Speaker examines impact of political conflict on youth

Brian K. Barber, founding director of the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict at the University of Tennessee, will discuss “Considering the Long-Term Impact of Political Conflict on Youth: Simple Question, Complex Answers” on Monday, March 11 at 4 p.m. in 423 Tobin Hall.

One of the major limitations of the burgeoning research literature on the impact of political conflict on young people is the absence of long-term assessments. Since the vast majority of youth in conflict zones survive the conflict, the conventional focus of correlating violence exposure with psychological functioning is inadequately informative. What isn't known if and how having spent adolescence immersed in political conflict impacts one's forward progress, particularly in terms of being prepared for the transitions to adulthood and citizenship. Barber's presentation describes an on-going study of Palestinian adults who as youth were the generation of stone throwers of the first intifada. Detailed in the presentation will be the challenges of designing such a study, including the basic, yet highly complex, tasks of measuring well being in such a population and capturing conflict and other key life events across the pathway to adulthood. Preliminary findings will be presented.

Barber is professor of child and family studies and adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee. He has studied youth development in social context in Africa, Asia, the Balkans, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. He specializes in the study of youth in contexts of political conflict, particularly in the occupied Palestinian territories, Bosnia and Egypt. His work has been supported by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, the Social Science Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Jerusalem Fund and the United States Institute for Peace. Most recently, the Jacobs Foundation is funding two of the center’s projects: a four-year study of the life histories of current Palestinian adults who were youth during the first intifada, and a two-year study of youth of the Egyptian revolution.Barber publishes his work regularly in leading social science journals. He is also the author/editor of "Intrusive Parenting: How Psychological Control affects Children and Adolescents"and "Adolescents and War: How Youth Deal with Political Conflict."

The talk is part of the Interdisciplinary Seminar on Conflict and Violence.

Read more