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Poverty and stress associated with it have been identified as key contributors to intimate partner violence. This chapter explores intimate partner violence experienced by Malaysian Indian women living in poverty in Penang. Data for this study come from in-depth interviews of 12 women who were categorized as hard-core poor, ordinary poor and vulnerable poor. Most participants experienced some form of violence from their husband; some experienced physical, emotional and verbal abuse, while some experienced only verbal abuse. Low income was the main reason for material deprivation in these households which became worse with substance abuse and extra marital affairs by male partners. Both violence and poverty is part of a vicious cycle, and some male children are following in their father’s ‘footsteps’. Violence is closely tied to patriarchal values and gender relations in family relationships showing how notions of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity play out in everyday life.

Education and human capital development are seen by the government of Saudi Arabia as vital to the aim of gaining knowledge economy status. Although financial investment has been evident in education and human capital development in Saudi Arabia for many years, knowledge acquisition, production, and diffusion remain problematic. The strategy that underpins the shift to a knowledge economy is based on the assumption drawn from human capital theory that education can transform individual productivity and therefore promote economic development. However, the links between education and economic growth are not as linear as this framing of education suggests, but depend on complex social processes. Within these processes, individual understandings of knowledge and knowledge creation are crucial. The implications of this for Saudi Arabia are discussed with reference to the work of Knorr Cetina (2007) on knowledge cultures and David and Foray (2002) on knowledge communities. A transition to a knowledge economy is more likely to occur when cultural and social conditions enable the development of knowledge cultures and knowledge communities.

Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing human capital development issues due to unskilled employees. The institutes of Malaysian education are providing ineffective science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education which are generating unskilled graduates as a future workforce. The low capability of Malaysian graduates affect the performance of Malaysian SMEs. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of STEM education in solving the human capital development issues for the enhancement of Malaysian SMEs performance. The current literature explores the ineffective system of STEM education for Malaysian graduates which result in human capital development issues in Malaysian SMEs. The curriculum of Malaysian education institutions plays a pivotal role in making the university graduates skillful since a teacher should teach the syllabus according to the need of the national curriculum and the student must learn practical knowledge for the sake of the professional employee in future. Hence, this study identified the significance of properly provided STEM education to deal with the human capital development issues faced by Malaysian SMEs. Effective STEM education is important in generating the human capital as it makes the university graduates skilled and capable which enable them to successfully meet the industry needs in future. Likewise, through the development of human capital, the performance of Malaysian SMEs could be improved.

Despite the fact that the rights of the child began to be discussed in the nineteenth century, they came to the fore after the world wars in the twentieth century. Children, who were considered to belong to their fathers during the agricultural capitalism period before the Industrial Revolution, were also used for domestic labour. Children began to break away from their homes with the Industrial Revolution, after this long period of almost no rights. During this period, child labour, which is cheaper than adult labour and seen as the lever of capitalist accumulation, has become an important part of production. In the second half of the nineteenth century, through the 1920s, called the ‘child rescue age’, compulsory education came to the fore as a way of disciplining children. The perception that children are a group that needs to be protected as a separate category and not as a property reveals the necessity to regulate their working conditions and to ensure their rights. In this regard, the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child realised the first real progress in 1924. Then, after the Second World War, which brought children's rights to almost a halt, the Declaration of Rights of the Child was signed in 1959. Both of the declarations rely heavily on protection and care services. The touchstone of the development of child rights is the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989. The Convention became the human rights convention that was approved by the largest number of countries ever. It is the only human rights convention that uniquely combines civil, political, social, cultural, and human rights. Despite all these developments, children continue not to be regarded as subjects and to be exploited in the production of surplus value as the reserve army of labour.

Parents are children's first line of protection. However, millions of children all over the world experience a lack of parental care. The reasons for this separation are varied, such as poverty, being abused and neglected, the death of parents, being abandoned, trafficking, migration, living on the street, being displaced or health issues. From the child's rights perspective, parental care is a priority for a child's best interest. In this respect, most countries have social protection policies to support families with their children. When parental care is not possible, states generally take responsibility by providing appropriate services, including residential care, kinship care, foster care, other forms of family-based care or adoption. Within this framework, this study aims to provide an overview of the world's children who lack parental care in the light of the theoretical background and the latest research.

Islamic banking contributes significantly to the total assets of Malaysian banking sector. Yet, many argue that Islamic banking in Malaysia does not receive satisfactory support and participation from the public mainly due to poor awareness of its products and services and misconception about the Islamic banking system. It is timely to study consumers’ awareness of Islamic banking in the hopes of providing useful strategies for and assistance with marketing plans. This study is to explore consumer awareness towards Islamic banking products and services across a diverse set of demographic variables.

A quantitative approach was used in this study. A total of 1,000 questionnaires were distributed via convenience and snowballing sampling method to bank customers in a public university in Malaysia, and 817 responses from the survey were used for the analysis. Descriptive and non-parametric statistics were employed to answer objectives of this study.

The findings of this study are anticipated to provide a holistic and comprehensive marketing insight to improve and strengthen Islamic banking in Malaysia.

This study examines the role of demographics such age, gender, race/religion, education level, occupation and income level in trying to understand the issues of Islamic banks’ product awareness. It is well accepted that the consumer’s attitude or behaviour should be studied among others through understanding customers’ demographics.

This chapter contributes to the overall tourist satisfaction to local economies using sustainable practices. The aim therefore is to analyse to what extent the characteristics of a product and service can bridge the gap between locals and visitors. This chapter is based on secondary data. We find evidence for six themes which are considered to be the most theoretical issue affecting the studies on street food in tourism considered in the analysis.

Results show that street food tourism, as a new paradigm, can be a viable option while thinking the process of sustainable tourism development in emerging destinations. Our findings have clear implications for the fast growing literature on overtourism and related perverse impacts (conceptual contribution) giving also additional options to Destination Marketing Organisations' (DMOs) managers in terms of strategy to combat tourismphobia analysed in the study. Proposals for future research will also be outlined.