also a common source of anxiety. All of these elements are difficult or impossible to address, especially in the context of social cohesion programming, but worth noting.

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PROPOSED DEFINITION & INDICATORS

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Proposed Definition & Indicators Following the example of the Council of Europe, we propose a description of social cohesion as a cluster of factors rather than confine this woolly concept to a single definition.

Definition Across all the different demographics, certain themes emerged very strongly, leading to the following child-led definition of social cohesion, that is, a child feels an environment is safe, happy and comfortable, and they can build bridges with other children, when:






6. They have and understand clear structures of help

7. There is freedom of expression and participation

8. Everyone is included in activities

9. There is an absence of violence and bullying, both vertical and horizontal

Within these themes, the details vary between genders, nationalities, and age-groups, particularly

nationalities, leading to the suggestion that programming is tweaked for different groups, drawing on consultation with the children and facilitators of the communities.

It must be made explicit that a “child-led” definition is not necessarily a comprehensive definition, that is, everything required for a happy environment. In any social science research, it is difficult to dig down to “real” motivations or causes for many reasons: there are always assumptions not mentioned by participants (a feature of assumptions is that they are part of the backdrop, so ingrained that it does not occur to people that they are relevant); it might not be possible, especially among the younger age-groups, to abstract or generalise their feelings; humans often misidentify the true source of feelings such as safety and wellbeing, fixing on a “placeholder” rather than the true cause. Comprehensive definitions as seen in the literature review rely on the researcher drawing conclusions and generalisations as much as the subjects. However, this report is aiming at something different: the child’s own view, however partial.

The vital point to note from these themes is that the vast majority of what makes a safe and happy environment for a child is not spread equally between all the factors compiled during the literature review: the majority of factors, indeed points 1-6 on the above list, are to do with belonging and inclusion. Points 7 and 8 are related to participation, and 9 is related to tolerance. Of course there are overlaps (“equality”, although seen as a measure of belonging, is also related to

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“tolerance”; “freedom of expression” is taken as a measure of “participation” but again is a concept related to “tolerance”), and these will be discussed in relation to UNICEF tools, below.

Children had clear ideas about activities that would create such an environment:

– Art (on the wall and as an activity, as it makes people happy)

– Music and dance

– Story-telling (whether read or as films or cartoons)

– Social or group activities such as ice-breakers or games

– Educational activities and support

– Skills development (sewing, mechanics)

– Games (technological, non-technological, and sports)

The environment would include decorations with paintings and nice colours; comfortable furniture; technology for learning and entertainment; space for everyone.

Indicators The question to elicit indicators for measuring social cohesion came after the “happy room” question, and was: “How would you know that the room you just made was a success?” Answers were enlightening. If we eliminate responses that are clearly a result of not understanding the question, or known to be misguided or impractical (“If I give them everything of course they will be happy,” “I know they will be happy with my activities,” “If they are learning a lot”) we get to the following cluster of indicators:

• Inclusion: if all children are playing together and no-one is left out

• Behaviour: if they are treating each other well, and the room well

• Facial expressions: if they are laughing and smiling a lot

• Body language

• Attitudes: if they are positive, taking things easily, have a sense of humour

• Attendance: if they are happy they will come back

• Activities: through drawing and music they will show their feelings

• Consultation: ask them what they like and don’t like and get feedback

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ASSESSMENT OF EXISTING UNICEF TOOLS

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Assessment of Existing UNICEF Tools UNICEF has a well-developed tool-kit, “Compilation of Tools for Measuring Social Cohesion, Resilience, and Peacebuilding,” (April, 2014), developed by “Learning for Peace,” and supplied as part of the project.

This admirable compilation of survey tools uses three domains of social cohesion: 1) Belonging and Inclusion, 2) Tolerance and 3) Participation, whilst noting that there are many different possible approaches to defining social cohesion: it is explained that these three pillars are most relevant to Peace Building, Education and Advocacy outcomes.

Matching the child’s version of social cohesion as defined above to the tools, can only go so far, given the reasons given above as to how much children can generalise or abstract, or communicate their true and feelings. Thus the following analysis of existing UNICEF tools also draws on the literature review above.

Clearly, the crucial difference between the child-led definition of social cohesion developed above and the tools used by UNICEF is the imbalance between factors of belonging, participation and tolerance.

Belonging is defined by the UNICEF toolkit as the following;

In general, belonging pertains to an individual’s sense of connection to a wider community, and the feeling of being recognized as a member of that community. Belonging would also include the sense to which an individual feels “part of” the state (e.g., as measured by perception toward the state or views on state legitimacy). Similarly, inclusion is tied to the strength of one’s social networks and social capital. However, inclusion also involves equity of opportunities and of access with regard to social services, economy and housing.

