No abstract

Research concerned with human beings is always an interference of some kind, thus posing ethical dilemmas that need justification of procedures and methodologies. It is especially true in social work when facing mostly sensitive populations and sensitive issues. In the process of conducting a research on the emotional life histories of Israeli men who batter their partners, some serious ethical questions were evoked such as (a) Did the participants really give their consent? (b) What are the limits of the researcher-participants relationship and who decides them? (c) For whom is the study beneficial? and (d) To what degree did the methodology fit with the participants? In this article, I discuss the Socratic idea of truth revealed through dialogue and the idea of reciprocity that was developed in Buber's (1949) ethics of dialogue and Habermas' (1990) communicative ethics. The 3 essential conclusions drawn from the ethical questions raised and the discussion of the thinkers that are mentioned previously are (a) dialogical methodology is ethically justified; (b) dynamic interactions give a more holistic perspective of the human nature, thus enriching the field; and (c) through dialogical methodology both researcher and participant profit from growth of knowledge, which is a key for empowerment and change.

No abstract

The present study aims to discern the ways whereby gender-role perceptions and women's perspectives on political conflict and peace processes inform the organizational development process, reflected in organizational structure and processes. In order to achieve this we studied CheckpointWatch, a women's voluntary organization devoted to monitoring and reporting human rights violations of Palestinians crossing Israeli military checkpoints. The research is a qualitative study. Data gathering was designed to collect information from two sources: (1) interviews with key informants in the organization, and (2) documents transmitted over the organization's internal communications network. The findings illustrate the complexities involved in the organizational development processes of a women's peace and human rights organization, its vacillation between transition into a more formalized NGO and its holding on to the social movement organization, grassroots stage. The study also demonstrates the significance of feminist ideology with its embedded complexity and internal paradoxes, which infiltrates into organizational structure, operational processes and activities. Finally, this research highlights the fundamental role of the cultural and sociopolitical context in women's organizational practices. Overall, the study contributes to organization studies by shedding light on the intricacies of organizational dynamics in women's Peace and conflict resolution organizations.

Qualitative research is an inherent part of the human services profession, since it emphasizes the great and multifaceted complexity characterizing human experience and the sociocultural context in which humans act. In the department of human services at Emek Yezreel College, Israel, we have developed a three-phase model to ensure a relatively intense exposure to and practice in qualitative methodology. While in the first phase students are exposed to the qualitative thinking and writing, they are required in the second phase to take a Qualitative Research Methods course that includes practice. The third and final phase includes conducting a qualitative research seminar. The aim of the present article is to shed light on the dilemmas involved in implementing the three-phase model.