The power of intergroup contact and experiential learning on individual perceptions in the United World College in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina : a path towards bottom-up reconciliation?

The post-conflict society of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), following the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, is still politically, administratively and socially segregated between the three main national groups; the Bosniaks, the Croats and the Serbs. Hence, the public education systems are separated for children of different nationalities, who are thus learning under three different curricula, and in different languages. Additionally, the country is politically and socially vulnerable, unstable, and administratively inefficient. This master’s thesis focuses on the United World College in Mostar (UWCiM); an international school of secondary education that integrates local students from all these main national groups to live and study together, under the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). The college belongs to the broader United World College movement, which promotes experiential learning. The objectives of the college include the enhancement of peace and justice, intercultural understanding, celebration of difference, and the contribution to the post-conflict reconciliation in BiH. The aim of the present research is to analyse the experienced potential of the college’s educational model and setting in contributing to the process of reconciliation within the social context, by also reflecting on the Contact Hypothesis, proposed by Allport (1954), and other relevant educational concepts and theories. The research has been conducted by in-depth qualitative interviews with local students and both local and international staff members of the college. The findings of the present master’s thesis indicate a clear transformation of the local students’ understanding of identity, as they expressed an enhanced comprehension of the complexity of individuals’ fundamental identities. This has also been found to occur in other contexts of nationally integrated education. Through the experiences of intergroup contact with students from the other local national groups, particularly during the social life outside class and with the experienced contrast to the international students within the small and intimate environment of the college, all local students have mutually come to experience a strong sense of shared cultural unity and belonging. Additionally, they have learned to understand and respect the identified religious differences between each other. However, the contested nationalist issues of the past and the contemporary intergroup tensions are to a certain extent avoided within UWCiM, and the members of the community experience an urgent need for the appropriate means to address the issues. Hence, the national identities are mostly segregated within the college community, but a clear sense of distance to them and the nationalist issues is evident in the students’ approach. Additionally, the students have evidently gained skills in critical thinking and confidence to speak up, increased courage to face new challenges, and further motivation to take initiative. The students’ approach to reconciliation is clearly bottom-up. However, the broader social influence of these experiences and the intergroup contact, and the consequently gained skills, perspectives and knowledge, has been limited. The local students specifically experience difficulties in transferring the learned skills and perceptions to their home communities. Most of them also plan to go study and live abroad after graduation

The socioeconomic impacts of large-scale tree plantations on local communities : A systematic review protocol

Background. To meet increasing demand for forest products and services, the global area of planted forests has increased dramatically over the past 25 years. Further increases in large-scale tree plantations are expected due to their high productivity, economic profitability and contribution to climate change mitigation targets. This raises questions about their long-term sustainability, as well as their impacts on forest ecosystem services and local livelihoods, particularly in countries characterized by rural poverty and insecure property rights. Previous studies have revealed mixed impacts, but there is a lack of research on the contexts and practices that can contribute to positive and/or negative socioeconomic impacts. This protocol provides guidelines for a systematic review that synthesizes the current literature on the direct and indirect impacts of large-scale plantations on local communities, and which will also identify trends, bias and gaps in the empirical evidence base. Methods. The primary research question of the systematic review asks “What are the direct and indirect socioeconomic impacts of large-scale tree plantations on local human populations?” We apply a Population-Exposure-Comparator-Outcome-Context (PECOC) framework to structure each stage of the systematic review, which comprises a comprehensive literature search, screening, quality assessment, data extraction and analysis.We define the exposure of interest to be the establishment or management of a large-scale tree plantation by external actors, population of interest as households and communities living in close proximity to plantation sites, comparators as other communities who have not experienced the same exposure as well as the same communities prior to plantation establishment, outcomes as the direct or indirect socioeconomic impacts felt by the population as a result of plantation establishment, and context as the social, political and environmental factors that may have led to differences in experienced impacts. We will search multiple bibliographic databases and organizational websites for relevant studies in both the published and grey literatures. These results will be screened by their titles and abstracts followed by their full texts based on predetermined eligibility criteria. To ensure that selected studies have controlled for potential biases, quality assessment will then take place alongside data extraction. Finally, the results of quantitative and qualitative analyses will be reported in a narrative synthesis

