Children of the Dream" Revisited: 70 Years of Collective Early Child Gare in Israeli Kibbutzim

Copyright 1994 by the American Psychological Association, Ine 0033-2909/94/S3.00 Children of the Dream" Revisited: 70 Years of Collective Early Child Gare in Israeli Kibbutzim Ora Aviezer, Marinus H. Van Uzendoorn, Abraham Sagi, and Carlo Schuengel This article focuses on kibbutz care for infants and young children. It reviews (a) past and present practices of collective education within the context of its historical background and guiding principles and (b) the results of developmental research regarding the impact of multiple caregiving and group care on children's socioemotional development within the framework of attachment theory. The research results indicate that, from a psychological point of view, collective sleeping is a prob- lematic aspect of kibbutz child rearing. However, group care and multiple caregiving of high quality do not necessarily interfere with the formation of close relationships between parents and children or with the development of social skills. An Israeli kibbutz (pl., kibbutzim) is a cooperative, demo- ratory" for testing the consequences of child-rearing methods cratically governed, multigenerational Community with an av- that derived from a unique philosophy and from practices erage population of 400-900 people. Each kibbutz is economi- markedly different from those used in the West (Beit-Hallahmi cally and socially autonomous but is also affiliated with one of & Rabin, 1977; Bettelheim, 1969; Rapaport, 1958; Spiro, three kibbutz organizations called "kibbutz movements" that 1958). offer support and guidance to individual kibbutzim. In the past, Our goal in this article is to evaluate the positive and negative the kibbutz movements were deeply divided by political and aspects of collective child rearing, particularly in regard to the ideological diiferences that were expressed even on the level of socioemotional consequences for young children. We begin child-care practices. With the passage of time, however, most of with a short review of the historical roots of the kibbutz move- these differences have lost their significance, and many kibbutz ment and the guiding principles of collective education. This is members today favor the idea of establishing a single united kib- followed with a description of educational practices in the past butz movement. Every kibbutz member works for the kibbutz and of the changes that brought kibbutz child care to its present economy and is in turn provided by the Community with hous- form. Then, in the second part of the article, the results of stud- ing, food, clothing, health and educational Services, recreation, ies on kibbutz children are reviewed within the context of dy- and other living needs. In the past, kibbutzim had been fairly namic changes in kibbutz life both recently and in the past and isolated agricultural communities in which living conditions with reference to developmental research. Particular emphasis were exceedingly hard. Today kibbutz economies are based on is given to attachment relationships and their consequences. Fi- adiversity of Industries and agricultural activities and are able nally, the development of social competence and relationships to provide members with a satisfying Standard of living. with peers is reviewed and discussed. The kibbutz is known äs being one of the very few utopian experiments that have succeeded in establishing a radically different way of living and of raising children. As many äs four Historical Background generations have been brought up in kibbutzim since the first The early pioneers of the kibbutz movement were idealistic such communities were founded at the turn of the Century. The young people who rejected the culture of the shtetl that had kibbutz child-rearing System, also called collective education, dominated the life of Eastern European Jews for centuries and has been treated in the literature äs furnishing a "natural labo- sought to create instead a new society founded on socialist and Zionist principles (Melzer, 1988;Selier, 1977). The tasktheyset for themselves was in no way minor. They proposed to create a Ora Aviezer, School of Education of the Kibbutz Movement, Oranim, collective society that emphasized production and physical la- Israel, and Laboratory for the Study of Child Development, University bor, striving at the same time to achieve both national and per- of Haifa, Haifa, Israel; Marinus H. Van Uzendoorn and Carlo sonal independence under conditions of perfect equality. The Schuengel, Center for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, Marxian precept "from each according to his ability, to each Leiden, The Netherlands; Abraham Sagi, Laboratory for the Study of according to his needs" was established äs the primary and es- Child Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. sential principle of kibbutz life. The political aspirations of kib- Writing of this article was facilitated by a PIONEER grant (PG5 59- 256) awarded to Marinus H. Van Uzendoorn by the Netherlands' Orga- butzniks dictated their settlement in remote locations, where nization for Scientific Research. they were constrained to cultivate barren land in a harsh climate Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ora and a hostile environment. In these circumstances, the decision Aviezer or Abraham Sagi, Laboratory for the Study of Child Develop- to raise children collectively contributed to the protection and ment, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. well-being of the young. Children were thus housed in the only 99 100 AVIEZER, VAN IJZENDOORN, SAGI, AND SCHUENGEL brick building on kibbutz grounds and never went hungry, butz children—the parental home and the children's house— whereas the adults of the Community lived in tents and their was thought to protect children against their parents' shortcom- food was rationed. Early in kibbutz history, this reality in- ings while preserving the benefits of parental love (Golan, teracted with an awareness of the role of child rearing in fur- 1959). The practice of having children sleep away from the pa- thering the goals of the collective by discouraging individualism, rental home was justified on the grounds that it spared them abolishing inequalities between the sexes, and bringing up a per- from the trauma of exposure to the so-called "primal scene" son who was better socialized to communal life (Gerson, 1978). and from the conflicts with parents that are imminent in the One of the principal goals of early kibbutzim was to alter the Oedipus complex (Golan, 1959). patriarchal organization of the family that was typical of East- Observers of the kibbutz have characterized parental involve- ern European Jewish culture; in this culture, women were eco- ment äs emotional and directed toward need gratification, nomically dependent on men and parental authority over chil- whereas caregivers have been described äs being goal directed dren was absolute. Collective education was assigned an impor- and instrumental (Bar-Yosef, 1959; Rabin & Beit-Hallahmi, tant place in achieving this goal. It was instituted so äs to free 1982). This role division was considered to be beneficial for chil- women from the burdens of child care, thereby allowing them dren because the objective attitudes and Professional approach to participate in the socioeconomic life of the Community on an of caregivers were conducive to the children's mastery of auton- equal footing with men. Men, on the other band, would share omous behavior and social learning without in any way com- in the duties of child care and become nurturing rather than promising their parents' love (Gerson, 1978; Golan, 1958). In authoritarian figures in the lives of their children. Moreover, addition, living among peers from an early age was regarded äs bringing children up collectively was regarded äs essential in being an inseparable part of bringing up future kibbutz mem- fostering the solidarity of the group and restraining individual- bers because it presented children with a supportive environ- istic tendencies in both children and adults. Educational prac- ment for dealing with the kind of human values perceived to be tices in kibbutzim were accordingly established so äs to reflect at the core of kibbutz life, such äs Sharing and consideration for the egalitarian and democratic philosophy of the kibbutz com- others (Hazan, 1973). munity (Gerson, 1978). The kibbutz Community therefore assumed total responsibil- Collective Education in Practice: Fast and Present ity for all of the material needs of its children in the way of food, clothing, and medical care and for seeing to their spiritual well- There has never been a simple one-to-one correspondence be- being, the latter including mental health, developmental prog- tween child-rearing practices on kibbutzim and the beliefs of ress, and parental counseling (Gerson, 1978). This responsibil- adult members. Socioeconomic and physical conditions, äs well ity extended to each child individually, who was in a sense re- äs new psychoeducational theories, have always had an impact garded äs being a "kibbutz' child"; and it also created an infor- on how kibbutz children are brought up, and ideological differ- mal communal socialization network (Rabin & Beit-Hallahmi, ences have existed between the different kibbutz organizations 1982). Thus, child care and education were, first and foremost, since their foundation. Individual kibbutzim, moreover, conceived of äs being social mechanisms. It was only later that adopted day-to-day practices that accommodated

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