Qualitative research toolkit: GAGE’s approach to researching with adolescents

This toolkit is a companion piece to the GAGE baseline qualitative research toolkit and provides the group and individual research tools, all of which are age-tailored (early adolescents, mid/older adolescents and adults), used during the second round of data collection in GAGE’s longitudinal study. A selection of these could be used to understand different dimensions of adolescent wellbeing and development trajectories in any given context. For the purposes of the GAGE research programme, this collection of tools has also been designed to mirror the GAGE ‘3 Cs’ conceptual framework which reflects the close connections between the ‘3 Cs’: capabilities, change strategies and contexts. It considers adolescents’ multidimensional capabilities and the ways in which these differ depending on age, gender and (dis)ability; the change strategies that are employed by families, communities, service providers, policy-makers, civil society and development partners to promote empowered and healthy transitions from adolescence into early adulthood; and finally the broader meso- and macro-level contexts that shape the enabling/constraining environments in which adolescent realities are played out (Figure 1). Adolescents are situated at the centre of this socio-ecological framework

Qualitative research toolkit to explore child marriage dynamics and how to fast-track prevention

Accelerating progress towards eliminating child marriage and empowering married girls requires not just more research, but different tools. Tools that are designed with action and inclusion in mind. GAGE’s new child marriage toolkit builds on existent tools, including those we used in our formative and baseline work (see GAGE baseline qualitative research tools), and hones in on how to prevent child marriage – for girls and boys – and mitigate its impacts on adolescent girls, including those who are separated and divorced. Our new tools focus on marriage decision-making and ask marriage decision-makers what might encourage them to make different decisions. They also trace the threats and opportunities that girls (and boys) face at various steps along the child marriage pathway (engagement to divorce) and explore how a range of services might improve outcomes. Most importantly, our new child marriage toolkit is built around the decision-making underpinning child marriage and the experiences of married adolescents, rather than indirectly through an exploration of adolescence more broadly. Our tools are directly aimed at two questions: how can we prevent child marriage and how can we make married girls’ (and boys’) lives better

Diagnosing Norms Surrounding Sexual Harassment at a Jordanian University

Sexual harassment (SH) is a form of gender-based violence (GBV) that negatively impacts women’s physical, mental, social, and financial well-being. Although SH is a global phenomenon, it also is a contextualized one, with local and institutional norms influencing the ways in which harassment behavior manifests. As more women attend institutions of higher education in Jordan, these women are at increased risk of experiencing SH in university settings, with potential implications for their health and future employment. Social norms theory, which examines the informal rules governing individual behavior within groups, has been a useful framework for understanding and developing interventions against GBV globally. We sought to apply a social-norms lens to the understanding and prevention of SH at a Jordanian university. To gain a comprehensive and nuanced picture of social norms surrounding SH, we collected qualitative data using three complementary methods: focus group discussions (n = 6) with male and female students (n = 33); key informant interviews with staff and faculty (n = 5); and a public, participatory event to elicit anonymous short responses from students (n = 317). Using this data, we created a codebook incorporating social-norms components and emergent themes. As perceived by participants, SH was unacceptable yet common, characterized as a weak norm primarily because negative sanctioning of harassers was unlikely. Distal norms related to gender and tribal affiliation served to weaken further norms against SH by blaming the victim, preventing reporting, discouraging bystander intervention, and/or protecting the perpetrator. The complexity of the normative environment surrounding SH perpetration will necessitate the use of targeted, parallel approaches to change harmful norms. Strengthening weak norms against SH will require increasing the likelihood of sanctions, by revising university policies and procedures to increase accountability, increasing the acceptability of bystander intervention and reporting, and fostering tribal investment in sanctioning members who harass women. Creating dialogue that emphasizes the harmful nature of SH behaviors and safe spaces to practice positive masculinity also may be an effective strategy to change how male students interact in the presence of peers. Any social norms change intervention will need to consider the various reference groups that dictate and enforce norms surrounding SH

Interview with Dana Sajdi on The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant, by Dana Sajdi

This book is about a barber, Shihab al-Din Ahmad Ibn Budayr, who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the 18th century. The barber may have been a "nobody," but he wrote a history book, a record of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Dana Sajdi investigates the significance of this book, and in examining the life and work of Ibn Budayr, uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors—people outside the learned establishment—and a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. The Barber of Damascus offers the first full-length microhistory of an individual commoner in Ottoman and Islamic history. Contributing to Ottoman popular history, Arabic historiography, and the little-studied cultural history of the 18th century Levant, the volume also examines the reception of the barber's book a century later to explore connections between the 18th and the late 19th centuries and illuminates new paths leading to the Nahda, the Arab Renaissance.Title supplied by cataloger

