The Impact of Advertising and Media on the Arab Culture: The Case of the Arab Spring,Public Spheres,and Social Media

The Arab world has experienced some unprecedented social movements, labeled by the media as the Arab Spring. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of public policy, advertising, media, and public spheres on the Arab Spring. The media and economic policies enacted in the Arab world in the 1990s played a significant role in changing consumer culture in the Arab region, resulting in significant changes in public policy. Two studies were conducted to test how the change in consumer culture along with new public polices in the region contributed to the uprisings.     

Experiencing Community Psychology Through Community-Based Learning Class Projects: Reflections From an American University in the Middle East

Many introductory community psychology courses do not incorporate community-based learning (CBL), and when they do, it is most often in the form of individualized volunteer hours. We present an alternative model for CBL in which the entire class collaborates on an experiential project that promotes community action. We believe that such an approach better embodies the values and methods of the discipline and has a more powerful impact on the students and stakeholders. It may be especially effective in developing countries that do not have an established network of service infrastructures; in such nations the onus is on the teachers and learners of community psychology to contribute to transformative change. In this article practical guidelines are provided by the instructor regarding how to structure and implement this CBL model. Additionally, two students describe how the CBL experience solidified their learning of course concepts and significantly impacted them personally.     

A Distributional Analysis of the Gender Wage Gap in Bangladesh

This article empirically investigates the gender wage gap in Bangladesh during the period 2005–2009. Applying unconditional quantile regression models, the article demonstrates that women are paid less than men throughout the wage distribution and the gap is higher at the lower end of the distribution. Discrimination against women is the primary determinant of the wage gap. The article also demonstrates that the observed gender wage gap is likely to be underestimated if we ignore selection in full-time employment. A number of policy implications are discussed.