As pointed out under the definition devised above, 6 points out of the 9 compiled from the sample population’s responses are to do with this definition of belonging and inclusion, in both a vertical sense (from adults and institutions) and horizontal (friends):






6. They have clear structures of help

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Participation is described in the UNICEF toolkit as:

The following questions are intended to measure social cohesion as it pertains to an individual’s participation in social, political, and civic life. Participation, which can be considered the opposite of passivity, refers to a person’s involvement in public activities in one’s school or local community, or on a broader political scale. It requires both the wider group to promote participation and the individual to demand it, recognizing both the will and responsibility for involvement in civic life.

There are two factors related to “participation” in the definition developed above: freedom of expression and participation, and everyone is included in activities.

Finally, tolerance is defined as:

Tolerance is linked to an individual’s acceptance of other groups and respect for diversity. Central to this is the willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviours that a person dislikes or disagrees with.

There is just one factor related to tolerance in the child-led definition of social cohesion, which is an absence of bullying, both vertical and horizontal. As noted above, there are overlaps (“equality”, although seen as a measure of belonging, is also related to “tolerance”; “freedom of expression” is taken as a measure of “participation” but again is a concept related to “tolerance”), though this was not specifically recognised by the sample population when discussing the issues.

Assessing the questions in the toolkit There are two areas to think about in assessing the UNICEF tools: first, the themes covered, and second, the language used, and whether it resonates with how the children themselves speak of these issues. The following section analyses the tool with comments. Tables in orange are taken directly from the tool: comments underneath are the responses of this report.

Belonging and Inclusion Survey Prompt: “Please indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with the following.”

Statement Strongly disagree Disagree Agree Strongly

agree

I have a large and active social network

I often meet socially with friends, relatives, and colleagues

I identify strongly as a (insert group/community)

This set of questions resonates with the literature review but less with the fieldwork findings; the questions are more relevant for people with agency i.e. adults than children, who have more circumscribed lives. The last question in particular is not relevant to how happy the children are in their various environments and indeed many wish for the opposite: to be treated as an individual without any labels of groups or communities (such as “Syrian”). If the community in question is in fact the Makani or youth centre it makes more sense, although it is questionable whether the unit of analysis (the centre, the class, my age-group in the centre and so on) could be applied universally for all children in Jordan.

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Statement Yes No

If you should find yourself in a difficult situation, there is someone who would help you?

If you need help occasionally, running errands, doing small jobs, or looking after sick people, there are people outside your household you could ask for help without difficulty?

Do you feel connected with (insert country/community)?

Source: Cohesion Radar: Measuring Cohesiveness

The first question is clearly relevant to concerns of children surveyed: supportive adults came high on the list of what makes children safe: “I can go to the facilitator with my problems, big or small.” The second is less relevant to the environments being analysed (namely Makani centres), but rather to the wider life of the child, and the third, as with the comment above, is irrelevant to the child’s concerns, and even counter-productive to ask about.

Question Yes No

Do you personally feel a sense of belonging to your community?

Think of the area within about half a mile of where you live. Do you think there is a strong sense of community among people living here?

Source: Northern Ireland Young Life and Times Survey

Both these questions are irrelevant to refugee populations, and the language does not resonate with the language heard during the fieldwork. They are clearly based on the situation in Northern Ireland, designed to elicit strength of feeling to one community out of two, and perceptions of the other.


agree

My teacher respects me

My teacher is fair

Teachers in my school are nice people

When students break rules at my school, they are treated fairly

The principal asks students about their ideas at my school

My school is a good place to be

My school is important to me

Teachers and staff at my school are doing the right things to prevent violence (verbal and/or physical)

Source: School Student Survey: School Climate Scale

These are the most relevant questions in the tool, resonating with the top-mentioned factors to do with social cohesion during fieldwork – the treatment from adults, consultation, and protection from violence, and with the language the children themselves used.

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agree

I feel at home in (insert) group

I get along well with the people in this group

I appreciate the way (people from X group/community) treat other people

(People from X group/community)’s feelings about situations and incidents are similar to mine

(People from X group/community) treat other people the same way I do

(People from X group/community) and I have similarities

I have a lot in common with the people in my group

In this group, we speak frankly with one another

If somebody in this group is having problems, the rest of the group helps her/him

This group works well together

If somebody in this group has a good tip or information source, it is soon shared with the whole group

I can speak frankly to other people in this group

If I had extra information, I would share it with other people in this group

I wouldn’t mind doing some extra work to help other people in this group

I can work well together with other people in this group

Source: Measuring Cohesion: Social Attraction Scale

If “the group” in these questions is taken as “people in the Makani centre”, then these questions have relevance, but, as pointed out above, nationalities and other wider communities should not be used given their associations with discrimination for some children. The language used is good, but, especially for the younger age-groups, the questions are too extensive and overlapping and it is recommended that they are drawn upon rather than all used.