Compounding inequalities: Adolescent psychosocial wellbeing and resilience among refugee and host communities in Jordan during the COVID-19 pandemic

PURPOSE: The COVID-19 pandemic and associated risk-mitigation strategies have altered the social contexts in which adolescents in low- and middle-income countries live. Little is known, however, about the impacts of the pandemic on displaced populations, and how those impacts differ by gender and life stage. We investigate the extent to which the pandemic has compounded pre-existing social inequalities among adolescents in Jordan, and the role support structures play in promoting resilience. METHODS: Our analysis leverages longitudinal quantitative survey data and in-depth qualitative interviews, collected before and after the onset of COVID-19, with over 3,000 Syrian refugees, stateless Palestinians and vulnerable Jordanians, living in camps, host communities and informal tented settlements. We utilize mixed-methods analysis combining multivariate regression with deductive qualitative tools to evaluate pandemic impacts and associated policy responses on adolescent wellbeing and mental health, at three and nine months after the pandemic onset. We also explore the role of support systems at individual, household, community, and policy levels. FINDINGS: We find the pandemic has resulted in severe economic and service disruptions with far-reaching and heterogenous effects on adolescent wellbeing. Nine months into the pandemic, 19.3% of adolescents in the sample presented with symptoms of moderate-to severe depression, with small signs of improvement (3.2 percentage points [pp], p\u3c0.001). Two thirds of adolescents reported household stress had increased during the pandemic, especially for Syrian adolescents in host communities (10.7pp higher than any other group, p\u3c0.001). Social connectedness was particularly low for girls, who were 13.4 percentage points (p\u3c0.001) more likely than boys to have had no interaction with friends in the past 7 days. Adolescent programming shows signs of being protective, particularly for girls, who were 8.8 percentage points (p\u3c0.01) more likely to have a trusted friend than their peers who were not participating in programming. CONCLUSIONS: Pre-existing social inequalities among refugee adolescents affected by forced displacement have been compounded during the COVID-19 pandemic, with related disruptions to services and social networks. To achieve Sustainable Development Goal targets to support healthy and empowered development in adolescence and early adulthood requires interventions that target the urgent needs of the most vulnerable adolescents while addressing population-level root causes and determinants of psychosocial wellbeing and resilience for all adolescent girls and boys

Compounding inequalities: Adolescent psychosocial wellbeing and resilience among refugee and host communities in jordan during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic and associated risk-mitigation strategies have altered the social contexts in which adolescents in low- and middle-income countries live. Little is known, however, about the impacts of the pandemic on displaced populations, and how those impacts differ by gender and life stage. We investigate the extent to which the pandemic has compounded pre-existing social inequalities among adolescents in Jordan, and the role support structures play in promoting resilience. Methods: Our analysis leverages longitudinal quantitative survey data and in-depth qualitative interviews, collected before and after the onset of COVID-19, with over 3,000 Syrian refugees, stateless Palestinians and vulnerable Jordanians, living in camps, host communities and informal tented settlements. We utilize mixed-methods analysis combining multivariate regression with deductive qualitative tools to evaluate pandemic impacts and associated policy responses on adolescent wellbeing and mental health, at three and nine months after the pandemic onset. We also explore the role of support systems at individual, household, community, and policy levels. Findings: We find the pandemic has resulted in severe economic and service disruptions with far-reaching and heterogenous effects on adolescent wellbeing. Nine months into the pandemic, 19.3% of adolescents in the sample presented with symptoms of moderate-to severe depression, with small signs of improvement (3.2 percentage points [pp], pConclusions: Pre-existing social inequalities among refugee adolescents affected by forced displacement have been compounded during the COVID-19 pandemic, with related disruptions to services and social networks. To achieve Sustainable Development Goal targets to support healthy and empowered development in adolescence and early adulthood requires interventions that target the urgent needs of the most vulnerable adolescents while addressing population-level root causes and determinants of psychosocial wellbeing and resilience for all adolescent girls and boys

IgG4-related sclerosing mesenteritis in a 7-year-old Saudi Girl

Sclerosing mesenteritis (SM) is a rare, benign inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology, affecting the membranes of the digestive tract that involves lymphoplasmacytic inflammation, fat necrosis, and fibrosis of the mesentery. We report a child patient with a history of recurrent abdominal pain and fever who was found to have an intra-abdominal mass suspicious for malignancy. A tissue biopsy revealed the diagnosis of SM associated with IgG4-related systemic disease. The patient is currently maintained on 5 mg prednisone daily and no recurrence of symptoms was noted during the 24-month follow-up period. We emphasize, therefore, that SM can present clinical challenges and the presence of SM should cue clinicians to search for other coexisting autoimmune disorders that can have various outcomes