Partnership in education

Abstract

In recent years, several anti-bullying programs have been developed, for instance in the UK, USA and New Zealand, but how successful these programs might be outside their own cultural context has not been investigated. This paper describes an action research project, the aim of which was to determine whether a pro-active model against intolerance and school harassment, originally developed and empirically validated in Finland, could be adapted to Lebanese primary schools. The findings indicate that while the Finnish model's core values and its approach are both desirable and applicable in Lebanon, interpretation of some of the key principles is problematic. The study serves as an example of problems encountered when attempting to ‘import’ foreign educational solutions for local problems, particularly where both the culture and the teaching and learning context differ significantly from those in the original study.