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Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2018 Issue 4
- Conference date: 19-20 Mar 2018
- Location: Qatar National Convention Center (QNCC), Doha, Qatar
- Volume number: 2018
- Published: 15 March 2018
41 - 60 of 63 results
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Creating a FineGrained Digital Census Using Facebook Advertising Audiences: The Case of Doha
Authors: Yelena Mejova, Matheus Araújo, Ingmar Weber and Michael J Marie AupetitAccurate and up-to-date census data is vital for informed policy decisions ranging from healthcare to infrastructure planning. However, collecting such data takes considerable effort and cost, with, for example, United States performing its census every 10 years. Though different approaches exist, see e.g. https://unstats.un.org/UNSD/demographic/sources/census/alternativeCensusDesigns.htm, they all have their shortcomings. Recent developments in digitization and increased popularity of social media present new sources of information for compiling demographic information of large populations. Such a “digital census” may be compiled within hours or minutes by collecting user information from major websites and it would be dynamic over time. Further, such data may provide statistics on populations which prefer to stay hidden from governmental questionnaires, or are simply too recent to register in the official reports.In our current research we use the Facebook Advertising audience estimates for collecting demographic data within geographic regions. In particular, before ordering an advertising campaign, the potential advertiser is free to query Facebook about the potential reach, or estimated audience, of a particular selection of location, gender, age, language, interests, and a variety of other attributes. For example, an advertiser or a researcher could ask how many Bangladeshi expat Facebook users live in Qatar, and as of October 2017, Facebook estimated this number to be at 260,000, which is reasonably close to the recent estimate of 280,000 in 2016 (http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in-2017/). As such reach estimates do not divulge information on any particular user, this information provides an aggregate view of the particular population – precisely the information necessary for a demographic study.As a case study, we explore the neighborhoods of Doha, with each 1km radius (minimum possible location area allowable by Facebook). A visualization of this data is available online at http://fb-doha.qcri.org/. We designed a visual analytic interface to enable exploration of these data. Demographic slices of the data are presented in tree maps (Fig. 1, left) colored based on audience coverage of the respective slices. A set of colored discs shows density of audience matching with specific geographic areas (Fig. 1, right). The user can select a particular demographic (such as male gender or graduate education), automatically updating all other demographic segments and geographic density to correspond with the current selection.For example, one may be interested in finding families with women who use iOS, finding that most are concentrated in West Bay, the Pearl, and south Doha (see Fig. 1). Alternatively, one may be interested in the young males using Android, which can be found at the bottom left of the map, around the Industrial Area of the city (see Fig. 2). The selection tool itself provides a view of the demographic slice, as all demographic selectors adjust with each selection of one. For instance, if we select “Westerner” (and nothing else), the Gender selector adjusts to show a rather even proportion of 12.5K Female to 15.9K Male, vast majority being 25 years and older, and more than half using iOS (15.9K) compared to Android (12.5K). Now, select “Nepali” instead, and the demographics in the selectors change strikingly, and is now dominated by younger males using Android phones. To save a particular “view” of the data, a custom URL is available in the browser's address bar, as well as an export of the statistics in an Excel file.Fig. 1. Visualization of Facebook Advertising audience estimates, where women using iOS are selected, with the most populated regions colored in dark purple on the map.Fig. 2. Visualization wherein males of age 18-24 who use Android cellphones are selected, with most populated areas highlighting the south-west of the map.Although Facebook as a data source suffers from potential biases in sampling and a “black box” nature wherein we as users are not shown the inner workings of the data processing pipeline, the fact that the data captures the work force at the Industrial Area, for instance, provides some validation for the coverage of the data. Furthermore, Facebook claims to have 2,800,000 monthly active users in Qatar, which is even slightly more than the country's population (as of October, 2017), which may be due to bots or fake accounts.Our focus is to develop methodology for the collection, and above all validation, of social media data in the aims of providing reliable, dynamic, and cheap source of demographic knowledge. This knowledge then can be used for informing policy decisions and distribution of resources and better targeting of campaigns.