“The following questions are intended to be used as an observation checklist as part of a third-party monitoring form:”

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Survey Prompt: “To what extent the following statements on {insert group name} are true.”

Statement Not true True Very true

The members like and care about each other

The members try to understand why they do things, and try to reason it out

The members avoid looking at important issues going on between them

The members depend upon the group leader for direction

The members have friction and anger between them

The members are distant and withdrawn from each other

The members challenge and confront each other in efforts to sort things out

The members appear to do things they think would be acceptable to the group

The members reject and distrust each other

The members reveal sensitive/personal information or feelings to each other

The members appear tense and anxious

Source: Group Climate Questionnaire

A key recommendation stemming from the children’s own thoughts about testing how happy children are (see the “indicators” section above), as well as from several KIIs, is to use observation as a technique for measuring social cohesion and so this set of questions fits well into the study’s findings. But it is suggested that a few extra observations can be added to the checklist: all members are included in activities; members make efforts to include people who are left out; the members treat the room and each other with respect; the members are enjoying activities/are positive about the activities in the room; attendance is good; the body language and facial expressions are positive. These are all drawn from the children’s own suggestions and should first be tested in a pilot study.

ToleranceThe questions on tolerance are less relevant to the study not because they are irrelevant to social cohesion but because they were not considered important by the children surveyed for the study. However, they are clearly relevant to theories of social cohesion outlined in the literature review and so are worth reviewing here with respect to the various communities in the Makani context.

Many of the questions in this section are classic for measuring tolerance in many populations but are very difficult to apply to many communities serviced by the Makani system, as it is often not in the children’s power to make friends outside their community, such as children in camps. If they answer “none at all” to the first question (“how many friends do you have in another community”) this is more of a reflection of their circumstance than their tolerance levels. They could be relevant to host communities but the language must be carefully tailored: it was clear from the fieldwork that children are aware of the “right” answer (seen in their responses to the “new kid” questions, of “We would welcome them whatever community they were from” which collapsed on further probing). For all these reasons it is suggested that the questions retained are to do with attitudes and opinions rather than actual life experiences of others.

The questions that fall into the category of unsuitable for closed populations (camps and some ITSs) are the following four sets:

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Survey Prompt: “Please indicate your belief regarding the following.”

Question Answer choices

Thinking about your close friends, how many friends do you have from the other {insert relevant group} community?

1. None at all

2. One

3. Two to five

4. Six to ten

5. More than 10

6. Don’t know

Thinking about the most recent cross-community project you took part in, how would you describe your contact with people from {insert relevant group} communities?

1. Very positive

2. Positive

3. Neither positive nor negative

4. Negative

5. Very native

6. Don’t know

Survey Prompt: “Please state whether you agree with the following.”

Question Yes No

Have you ever attended any cross-community projects (that is, projects with young people from {insert relevant group} communities)?

Do you think that {insert relevant issue, e.g. “religion, tribe, caste, etc.”} will always make a difference to the way people feel about each other in {insert relevant community/region}?

Survey Prompt: “Please state how often the following happens.”

Statement Never Rarely Some-times

Very often

Friends from other communities visiting your home

Phone or text friends who are from the other {insert relevant group} community

Socialise or play sport with people from a different {insert relevant group} community to yourself

Survey Prompt: “Please indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with these statements.”


agree

If more cross-community projects were formed relations between different {insert relevant groups} would be better

Most people would like to have more friends of a different {insert relevant group}, but never have the opportunity

I would like to have more friends of a different {insert relevant group}, but I don’t have the opportunity

There are no facilities in my area where I can meet with people of a different {insert relevant group}

I would like to take part in a cross-community project, but there are none in my local area

Source: Northern Ireland Young Life and Times Survey

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Questions more suitable for the purposes of UNICEF Jordan are the following:

Survey Prompt: “Please indicate your preference with regards to the following statements.”

Own group only Mixed Other (Specify:

_________ )

If you had a choice, would you prefer to live in a neighborhood with people of only your own {insert relevant group}, or in a mixed neighborhood?

If you were looking for a job, would you prefer a workplace with people of only your own {insert relevant group}, or a mixed workplace?

