Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long‐Term View

Item

Title

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long‐Term View

Author

Barber, Brian K.

Research Area

Class, Status and Power

Topic

Violence, Conflict and Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the scientific study of youth experience with political conflict has come into its own as a recognized, vibrant field of scholarship. This essay briefly reviews the state of the research. It notes the upsurge in volume and increase in the sophistication of the research, including larger and more representative samples, inclusion of locally defined assessments of youth functioning, and the study of the broader social ecology of youth who experience political conflict. These elements of progress notwithstanding, the research remains overwhelming driven by psychopathology models and has yet to extend either to systematically explore a broader focus on youth social, civic, economic, and political functioning or to seriously consider youth's cognitive and behavioral engagements in political conflict.

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Identifier

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extracted text

Political Conflict and Youth:
A Long-Term View
BRIAN K. BARBER

Abstract
Over the past two decades, the scientific study of youth experience with political
conflict has come into its own as a recognized, vibrant field of scholarship. This essay
briefly reviews the state of the research. It notes the upsurge in volume and increase
in the sophistication of the research, including larger and more representative samples, inclusion of locally defined assessments of youth functioning, and the study
of the broader social ecology of youth who experience political conflict. These elements of progress notwithstanding, the research remains overwhelming driven by
psychopathology models and has yet to extend either to systematically explore a
broader focus on youth social, civic, economic, and political functioning or to seriously consider youth’s cognitive and behavioral engagements in political conflict.
The bulk of the essay focuses on a different and crucial need for research refinement:
namely, adopting a longer term view in to youth’s development and functioning. As
the large majority of young people survive the violence of political conflict without
serious dysfunction, the field needs to examine the degree to which the normative
transitions of their onward lives are shaped by their experiences with political conflict. The essay invokes classic theory from sociology and developmental psychology
in advocating for such a life course perspective and it details a methodology—event
history calendaring—ideally suited to collect such data. The essay closes with a brief
overview of an ongoing study of the adult functioning of Palestinian youth of the
first intifada to illustrate the feasibility and utility of this methodology.

INTRODUCTION
Appropriate to the continuing incidence of violent political conflicts globally in which youth are centrally involved, the scientific study of youth
experience with political conflict has developed solidly over the past two
decades. Since the late 1990s, hundreds of studies have been conducted in
many regions of the world, and—particularly given the establishment of
several region-specific research teams who benefit from generous private
and public funding—there is good reason to believe that this momentum
will continue (see Barber, 2014, a recent review).
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

In this essay, I wish to briefly summarize the conclusions from these previous reviews, but then concentrate on developing the arguments for why and
how longer term assessments of youth functioning is a pursuit that should
be developed vigorously. In brief, many reviews have shown that the large
majority of populations of youth who experience violent political conflict survive without serious dysfunction. Therefore, our research designs—instead
of recycling conventional models that correlate psychological or behavioral
problems with violent exposures near in time to the conflict—need to
incorporate a longer term view to if or how political conflict impacts their
transitions to and through adulthood. I will lay out theoretical arguments and
illustrate a methodology for capturing trajectories of life events and youth
development across the transition to adulthood. Finally, I use an on-going
study as illustration and validation for the feasibility and utility of this
method.
STATE OF THE RESEARCH
Although a relatively new specialty of inquiry, the scientific literature investigating how exposure to or involvement in political conflict impacts children,
and youth has grown substantially and rapidly since pioneers of the field
laid the groundwork two decades ago (Cairns & Dawes, 1996). My recent
review of the field used their expectations and admonitions as standards,
and found the current state of research both encouraging and discouraging
(Barber, 2014).
Clear progress has been made in the overall volume of the work—averaging
15 peer-reviewed empirical (quantitative) studies per year over the past
4 years (2010–2013). Further, largely owing to the interest and backing of
both private foundations and government agencies, studies are increasingly
examining larger, more representative samples. This, in turn, has permitted
the use of sophisticated analytic methods.
Other areas of progress include an increasing sensitivity to both culture and
context. As for culture, instead of only importing Western-derived constructs
and measures of mental functioning, increasingly studies are developing
and employing locally defined measures. As examples, these include
measures of distress (Afghanistan; Panter-Brick, Eggerman, Gonzalez, &
Safdar, 2009), problems (Rwanda; Betancourt et al., 2012), possession by
spirits or demons (Northern Uganda; Neuner et al., 2012), and feelings of
being broken or destroyed (Palestine; McNeely et al., 2014).
As for context, in the effort to detect the impact on young people of exposure to political conflict, much work is now better acknowledging the complex social ecologies that youth inhabit (i.e., as opposed to simply measuring
exposure to political violence). Specifically, models now include assessments

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

3

of community, school, religion, peers, family, and/or ethnic group. Findings
generally show that youth experiences in most of these contexts uniquely
and/or cumulatively impact their well-being apart from their experiences
with political conflict (e.g., Barber, 2001; Betancourt et al., 2012; Boxer et al.,
2013; Cummings et al., 2012).
Understandably, the family context has received the most consistent attention in these enhanced models. Elements of family life—family structure,
positive family relations, conflict, abuse, parents’ health, etc.—have been
shown to directly impact the functioning of young people in conflict zones
and/or to mediate the impact of exposure to political violence on youth
well-being (e.g., Betancourt, McBain, Newnham, & Brennan, 2013; Cummings et al., 2012; Dubow et al., 2012; Panter-Brick, Grimon, & Eggerman,
2013; Slone, Shechner, & Oula, 2012).
These areas of progress notwithstanding, the research literature suffers
from formidable limitations. One is the persistent preoccupation with mental
health and behavioral problems when conceptualizing and measuring the
impact of political conflict on young people. Consistent with prior periods,
over 90% of the studies published in the upsurge of work over the past
4 years have focused exclusively or primarily on mental and behavioral
problems of young people in conflict zones (Barber, 2014). This narrow focus
severely limits the utility of the research findings and must be broadened
if we are going to approach understanding the complex impact of political
conflict on young people (i.e., beyond the minority who manifests significant
problem behaviors).
The recommendation to do so was made already two decades ago (Cairns
& Dawes, 1996) and has been repeated regularly since (e.g., Barber, 2013; Pedersen, Tremblay, Errazuriz, & Gamarra, 2008). The risks and consequences of
this narrow focus are elaborated in those publications. In brief, they include
isolating the individual from the collective, pathologizing normative stress,
questionable validity of mental health constructs, etc. The issue is not if there
is risk to mental functioning from political conflict, but rather how functioning should be construed, measured, and modeled. Anyone’s functioning is
broader than the psychological, and thus the pressing questions are what
other aspects of a young person’s life (e.g., social, civic, religious, economic,
and political) are impacted by their experiences with political conflict and
what the linkages are among those diverse domains of experience.
A second limitation is the failure to seriously consider youth as active
agents in their experiences with political conflict. Conventional models treat
youth as passive victims of degrading political violence. However, both
youth and political conflict are far more complex than this. As elaborated
elsewhere (Barber, 2013, 2014), substantial gains in understanding youth
response to political conflict would be made if we explicitly acknowledge

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

them as active agents with partially formed identities, orientations, and perspective regarding self and society—who, moreover, engage with political
conflict, whether cognitively or behaviorally. Ample research has shown
that young people interpret political conflict and respond to it variably
depending on how understandable, predictable, legitimate, and urgent
they judge it to be (Barber, 2009; Jones, 2002; Punamäki, 1996; Straker,
Mendelsohn, Moosa, & Tudin, 1996). Such cognitive engagement has not
yet been acknowledged in conventional research models exploring youth
response to political conflict. Neither has youth’s behavioral engagement
as activists in political conflict been incorporated into research models,
despite their key role in many of the conflicts that researchers study (for one
exception, see Barber & Olsen, 2009).
As summarized previously, a fundamental reworking of conventional
models would enhance our ability to understand the impact of political
conflict on young people. Such refined models would include holistic
assessments of functioning, acknowledge youth’s cognitive and behavioral
engagement, and—rather than treat exposure to political violence as the
starting point of inquiry—“probe how substantially the rigorous challenges
of political conflict have shaped (i.e., interrupted, delayed, altered, curtailed,
redirected, enhanced, etc.) their continuing development as individuals and
citizens” (Barber, 2014, p. 128).
The balance of this essay addresses yet another crucial need in the study of
youth experience with political conflict; namely, tracing the impact of their
conflict experiences across the long term as they transition to adulthood.
FUTURE RESEARCH: ASSESSING LONGER TERM FUNCTIONING
Several factors coincide to recommend that one key direction for future
research is assessing the impact of political conflict on the longer term
functioning of young people. First, we now have ample evidence from conventional cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal studies that exposure
to political violence has weak to moderate correlations with mental and
behavioral problems. It is time now to assess how else political conflict
might impact young people. Moreover, as the large majority survive conflict
and proceed on with their lives, our investigations should be tracking their
development over time.
Second, a clear momentum to look to the longer term is emerging. Specifically, while the large majority of research studies are still cross-sectional
and conducted close in time to the moments of political conflict, nearly
one-quarter of the studies published in the past 4 years have included
multiple, typically annual, assessments for up to 4 years (e.g., Betancourt
et al., 2013; Boxer et al., 2013; Cummings et al., 2012; Dubow et al., 2012;