Pitkän aikavälin politiikalla läpi murroksen – tahtotiloja työn tulevaisuudesta

Olemme keskellä suurta työn murrosta. Työn tulevaisuuteen liittyviä haasteita on helppoa nimetä, mutta työn muutoksen kaltaiset monimutkaiset pitkäaikaiset muutosilmiöt eivät helposti käänny politiikkatoimiksi ja konkreettisiksi ratkaisuiksi. Muutosta on silti mahdollista ohjata yhteisesti tunnistettujen pitkän aikavälin tahtotilojen avulla. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on ollut tunnistaa työhön liittyviä toivottavia tulevaisuuksia, päätöksentekotarpeita sekä yhteiskunnallisia ratkaisuja asiantuntijahaastatteluihin ja kansallisen tason kyselytutkimukseen perustuen. Lisäksi raportissa ehdotetaan toimintamallia, jolla pitkän aikavälin keskustelua työn tulevaisuudesta voidaan käydä myös jatkossa. Raportti pohjautuu käsiteltyjen viiden teeman osalta Tulevaisuusselonteon 1. osaan (VNK 2017). Tutkimuksesta vastasi ajatushautomo Demos Helsinki yhteistyössä Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT:n kanssa. Tutkimuksesta keskeiset havainnot ovat seuraavat: Työn tekemisen muodot ja työsuhteet moninaistuvat, mikä edellyttää muutoksia esimerkiksi lainsäädännössä ja sosiaaliturvassa. Työn aika- ja paikkasidonnaisuus heikkenee, mutta muutos ei ole yhtä voimakas tai samantahtinen kaikilla aloilla. Koulutuksessa korostuu jatkuva oppiminen: Tarvitsemme Suomeen koko väestön kattavan, laadukkaan elinikäisen oppimisen järjestelmän. Toimeentulo muuttuu niin, että työmarkkinoiden ja koko työelämän joustavuus lisääntyy. Päätöksentekijöiden on tärkeää ymmärtää työn useita erilaisia ja muuttuvia välinearvoja taloudellisten arvojen lisäksi, jotta emme edistä keskenään ristiriitaisia tavoitteit

The power of intergroup contact and experiential learning on individual perceptions in the United World College in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina : a path towards bottom-up reconciliation?

The post-conflict society of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), following the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, is still politically, administratively and socially segregated between the three main national groups; the Bosniaks, the Croats and the Serbs. Hence, the public education systems are separated for children of different nationalities, who are thus learning under three different curricula, and in different languages. Additionally, the country is politically and socially vulnerable, unstable, and administratively inefficient. This master’s thesis focuses on the United World College in Mostar (UWCiM); an international school of secondary education that integrates local students from all these main national groups to live and study together, under the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). The college belongs to the broader United World College movement, which promotes experiential learning. The objectives of the college include the enhancement of peace and justice, intercultural understanding, celebration of difference, and the contribution to the post-conflict reconciliation in BiH. The aim of the present research is to analyse the experienced potential of the college’s educational model and setting in contributing to the process of reconciliation within the social context, by also reflecting on the Contact Hypothesis, proposed by Allport (1954), and other relevant educational concepts and theories. The research has been conducted by in-depth qualitative interviews with local students and both local and international staff members of the college. The findings of the present master’s thesis indicate a clear transformation of the local students’ understanding of identity, as they expressed an enhanced comprehension of the complexity of individuals’ fundamental identities. This has also been found to occur in other contexts of nationally integrated education. Through the experiences of intergroup contact with students from the other local national groups, particularly during the social life outside class and with the experienced contrast to the international students within the small and intimate environment of the college, all local students have mutually come to experience a strong sense of shared cultural unity and belonging. Additionally, they have learned to understand and respect the identified religious differences between each other. However, the contested nationalist issues of the past and the contemporary intergroup tensions are to a certain extent avoided within UWCiM, and the members of the community experience an urgent need for the appropriate means to address the issues. Hence, the national identities are mostly segregated within the college community, but a clear sense of distance to them and the nationalist issues is evident in the students’ approach. Additionally, the students have evidently gained skills in critical thinking and confidence to speak up, increased courage to face new challenges, and further motivation to take initiative. The students’ approach to reconciliation is clearly bottom-up. However, the broader social influence of these experiences and the intergroup contact, and the consequently gained skills, perspectives and knowledge, has been limited. The local students specifically experience difficulties in transferring the learned skills and perceptions to their home communities. Most of them also plan to go study and live abroad after graduation