If you were deciding where to send your children to school, would you prefer a school with children of only your own {insert relevant group}, or a mixed school?

These measures have of course been developed for adults but from the experiences during fieldwork it is clear that they can be adapted for children along the following lines:

If you could attend any school in Jordan, would you prefer to go to one that is just Syrians/Jordanians/Palestinians/etc; or a mixture of Syrian/Jordanian/etc? Why? What about a neighbourhood to live in – would you choose just Syrians/etc or a mix?


agree

Members of (insert group/religion/tribe) are intolerant

Would you want people from (insert group) to be your neighbour?

Would you do something good for (insert relevant group) in your country because it is in the interest of society?

Too many {insert relevant group} live in (insert relevant country/community)


Testing attitudes is a core part of testing tolerance, but it is difficult due to the social desirability effects already mentioned a few times: these children know the “right” answer in this sphere, that all children are equal, it doesn’t matter where they’re from, what religion they are and so on. The first is a clear trigger, alerting children to the “right” answer and to what might be coming and is recommended to be cut. The rest are better, and what would add even more value are follow up questions: “Why/why not?” These require extra columns for “notes” and extra time for both data collection and analysis but the answers would be illuminating.

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Statement32 Strongly disagree Disagree Agree Strongly

agree

When jobs are scarce, {insert relevant group, i.e. tribe, caste, religion, etc.} should have more right to a job

On the whole, {insert relevant group, i.e. tribe, caste, religion, etc.} make better political leaders

Education is more important for a boy than for a girl {or insert relevant group, i.e. tribe, caste, religion, etc.}

Source: Adapted from 2010-2012 World Values Survey

Again, these questions seem more relevant to an adult than a child, but can be adapted, especially the final one on education, but again, the follow up probe of “why/why not” is vital to elicit the true weight of the answer, which could come down to resource management (if funds are low it might be necessary to choose which child receives education). Possible adaptations are:

When there aren’t enough school places, it is more important for [insert group] to be educated. On the whole, [insert group] make better students.

Again, it would be more illuminating to ask the follow-up question of why they answered what they did.

ParticipationNone of the questions relating to participation in the UNICEF toolkit are relevant to the situation of children in the Makani system: the choice to participate has already been taken in coming to Makani, making the first set irrelevant, and the second and third set of questions relate to adult actions and choices (such as political and community meetings). The questions are as follows:

Survey Prompt: “Please indicate if you are involved / participate in any of the following.”

Groups Active member Inactive member Don’t belong

School club or group

Social activities/associations

Political activities/associations

Cultural/religious activities/associations

Youth and leisure/sports activities/associations

Spend time with friends

Spend time with colleagues outside the workplace

Spend time with people in clubs/voluntary associations

Source: Adapted from the 2010-2012 World Values Survey and Social Cohesion: Measurement Based on the Data from the European Value Study

32 While these survey questions are originally written to focus on gender issues, they can be adapted by substituting names of relevant tribes, castes, religions, communities, etc.

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Survey Prompt: “Please indicate your opinion regarding the following questions.”

Question Answer choices

Have you ever participated in any of the meetings on {insert relevant topic} held in your community?

0. No invitation

1. Not participated

2. Participated in _ meetings

3. What kind of meetings? (Specify)

If you participate in meetings then what motivated you to participate in the meeting? (answer could be more than one)

0. Don’t know

1. Without anyone’s encouragement

2. Friend

3. Family

4. School

5. Radio programme

6. Other media like newspaper, advertisement.

7. Political parties

8. Others

In that meeting what is your role? (Choose only one answer)

0. Don’t know

1. Physical participation(silent)

2. Sometimes giving opinion

3. Often engaged in discussion and decision making

4. Giving an argument for a decision

5. Always involved in influencing the decision making

Source: SFCG Baseline Study Report on the Peacebuilding Initiative in Nepal

Survey Prompt: “Here is a list of actions that people sometimes take as citizens. For each of these, please tell me whether you, personally, have done any of these things during the past year. [If “yes,” read out options for “yes.”] If not, would you do this if you had the chance? [For “no,” read out options for “no.”]”

Action Yes – Often

Yes – Several times

Yes – Once

or twice

No – Would if had the chance

No Would

never do this

Don’t know

Attended a community meeting

Got together with others to raise an issue

Attended a demonstration or protest march

Source: Afrobarometer Round 4: The Quality of Democracy and Governance in Kenya

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It is suggested that replacement questions could be to do with participation are along the lines of what the children themselves suggested, such as:

• I enjoy coming to the Makani centre

• I miss it when I can’t come

• I feel positive about the activities on offer

• I feel able to choose my own activities freely

• Everyone in my group is included if they want to be

• Everyone feels comfortable in choosing an activity they like

• We know where to go to suggest activities

These should be adapted with input from Makani-specific information as to processes of setting and choosing activities for or by the children.

