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The purpose of this study is to provide an educational model that addresses local community needs using sport-based service-learning.

Drawing from the experiences of a Sport and Community Development (SCD) class at the University of Tennessee, this chapter will detail the structure, philosophy, and framework of the course, while emphasizing the ways former students, community members, and community partners experienced cross-cultural community development through sport-based service-learning.

The findings of this study demonstrate that if implemented with careful consideration and reflexivity, sport-based service-learning can positively address the needs of the community while promoting analytical student learning through practical application.

This study is limited in that the SCD course has only been in existence for three years. Long-term implications of our efforts are only beginning to surface.

As recognized by the United Nations in the declaration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there are serious challenges facing today’s global population. Whether it is extreme poverty and hunger, child mortality, disease, maternal health, obesity, or environmental sustainability, individuals are looking for answers as they relate to nutrition, health, and well-being (United Nations, 2008). The goal of this chapter is to introduce an educational model, philosophy, and framework that promotes the use of sport and physical activity, as a way to address the health needs of local communities, while simultaneously fostering community development and cross-cultural understanding.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze differences in airlines service quality perceptions (service content) and visual communication styles (service form) between passengers from a high-context (HC) culture (Iraq) and from a low-context (LC) one (Germany). The theoretical support is based on Hall’s (1976) theory about cultural influences on consumers’ perceptions and on ethnocentric influences.

In this study, the authors compared two groups of passengers from two countries ‒ Iraq (a high-context culture) and Germany (low-context culture) – that gave their opinions about two different airlines (Iraqi Airlines and Lufthansa). In total, 400 personal evaluations were obtained (100 for each company in each country).

The results have demonstrated that, first, regarding service quality perceptions, both groups of passengers differ, not due to the cultural context, but due to the ethnocentristic feeling, that is service quality values are higher when the domestic company is evaluated in both countries. Second, regarding visual identity perceptions, the cultural context explains perception differences, because the Germans evaluations are higher for both, the foreign company and the domestic one.

First, the authors have measured in the same study whether people from an LC culture differ from people from a HC culture with respect to how they perceive both the content of the service (the perception of service quality) and the form of the service (the perception of visual identity). In other words, the authors have compared not just the way a company delivers its services, but also how the company is visually presented. Second, the authors have studied a country that has seldom been analyzed from a marketing perspective, Iraq. Third, the authors have compared not just two cultures, but also two companies (a domestic one and a foreign one), in order to see if consumers tend to have more positive perceptions of a local company, regardless of the culture to which they belong. If this point is demonstrated, then some more implications related to ethnocentrism will be added for a better understanding of how to proceed in the international arena.

Six million Iraqis were displaced during the Iraq-Daesh War, and although many have returned to their communities, there remain approximately 1.3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) across the country. Today, approximately 25% of IDP children in Iraq are out of school (REACH, 2020). This study foregrounds the voices and family histories of IDPs when navigating educational access and makes a methodological argument for the need for increased qualitative research in post-conflict settings. Using the conceptual framework of navigation, the author presents displaced persons as agentic, dynamic people with lived histories, present realities, and imagined futures which inform their journey through the education system. Semi-structured interviews with 16 IDPs who identified as parents or caregivers were conducted virtually. Displaced Iraqis value education for different reasons, ranging from basic literacy to employment to societal improvement. In doing so, the author challenges the barrier-dominant framework through which IDP educational access is often understood and nuanced with a temporal lens which requires us to identify IDPs as (1) persons capable of making choices for themselves, (2) givers as well as receivers, and (3) persons who aspire to goals beyond basic survival.

To shed light on the political economy aspect of post‐conflict reconstruction in Iraq and illustrate how bad governance and economic mismanagement has devastated a country once endowed with abundant natural and human resources.

The wealth of heritage, culture, and economy that Iraq enjoyed is highlighted. The paper presents a brief overview of economic mismanagement, corruption, and political blunders of Saddam Hussein's regime, which led to sapping the country of its wealth and degraded its human resources. In view of that, the political impediments to the reconstruction process are outlined. Hence, the significance of democratic and participatory approaches to sustainable development.

The paper reveals that the years of oppressive, myopic, and self‐serving policies of Saddam Hussein's regime have incapacitated Iraq and its people. Income per capita in 2003 was less than 15 percent of its value in 1980 and Iraq's debt amounted to about 600 percent of national output. The paper also indicates that international, regional, and local politics has been the primary hindrance to Iraq's reconstruction and development.

If history is any guide, the peoples of all non‐democratic and corrupt regimes throughout the world ought to heed the lessons imparted by the Saddam's model of governance, that is, sustainable economic development and improving the standards of living can best be attained through democratic and participatory governance.

The suggested utility of decentralized development in Iraq and the Palestinian occupied territories is meant to provide policymakers new alternatives to managing and resolving these conflicts. This paper aims to address this issue.

The overall paradigm of decentralization is presented and how participatory development relates within it is described. As the conditions in Iraq and Palestine are then discussed, cited qualities and results of decentralized participatory development are shown to directly address the fundamental issues that perpetuate these conflicts.

The paper finds that decentralization to local communities of development planning and management reinforces national sovereignty when national governments actively support its implementation. The productive partnerships among government, civil organizations and private groups that can result from decentralization – both vertically and horizontally along administrative tiers – strengthen both local community and national autonomy.

The decentralization strategy presented – participatory development – has been shown in cases around the world to also generate vital economic, social, and environmental benefits in a more expeditious and at a lower cost than typical development assistance programs. These outcomes, among others, are what is needed to help resolve conflicts in Iraq and between the Israelis and Palestinians – conflicts rooted in matters of sovereignty, development and reconciliation. In Iraq, decentralization of development will give the national government legitimacy, the Iraqis ownership of their own reconstruction, and the opportunity to incorporate reconciliation as part of the process. In the Palestinian occupied territories, decentralized development will bring immediate relief and build socio‐economic self‐reliance in a way that restructures their economy to be less dependent on Israel and help reduce tensions and violence.

There are important theoretical and applied values of this analysis. By explaining how different ideological perspectives (socialism, neo‐liberalism, alternative development and others) relate to the various organizational arrangements of decentralization, a detailed description of the decentralization paradigm is provided. Then by presenting participatory development as a strategy of decentralization and showing how it can be implemented in Iraq and Palestine, it is shown to be a practical tool with outcomes that correspond fittingly to the fundamental requirements for resolving these destabilizing conflicts. The analysis contributes to both the theoretical and applied knowledge of decentralization.