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

5

Panter-Brick, Goodman, Tol, & Eggerman, 2011). This reflects researchers’
increasing appreciation for the need for longitudinal evidence, and it also
signals abundant funding necessary to conduct such studies. To date,
however, the design of most of the recent longitudinal studies has been to
maintain the conventional focus on violence exposure and problem behaviors, and to confirm the common finding of correlation from cross-sectional
analyses.
Third, theoretically informed methods are available to achieve data necessary to answer the question of the long-term impact of political conflict. One
such promising method is event history calendaring (Belli, Stafford, & Alwin,
2009). This method has been rigorously tested and validated in economics
and cognitive psychology, but, until recently, it has not been employed in
research on political conflict and its impact on the developing young person.
In the following sections, I will lay out theory that is helpful in contemplating how to approach the study of long-term effects. Then, I will describe a
specific method that can be used to that end. I will conclude with illustrations
of the use of that method in an on-going project.
EVENT HISTORY THEORY
Considering the question of the long-term impact of political conflict invites
inclusion of rich theories from psychology (e.g., lifespan development;
Baltes, Staudinger, & Lindenberger, 1999) and sociology (e.g., life course
theory; Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003) that speak to human development
across the life span. Such approaches have not yet been well integrated into
the burgeoning research on political conflict, which remains dominated by
psychopathology, stress, and biomedical perspectives (Miller & Rasmussen,
2010).
Relevant theories invoke different terminology—such as life history, life
span, or life course—but all share several basic presumptions. First and most
basic is the presumption that, regardless of age, human development continues throughout the course of life and that individuals establish pathways or
trajectories through the variety and sequence of events that they experience
in their various contexts (Baltes et al., 1999; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Elder et al.,
2003; Hobfoll, 2002; Lerner, 1991).
Second, this contextualized development is, therefore, embedded in
history such that it is impacted by the sociocultural conditions present
in a given historical period and how these conditions change or evolve
over time (Baltes et al., 1999; Hobfoll, 2002). Thus, evaluating an individual’s well-being requires not only a charting of the key events that have
occurred over the course of his or her life but to note that specific historical
periods—particularly those that involve large-scale social changes such as

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

economic cycles and war—substantially affect the challenges, opportunities,
and resources available to individuals and can involve changes in both
personal and social identities (Elder et al., 2003). In support of the relevance
of this approach, recent evidence from nonconflict studies of youth indicates
that the environmental parameters of harshness and unpredictability have
both concurrent effects on life history development in adolescence as well
as longitudinal effects into young adulthood (Brumbach, Figueredo, & Ellis,
2009).
Third, there are specific life events that can be particularly significant—both
in the fact of their occurrence and their timing or sequencing—that shape an
individual’s development, some of which can be considered turning points
in that they involve substantial change in a given life trajectory or pathway
(Elder et al., 2003). In the case of Palestinian male youth in the first Intifada,
for example, the event of imprisonment [experienced once or more often by at
least 25% of them (Barber & Olsen, 2009)] was highly significant for many in
that it fundamentally altered their political orientation and, contrary to the
intent of deterrence, it spurred for many enhanced self-esteem and greater
commitments to the movement (Barber, 2009).
However, to emphasize the point of the salience of event timing, the same
imprisonment event experienced later in the course of life might not have the
same promotive significance or might even be experienced as a damaging.
This could be so for a number of reasons, examples of which are if the individual had married, he might view the imprisonment as a burden because it
distracted from the higher priority of supporting his family; if he had by then
concluded that his past efforts to affect political change were fruitless; or, if
the later imprisonment was actually at the hands of the Palestinian leadership
once they had acceded to power. (Very few females were imprisoned.)
Fourth, life history orientations share the view that lives are lived interdependently. This connectedness is especially salient in many cultures that
are undergoing political strife that place high value on interpersonal, particularly family, relationships. Connectedness can be impacted directly and
indirectly. Thus, the direct loss of a key person(s) is a highly salient event that
likely significantly impacts a young person’s well-being. In addition, economic hardship—a central consequence of political conflict—can also reduce
the availability or effectiveness of parents or peers in providing critical social
support, thereby indirectly reducing the young person’s social well-being
(Elder & Conger, 2000).
A fifth fundamental component of life span theories makes an important
bridge to a second main element of the relevant theoretical frameworks:
namely, resources. Fundamental to resource frameworks is the assertion that
well-being is a function of the balance of gains and losses that individuals
experience through the course of their lives (Baltes et al., 1999).

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

7

RESOURCE THEORY
Elaborations of life event theory, such as resource theories (e.g., Hobfoll,
1989), are especially salient to the study of political conflict due to the
destruction conflict can do to economic (housing, food supplies, employment, etc.) and social (the death, detention, or incapacitation of kin and
peers, etc.) resources (Barenbaum, Ruchkin, & Schwab-Stone, 2004; Boyden,
2003). One specific elaboration of life event, resource, and stress theories is
Hobfoll’s (1989) conservation of resource theory (COR). More so than other
resource or stress theories, Hobfoll—viewing resources broadly and defined
by culture—elaborates importantly on the nature and dynamics of resource
loss. Beyond having demonstrated that resource loss is consistently more
predictive than resource gain, Hobfoll specifies that resource loss is more
salient to well-being than resource lack (Hobfoll, 2001) and thus change in
resources is more determinative than absolute level of resources (Freund &
Riediger, 2001). Further, resource loss tends to accumulate (i.e., in resource
caravans; Hobfoll, 2002; see also Layne et al., 2009).
In sum, contemplating how experiences with political conflict might impact
the later functioning of young people can be enriched by consideration of
life course and lifespan theories. These and related theories instruct on the
importance of analyzing life trajectories: that is, timing and patterning of
events; how those events might be clustered in pivotal historical periods,
or might otherwise be experienced as landmark events; that the well-being
of young people is interconnected with that of significant others; and that
progressing across the life course is a matter of retention, gain, or—most
saliently, loss—of economic and other culturally valued resources.
EVENT HISTORY METHODS—THE EVENT HISTORY CALENDAR
Life event calendaring has become a highly respected and credible method
of assessing an individual’s biographical history (Belli, Bilgen, & Al Baghal,
2013; Belli et al., 2009). It allows for the assessment of multiple dimensions
of a person’s life that unfold simultaneously and that are interwoven both
temporally and causally (Freedman, Thornton, Camburn, Alwin, & YoungDeMarco, 1988). The method is effective at overcoming the subjective and
often elusive nature of memory, particularly regarding post-event trauma
recall, by facilitating the reconstruction of memory through increasing the
respondent’s ability to place different activities within the same time frame
during the interview process (Freedman et al., 1988). The Event History Calendar (EHC) approach differs notably from other life event work in that it
emphasizes timing and patterns of life events rather than just incidence (e.g.,
Tennant, 2002).

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Specifically, certain events are readily remembered, such as marriages,
births, and changes in residence, and they provide important reference
points for recalling less salient events or extended life circumstances such
as school enrollment, details of employment, and living arrangements.
Researchers have found that when individuals attempt to recall a past
event, they typically align their memories spatially as well as temporally,
and visually connect seemingly unrelated events to one another (Barsalou,
1988; Neisser & Winograd, 1988). Thus, a particular advantage of the
EHC method is that it allows respondents to visualize in the calendar
the interconnectedness of past events and determine whether they have
accurately reported the co-occurrence or ordering of various events (Axinn,
Pearce, & Ghimire, 1999). By achieving a comprehensive set of observations
over time, the researcher can examine the sequencing of events, as well
simultaneous transitions in different domains, and is thereby able to provide
a richer picture of potential causal mechanisms in the development of an
individual’s well-being (Freedman et al., 1988; Roberts & Mulvey, 2009).
In conflict environments, episodes of conflict could also serve as key
anchoring events. This is particularly the case for Palestinian youth whose
lives have included regular moments of clearly circumscribed and widely
recognized episodes or lulls between episodes of conflict, such as the
1987–1993 first Intifada; the 1994–2000 Oslo period; the specific day of the
second in 2000; the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza; the 2006
election of Hamas; and the 2007 military takeover of the Gaza Strip by
Hamas.
Past empirical evidence has demonstrated the validity of EHC methodology across areas of social science research, epidemiology, and family
planning studies in achieving high quality retrospective reports of employment status, work history, health-related issues, income, and cohabitation
patterns (Agrawal, Andreski, & Belli, 2004; Belli, Shay, & Stafford, 2001;
Glasner & van der Vaart, 2009). For example, Caspi et al. (1996) used EHC as
a follow-up measure to substantiate data collected 3 years earlier for living
arrangements, cohabitation, schooling, employment, and job training for
young adults transitioning to adulthood and found significant agreement
between reports. Belli et al. (2001) compared EHC with more traditional
Q-List techniques using a national sample of respondents from the US Panel
Study of Income Dynamics. Comparisons between the two approaches
revealed that the EHC methodology yielded more accurate reports of work
history, income, and mobility. A review of seven studies that simultaneously implemented calendar methods and conventional survey methods
concluded that the use of a calendar outperforms conventional methods
in terms of data quality. Data quality was measured as the concordance
between retrospective reports and an independent source of validation