Research techniquesAlthough quantitative surveys with limited multiple-choice answers have clear advantages in fieldwork (large numbers can be sampled; with literate populations you can have anonymity; statistical analysis is straightforward), more comprehensive understanding would be gained with two main additions: a qualitative element of follow-up questions (“why/why not?”) and an behavioural observational element, observing the entire group or class interacting in the environment being tested. The children themselves suggested such a process, saying that you can tell when children are happy from their behaviour, facial expressions, body language, attitudes to being there, if people are all included and so on (see above section on indicators).

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RECOMMENDATIONS

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Recommendations Implications for Programming The importance of individuals, as the adults who shape an environment and represent most commonly safety for children presents problems and opportunities. General training can be put in place, but given high staff turnover mentioned by some of the children (particularly in camps), it would be more reliable long-term to have institutional structures involving regular training and information days for both staff and students, including non-teaching staff, to inform the entire environment of what is and is not damaging to individuals and the school as a whole. In Makani and youth centres, such training should include the research background to all types of programming, including PSS, educational, life skills and outreach, and information as to elements of the programming such as included in this report on social cohesion. In this way, awareness would be built concerning all the elements of social cohesion as included in the definition this study proposes: the importance of listening, building good relationships with trust, equality, inclusion in activities, and a lack of violence and other bullying.

These institutional structures should also include regular training on bullying, communicating how damaging it can be on a number of levels, from trauma to school (or Makani) attendance. The pervasive nature of bullying in schools as reported by participants can be due to various reasons,

but is largely down to the vertical structures in place: adults are not observing bullying behavior, whether to do with lack of resources (and therefore supervision) or unawareness, or they do not consider it a problem if it is, and always has been, endemic. Related to this, children may not be aware of channels of reporting, accepting it as a fact of life, with older siblings reinforcing this notion. Children can benefit from awareness of bullying, and training in how to protect themselves and others, thus strengthening the horizontal structures to tackle bullying.

Fear of strangers is palpable from the children and youth, but what was interesting to note is the variety of reactions to follow-up questions about how they reacted to such situations: did they know what to do? Because of the limitations of time, this issue was not explored in depth, but the issue has a direct bearing on vertical factors in social cohesion: does the child understand the wider institutional structures in providing support and protection? Do they know how to report worries, how to get help in the short and long terms? This merits further research and also development of best practice of training for adults and awareness-raising for children.

This fear often emerges in the peripheral spaces in the children’s lives, that is, the roads between school, home, Makani centres and other places. This is of course impossible for UNICEF to improve in terms of the situation of safety on the streets itself, being a matter for national institutions and law keeping, but, as with the issue of stranger danger discussed above, the children and youth themselves

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can be trained into understanding what can be done: what are the authorities, channels and methods for reporting danger, and what can be done in advance or in the moment to protect themselves.

A key finding is that a sense of belonging rests on a feeling of being listened to and being heard. Consultation should be a key part of programming throughout the process, from initial preparation to final evaluation. The tools can be simple: many children throughout this study expressed gratitude for the workshop sessions, for example, which are very simple to run with the “liberating structures” menu as described above.33 They are very easy to learn and implement. The more complicated part is following up, and making the children feel as if their voice has value, which is up to the adults in the centre, who should take care to explain where their opinions go and what they are used for.

The children themselves, especially the Syrian children, recognized the importance of skills and education for their future and the future of their communities, often expressed as fear for the future given their lack of education. This is already recognized by UNICEF as a key concern.

Activities that were stressed by children for the creation of a happy space rest heavily on the arts: music, dancing, art and story-telling. Arts are of course heavily utilized in UNICEF programming already, but it is still instructive to note that this is valued by the children.

These recommendations can be summarized under three broad headings:

1. Institutional structures for training for adults, to minimize bullying and violence, create and maintain structures of support, increase feelings of trust, improve equality

2. Awareness building among children for safeguarding, anti-bullying, understanding of structures of support,

3. Increase consultation wherever possible

Variations in the data, although preliminary, are clear: there are gender differences but even more importantly there are differences between nationalities, with Syrians more concerned with safety and Jordanians more concerned with

33 See http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ for the full “menu”.

personal respect and self-definition. How this plays out in programming is mostly in terms of awareness of needs of the adults, and thus subsumed into 1) above – institutional training. First, however, more research needs to be done into other variations, as this report turns to now.

