This book reviews and critiques the growing literature on youth development under conditions of political violence and armed conflict. It presents a robust framework, based in developmental psychopathology, for evaluating current research on this topic for strength of design, methodology, and documentation. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies from diverse regions and conflicts as well as across disciplines examine risks and challenges as well as resilience and coping as youth develop in unstable and threatening environments. In addition, this book provides strategies for designing and implementing prevention and intervention programs as well as further opportunities for expanding applied research for youth exposed to political violence and armed conflict. Topics featured in this book include: Analysis of major research on youths’ normative and pathological development during political violence and war. Guidelines for assessing research studies on the impact of political violence and armed conflict on youth. The effects of social ecology factors (e.g., family, school, and community) on youth functioning. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Political Violence, Armed Conflict, and Youth Adjustment is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in the fields of child and school psychology, family studies, and public health as well as developmental psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, political science, anthropology, social and peace psychology, sociology, and ethnic studies.

The post-war world has become characterized by fierce new assertions of nationalism and sovereignty. Many regions - such as Bosnia, Somalia and Northern Ireland - are threatened by violent ethnic, religious and cultural strife. Almost daily on our television screens we see the faces of frightened children caught up in war, yet research into the effects of war on children is patchy and not well known. Children and Political Violence provides a critical evaluation of attempts to answer questions about the impact of political violence on such topics as children's aggression, moral development, and interpersonal relations. Much of the material is concerned with children who witness, experience or participate in violent acts, and with the children's stress and coping in violent circumstances. Other chapters deal with the effects on the social fabric of children's lives of the loss of families, destruction of social networks, homelessness, and the challenge of ensuring that the next generation grows up to reject violence as a way of settling political disputes. Written in a highly accessible style with many real-life examples, Children and Political Violence will be of broad interest to students, researchers and practitioners in child psychology and psychiatry, education, conflict studies and peace studies.

Human Development and Political Violence presents an innovative approach to research and practice with young people growing up in the context of political violence. Based on developmental theory, this book explains and illustrates how children and youth interact with environments defined by war, armed conflict, and the aftermath involving displacement, poverty, political instability, and personal loss. The case study for this inquiry was a research workshop in four countries of the former Yugoslavia, where youth aged 12 to 27 participated in activities designed to promote their development. The theory-based Dynamic Story-Telling by Youth workshop engaged participants as social historians and critics sharing their experiences via narratives, evaluations of society, letters to public officials, debates, and collaborative inquiries. Analyses of these youth perspectives augment archival materials and researcher field notes to offer insights about developmental strategies for dealing with the threats and opportunities of war and major political change.

The contributors examine the intersections of psychology & the law with regard to race & culture. As diversity gains increasing levels of respect in Western society, so this is becoming an evermore important topic of concern.

This book offers a psychosocial perspective on political violence, employing a strong current of psychoanalytic thinking. In the course of its chapters an international roster of researchers and scholars offers a richly complex and insightful view of diverse forms of political violence and its build-ups. The authors discuss the processes by which the ground for political violence is prepared, and how violent acts are facilitated. They question how social, cultural and political constellations can develop in such a way that, for certain people in this constellation, violence becomes a logical – perversely reasonable – response. This collection demonstrates what a psychoanalytic perspective can bring to existing approaches to political violence, going beyond the social movement approach by unfolding the inherent ambiguity in accepted concepts within the study of political violence.

Palestinian children and young people living both within and outside of refugee camps in the Middle East are the focus of this book. For more than half a century these children and their caregivers have lived a temporary existence in the dramatic and politically volatile landscape that is the Middle East. These children have been captive to various sorts of stereotyping, both academic and popular. They have been objectified, much as their parents and grandparents, as passive victims without the benefit of international protection. And they have become the beneficiaries of numerous humanitarian aid packages which presume the primacy of the Western model of child development as well as the psycho-social approach to intervention. Giving voice to individual children, in the context of their households and their community, this book aims to move beyond the stereotypes and Western-based models to explore the impact that forced migration and prolonged conflict have had, and continue to have, on the lives of these refugee children.

Between 1977 and 1985, some 20,000 Ethiopian Jews left their homes in Ethiopia and embarked on a secret and highly traumatic exodus to Israel. Due to various political circumstances they had to leave their homes in haste, go a long way on foot through unknown country, and stay for a period of one or two years in refugee camps, until they were brought to Israel. The difficult conditions of the journey included racial tensions, attacks by bandits, night travel over mountains, incarceration, illness, and death. A fifth of the group did not survive the journey. This interdisciplinary, ground-breaking book focuses on the experience of this journey, its meaning for the people who made it, and its relation to the initial encounter with Israeli society. The author argues that powerful processes occur on such journeys that affect the individual and community in life-changing ways, including their initial encounter with and adaptation to their new society. Analyzing the psychosocial impact of the journey, he examines the relations between coping and meaning, trauma and culture, and discusses personal development and growth.