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

9

and as the more frequent reporting of events under the assumption that
underreporting is the norm (Belli et al., 2013).
EHC methodologies have also been employed to investigate areas such as
stressful life events, youth life histories, and the impact of daily exposure to
filial violence on youth. For example, Ensel, Peek, Lin, and Lai (1996) utilized
EHC to examine undesirable life changes over a 15-year period to investigate
differential responses to distal versus more recent or proximal stressors in
relationship to respondent age (32 years of age and older), finding that life
events even as far back as 15 years prior still have a significant and measureable impact on well-being.
In sum, the EHC is an optimal method for retrospectively tracking the life
trajectories of youth who have lived through political conflict. This is particularly the case because political conflict typically includes highly memorable
events that, along with other standard life course landmark events, assist in
accurately recalling experience. Collecting accurate data on the key events of
life—particularly those related with loss—will greatly enhance our ability to
test if and how experience with political conflict is reflected via trajectories
of development through the transition to adulthood.
EVENT HISTORY CALENDARING: A CASE STUDY AMONG
PALESTINIANS
Finally, as a case study validation of the feasibility and value of employing
an EHC method in studying the long-term impact of political conflict, I will
briefly summarize some of the progress of our on-going project: The Impact
of Political Conflict on Youth: Assessing Long-Term Well-Being via an Event
History—Resource Model (hereafter: the PAL Project). This multi-phased
investigation of the storied generation of Palestinian stone throwers
of the first intifada now as adults—funded by the Jacobs Foundation,
Switzerland—was designed explicitly to pioneer the use of the EHC method.
We are at the beginning stages of analyses of the EHC data. Thus, we cannot
yet offer findings from the elaborate life history models that we will eventually test regarding, for example, how experience with political conflict as a
youth impacts life event trajectories and adult well-being. Nevertheless, our
experience with the implementation of the method—including input from
the fieldworkers who conducted the interviews—and findings from preliminary analyses strongly recommend the feasibility of this methodology.
The PAL project has had several phases; including extensive interviewing
to learn how this cohort of Palestinian adults conceives of quality of life and
well-being (Barber et al., 2014), and careful pilot testing of the multi-domain
functioning assessment we created from these interviews (McNeely et al.,
2014). Of most relevance to this article is the main, EHC phase of the project.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

On the basis of the interview data from the first phase of the project, and
in extensive consultation with several key informants, we created a list of
events most relevant to understanding the life history trajectories of this population to be included on the EHC. In the same interview, we administered
the multi-domain inventory of current functioning.
An EHC is essentially a grid, with life events listed in the left column
(right column in the Arabic version) with succeeding columns, in our
case, representing years of the life course from 1987 (beginning of the first
intifada) to 2011 (the year of the interview). The final EHC covered 15
domains (with multiple questions within each domain), including, among
others, education, employment, family formation, significant separations,
violence exposure, political activism, restrictions on movement, and resource
adequacy. The interviewer and respondent work jointly in the respondent’s
home to record values for each event × year cell, with the interviewer using
several cross-checking techniques to validate the data. The EHC was written
in English, back-translated to Arabic, pilot tested, and revised.
Utilizing an EHC methodology required us learning the method and then
training local fieldworkers how to implement it. We conducted multiple,
3-day training sessions (two each in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) with
47 fieldworkers from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research
(PSR; Ramallah, West Bank). In September and October 2011, these field
workers conducted in Arabic household interviews with a representative
sample of 1,800 30–40 year olds in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the
Gaza Strip. The clustered three-stage probability sample was drawn from
all Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) enumeration areas from
updated 2007 PCBS census maps. Kish tables were used to select one eligible
adult per household. Two fieldworkers—a male and a female—conducted
every interview in order to maximize entry to all of the homes in the sample
(i.e., avoiding having only a male interviewing a female, and vice versa).
The response rate was 97%.
Given that this method of interview was new to these otherwise highly
experienced home interviewers, it was important to assess how they
experienced the process. Accordingly, we surveyed the fieldworkers and
supervisors as to their perceptions of the EHC method. The large majority
of interviewers reported confidence: in the respondents’ ability to remember
both major (95.7%) and detailed (85.1%) events; in the accuracy of the data
(95.7%); and that the method of recording responses on the EHC was easy
to understand and master (91.4%).
Preliminary analyses of the data also make us confident of its validity.
Descriptively, for example, PAL participants’ reports of the frequency of
their exposure to specific forms of political violence two decades earlier
as youth of the first intifada are very much in line with those reported in

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

11

1998 by youth of the same generation (Barber & Olsen, 2009). In addition,
the latent profile analyses we have conducted of trajectories of specific life
events across the 25-year period [e.g., demographics (education, employment, and marriage; Spellings, McNeely, Barber, & Belli, 2012); exposure
to political violence (Barber, McNeely, Olsen, Spellings, & Belli, 2013); and
imprisonment (McNeely, 2014)] have resulted in historically and culturally
sensible clusters (i.e., classes) of individuals.
In sum, every evidence to date confirms the feasibility and validity of an
EHC method in assessing adults whose lives have been punctuated by historic periods of intense political conflict. We look forward to the results of
forthcoming analyses that exploit these data to identify how youth move forward with their lives and how their experiences with political conflict impact
those trajectories. We also look forward to other research teams adopting and
validating this method in the search for understanding experience with political conflict shapes the lives of young people as they move forward with their
lives.
REFERENCES
Agrawal, S., Andreski, P., & Belli, R.F. (2004, May). CATI event history calendar and
question-list methods: Accuracy of life course retrospective reports. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion
Research, Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs, Phoenix, Arizona.
Axinn, W. G., Pearce, L. D., & Ghimire, D. (1999). Innovations in life history calendar
applications. Social Science Research, 28, 243–264.
Baltes, P. B., Staudinger, U. M., & Lindenberger, U. (1999). Life-span development
psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 471–507.
Barber, B. K. (2001). Political violence, social integration, and youth functioning:
Palestinian youth from the Intifada. Journal of Community Psychology, 29, 259–280.
Barber, B. K. (2009). Making sense and no sense of war: Issues of identity and meaning in adolescents’ experience with political conflict. In B. K. Barber (Ed.), Adolescents and war: How youth deal with political violence (pp. 281–311). New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
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Mallouh, M. (2014). Human insecurity, chronic economic constraints and health in
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BRIAN K. BARBER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Brian K. Barber is Professor of Child and Family Studies and Founding
Director of the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict at
the University of Tennessee (http://csypc.utk.edu). He is also the Jacobs
Foundation Fellow at New America. Much of Dr. Barber’s work focuses
on youth development in the contexts of political conflict, particularly in
Palestine, Egypt, and Bosnia. He is the editor of Adolescents and War: How
Youth Deal with Political Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2009), as well as
numerous research articles and chapters. His current projects in Palestine
and Egypt are being funded by the Jacobs Foundation, Switzerland.
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Chiozza
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Globalization: Consequences for Work and Employment in Advanced
Capitalist Societies (Sociology), Tony Elger
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Erik Gartzke
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Bullying, Aggression, and Human Development (Psychology), Samuel E.
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Chinese Politics (Political Science), Jessica Chen Weiss



Political Conflict and Youth:
A Long-Term View
BRIAN K. BARBER

Abstract
Over the past two decades, the scientific study of youth experience with political
conflict has come into its own as a recognized, vibrant field of scholarship. This essay
briefly reviews the state of the research. It notes the upsurge in volume and increase
in the sophistication of the research, including larger and more representative samples, inclusion of locally defined assessments of youth functioning, and the study
of the broader social ecology of youth who experience political conflict. These elements of progress notwithstanding, the research remains overwhelming driven by
psychopathology models and has yet to extend either to systematically explore a
broader focus on youth social, civic, economic, and political functioning or to seriously consider youth’s cognitive and behavioral engagements in political conflict.
The bulk of the essay focuses on a different and crucial need for research refinement:
namely, adopting a longer term view in to youth’s development and functioning. As
the large majority of young people survive the violence of political conflict without
serious dysfunction, the field needs to examine the degree to which the normative
transitions of their onward lives are shaped by their experiences with political conflict. The essay invokes classic theory from sociology and developmental psychology
in advocating for such a life course perspective and it details a methodology—event
history calendaring—ideally suited to collect such data. The essay closes with a brief
overview of an ongoing study of the adult functioning of Palestinian youth of the
first intifada to illustrate the feasibility and utility of this methodology.