Future research Extensive ideas for future research in defining and measuring social cohesion from a child’s point of view were generated, especially during KII phases of the project and throughout the fieldwork.

It is clear that a project specifically with children with disabilities would be of great value to this area, a project which would require more collaboration with teachers and carers of the children, to prepare ahead of time for the specific requirements and cognitive abilities, to design an effective tool in terms of both the techniques or activities and the questions.

It would be valuable to extend the sample in other ways as well, for example to a wider constituency socio-economically. An interesting comparison point here would be Sutter et al, 2019, who found that cognitive and social development not only varies according to age and gender but significantly varies with respect to socio-economic status of the child’s background, which is something not considered in phase one of this research. Extending field sites from Makani centres to mainstream schools and other types of youth centres, ideally across more areas of Jordan, would extend the range of socio-economic backgrounds automatically, but there would need to be preparation ahead of time to capture this information, particularly for the younger cohort who would not know the status of their family.

Behavioural observation, suggested by various experts but advocated for most vocally by child psychologist Sholly Fisch, would be of great value given how much the children themselves came up with behavioural observations as a way of testing how successful their “happy room” was: you can see the children smiling, or observe their body language, or how they are playing with each other or talking to each other. The challenges are in the required training to ensure standardisation of observation across classes and communities, and also the time involved.

One-to-one interviews, already used by UNICEF Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PME) teams,

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would be of use in extending this piece of research with similar questions but probed more extensively. Similarly, quantitative surveys can be developed from the success of this study’s tool, allowing a different type of analysis to be done on the subject.

Next steps After internal consultation, it is recommended that phase two of the research should involve extending sampling to children with disabilities and to a wider range of socio-economic backgrounds. In general, extending the field sites to schools and other types of youth centres, using the same tool as in phase one, would enable a more in-depth statistical analysis for age and gender variables as a result of combining the data with that collected in phase 1.

Other immediate steps are to test the tool developed above and presented in appendix 2, which is drawn from existing UNICEF tools together with the results of the study. Work needs to be done on developing complementary aspects such as behavioural observation, which can happen at the same time through consultation with the duty bearers and care givers.

This step paves the way to using the measurement tool to systematically collect data, and indeed institutionalize data collection, allowing for longitudinal studies and comparative data analysis, leading to ever-improving evaluation of programmes.

It will also enable pilots to demonstrate the utility of the measurement tool and definition, using small-scale projects as entry points.

Advocacy is another element of implementing the study, taking the definition developed above to the National Authority (the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Social Development), suggesting that a form of the social cohesion measurement be integrated into teachers’ performance appraisal.

Summary of recommendations • Test the social cohesion measurement tool and

fine-tune behavioural observation elements of measurement

• Start systematic monitoring and institutionalization of data collection by using the measurement tool

• Advocate the child-led social cohesion definition to the National Authority, i.e. Ministry of Education, perhaps integrating the measurement into teachers’ performance appraisal

• Demonstrate the utility of the social cohesion measurement / definition by using a small scale projects as an entry point

• Plan the 2nd phase of the study, expanding the sampling framework to children with disabilities and a greater range of socio-economic backgrounds

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bibliography

Sylvain Acket, Monique Borsenberger, Paul Dickes, Francesco Sarracino (2011), “Measuring and validating social cohesion: a bottom-up approach”, Paper presented at the International Conference on Social Cohesion and Development,

organized by the OECD, Development Center, Paris, 20-21st January 2011. https://www.oecd.org/dev/pgd/46839973.pdf

Caroline Beauvais and Jane Jenson (2002), “Social Cohesion: Updating the State of the Research,” CPRN Discussion Paper No F22.

P. Bernard, (1999), “La Cohésion sociale: critique d’un quasi-concept,” Lien social et Politiques – RIAC, 41, 47-59.

J.G. Bruhn (2009), “The Concept of Social Exclusion”, Chapter 2 in The Group Effect: Social Cohesion and Health Outcomes, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0364-8_2

Chan, J., To, H. & Chan, E. (2006) “Reconsidering social cohesion: developing a definition and analytical framework for empirical research,” Social Indicators Research, 75, 273-302.

Paul Dickes, Marie Valentova and Monique Borsenberger (2010), “Construct Validation and Application of a Common Measure of Social Cohesion in 33 European Countries”, Soc Indic Res (2010) 98:451–473DOI 10.1007/s11205-009-9551-5,

Anita Franklin and Patricia Sloper (2004), “Participation of Disabled Children and Young People in Decision-making within Social Services Departments: A survey of current and recent activities in Social Services in England”, Quality Protects Research Initiative, Interim Report, February 2004.

