Developmental research has long sought to understand children's social ideas, and particularly how those ideas influence their judgments and behaviors toward other people. We examine the idea of "common humanity," a social idea that has been investigated historically and philosophically, to re-consider what is already known about…

The need for dialogue between diverse groups within society is pressing, but the shrinking of shared public space makes it difficult for storytelling to cross social divides. Through an evolving practice of multi-artform "storyhacking," I and various collaborators have attempted to facilitate creative intercommunity dialogue by indirect…

Today's hyper-partisan world makes civil discourse across differences seem almost impossible for many adults, let alone young people. U.S. public schools are tasked with educating our young people with the goal that they each can be productive members of society. High-school students participating in an intergroup dialogue on race as part of their…

This article examines the impact of contact-based educational encounter strategies of shared learning on Jewish-Arab relations in Israel. It analyses a programme of education for shared life that takes place in a mixed (75% Jewish/25% Arab) city at the centre of Israel since 2012. The programme aims to mitigate Jewish-Arab relations in the city…

This paper describes an educational intervention program between 12 Arab and 12 Jewish students who were studying to become teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Israel. The study reports on the ways in which the program impacted the participants, and focuses on the role of English, the Lingua Franca and language of communication, in…