INTRODUCTION
Appropriate to the continuing incidence of violent political conflicts globally in which youth are centrally involved, the scientific study of youth
experience with political conflict has developed solidly over the past two
decades. Since the late 1990s, hundreds of studies have been conducted in
many regions of the world, and—particularly given the establishment of
several region-specific research teams who benefit from generous private
and public funding—there is good reason to believe that this momentum
will continue (see Barber, 2014, a recent review).
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

In this essay, I wish to briefly summarize the conclusions from these previous reviews, but then concentrate on developing the arguments for why and
how longer term assessments of youth functioning is a pursuit that should
be developed vigorously. In brief, many reviews have shown that the large
majority of populations of youth who experience violent political conflict survive without serious dysfunction. Therefore, our research designs—instead
of recycling conventional models that correlate psychological or behavioral
problems with violent exposures near in time to the conflict—need to
incorporate a longer term view to if or how political conflict impacts their
transitions to and through adulthood. I will lay out theoretical arguments and
illustrate a methodology for capturing trajectories of life events and youth
development across the transition to adulthood. Finally, I use an on-going
study as illustration and validation for the feasibility and utility of this
method.
STATE OF THE RESEARCH
Although a relatively new specialty of inquiry, the scientific literature investigating how exposure to or involvement in political conflict impacts children,
and youth has grown substantially and rapidly since pioneers of the field
laid the groundwork two decades ago (Cairns & Dawes, 1996). My recent
review of the field used their expectations and admonitions as standards,
and found the current state of research both encouraging and discouraging
(Barber, 2014).
Clear progress has been made in the overall volume of the work—averaging
15 peer-reviewed empirical (quantitative) studies per year over the past
4 years (2010–2013). Further, largely owing to the interest and backing of
both private foundations and government agencies, studies are increasingly
examining larger, more representative samples. This, in turn, has permitted
the use of sophisticated analytic methods.
Other areas of progress include an increasing sensitivity to both culture and
context. As for culture, instead of only importing Western-derived constructs
and measures of mental functioning, increasingly studies are developing
and employing locally defined measures. As examples, these include
measures of distress (Afghanistan; Panter-Brick, Eggerman, Gonzalez, &
Safdar, 2009), problems (Rwanda; Betancourt et al., 2012), possession by
spirits or demons (Northern Uganda; Neuner et al., 2012), and feelings of
being broken or destroyed (Palestine; McNeely et al., 2014).
As for context, in the effort to detect the impact on young people of exposure to political conflict, much work is now better acknowledging the complex social ecologies that youth inhabit (i.e., as opposed to simply measuring
exposure to political violence). Specifically, models now include assessments

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

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of community, school, religion, peers, family, and/or ethnic group. Findings
generally show that youth experiences in most of these contexts uniquely
and/or cumulatively impact their well-being apart from their experiences
with political conflict (e.g., Barber, 2001; Betancourt et al., 2012; Boxer et al.,
2013; Cummings et al., 2012).
Understandably, the family context has received the most consistent attention in these enhanced models. Elements of family life—family structure,
positive family relations, conflict, abuse, parents’ health, etc.—have been
shown to directly impact the functioning of young people in conflict zones
and/or to mediate the impact of exposure to political violence on youth
well-being (e.g., Betancourt, McBain, Newnham, & Brennan, 2013; Cummings et al., 2012; Dubow et al., 2012; Panter-Brick, Grimon, & Eggerman,
2013; Slone, Shechner, & Oula, 2012).
These areas of progress notwithstanding, the research literature suffers
from formidable limitations. One is the persistent preoccupation with mental
health and behavioral problems when conceptualizing and measuring the
impact of political conflict on young people. Consistent with prior periods,
over 90% of the studies published in the upsurge of work over the past
4 years have focused exclusively or primarily on mental and behavioral
problems of young people in conflict zones (Barber, 2014). This narrow focus
severely limits the utility of the research findings and must be broadened
if we are going to approach understanding the complex impact of political
conflict on young people (i.e., beyond the minority who manifests significant
problem behaviors).
The recommendation to do so was made already two decades ago (Cairns
& Dawes, 1996) and has been repeated regularly since (e.g., Barber, 2013; Pedersen, Tremblay, Errazuriz, & Gamarra, 2008). The risks and consequences of
this narrow focus are elaborated in those publications. In brief, they include
isolating the individual from the collective, pathologizing normative stress,
questionable validity of mental health constructs, etc. The issue is not if there
is risk to mental functioning from political conflict, but rather how functioning should be construed, measured, and modeled. Anyone’s functioning is
broader than the psychological, and thus the pressing questions are what
other aspects of a young person’s life (e.g., social, civic, religious, economic,
and political) are impacted by their experiences with political conflict and
what the linkages are among those diverse domains of experience.
A second limitation is the failure to seriously consider youth as active
agents in their experiences with political conflict. Conventional models treat
youth as passive victims of degrading political violence. However, both
youth and political conflict are far more complex than this. As elaborated
elsewhere (Barber, 2013, 2014), substantial gains in understanding youth
response to political conflict would be made if we explicitly acknowledge

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them as active agents with partially formed identities, orientations, and perspective regarding self and society—who, moreover, engage with political
conflict, whether cognitively or behaviorally. Ample research has shown
that young people interpret political conflict and respond to it variably
depending on how understandable, predictable, legitimate, and urgent
they judge it to be (Barber, 2009; Jones, 2002; Punamäki, 1996; Straker,
Mendelsohn, Moosa, & Tudin, 1996). Such cognitive engagement has not
yet been acknowledged in conventional research models exploring youth
response to political conflict. Neither has youth’s behavioral engagement
as activists in political conflict been incorporated into research models,
despite their key role in many of the conflicts that researchers study (for one
exception, see Barber & Olsen, 2009).
As summarized previously, a fundamental reworking of conventional
models would enhance our ability to understand the impact of political
conflict on young people. Such refined models would include holistic
assessments of functioning, acknowledge youth’s cognitive and behavioral
engagement, and—rather than treat exposure to political violence as the
starting point of inquiry—“probe how substantially the rigorous challenges
of political conflict have shaped (i.e., interrupted, delayed, altered, curtailed,
redirected, enhanced, etc.) their continuing development as individuals and
citizens” (Barber, 2014, p. 128).
The balance of this essay addresses yet another crucial need in the study of
youth experience with political conflict; namely, tracing the impact of their
conflict experiences across the long term as they transition to adulthood.
FUTURE RESEARCH: ASSESSING LONGER TERM FUNCTIONING
Several factors coincide to recommend that one key direction for future
research is assessing the impact of political conflict on the longer term
functioning of young people. First, we now have ample evidence from conventional cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal studies that exposure
to political violence has weak to moderate correlations with mental and
behavioral problems. It is time now to assess how else political conflict
might impact young people. Moreover, as the large majority survive conflict
and proceed on with their lives, our investigations should be tracking their
development over time.
Second, a clear momentum to look to the longer term is emerging. Specifically, while the large majority of research studies are still cross-sectional
and conducted close in time to the moments of political conflict, nearly
one-quarter of the studies published in the past 4 years have included
multiple, typically annual, assessments for up to 4 years (e.g., Betancourt
et al., 2013; Boxer et al., 2013; Cummings et al., 2012; Dubow et al., 2012;

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

5

Panter-Brick, Goodman, Tol, & Eggerman, 2011). This reflects researchers’
increasing appreciation for the need for longitudinal evidence, and it also
signals abundant funding necessary to conduct such studies. To date,
however, the design of most of the recent longitudinal studies has been to
maintain the conventional focus on violence exposure and problem behaviors, and to confirm the common finding of correlation from cross-sectional
analyses.
Third, theoretically informed methods are available to achieve data necessary to answer the question of the long-term impact of political conflict. One
such promising method is event history calendaring (Belli, Stafford, & Alwin,
2009). This method has been rigorously tested and validated in economics
and cognitive psychology, but, until recently, it has not been employed in
research on political conflict and its impact on the developing young person.
In the following sections, I will lay out theory that is helpful in contemplating how to approach the study of long-term effects. Then, I will describe a
specific method that can be used to that end. I will conclude with illustrations
of the use of that method in an on-going project.
EVENT HISTORY THEORY
Considering the question of the long-term impact of political conflict invites
inclusion of rich theories from psychology (e.g., lifespan development;
Baltes, Staudinger, & Lindenberger, 1999) and sociology (e.g., life course
theory; Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003) that speak to human development
across the life span. Such approaches have not yet been well integrated into
the burgeoning research on political conflict, which remains dominated by
psychopathology, stress, and biomedical perspectives (Miller & Rasmussen,
2010).
Relevant theories invoke different terminology—such as life history, life
span, or life course—but all share several basic presumptions. First and most
basic is the presumption that, regardless of age, human development continues throughout the course of life and that individuals establish pathways or
trajectories through the variety and sequence of events that they experience
in their various contexts (Baltes et al., 1999; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Elder et al.,
2003; Hobfoll, 2002; Lerner, 1991).
Second, this contextualized development is, therefore, embedded in
history such that it is impacted by the sociocultural conditions present
in a given historical period and how these conditions change or evolve
over time (Baltes et al., 1999; Hobfoll, 2002). Thus, evaluating an individual’s well-being requires not only a charting of the key events that have
occurred over the course of his or her life but to note that specific historical
periods—particularly those that involve large-scale social changes such as

