ABSTRACT
She dreamed of a better world and worked passionately for what she hoped to achieve. Her idea in the forties that sparked the creation of CISV, and the research she did in the fi rst Village in 1951, is still relevant today: that people who live together learn to respect their differences and can form lasting friendships. Doris Allan was very much ahead of her time. Her concerns about prejudice and intolerance, the diffi culties of living in a multicultural society, are the same concerns we have today. (Tejada 2002)
These words from a tribute to Doris Twitchell Allen concisely summarise what she aimed to achieve in CISV. As a science graduate and practising clinical psychologist, research was integral to Allen’s life. She believed in the importance of evaluating the eff ects, both short term and long term, of CISV participation. Short-term eff ects were studied in early Villages but the only previous long-term follow-up research was in 1968 (Wright and Allen 1969). This chapter briefl y reviews some early research in CISV, summarises Wright and Allen’s (1969) empirical study, Lehland’s (1975) theoretical evaluation of the concept of CISV, and Dickhoff ’s (1994) conclusions, then describes a more recent follow-up study.
