In the last two decades knowledge on volunteering has significantly expanded, but a thorough understanding of the organizational socialization of volunteers is still lacking: the process through which one learns the job, internalizes organizational values and goals, and becomes an effective and involved volunteer. By performing an ethnographic study with Israeli volunteers working for at-risk youth, the organizational process was portrayed. The Volunteering Stages and Transitions Model (VSTM) presented in this article indicates five different phases in volunteers' socialization (nominee, newcomer, emotional involvement, established volunteering and retiring). The importance of the model lies in the way it explains transitions between the phases and details the process, experiences, and emotions involved in each phase. The transformation is reflected in different aspects related to volunteer work: activity and training; emotions and perceptions; attitudes and behavior; perceived benefits and costs; and relationships with the organization, peers and recipients.

This article utilizes three areas of knowledge derived from field theory to conceptualize and analyze the planning and conduct of conflict management workshops for Arab and Jewish youth in Israel. The three areas of knowledge are ethnic identity and majority-minority relations, a theory of individual change within a social group, and principles of action research. The central field-theoretical concepts in each of these areas were applied to contemporary conflict management workshops. Among the products of this action research were changes in participants' attitudes, development of methods for the training and support of trainers, and accumulated knowledge regarding the differences between the two ethnic groups in communication and interpersonal styles.Kurt Lewin's theoretical contributions and experimental work left an impressive mark on modem psychology and provided a system of concepts and methods, some of which have become cornerstones of psychology. Lewin did not confine himself to research and theory, however. His sensitivity to issues of social, political, and moral relevance led him to seek and propose solutions and directions in these areas. Therefore, parts of his research and theory were anchored in his attempts to solve social problems.

The idea of action research and social change was the last conceptual topic to engage Kurt Lewin’s attention and energy prior to his untimely death in February 1947. In this article we commemorate the 60th anniversary of his 1946 paper ‘Action research and minority problems’. In the present article, eight principles of action research which were extracted from Lewin’s writings are presented and discussed. We attempt to show that the action research paradigm derived from four aspects of Lewin’s personal and intellectual background: his personal history as a Jew and an immigrant to America; his field theory and its meta-theoretical principles; a deep commitment to the idea of democracy; and his theory of social change.

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