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Building a Rich Lexical Resource for Standard Arabic
Authors: Wajdi Zaghouani, Sawsan Sawsan Alqahtani and Mona DiabLanguage ambiguity is an inherent characteristic of natural languages. It refers to the phenomenon where an instance can be interpreted in multiple ways. Ambiguity is at the core of the problems faced by natural language processing applications (Obeid et al. 2013). Although humans have the ability to resolve such ambiguity based on their prior knowledge and context, there are instances (sentences, words,... etc) that require multiple readings to resolve it within a context (Hawwari et al. 2013; Diab et al. 2008). The problem of natural language ambiguity is further exacerbated by conventional orthographic decisions where not all phonemes are explicitly represented (Maamouri et al. 2010; Maamouri et al. 2012). Arabic standard orthography is one of these languages that is underspecified for some of the characters such as short vowels, gemination, glottal stops, etc which are collectively represented as diacritics (Zaghouani et al. 2012; Zaghouani et al. 2016). Most typical text in Arabic is rendered undiacritized, i.e. missing explicit short vowels and other diacritics, thereby compounding the natural linguistic ambiguity of the language. Fully orthographically specified Modern standard Arabic (MSA) consists of letters (consonants and long vowels) and diacritic marks. Diacritic marks involve short vowels (u i a), gemination marks, nunation, and the absence of vowels. These diacritics are helpful in denoting the pronunciations and meanings of such underspecified words (Jeblee et al. 2014). A resource that lists words in their typical underspecified form and their corresponding possible meanings would be quite useful for multiple purposes such as building NLP tools, psycho-linguistic and socio-linguistic studies, as well as pedagogical applications. In this abstract, we present a monolingual lexical resource for MSA, which provides for each undiactrized word: various possible diacritic alternatives, part of speech information (POS), and frequency of usage information, in addition to usage examples. It is a large-scale automatically acquired inventory of words from multiple genres. The main objective of this inventory is to explicitly mark undiacritized forms of Arabic words when they are ambiguous. We use the morphological analyzer and disambiguator, MADAMIRA, to generate the desired features: POS, diacritic alternatives, and lemmas. Our lexical resource represents different aspects of ambiguity at the word level: POS (syntactic level) and diacritic alternatives (lexical level). At the syntactic level, ambiguity indicates that the undiacritized word can be given multiple possible POS tags. If there is only one possible POS tag for the undiacritized word, then the word is syntactically unambiguous. For lexical ambiguity, an undiacritized word may have multiple readings due to multiple possible diacritizations or the same diacritized form would have multiple meanings (similar to the bank «financial institution» /bank «river bank», in English). We account for all three ambiguity cases in our presented resource. The absence of diacritics adds an additional layer of ambiguity in MSA. Diacritics help specify the exact meanings or even reduce the number of possible senses for a given undiacritized word. Although this sounds appealing and has proven beneficial in some tasks, full diacritization might also have performance degradation in some natural language processing applications and human reading speed. We observed three types of ambiguity caused by diacritics: ambiguity within POS tags, ambiguity for the same grapheme without considering POS tags, and ambiguity that is related to case and mood information. The former type concerns structural and grammatical level of ambiguity whereas the first two types are lexical which is our focus in this paper. It has been claimed that frequency may play a significant role in disambiguation where words that frequently occur tend to be less ambiguous and that such frequency varies depending on the genre. The presented lexical resource provides three types of frequencies: undiacritized words, diacritized words, diacritized words within a particular POS in addition to fine-grained frequencies for each genre so that researchers would be able to pick certain genres suitable for their studies. This lexical resource shows gaps in the frequency distributions among the alternative choices for each undiacritized word which may lead to having multiple choices for the same undiacritized word that have equal or close frequency approximation.The main objective of this lexical resource is to help lexical-decision making based on explicitly marking within-POS ambiguity which means having multiple diacritic alternatives for the same undiacritized words within a particular POS. It also provides lexical information that is automatically generated including diacritic alternatives, POS, word length, frequencies (within and across varying corpora of different domains and genres) in addition to explicitly marking undiacritized words that have multiple possible POS, as well as it provides usage examples. This resource