Research about youth in the Arab countries addressed two issues. First, providing a description and analysis for the lived sociopolitical context of youth and its effect on their status. The research focused on issues such as: youth culture, how youth spend their leisure time, and moving from education to market. Second, analyzing factors of inclusion/exclusion, youth collective agency, gender relations and how they impact young women status and their civic and political engagement forms and challenges. Policy research in the Arab countries indicated that policies are not sensitive towards youth and their aspirations. Furthermore, few studies explored youth and youth workers’ attempts to create change and resiliency for young people and eventually youth status.
Challenges facing Arab youth are massive due to challenges stemming from the context in the countries where they live. Economic dependency, increased unemployment, failing state structures, and wars are all factors that affect youth opportunities for change and social mobility. In general, services in the Arab countries, being centralized in cities, result in marginalization of rural areas, limiting their social and cultural capital and leads to the marginalization of its population. It is noticed that there is a high tendency to move towards main cities, the fact that affects the social support networks within a society available for young people, and eventually will impact youth capability to change and face challenges. Youth experience is shaped by the challenges and opportunities they pass and the type of support they receive. This experience forms youth identity, attitudes towards their life, communication style and societal involvement.
This special issue at Idafat ( journal of sociology in the Arab world), which is published in cooperation with research committee 34: sociology of youth affiliated with the International Sociological Association, aims at exploring the relation between the lived realities of Arab youth, their identities, and how they affect youth capability to make a change. The issue will focus on the following subtopics:
- Lived reality and building the identity of youth with focus on aspects such as religion, political status and gender.
- Youth attitudes towards changes amid the political and sociological reality and their capability to change,
- Attempts for social change: case studies from Arab countries.
- Youth migration: internal and external, and impact on youth identity and their capacity to change.
To participate in this issue, please submit a 500 word abstract that describes the objective of the study, main results and methodology. The abstract is due on February 15th, 2019. Please note that you can submit your abstract in English, yet your paper should be submitted in Arabic only. When the abstract is accepted, the researcher is expected to submit a research paper of 5000-8000 words.
Please note the following dates:
15th of February abstract submission
15th of March feedback received.
30th April final paper submitted
All papers should follow Idafat rules and regulations with regards to citations, font and structure of the paper.
For further information and applying please email jointly: the guest editor Abeer Musleh abmusleh@gmail.com , and the Idafat journal idafat@gmail.com
Click here for the present Call in Arabic