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In this chapter, we present a collaborative autoethnographic study with two main layers: first, we share experiences of two separate educational research projects and explore how different dialogic research practices facilitate both participants and researchers to discover the phenomenon being studied; second, we engage in a dialogic conversation to discover our own research practices. Focussing on projects in two different countries (Norway and Canada), our initial centring question for this chapter is: how do our research practices facilitate insight into participants’ real-life experiences and practices? Then turning the light on our own research practices, we ask: what onto-epistemological assumptions shape our dialogical research practices? The chapter reveals that dialogic research practices allowed collective wisdom to be discovered and ensured that we were able to break through the taken-for-grantedness both of the concept being studied and of our own research practices.

Purpose: The chapter explains how entrepreneurship can generate either subsistence, destructive, or peace-positive outcomes in the conflict zones of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Institutional arrangements are examined for how they can advance the latter.

Methodology/approach: Literatures from conflict resolution, development, economics, corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship, and psychology are drawn on to frame the multiple roles of entrepreneurs in conflict zones, and understand the institutional arrangements that support peace-positive entrepreneurship.

Findings: The chapter indicates that formalization plays a major role in promoting peace-positive entrepreneurship while deterring destructive entrepreneurship. Conflict zone institutional arrangements that reestablish trust, can uphold the rule of law, and incentivize entrepreneurial activity aid in the formalization process. Special attention is paid to the inclusive nature of these activities, with the need to heal religious, tribal, and sectarian divides in the region, and promote the inclusion of all societal actors (namely, minorities and women) to engage in enterprising activities.

Social implications: The chapter outlines the importance for both foreign donors and local actors to understand the determinant role of institutions in conflict zone entrepreneurial ecosystems, promoting the role of institutional reform over and above the micro-level activity currently grabbing attention in the region.

Originality/value of the chapter: The chapter contrasts the singular narrative often presented on the positive role of conflict zone entrepreneurship in the informal sector, offering a paradoxical view on the topic, and arguing for formalization and institutional reform to remain aspirational among researchers and practitioners who commonly accept and promote the role of the informal sector in conflict zones.

The purpose of the chapter is to explore peace economics in the perspective of an organic worldview. Peace economics are discussed on two levels – the level of individual economic actor and the macro level related to the systemic interplay between economic actors. The main argument is that a change from shallow authenticity and competition towards deep authenticity and cooperation presupposes a paradigmatic shift from a mechanical to an organic worldview. Such a change in mindset should be supported by introducing peace economics in the curriculum on different levels of education. In an education for peace-building there should be a focus on what constitutes true personal development in the sense of obtaining more ‘inner’ peace as well as more peaceful interpersonal interactions. On the ‘outer’ spheres, the need for equity and joint projects is fundamental. The concept of equity emphasizes mutuality, equality and co-creative responsibility.

Promoting a “Culture of Peace” has always been one of the ultimate goals in the provision of education around the world, including Thailand. The concept of Education for International Understanding (EIU) has thus been developed since the “Peace Movements” following the 20th century’s world wars. Initially, the field encompassed peace education, international education, human rights education, citizenship education, and development education. Gradually, it has become an interdisciplinary, and multidimensional field of study encompassing other related themes including disarmament education, nonviolence education, education for conflict resolution, antidiscrimination education, gender equity education, multicultural education, global education, education for international cooperation, education for dialogue of civilizations, education for interfaith dialogue, values education, environmental education, education for sustainable development, and education for inner or personal peace. Moreover EIU, which formerly focused on the “international” dimension, is now concerned just as much with issues and problems “within” (intra) societies. This chapter examines the development of the concept and the implementation of EIU-related themes in Thai policies and curriculum. Survey research was conducted before and after the major political crisis starting in 2008. Survey questions include ability to identify national policy relating to EIU, perceptions concerning the objectives in implementing EIU and values highlighted within an EIU framework, teaching methods, experiences in studying/participating in EIU-related courses/activities, and problems in studying/participating in EIU activities. Some results from the study in 2007 are presented and compared with findings from following studies in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