will be used for readability experiments where we evaluate the impact of ambiguity and level of diacritization in human readings. ReferencesDiab Mona, Aous Mansouri, Martha Palmer, Olga Babko-Malaya,Wajdi Zaghouani, Ann Bies, Mohammed Maamouri. A Pilot Arabic Propbank; LREC 2008, Marrakech, Morocco, May 28-30, 2008.Hawwari, A.; Zaghouani, W.; O»Gorman, T.; Badran, A.; Diab, M., «Building a Lexical Semantic Resource for Arabic Morphological Patterns,» Communications, Signal Processing, and their Applications (ICCSPA), 2013, vol., no., pp.1,6, 12-14 Feb. 2013. Jeblee Serena; Houda Bouamor; Wajdi Zaghouani; Kemal Oflazer. CMUQ@QALB-2014: An SMT-based System for Automatic Arabic Error Correction. In Proceedings of the EMNLP 2014 Workshop on Arabic Natural Language Processing (ANLP), Doha, Qatar, October 2014.Maamouri Mohamed, Ann Bies, Seth Kulick, Wajdi Zaghouani, Dave Graff and Mike Ciul. 2010. From Speech to Trees: Applying Treebank Annotation to Arabic Broadcast News. In Proceedings of LREC 2010, Valetta, Malta, May 17-23, 2010.Maamouri Mohammed, Wajdi Zaghouani, Violetta Cavalli-Sforza, Dave Graff and Mike Ciul. 2012. Developing ARET: An NLP-based Educational Tool Set for Arabic Reading Enhancement. In Proceedings of The 7th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications, NAACL-HLT 2012, Montreal, Canada.Obeid Ossama, Wajdi Zaghouani, Behrang Mohit, Nizar Habash, Kemal Oflazer and Nadi Tomeh. A Web-based Annotation Framework For Large- Scale Text Correction. In Proceedings of IJCNLP’2013, Nagoya, Japan.Zaghouani Wajdi, Nizar Habash, Ossama Obeid, Behrang Mohit, Houda Bouamor, Kemal Oflazer. 2016. Building an Arabic machine translation post-edited corpus: Guidelines and annotation. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC»2016).Zaghouani Wajdi, Abdelati Hawwari and Mona Diab. 2012. A Pilot PropBank Annotation for Quranic Arabic. In Proceedings of the first workshop on Computational Linguistics for Literature, NAACL-HLT 2012, Montreal, Canada.
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The Transformation of the Moroccan Landscape in the Early Islamic Period
An archaeological survey was conducted in October 2017 on the Atlantic Coast of Northern Morocco, between the cities of Tangier and Asilah. The scope of the project, a cooperation between the Moroccan Institut National pour les Sciences de l'Archeologie et du Patrimoine (INSAP) and UCL-Qatar is to trace the modifications to the cultural and economic landscape of the Tingitan peninsula before and after the arrival of the Arabs in the region. The survey concentrated on two areas of this region, the first near the mouth of the Tahaddart river, fifteen kilometers north of Asilah, and the second a dozen kilometers inland, in the vicinity of Ain Daliya, south of Tangier. The Tahaddart river today may have filled a large lagoon. This flat area today can be entirely flooded during particularly rainy winters. Salt pans and cultivated fields characterize this landscape. In the Roman period, salt was used to cure fish and extract a liquid called garum, much appreciated in Rome and its provinces. Garum production sites in this region are known from previous archaeological work. Two major sites are also known in this area: Tingis, ancient Tangier, and the Augustan colony of Iulia Constantia Zilil, near the village of Dchar Jdid. A large number of pre-Roman and Roman sites were also discovered in the course of previous archaeological work, but unfortunately a systematic study of these remains has not been conducted yet, while archaeological remains dated to the Islamic periods were often ignored altogether. The present contribution, based on the results of the survey, the analysis of satellite imagery, and the study of previous publications, intends to offer a new perspective on the long history of human occupation in Northern Morocco, taking into consideration every archaeological presence found, from Prehistory to Late Islamic, although paying special attention to the transition from Late Roman to early Islamic periods. Survey data confirms that human occupation both on the coast and inland was consistent from at least the fifth century BCE to the Late Roman period. An Early Islamic presence is being recognized at several sites, some of which also showing Late Roman occupation, an indication of a certain continuity of use of some areas. The Early Islamic occupation may not be easily recognized due to the lack of ceramic sequences found in stratigraphic contexts, and future project seasons will try to fill this gap in our knowledge. Sites dated to the XI-XII century onward are more easily recognizable. Ceramics dated to these periods were found both in villages still occupied today and in isolated areas, pointing to a diffused occupation of several hilltop sites. A correlation was also found between marabouts and isolated cemeteries and the presence of abandoned settlements in their vicinity, a correlation that must be confirmed by future research. Future project seasons will include more surveys and small excavations or soundings in sites where the surface pottery sequences promise to reveal the presence of stratigraphic contexts that can help us fixing a chronology for both pottery and settlement types in the region.