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

economic cycles and war—substantially affect the challenges, opportunities,
and resources available to individuals and can involve changes in both
personal and social identities (Elder et al., 2003). In support of the relevance
of this approach, recent evidence from nonconflict studies of youth indicates
that the environmental parameters of harshness and unpredictability have
both concurrent effects on life history development in adolescence as well
as longitudinal effects into young adulthood (Brumbach, Figueredo, & Ellis,
2009).
Third, there are specific life events that can be particularly significant—both
in the fact of their occurrence and their timing or sequencing—that shape an
individual’s development, some of which can be considered turning points
in that they involve substantial change in a given life trajectory or pathway
(Elder et al., 2003). In the case of Palestinian male youth in the first Intifada,
for example, the event of imprisonment [experienced once or more often by at
least 25% of them (Barber & Olsen, 2009)] was highly significant for many in
that it fundamentally altered their political orientation and, contrary to the
intent of deterrence, it spurred for many enhanced self-esteem and greater
commitments to the movement (Barber, 2009).
However, to emphasize the point of the salience of event timing, the same
imprisonment event experienced later in the course of life might not have the
same promotive significance or might even be experienced as a damaging.
This could be so for a number of reasons, examples of which are if the individual had married, he might view the imprisonment as a burden because it
distracted from the higher priority of supporting his family; if he had by then
concluded that his past efforts to affect political change were fruitless; or, if
the later imprisonment was actually at the hands of the Palestinian leadership
once they had acceded to power. (Very few females were imprisoned.)
Fourth, life history orientations share the view that lives are lived interdependently. This connectedness is especially salient in many cultures that
are undergoing political strife that place high value on interpersonal, particularly family, relationships. Connectedness can be impacted directly and
indirectly. Thus, the direct loss of a key person(s) is a highly salient event that
likely significantly impacts a young person’s well-being. In addition, economic hardship—a central consequence of political conflict—can also reduce
the availability or effectiveness of parents or peers in providing critical social
support, thereby indirectly reducing the young person’s social well-being
(Elder & Conger, 2000).
A fifth fundamental component of life span theories makes an important
bridge to a second main element of the relevant theoretical frameworks:
namely, resources. Fundamental to resource frameworks is the assertion that
well-being is a function of the balance of gains and losses that individuals
experience through the course of their lives (Baltes et al., 1999).

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

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RESOURCE THEORY
Elaborations of life event theory, such as resource theories (e.g., Hobfoll,
1989), are especially salient to the study of political conflict due to the
destruction conflict can do to economic (housing, food supplies, employment, etc.) and social (the death, detention, or incapacitation of kin and
peers, etc.) resources (Barenbaum, Ruchkin, & Schwab-Stone, 2004; Boyden,
2003). One specific elaboration of life event, resource, and stress theories is
Hobfoll’s (1989) conservation of resource theory (COR). More so than other
resource or stress theories, Hobfoll—viewing resources broadly and defined
by culture—elaborates importantly on the nature and dynamics of resource
loss. Beyond having demonstrated that resource loss is consistently more
predictive than resource gain, Hobfoll specifies that resource loss is more
salient to well-being than resource lack (Hobfoll, 2001) and thus change in
resources is more determinative than absolute level of resources (Freund &
Riediger, 2001). Further, resource loss tends to accumulate (i.e., in resource
caravans; Hobfoll, 2002; see also Layne et al., 2009).
In sum, contemplating how experiences with political conflict might impact
the later functioning of young people can be enriched by consideration of
life course and lifespan theories. These and related theories instruct on the
importance of analyzing life trajectories: that is, timing and patterning of
events; how those events might be clustered in pivotal historical periods,
or might otherwise be experienced as landmark events; that the well-being
of young people is interconnected with that of significant others; and that
progressing across the life course is a matter of retention, gain, or—most
saliently, loss—of economic and other culturally valued resources.
EVENT HISTORY METHODS—THE EVENT HISTORY CALENDAR
Life event calendaring has become a highly respected and credible method
of assessing an individual’s biographical history (Belli, Bilgen, & Al Baghal,
2013; Belli et al., 2009). It allows for the assessment of multiple dimensions
of a person’s life that unfold simultaneously and that are interwoven both
temporally and causally (Freedman, Thornton, Camburn, Alwin, & YoungDeMarco, 1988). The method is effective at overcoming the subjective and
often elusive nature of memory, particularly regarding post-event trauma
recall, by facilitating the reconstruction of memory through increasing the
respondent’s ability to place different activities within the same time frame
during the interview process (Freedman et al., 1988). The Event History Calendar (EHC) approach differs notably from other life event work in that it
emphasizes timing and patterns of life events rather than just incidence (e.g.,
Tennant, 2002).

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Specifically, certain events are readily remembered, such as marriages,
births, and changes in residence, and they provide important reference
points for recalling less salient events or extended life circumstances such
as school enrollment, details of employment, and living arrangements.
Researchers have found that when individuals attempt to recall a past
event, they typically align their memories spatially as well as temporally,
and visually connect seemingly unrelated events to one another (Barsalou,
1988; Neisser & Winograd, 1988). Thus, a particular advantage of the
EHC method is that it allows respondents to visualize in the calendar
the interconnectedness of past events and determine whether they have
accurately reported the co-occurrence or ordering of various events (Axinn,
Pearce, & Ghimire, 1999). By achieving a comprehensive set of observations
over time, the researcher can examine the sequencing of events, as well
simultaneous transitions in different domains, and is thereby able to provide
a richer picture of potential causal mechanisms in the development of an
individual’s well-being (Freedman et al., 1988; Roberts & Mulvey, 2009).
In conflict environments, episodes of conflict could also serve as key
anchoring events. This is particularly the case for Palestinian youth whose
lives have included regular moments of clearly circumscribed and widely
recognized episodes or lulls between episodes of conflict, such as the
1987–1993 first Intifada; the 1994–2000 Oslo period; the specific day of the
second in 2000; the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza; the 2006
election of Hamas; and the 2007 military takeover of the Gaza Strip by
Hamas.
Past empirical evidence has demonstrated the validity of EHC methodology across areas of social science research, epidemiology, and family
planning studies in achieving high quality retrospective reports of employment status, work history, health-related issues, income, and cohabitation
patterns (Agrawal, Andreski, & Belli, 2004; Belli, Shay, & Stafford, 2001;
Glasner & van der Vaart, 2009). For example, Caspi et al. (1996) used EHC as
a follow-up measure to substantiate data collected 3 years earlier for living
arrangements, cohabitation, schooling, employment, and job training for
young adults transitioning to adulthood and found significant agreement
between reports. Belli et al. (2001) compared EHC with more traditional
Q-List techniques using a national sample of respondents from the US Panel
Study of Income Dynamics. Comparisons between the two approaches
revealed that the EHC methodology yielded more accurate reports of work
history, income, and mobility. A review of seven studies that simultaneously implemented calendar methods and conventional survey methods
concluded that the use of a calendar outperforms conventional methods
in terms of data quality. Data quality was measured as the concordance
between retrospective reports and an independent source of validation

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

9

and as the more frequent reporting of events under the assumption that
underreporting is the norm (Belli et al., 2013).
EHC methodologies have also been employed to investigate areas such as
stressful life events, youth life histories, and the impact of daily exposure to
filial violence on youth. For example, Ensel, Peek, Lin, and Lai (1996) utilized
EHC to examine undesirable life changes over a 15-year period to investigate
differential responses to distal versus more recent or proximal stressors in
relationship to respondent age (32 years of age and older), finding that life
events even as far back as 15 years prior still have a significant and measureable impact on well-being.
In sum, the EHC is an optimal method for retrospectively tracking the life
trajectories of youth who have lived through political conflict. This is particularly the case because political conflict typically includes highly memorable
events that, along with other standard life course landmark events, assist in
accurately recalling experience. Collecting accurate data on the key events of
life—particularly those related with loss—will greatly enhance our ability to
test if and how experience with political conflict is reflected via trajectories
of development through the transition to adulthood.
EVENT HISTORY CALENDARING: A CASE STUDY AMONG
PALESTINIANS
Finally, as a case study validation of the feasibility and value of employing
an EHC method in studying the long-term impact of political conflict, I will
briefly summarize some of the progress of our on-going project: The Impact
of Political Conflict on Youth: Assessing Long-Term Well-Being via an Event
History—Resource Model (hereafter: the PAL Project). This multi-phased
investigation of the storied generation of Palestinian stone throwers
of the first intifada now as adults—funded by the Jacobs Foundation,
Switzerland—was designed explicitly to pioneer the use of the EHC method.
We are at the beginning stages of analyses of the EHC data. Thus, we cannot
yet offer findings from the elaborate life history models that we will eventually test regarding, for example, how experience with political conflict as a
youth impacts life event trajectories and adult well-being. Nevertheless, our
experience with the implementation of the method—including input from
the fieldworkers who conducted the interviews—and findings from preliminary analyses strongly recommend the feasibility of this methodology.
The PAL project has had several phases; including extensive interviewing
to learn how this cohort of Palestinian adults conceives of quality of life and
well-being (Barber et al., 2014), and careful pilot testing of the multi-domain
functioning assessment we created from these interviews (McNeely et al.,
2014). Of most relevance to this article is the main, EHC phase of the project.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