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Charles Harb (2017), “Developing a Social Cohesion Index for the Arab Region: Background and Methodological Paper”, UNDP.

Jane Jenson (1998), “Mapping Social Cohesion: The State of Canadian Research”, Canadian Policy Research Networks Study No. F03, http://cccg.umontreal.ca/pdf/CPRN/CPRN_F03.pdf

Jane Jenson (2010), Defining and Measuring Social Cohesion (London: Commonwealth Secretariat and United Nations Research Institute for Social Development); http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.452.3083&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Kirby, P., Lanyon, C., Cronin, K. and Sinclair, R. (2003), “Building a Culture of Participation: Involving children and young people in policy, service planning, delivery and evaluation,” Research report. Department for Education and Skills, London.

Christian Albrekt Larsen (2014), “Social cohesion: Definition, measurement and developments,” Institut for Statskundskab, Aalborg Universitet, http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/egms/docs/2014/LarsenDevelopmentinsocialcohesion.pdf.

OECD (2011), “Perspectives on Global Development 2012: Social Cohesion in a Shifting World.” Paris: OECD Publishing.

Jo Ritzen and Michael Woolcock (2000), “Social Cohesion, Public Policy and Economic Growth: Implications for Countries in Transition,” Address prepared for the Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, Paris, 26-28 June 2000.

Arvind Singhal and Elizabeth Rattine-Flaherty (2008), “Pencils and Photos as Tools of Communicative Research and Praxis: Analyzing Minga Peru’s Quest for Social Justice in the Amazon”, Social Justice Dialogue and Publication Series, El Paso: Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies. http://utminers.utep.edu/asinghal/SDC/DCPS_Singhal-Rattine-Flaherty-Minga-Pencils-Photos-2008.pdf

Matthias Sutter, Claudia Zoller and Daniela Glätzle-Rützler (2019), “Economic preferences of children and adolescents: A first survey of experimental economics results,” European Economic Review, Volume 111, January 2019, Pages 98-121

Michael Tomasello and Malinda Carpenter (2007), “Shared Intentionality”, Developmental Science 10:1 (2007), pp 121–125.

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APPENDIX ONE: STUDY TOOL

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Appendix one: Study Tool

Monitoring Tool for the Social Cohesion Study, 10-16UNICEF JCO

Demographic Info:

Identified No. (country) Nationality Age Gender Any other notes

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

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Four Corner Questions

MONITOR’S CORNER: Which face?

Question 1: how safe do you feel at the Makani centre?

TOTAL NUMBER IN YOUR CORNER:

Question Identified No. Answer Observation

How safe at Makani and WHY:

When do you feel unsafe?

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Question 2: how safe do you feel at school? TOTAL NUMBER IN YOUR CORNER

If the child is not at school: think about when you were last at school? When and where was that? How safe did you feel there?

Details of those children here:


How safe at school and WHY:


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Question 3: how safe do you feel at home? TOTAL NUMBER IN YOUR CORNER


How safe at home and WHY:


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Question 4: how much do you feel part of your group at Makani? OR: How included do you feel at Makani?

TOTAL NUMBER IN YOUR CORNER


How much do you feel a part of/included at Makani and WHY:

When do you feel excluded?

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Question 5: how much do you feel part of your class at school? OR: How included do you feel at school?


If the child is not at school: think about when you were last at school – how much did you feel a part of your class/how included did you feel?

Details of those children here:


How much do you feel a part of/included at school and WHY:

When do you feel excluded?

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Question 6: how much do you feel part of your family? OR: How included do you feel at home?



How much do you feel a part of/included at home and WHY:

When do you feel excluded at home?

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1, 3/4, all: the happy roomThe scenario: imagine that you are the King or the Queen, and you are creating a new school – I want you to think about one single classroom, and a new class of 30 children, lots of whom don’t know each other…now what I want you to think about is what would you do to that room to make it a very happy and safe place for all the 30 children to study and play together?

Who would you put in the classroom? Why did you pick them? What would you put in the room? Why? What activities would you give the children?

Field monitors will go round to the groups of 3 or 4 to listen, record, join in, encourage dialogue and push for more answers, always asking “how?” and “why?” and “can you give me an example of…” (a game, toys), “What kind of…” (teacher, adult, etc.)

Prompts: what about children with special needs? What about shy children?

Questionnaire Identified No. Answer Observation

What would you put in the room and why?

Prompts: people, things, activities

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Further question to the groups of 3/4: how would you know that it worked – what would the classroom look and feel like if you did a good job?


What does success look like?