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How Qatar English Teachers Think about Professional Development
Recognizing the importance of English Language education for the national development of Qatar, this study addresses the critical need to understand the learning processes of English language teachers and how they make sense out of professional development (PD) opportunities. The study is premised on the argument that to improve effectiveness of educational reforms, to understand how PD influences classroom teaching and in the end student learning, the experiences of teachers as the central actors in this chain of events need first to be documented. Only through a fuller grasp of how teachers experience PD and how they connect it to their teaching will the goals of systemic educational improvement be realized. The study contributes, therefore, to understanding the role that PD opportunities play in creating a learning environment for students and helping a nation achieve its educational goals. Background Applying phenomenongraphic research methods (Marton, 1983, 1986) developed in two previous national studies in Chile and Turkey, the study funded by the Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP 7-1330-2-483) investigated the connections that occur in the thinking of teachers as they ‘travel’ from PD opportunities to classroom teaching (cf., Freeman, 2016). The study's logic model challenges a linear, transmission model of teacher learning (cf., Desimone, 2009), which would posit that the best way to evaluate PD opportunities is to measure congruence between a PD provider's learning objectives, what teachers report they learned, and observed evidence of teachers' implementing the objectives. Instead, the study's logic model assumes the importance of a larger question, which is the impact at a systemic-level of PD. The starting point for understanding the impact of PD at a systemic-level should be teachers' evolving perceptions of the nature of the opportunities provided, what they learned, and how they use that learning as part of their teaching. Method Specifically the study investigated what professional development opportunities were publicly available, how teachers participated in these opportunities, and how they reported using what they learned. In the first stage, data gathered from professional development providers in Qatar was used to create an inventory of 150 events offered during the three-year period from 2012 to 2015. The inventory provided insight into the Qatar PD system as seen from the providers' perspective. The second stage investigated teachers' perspectives on the Qatar PD system during the same period as the provider inventory and its influence on the teachers' thinking. Teachers' perceptions were gathered through an electronic survey sent to all government school English language teachers, with a 72% response rate (n = 676). The survey asked closed-ended questions about respondent demographics, whether the respondent had participated in any PD during the 2012-2015 period, and if so, how many events. For each event a respondent indicated, they were asked to describe the event, tell what they learned, and how they used what they learned. The responses to these open-ended questions were analyzed using grounded coding schemes developed for each question. This paper focuses on what can be understood using this survey data about how teachers made meaning from their PD opportunities. Subsequent to the survey, a sub-sample of 54 survey respondents completed five days of teaching logs describing what they taught each day and what they saw as connections to the professional development they described in the survey. Lastly, 10 teachers were observed in their classrooms to examine relations with the survey and teaching log data. Findings The inventory provided significant insights into the system for providing PD in the country, and the possibly implicit messages created when different types of providers routinely offer different types of PD. For example categorization of offerings by the education ministry suggest that it prioritizes PD related to general policies and regulation whereas extra-governmental providers offered more sessions directly targeting English language teaching and learning. From the providers' perspective, the system also seems to emphasize teaching methodologies, with approximately half of the 150 events offered pertaining to ELT skills, general teaching methodologies, and/or teaching literacy. Findings from the survey indicate the salience of PD in the professional lives of Qatar English teachers. In the survey, 89% of teachers reported participating in professional development during the three-year period, providing perceptions about 2038 total PD events. Of those who participated, 97% reported that they were able to use what they learned in their teaching. This finding runs counter to conventional narratives in policy and research that portray teachers as being resistant to PD or only attending because they have to. It also raises the question of how teachers understand usefulness and application. The open-ended questions that asked teachers to describe an event, tell what they learned from it, and how they used that understanding in their teaching, were analyzed using measures of both frequency and likelihood of co-occurrence. These findings suggest the existence across both teachers and events of salient topics (e.g., curriculum standards), which may function as a type of “coin of the realm,” in other words, topics the teachers felt they needed to recognize. A picture also emerges of a PD system that prompts Qatari English teachers to think about their general role as teachers separately from their role as language teachers. With regard to the latter role, teachers reported focusing on the particulars of teaching more than on how that teaching impacts students and their learning. The study breaks new ground in understanding professional development from the perspectives of policy and practice. Rather than ‘learning and then applying’ PD content as conventional models of professional development suggest, the study documents how teachers take up what they find meaningful in PD events and transform that uptake into knowledge and practices that they see as viable in their teaching contexts. References Desimone, L. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers» professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38 (3), 181-199. Freeman, D. (2016). Educating second language teachers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marton, F. (1983). Beyond individual differences. Educational Psychology, 3(3–4), 289–303. Marton, F. (1986). Phenomenography—a research approach to investigating different understandings of reality. Journal of Thought, 28–49.