On the basis of the interview data from the first phase of the project, and
in extensive consultation with several key informants, we created a list of
events most relevant to understanding the life history trajectories of this population to be included on the EHC. In the same interview, we administered
the multi-domain inventory of current functioning.
An EHC is essentially a grid, with life events listed in the left column
(right column in the Arabic version) with succeeding columns, in our
case, representing years of the life course from 1987 (beginning of the first
intifada) to 2011 (the year of the interview). The final EHC covered 15
domains (with multiple questions within each domain), including, among
others, education, employment, family formation, significant separations,
violence exposure, political activism, restrictions on movement, and resource
adequacy. The interviewer and respondent work jointly in the respondent’s
home to record values for each event × year cell, with the interviewer using
several cross-checking techniques to validate the data. The EHC was written
in English, back-translated to Arabic, pilot tested, and revised.
Utilizing an EHC methodology required us learning the method and then
training local fieldworkers how to implement it. We conducted multiple,
3-day training sessions (two each in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) with
47 fieldworkers from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research
(PSR; Ramallah, West Bank). In September and October 2011, these field
workers conducted in Arabic household interviews with a representative
sample of 1,800 30–40 year olds in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the
Gaza Strip. The clustered three-stage probability sample was drawn from
all Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) enumeration areas from
updated 2007 PCBS census maps. Kish tables were used to select one eligible
adult per household. Two fieldworkers—a male and a female—conducted
every interview in order to maximize entry to all of the homes in the sample
(i.e., avoiding having only a male interviewing a female, and vice versa).
The response rate was 97%.
Given that this method of interview was new to these otherwise highly
experienced home interviewers, it was important to assess how they
experienced the process. Accordingly, we surveyed the fieldworkers and
supervisors as to their perceptions of the EHC method. The large majority
of interviewers reported confidence: in the respondents’ ability to remember
both major (95.7%) and detailed (85.1%) events; in the accuracy of the data
(95.7%); and that the method of recording responses on the EHC was easy
to understand and master (91.4%).
Preliminary analyses of the data also make us confident of its validity.
Descriptively, for example, PAL participants’ reports of the frequency of
their exposure to specific forms of political violence two decades earlier
as youth of the first intifada are very much in line with those reported in

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

11

1998 by youth of the same generation (Barber & Olsen, 2009). In addition,
the latent profile analyses we have conducted of trajectories of specific life
events across the 25-year period [e.g., demographics (education, employment, and marriage; Spellings, McNeely, Barber, & Belli, 2012); exposure
to political violence (Barber, McNeely, Olsen, Spellings, & Belli, 2013); and
imprisonment (McNeely, 2014)] have resulted in historically and culturally
sensible clusters (i.e., classes) of individuals.
In sum, every evidence to date confirms the feasibility and validity of an
EHC method in assessing adults whose lives have been punctuated by historic periods of intense political conflict. We look forward to the results of
forthcoming analyses that exploit these data to identify how youth move forward with their lives and how their experiences with political conflict impact
those trajectories. We also look forward to other research teams adopting and
validating this method in the search for understanding experience with political conflict shapes the lives of young people as they move forward with their
lives.
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Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

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BRIAN K. BARBER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Brian K. Barber is Professor of Child and Family Studies and Founding
Director of the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict at
the University of Tennessee (http://csypc.utk.edu). He is also the Jacobs
Foundation Fellow at New America. Much of Dr. Barber’s work focuses
on youth development in the contexts of political conflict, particularly in
Palestine, Egypt, and Bosnia. He is the editor of Adolescents and War: How
Youth Deal with Political Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2009), as well as
numerous research articles and chapters. His current projects in Palestine
and Egypt are being funded by the Jacobs Foundation, Switzerland.
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Political Conflict and Youth:
A Long-Term View
BRIAN K. BARBER

Abstract
Over the past two decades, the scientific study of youth experience with political
conflict has come into its own as a recognized, vibrant field of scholarship. This essay
briefly reviews the state of the research. It notes the upsurge in volume and increase
in the sophistication of the research, including larger and more representative samples, inclusion of locally defined assessments of youth functioning, and the study
of the broader social ecology of youth who experience political conflict. These elements of progress notwithstanding, the research remains overwhelming driven by
psychopathology models and has yet to extend either to systematically explore a
broader focus on youth social, civic, economic, and political functioning or to seriously consider youth’s cognitive and behavioral engagements in political conflict.
The bulk of the essay focuses on a different and crucial need for research refinement:
namely, adopting a longer term view in to youth’s development and functioning. As
the large majority of young people survive the violence of political conflict without
serious dysfunction, the field needs to examine the degree to which the normative
transitions of their onward lives are shaped by their experiences with political conflict. The essay invokes classic theory from sociology and developmental psychology
in advocating for such a life course perspective and it details a methodology—event
history calendaring—ideally suited to collect such data. The essay closes with a brief
overview of an ongoing study of the adult functioning of Palestinian youth of the
first intifada to illustrate the feasibility and utility of this methodology.

INTRODUCTION
Appropriate to the continuing incidence of violent political conflicts globally in which youth are centrally involved, the scientific study of youth
experience with political conflict has developed solidly over the past two
decades. Since the late 1990s, hundreds of studies have been conducted in
many regions of the world, and—particularly given the establishment of
several region-specific research teams who benefit from generous private
and public funding—there is good reason to believe that this momentum
will continue (see Barber, 2014, a recent review).
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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In this essay, I wish to briefly summarize the conclusions from these previous reviews, but then concentrate on developing the arguments for why and
how longer term assessments of youth functioning is a pursuit that should
be developed vigorously. In brief, many reviews have shown that the large
majority of populations of youth who experience violent political conflict survive without serious dysfunction. Therefore, our research designs—instead
of recycling conventional models that correlate psychological or behavioral
problems with violent exposures near in time to the conflict—need to
incorporate a longer term view to if or how political conflict impacts their
transitions to and through adulthood. I will lay out theoretical arguments and
illustrate a methodology for capturing trajectories of life events and youth
development across the transition to adulthood. Finally, I use an on-going
study as illustration and validation for the feasibility and utility of this
method.
STATE OF THE RESEARCH
Although a relatively new specialty of inquiry, the scientific literature investigating how exposure to or involvement in political conflict impacts children,
and youth has grown substantially and rapidly since pioneers of the field
laid the groundwork two decades ago (Cairns & Dawes, 1996). My recent
review of the field used their expectations and admonitions as standards,
and found the current state of research both encouraging and discouraging
(Barber, 2014).
Clear progress has been made in the overall volume of the work—averaging
15 peer-reviewed empirical (quantitative) studies per year over the past
4 years (2010–2013). Further, largely owing to the interest and backing of
both private foundations and government agencies, studies are increasingly
examining larger, more representative samples. This, in turn, has permitted
the use of sophisticated analytic methods.
Other areas of progress include an increasing sensitivity to both culture and
context. As for culture, instead of only importing Western-derived constructs
and measures of mental functioning, increasingly studies are developing
and employing locally defined measures. As examples, these include
measures of distress (Afghanistan; Panter-Brick, Eggerman, Gonzalez, &
Safdar, 2009), problems (Rwanda; Betancourt et al., 2012), possession by
spirits or demons (Northern Uganda; Neuner et al., 2012), and feelings of
being broken or destroyed (Palestine; McNeely et al., 2014).
As for context, in the effort to detect the impact on young people of exposure to political conflict, much work is now better acknowledging the complex social ecologies that youth inhabit (i.e., as opposed to simply measuring
exposure to political violence). Specifically, models now include assessments

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

3

of community, school, religion, peers, family, and/or ethnic group. Findings
generally show that youth experiences in most of these contexts uniquely
and/or cumulatively impact their well-being apart from their experiences
with political conflict (e.g., Barber, 2001; Betancourt et al., 2012; Boxer et al.,
2013; Cummings et al., 2012).
Understandably, the family context has received the most consistent attention in these enhanced models. Elements of family life—family structure,
positive family relations, conflict, abuse, parents’ health, etc.—have been
shown to directly impact the functioning of young people in conflict zones
and/or to mediate the impact of exposure to political violence on youth
well-being (e.g., Betancourt, McBain, Newnham, & Brennan, 2013; Cummings et al., 2012; Dubow et al., 2012; Panter-Brick, Grimon, & Eggerman,
2013; Slone, Shechner, & Oula, 2012).
These areas of progress notwithstanding, the research literature suffers
from formidable limitations. One is the persistent preoccupation with mental
health and behavioral problems when conceptualizing and measuring the
impact of political conflict on young people. Consistent with prior periods,
over 90% of the studies published in the upsurge of work over the past
4 years have focused exclusively or primarily on mental and behavioral
problems of young people in conflict zones (Barber, 2014). This narrow focus
severely limits the utility of the research findings and must be broadened
if we are going to approach understanding the complex impact of political
conflict on young people (i.e., beyond the minority who manifests significant
problem behaviors).
The recommendation to do so was made already two decades ago (Cairns
& Dawes, 1996) and has been repeated regularly since (e.g., Barber, 2013; Pedersen, Tremblay, Errazuriz, & Gamarra, 2008). The risks and consequences of
this narrow focus are elaborated in those publications. In brief, they include
isolating the individual from the collective, pathologizing normative stress,
questionable validity of mental health constructs, etc. The issue is not if there
is risk to mental functioning from political conflict, but rather how functioning should be construed, measured, and modeled. Anyone’s functioning is
broader than the psychological, and thus the pressing questions are what
other aspects of a young person’s life (e.g., social, civic, religious, economic,
and political) are impacted by their experiences with political conflict and
what the linkages are among those diverse domains of experience.
A second limitation is the failure to seriously consider youth as active
agents in their experiences with political conflict. Conventional models treat
youth as passive victims of degrading political violence. However, both
youth and political conflict are far more complex than this. As elaborated
elsewhere (Barber, 2013, 2014), substantial gains in understanding youth
response to political conflict would be made if we explicitly acknowledge