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FINAL STEP (ALL): the final statement from each child in the circle (only one FM needs to fill this in)


What would you put in the room and why?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

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1, 3/4, all: being newScenario: I want you to think about moving somewhere new, and going to a Makani centre where you don’t know anyone. Can you think about how you might feel, and what you would do? Can you also think about what would make you feel more at home, more safe, more included? What kind of people would do what in order to make you feel better?


How would you feel when you don’t know anyone?

What would you do?

What would you like others to do?

Open ended comments

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IV Appreciative enquiry (if time) In pairs, can you tell each other about a time when a new child came to school and you did something which made them feel better about being new? Why do you think what you did worked?

After 2 minutes of discussion, each child presents their partner’s example in the circle – only one FM is needed to record.


What did you do to welcome a new child?

Why did this work?

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V Final thoughtsQuestion: I would like you to say one or two words about today’s discussion, in particular, can you say just one thing about what would help make your Makani centre a happier place?


Final thought

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APPENDIX TWO: TOWARDS A TOOL

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Appendix two: towards a tool

NB: This suggested tool needs a round of consultation with key stakeholders in the Makani system as noted in key points throughout.

Survey

1. Belonging and inclusion: the vertical axis Adapt for facilitator instead of teacher if necessary, and manager instead of principal.


agree

My teacher respects me

My teacher is fair

Teachers in my school are nice people

When students break rules at my school, they are treated fairly

The principal asks students about their ideas at my school

My school is a good place to be

My school is important to me

Teachers and staff at my school are doing the right things to prevent violence (verbal and/or physical)

Source: School Student Survey: School Climate Scale

If you should find yourself in a difficult situation, is there someone who would help you? (Y) (N)


Follow up questions: Do you have any further explanation or comments on your answers?

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2. Belonging and inclusion: the horizontal axis: Select from the most appropriate.


agree

I feel at home in the Makani centre

I get along well with the people in my Makani group

I appreciate the way people in my group treat other people

People in my class/group have feelings about situations and incidents are similar to mine

People in my class/group treat other people the same way I do

I have a lot in common with the people in my group

In this group, we speak frankly with one another

If somebody in this group is having problems, the rest of the group helps her/him

This group works well together

If somebody in this group has a good tip or information source, it is soon shared with the whole group

I can speak frankly to other people in this group

If I had extra information, I would share it with other people in this group

I wouldn’t mind doing some extra work to help other people in this group

I can work well together with other people in this group

Source: Measuring Cohesion: Social Attraction Scale

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3. Tolerance

Own group only Mixed

Other (Specify:

_________) Why?

If you could attend any Makani in Jordan, would you prefer to go to one with just [Syrians/Jordanians/insert group] or a mixture of [Syrians and Jordanians/choose mixed group]? [Why?]

If you could live anywhere in Jordan, would you choose to live with just [Syrians/Jordanians/etc] or a mixture? [Why?]

[For older youth] When you think about having a job, would you rather work for a Syrian/Jordanian [own group]? [Why?]

These questions can be used for nationality, religion, tribe and other variations of groups.


agree

If there are not enough school places for everyone in the country, it is more important for {insert relevant group, i.e. tribe, caste, religion, etc.} to be educated. [Explain your answer.]

On the whole, {insert relevant group, i.e. tribe, caste, religion, etc.} are better students. [Explain your answer.]

Education is more important for a boy than for a girl {or insert relevant group, i.e. tribe, caste, religion, etc.}

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4. Participation This section needs consultation with Makani stakeholders and how activities are chosen, changed, adapted.


agree

I enjoy coming to the Makani centre

I miss it when I can’t come

Everyone in my group is included if they want to be

I feel positive about the activities on offer

Everyone feels comfortable choosing the activity they want

We know where to go to suggest activities

I feel able to choose my own activities freely

Behavioural ObservationStatement Not true True Very true

The members like and care about each other

The members try to understand why they do things, and try to reason it out

The members avoid looking at important issues going on between them

The members depend upon the group leader for direction

The members have friction and anger between them

The members are distant and withdrawn from each other

The members challenge and confront each other in efforts to sort things out

The members appear to do things they think would be acceptable to the group

The members reject and distrust each other

The members reveal sensitive/personal information or feelings to each other

The members appear tense and anxious

All members are included in activities if they want to be

Members make efforts to include people who are left out

Members treat the room and each other with respect

Members are positive about the activities in the room

Attendance is good

Body language and facial expressions are positive

Adapted from: Group Climate Questionnaire

towards a child-led deﬁnition of social cohesion a...particular kenan madi and besan abdelqader....

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