To Increase Psychological Well-being by the Implementation of Forgiveness Education

Implementation of Forgiveness Education to Increase Psychological Well-being in Three Culturally Distinct Areas: Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and Taiwan

This project examines the development of psychological well-being in children and teachers through a 12- week forgiveness education program conducted in three conflict zones of the world, Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and Taiwan.

A 12-week forgiveness education program will be investigated in elementary schools in three conflict zones of the world, Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and Taiwan. The responsibilities of the sub-team in each of the three research sites will be:

• a. recruiting schools, assisting the teacher training before the forgiveness education program starts
• b. shepherding teachers, doing the fidelity checks, administering the instruments and collecting data during the forgiveness education program.

Once a school gives permission to be part of this study, the forgiveness curriculum will be implemented as a 12-week standard curriculum for the grade 5 (US equivalency) students. Teachers of the grade 5 classes will be trained to administer the program. Teachers, students and their parents must give the consent to take part in the measures of the study.

Classrooms participating in this study will be randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. The experimental group will receive the 1st forgiveness intervention for 12 weeks and then the control group will turn into an experimental group to receive a 2nd forgiveness intervention for 12 weeks.

In order to assess if such education increases psychological well-being in students (children) and teachers (adults), teachers and students in both groups will receive the same measures for four times in the study: within one week before the 1st forgiveness intervention, within one week after the 1st forgiveness intervention, within one week after the 2nd forgiveness intervention, four weeks after the 2nd forgiveness intervention.

The instruments include: for teachers, the assessment data will consist of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory Short Form (EFI-30), the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS): Anger, Anxiety, and Depression scales, the Ethnic Prejudice Scale, the Herth Hope Index, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, a Classroom Cooperation scale, and a Cross-Cultural Exit Interview (written questionnaire). For students, the assessment data will consist of the Enright Forgiveness Inventory for Children (EFI-C), the PROMIS measures for pediatric self-report (ages 8-17): Anger, Anxiety, and Depressive Symptoms scales, the Ethnic Prejudice Scale for children, the Children's Hope Scale, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (School Form), and academic achievement (likely to be scores/grades of Math, writing and reading in their own language). After the 2nd forgiveness intervention, select participants (teachers and children) will take part in individual interviews.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Students in 5th grade (US equivalency, aged 10-12)
• Teachers in 5th grade (US equivalency)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Students who are in grades other than 5th grade
• Teachers who are in grades other than 5th grade