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them as active agents with partially formed identities, orientations, and perspective regarding self and society—who, moreover, engage with political
conflict, whether cognitively or behaviorally. Ample research has shown
that young people interpret political conflict and respond to it variably
depending on how understandable, predictable, legitimate, and urgent
they judge it to be (Barber, 2009; Jones, 2002; Punamäki, 1996; Straker,
Mendelsohn, Moosa, & Tudin, 1996). Such cognitive engagement has not
yet been acknowledged in conventional research models exploring youth
response to political conflict. Neither has youth’s behavioral engagement
as activists in political conflict been incorporated into research models,
despite their key role in many of the conflicts that researchers study (for one
exception, see Barber & Olsen, 2009).
As summarized previously, a fundamental reworking of conventional
models would enhance our ability to understand the impact of political
conflict on young people. Such refined models would include holistic
assessments of functioning, acknowledge youth’s cognitive and behavioral
engagement, and—rather than treat exposure to political violence as the
starting point of inquiry—“probe how substantially the rigorous challenges
of political conflict have shaped (i.e., interrupted, delayed, altered, curtailed,
redirected, enhanced, etc.) their continuing development as individuals and
citizens” (Barber, 2014, p. 128).
The balance of this essay addresses yet another crucial need in the study of
youth experience with political conflict; namely, tracing the impact of their
conflict experiences across the long term as they transition to adulthood.
FUTURE RESEARCH: ASSESSING LONGER TERM FUNCTIONING
Several factors coincide to recommend that one key direction for future
research is assessing the impact of political conflict on the longer term
functioning of young people. First, we now have ample evidence from conventional cross-sectional and short-term longitudinal studies that exposure
to political violence has weak to moderate correlations with mental and
behavioral problems. It is time now to assess how else political conflict
might impact young people. Moreover, as the large majority survive conflict
and proceed on with their lives, our investigations should be tracking their
development over time.
Second, a clear momentum to look to the longer term is emerging. Specifically, while the large majority of research studies are still cross-sectional
and conducted close in time to the moments of political conflict, nearly
one-quarter of the studies published in the past 4 years have included
multiple, typically annual, assessments for up to 4 years (e.g., Betancourt
et al., 2013; Boxer et al., 2013; Cummings et al., 2012; Dubow et al., 2012;

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

5

Panter-Brick, Goodman, Tol, & Eggerman, 2011). This reflects researchers’
increasing appreciation for the need for longitudinal evidence, and it also
signals abundant funding necessary to conduct such studies. To date,
however, the design of most of the recent longitudinal studies has been to
maintain the conventional focus on violence exposure and problem behaviors, and to confirm the common finding of correlation from cross-sectional
analyses.
Third, theoretically informed methods are available to achieve data necessary to answer the question of the long-term impact of political conflict. One
such promising method is event history calendaring (Belli, Stafford, & Alwin,
2009). This method has been rigorously tested and validated in economics
and cognitive psychology, but, until recently, it has not been employed in
research on political conflict and its impact on the developing young person.
In the following sections, I will lay out theory that is helpful in contemplating how to approach the study of long-term effects. Then, I will describe a
specific method that can be used to that end. I will conclude with illustrations
of the use of that method in an on-going project.
EVENT HISTORY THEORY
Considering the question of the long-term impact of political conflict invites
inclusion of rich theories from psychology (e.g., lifespan development;
Baltes, Staudinger, & Lindenberger, 1999) and sociology (e.g., life course
theory; Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003) that speak to human development
across the life span. Such approaches have not yet been well integrated into
the burgeoning research on political conflict, which remains dominated by
psychopathology, stress, and biomedical perspectives (Miller & Rasmussen,
2010).
Relevant theories invoke different terminology—such as life history, life
span, or life course—but all share several basic presumptions. First and most
basic is the presumption that, regardless of age, human development continues throughout the course of life and that individuals establish pathways or
trajectories through the variety and sequence of events that they experience
in their various contexts (Baltes et al., 1999; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Elder et al.,
2003; Hobfoll, 2002; Lerner, 1991).
Second, this contextualized development is, therefore, embedded in
history such that it is impacted by the sociocultural conditions present
in a given historical period and how these conditions change or evolve
over time (Baltes et al., 1999; Hobfoll, 2002). Thus, evaluating an individual’s well-being requires not only a charting of the key events that have
occurred over the course of his or her life but to note that specific historical
periods—particularly those that involve large-scale social changes such as

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

economic cycles and war—substantially affect the challenges, opportunities,
and resources available to individuals and can involve changes in both
personal and social identities (Elder et al., 2003). In support of the relevance
of this approach, recent evidence from nonconflict studies of youth indicates
that the environmental parameters of harshness and unpredictability have
both concurrent effects on life history development in adolescence as well
as longitudinal effects into young adulthood (Brumbach, Figueredo, & Ellis,
2009).
Third, there are specific life events that can be particularly significant—both
in the fact of their occurrence and their timing or sequencing—that shape an
individual’s development, some of which can be considered turning points
in that they involve substantial change in a given life trajectory or pathway
(Elder et al., 2003). In the case of Palestinian male youth in the first Intifada,
for example, the event of imprisonment [experienced once or more often by at
least 25% of them (Barber & Olsen, 2009)] was highly significant for many in
that it fundamentally altered their political orientation and, contrary to the
intent of deterrence, it spurred for many enhanced self-esteem and greater
commitments to the movement (Barber, 2009).
However, to emphasize the point of the salience of event timing, the same
imprisonment event experienced later in the course of life might not have the
same promotive significance or might even be experienced as a damaging.
This could be so for a number of reasons, examples of which are if the individual had married, he might view the imprisonment as a burden because it
distracted from the higher priority of supporting his family; if he had by then
concluded that his past efforts to affect political change were fruitless; or, if
the later imprisonment was actually at the hands of the Palestinian leadership
once they had acceded to power. (Very few females were imprisoned.)
Fourth, life history orientations share the view that lives are lived interdependently. This connectedness is especially salient in many cultures that
are undergoing political strife that place high value on interpersonal, particularly family, relationships. Connectedness can be impacted directly and
indirectly. Thus, the direct loss of a key person(s) is a highly salient event that
likely significantly impacts a young person’s well-being. In addition, economic hardship—a central consequence of political conflict—can also reduce
the availability or effectiveness of parents or peers in providing critical social
support, thereby indirectly reducing the young person’s social well-being
(Elder & Conger, 2000).
A fifth fundamental component of life span theories makes an important
bridge to a second main element of the relevant theoretical frameworks:
namely, resources. Fundamental to resource frameworks is the assertion that
well-being is a function of the balance of gains and losses that individuals
experience through the course of their lives (Baltes et al., 1999).

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

7

RESOURCE THEORY
Elaborations of life event theory, such as resource theories (e.g., Hobfoll,
1989), are especially salient to the study of political conflict due to the
destruction conflict can do to economic (housing, food supplies, employment, etc.) and social (the death, detention, or incapacitation of kin and
peers, etc.) resources (Barenbaum, Ruchkin, & Schwab-Stone, 2004; Boyden,
2003). One specific elaboration of life event, resource, and stress theories is
Hobfoll’s (1989) conservation of resource theory (COR). More so than other
resource or stress theories, Hobfoll—viewing resources broadly and defined
by culture—elaborates importantly on the nature and dynamics of resource
loss. Beyond having demonstrated that resource loss is consistently more
predictive than resource gain, Hobfoll specifies that resource loss is more
salient to well-being than resource lack (Hobfoll, 2001) and thus change in
resources is more determinative than absolute level of resources (Freund &
Riediger, 2001). Further, resource loss tends to accumulate (i.e., in resource
caravans; Hobfoll, 2002; see also Layne et al., 2009).
In sum, contemplating how experiences with political conflict might impact
the later functioning of young people can be enriched by consideration of
life course and lifespan theories. These and related theories instruct on the
importance of analyzing life trajectories: that is, timing and patterning of
events; how those events might be clustered in pivotal historical periods,
or might otherwise be experienced as landmark events; that the well-being
of young people is interconnected with that of significant others; and that
progressing across the life course is a matter of retention, gain, or—most
saliently, loss—of economic and other culturally valued resources.
EVENT HISTORY METHODS—THE EVENT HISTORY CALENDAR
Life event calendaring has become a highly respected and credible method
of assessing an individual’s biographical history (Belli, Bilgen, & Al Baghal,
2013; Belli et al., 2009). It allows for the assessment of multiple dimensions
of a person’s life that unfold simultaneously and that are interwoven both
temporally and causally (Freedman, Thornton, Camburn, Alwin, & YoungDeMarco, 1988). The method is effective at overcoming the subjective and
often elusive nature of memory, particularly regarding post-event trauma
recall, by facilitating the reconstruction of memory through increasing the
respondent’s ability to place different activities within the same time frame
during the interview process (Freedman et al., 1988). The Event History Calendar (EHC) approach differs notably from other life event work in that it
emphasizes timing and patterns of life events rather than just incidence (e.g.,
Tennant, 2002).