Childhood is often defined in contrast to adulthood. Each becomes meaningfully linked so that it is difficult to understand what childhood is without looking at adulthood or vice versa. Each becomes what the other is not. In a similar vein, structure and agency are often characterised in contrast to each other. The meaning of each becomes dependent on the meaning of the concept which it is set against. Hence, structure becomes defined as ‘constraint while agency becomes defined as freedom, structure is regarded as static while agency is regarded as active; structure becomes defined as collective while agency becomes defined as individual’ (Hays, 1994, p. 57). This way of conceptualising structure and agency often underplays the interconnections between the two. Up until the 1980s, children were primarily considered within developmental psychology and functionalist socialisation frameworks. The former presented childhood as a natural and universal phase of human life with adulthood being seen as the logical endpoint of childhood. The latter adopting teleological frameworks viewed childhood as a preparation for adulthood and focused in particular on the importance of socialisation in reproducing stable adult personalities. In both approaches, children were considered mainly in terms of presumed future outcomes. In breaking with these approaches, the ‘new sociology of childhood’ sought to emphasise children's agency and to consider children's lives in the here and now rather than as future projects. This has resulted in a plethora of qualitative studies that highlight children's position as active agents. Indeed, in developing a new paradigm for the sociology of childhood, Prout and James (1997) specifically recommend ethnography as a preferred method for uncovering and understanding children's daily lives. This has led Qvortrup (1999, p. 3) to express concern that the ‘adherents of the agency approach are gaining the upper hand’. Qvortrup warns that researchers also need to employ structural approaches to fully understand and illuminate the broader landscape of childhood. He reminds us that childhood is a particular and distinctive form of every society's social structure. Rather than a transient phase, it is a permanent social category shaped by macro forces. While of course children practice agency throughout their childhood and ethnographic studies have been crucial in challenging adults’ conceptions of children as irrational, immature and so on, nonetheless, Qvortrup argues that these studies have been less useful in illuminating the position of childhood in macro societal structures. These wider societal forces position children as a minority group conditioned by resilient power relations based on generation, and they have been relatively immune from children's individual or collective agency. In other words, children act as agents under specific structural conditions. Of course, this does not render children's agency as meaningless. Like adults, children actively produce certain forms of social structure, while simultaneously, social structures produce certain types of childhood (see the chapter by Qvortrup, this volume). Hence, structures are enabling as well as constraining (Giddens, 1984). Indeed over the past two decades, adults are becoming increasingly aware of childhood as a structural form and of the durability of power differentials between adults and children and are increasingly working with children to develop a rights-based agenda to further their collective interests. This could be seen as an example of the collective agency of children although it also illustrates how this agency takes place against a backdrop where existing hierarchies between adults and children structure the conditions under which children practice their agency. One could question whether participating in these recurring forms of social interaction make children agents (Hays, 1994, p. 63).

Although organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is widely known to have a positive ethical impact in work organizations, the causal antecedents that influence the likelihood of such behaviors among employees is understudied. We addressed this gap by examining the influence of visual images of people on relevant work-related behavior in a work-like setting using the theoretical frame of the social identity perspective. We found that students in a university setting, who were exposed to religious-themed student images, exhibited slower helping behaviors toward the organization than those who were exposed to organizational-themed student images. The results of the current study provide the first-known experimental confirmation of organizational identity as a causal antecedent of OCB.

El Salvador’s youth have faced a climate of violence for decades. Schools have been identified as the most cost-effective ways to help students develop the life skills they need to prevent violence. This study examined the potential role of a physical education (PE) program taught by some of the first Salvadoran teachers to be trained to foster life skills through PE within schools.

Fourteen schools that had hired a PE teacher trained in life skills-based PE volunteered to participate in the study. Semi-structured interviews with the school director, PE teacher, and a focus group of students at each school were conducted.

Interviews were content analyzed and potential themes were initially placed into one of three life skills categories using a deductive analysis based upon the World Health Organization’s (WHO) (2002) three categories of life skills: (i) Coping and Self-Management; (ii) Communication and Interpersonal; (iii) Decision Making/Problem Solving. Then, using an inductive analysis, various themes within each life skills category were identified. The findings revealed that participants in the study identified the role that PE provides in developing life skills in each of the three categories and many identified the importance of these life skills to prevent violence both in and out of schools.

Findings from this study highlight the important role that schools play in the development of life skills and the prevention of youth violence. PE in particular offers a promising approach due to its applied nature and opportunity for students to learn through doing and the application of life skills in a safe manner. The findings also support the importance of trained PE teachers to deliver such programs.

Central America has and continues to be a region with high levels of youth violence. Given that PE is a mandatory school subject in Salvadoran schools (and in other Central American countries), shifting the focus toward a life skills-based approach to PE offers educators an opportunity to address the country’s number one public health concern which is youth violence. To our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind in El Salvador to explore the role of PE as it relates to youth violence and can help in future curricular revisions in schools and the development of degree programs at local universities.

Muslimophobia, or prejudice toward Muslims, results in employment discrimination, social exclusion of Muslims, anti-Muslim hate crimes, and physical and verbal assaults, in the United States and globally. Moreover, anti-Muslim incidents are on the rise in many countries. In this chapter, we provide a review of Muslimophobia and its dynamics and consequences in the workplace. We also make suggestions for reducing prejudice toward Muslim employees, using social psychological perspectives, particularly intergroup contact theory, and research on prejudice reduction. It is also argued that leaders play an important role in the combating of Muslimophobia, including creating opportunities for personalized interactions with Muslim employees and disseminating more information about Muslims and Islam. This chapter concludes with practical implications and suggestions for future research directions. Although there is much work to be done in reducing Muslimophobia and discrimination against Muslims, social psychological research emanating from intergroup contact theory suggests that it is a viable path for researchers and practitioners to pursue.

My framework is based upon a grounded analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) of a review of the existing social science and education literature regarding globalization and peace from approximately 1960 to the present. My review consisted of identifying emergent themes in the literature and from these identifying conceptual categories and the relationships among them that could explain some of the ways in which globalization, peace, and educational processes are linked. I approached the literature as a “cache of documents” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), that is, as bodies of literature reflecting certain sensibilities regarding globalization and peace. My framework is based upon an analysis of how these sensibilities have influenced the reproduction of inequalities through the education sector as a socialization and policy context.