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Specifically, certain events are readily remembered, such as marriages,
births, and changes in residence, and they provide important reference
points for recalling less salient events or extended life circumstances such
as school enrollment, details of employment, and living arrangements.
Researchers have found that when individuals attempt to recall a past
event, they typically align their memories spatially as well as temporally,
and visually connect seemingly unrelated events to one another (Barsalou,
1988; Neisser & Winograd, 1988). Thus, a particular advantage of the
EHC method is that it allows respondents to visualize in the calendar
the interconnectedness of past events and determine whether they have
accurately reported the co-occurrence or ordering of various events (Axinn,
Pearce, & Ghimire, 1999). By achieving a comprehensive set of observations
over time, the researcher can examine the sequencing of events, as well
simultaneous transitions in different domains, and is thereby able to provide
a richer picture of potential causal mechanisms in the development of an
individual’s well-being (Freedman et al., 1988; Roberts & Mulvey, 2009).
In conflict environments, episodes of conflict could also serve as key
anchoring events. This is particularly the case for Palestinian youth whose
lives have included regular moments of clearly circumscribed and widely
recognized episodes or lulls between episodes of conflict, such as the
1987–1993 first Intifada; the 1994–2000 Oslo period; the specific day of the
second in 2000; the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza; the 2006
election of Hamas; and the 2007 military takeover of the Gaza Strip by
Hamas.
Past empirical evidence has demonstrated the validity of EHC methodology across areas of social science research, epidemiology, and family
planning studies in achieving high quality retrospective reports of employment status, work history, health-related issues, income, and cohabitation
patterns (Agrawal, Andreski, & Belli, 2004; Belli, Shay, & Stafford, 2001;
Glasner & van der Vaart, 2009). For example, Caspi et al. (1996) used EHC as
a follow-up measure to substantiate data collected 3 years earlier for living
arrangements, cohabitation, schooling, employment, and job training for
young adults transitioning to adulthood and found significant agreement
between reports. Belli et al. (2001) compared EHC with more traditional
Q-List techniques using a national sample of respondents from the US Panel
Study of Income Dynamics. Comparisons between the two approaches
revealed that the EHC methodology yielded more accurate reports of work
history, income, and mobility. A review of seven studies that simultaneously implemented calendar methods and conventional survey methods
concluded that the use of a calendar outperforms conventional methods
in terms of data quality. Data quality was measured as the concordance
between retrospective reports and an independent source of validation

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

9

and as the more frequent reporting of events under the assumption that
underreporting is the norm (Belli et al., 2013).
EHC methodologies have also been employed to investigate areas such as
stressful life events, youth life histories, and the impact of daily exposure to
filial violence on youth. For example, Ensel, Peek, Lin, and Lai (1996) utilized
EHC to examine undesirable life changes over a 15-year period to investigate
differential responses to distal versus more recent or proximal stressors in
relationship to respondent age (32 years of age and older), finding that life
events even as far back as 15 years prior still have a significant and measureable impact on well-being.
In sum, the EHC is an optimal method for retrospectively tracking the life
trajectories of youth who have lived through political conflict. This is particularly the case because political conflict typically includes highly memorable
events that, along with other standard life course landmark events, assist in
accurately recalling experience. Collecting accurate data on the key events of
life—particularly those related with loss—will greatly enhance our ability to
test if and how experience with political conflict is reflected via trajectories
of development through the transition to adulthood.
EVENT HISTORY CALENDARING: A CASE STUDY AMONG
PALESTINIANS
Finally, as a case study validation of the feasibility and value of employing
an EHC method in studying the long-term impact of political conflict, I will
briefly summarize some of the progress of our on-going project: The Impact
of Political Conflict on Youth: Assessing Long-Term Well-Being via an Event
History—Resource Model (hereafter: the PAL Project). This multi-phased
investigation of the storied generation of Palestinian stone throwers
of the first intifada now as adults—funded by the Jacobs Foundation,
Switzerland—was designed explicitly to pioneer the use of the EHC method.
We are at the beginning stages of analyses of the EHC data. Thus, we cannot
yet offer findings from the elaborate life history models that we will eventually test regarding, for example, how experience with political conflict as a
youth impacts life event trajectories and adult well-being. Nevertheless, our
experience with the implementation of the method—including input from
the fieldworkers who conducted the interviews—and findings from preliminary analyses strongly recommend the feasibility of this methodology.
The PAL project has had several phases; including extensive interviewing
to learn how this cohort of Palestinian adults conceives of quality of life and
well-being (Barber et al., 2014), and careful pilot testing of the multi-domain
functioning assessment we created from these interviews (McNeely et al.,
2014). Of most relevance to this article is the main, EHC phase of the project.

10

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

On the basis of the interview data from the first phase of the project, and
in extensive consultation with several key informants, we created a list of
events most relevant to understanding the life history trajectories of this population to be included on the EHC. In the same interview, we administered
the multi-domain inventory of current functioning.
An EHC is essentially a grid, with life events listed in the left column
(right column in the Arabic version) with succeeding columns, in our
case, representing years of the life course from 1987 (beginning of the first
intifada) to 2011 (the year of the interview). The final EHC covered 15
domains (with multiple questions within each domain), including, among
others, education, employment, family formation, significant separations,
violence exposure, political activism, restrictions on movement, and resource
adequacy. The interviewer and respondent work jointly in the respondent’s
home to record values for each event × year cell, with the interviewer using
several cross-checking techniques to validate the data. The EHC was written
in English, back-translated to Arabic, pilot tested, and revised.
Utilizing an EHC methodology required us learning the method and then
training local fieldworkers how to implement it. We conducted multiple,
3-day training sessions (two each in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) with
47 fieldworkers from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research
(PSR; Ramallah, West Bank). In September and October 2011, these field
workers conducted in Arabic household interviews with a representative
sample of 1,800 30–40 year olds in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the
Gaza Strip. The clustered three-stage probability sample was drawn from
all Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) enumeration areas from
updated 2007 PCBS census maps. Kish tables were used to select one eligible
adult per household. Two fieldworkers—a male and a female—conducted
every interview in order to maximize entry to all of the homes in the sample
(i.e., avoiding having only a male interviewing a female, and vice versa).
The response rate was 97%.
Given that this method of interview was new to these otherwise highly
experienced home interviewers, it was important to assess how they
experienced the process. Accordingly, we surveyed the fieldworkers and
supervisors as to their perceptions of the EHC method. The large majority
of interviewers reported confidence: in the respondents’ ability to remember
both major (95.7%) and detailed (85.1%) events; in the accuracy of the data
(95.7%); and that the method of recording responses on the EHC was easy
to understand and master (91.4%).
Preliminary analyses of the data also make us confident of its validity.
Descriptively, for example, PAL participants’ reports of the frequency of
their exposure to specific forms of political violence two decades earlier
as youth of the first intifada are very much in line with those reported in

Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

11

1998 by youth of the same generation (Barber & Olsen, 2009). In addition,
the latent profile analyses we have conducted of trajectories of specific life
events across the 25-year period [e.g., demographics (education, employment, and marriage; Spellings, McNeely, Barber, & Belli, 2012); exposure
to political violence (Barber, McNeely, Olsen, Spellings, & Belli, 2013); and
imprisonment (McNeely, 2014)] have resulted in historically and culturally
sensible clusters (i.e., classes) of individuals.
In sum, every evidence to date confirms the feasibility and validity of an
EHC method in assessing adults whose lives have been punctuated by historic periods of intense political conflict. We look forward to the results of
forthcoming analyses that exploit these data to identify how youth move forward with their lives and how their experiences with political conflict impact
those trajectories. We also look forward to other research teams adopting and
validating this method in the search for understanding experience with political conflict shapes the lives of young people as they move forward with their
lives.
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Spellings, C. R., McNeely, C., Barber, B. K., & Belli, R. (2012, October). Assessing
the viability of event history calendar methodology among populations affected
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Political Conflict and Youth: A Long-Term View

15

BRIAN K. BARBER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Brian K. Barber is Professor of Child and Family Studies and Founding
Director of the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict at
the University of Tennessee (http://csypc.utk.edu). He is also the Jacobs
Foundation Fellow at New America. Much of Dr. Barber’s work focuses
on youth development in the contexts of political conflict, particularly in
Palestine, Egypt, and Bosnia. He is the editor of Adolescents and War: How
Youth Deal with Political Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2009), as well as
numerous research articles and chapters. His current projects in Palestine
and Egypt are being funded by the Jacobs Foundation, Switzerland.
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Political Conflict and Youth: A Long‐Term View