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Social Media Usage and Women's Empowerment in Qatar: Evidence from a National Representative Survey
More LessIntroduction Social media usage has grown in importance over the past decade, particularly in Middle East. During this period, it has come to be recognized as more than a tool for social connections between individuals, with research demonstrating how it can empowering people socially, politically and economically[1]. Past research has demonstrated the impact of social media in areas as diverse as such as healthcare provision, political participation, and marketing[2]. However, how and to what extent social media usage contributes to women's empowerment in the Arab region has not been thoroughly examined. Academic and non-academic studies alike have focused heavily on a few well-known cases of social media activism and woman's rights, such as, women driving in Saudi Arabia[3] or the Arab Spring in Egypt[4]. These studies raise a number of relevant questions. Is social media potent in the population more broadly, or is it just a tool for activists and polemics? If it does empower women, does it do so by shaping deeply rooted attitudes and norms or does it mere reflect the value of the general population? How can we understand the role of traditional education in shaping attitudes and values in light of the large volumes of readily available information provided by social media? The current paper examines social media usage in Qatar and its influences on attitudes toward women's empowerment and considers the complex role of education. We use a national representative survey data from a 2017 survey of Qatari nationals to test our expectations. In the last twenty years, Qatar has experienced a significant shift in economic development, and education accessibility. The State of Qatar has widely sought to include women in public life, particularly in the process of decision-making. Yet, the debate about the role of social media in increasing women's awareness of their equal rights in holding positions of power and contributing to their political and economic empowerment is not widely discussed in Qatar. Thus, Qatar is a case where researchers might expect to find changing attitudes in spite of the absence of major social media feminist activists. The paper also explores a number of trends emerging in the analysis of social media usage, across demographic groups such as age, gender, marital status and socio-economic differences including education levels and household income. Methodology A questionnaire was initially designed in English and then translated into Arabic by the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) to collect all necessary information related to the study. In this survey, the target population included people who are 18 years or older and live in residential housing units in Qatar during the survey reference period (May 6th-27th, 2017). It includes groups of Qataris and expatriates, though the analysis in this paper focuses on Qataris. It is important to note that while preparing the sample for the survey, the Qatari population sub-group was over sampled in order to ensure that Qataris were well represented in the survey. The survey was administered in CAPI (computer assisted data collection) method for face to face interviews. The interviews were conducted at the home of the respondent. In terms of data analysis, all individual interviews were merged and saved in a single BLAISE data file. This dataset was then cleaned, coded and saved in STATA formats for analysis. Analysis of the data included order logistical regression with appropriate calculation of interactive effects and predicted probabilities for interpretation. Findings and Implications Data from the 2017 survey are newly available and thus the findings discussed here are preliminary. We find that social media usage in the examined population is related to increased support for woman in community leadership among Qatari females but not males. This finding is robust to a number of statistical controls, including for the respondent's level of education. In fact, a respondent's level of formal education has much less predictive power than social media usage among female Qataris. Furthermore, we find that social media usage is only weakly related to political variables, such as interest in politics. This suggests that social media may be working to empower women first through changing gender attitudes and only secondly through engagement with the political sphere. These findings are relevant to both academics who are seeking to understand the mechanisms through which social media may empower women and policymakers in Qatar who are concerned with advancing their welfare. It shows that woman can use social media to find their voice and engage with the public sphere, even where political activism has not been common. [1] Dubai School of Government, “Arab Social Media Report, Vol 1, No. 3, November 2011. [2] TNS, “Arab Social Media Report”, First Report 2015. [3] Begum, Rothna, “The Brave Female Activists Who Fought to Lift Saudi Arabia's Driving Ban”, News Deeply, September 29th, 2017. [4] Tufekci, Zeynep and Wilson, Christopher, “Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest: Observations From Tahrir Square”, Journal of Communication, 62 (2012) 363–37.
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Bullying among high school students and their relationship with diligence at school Field study on a sample of secondary school students in Algeria
By Laid FekihThe present research aims to estimate and compare the prevalence of bullying among high school students, and their relationship with diligence at school. To achieve the purpose of this research was chosen intended sample selected from high school containing 900 students in Tlemcen –Algeria-, including 406 boys and 496 girls aged between 15 and 17 years old, were sampled on the random basis. Data collection tools were an (School Health Promotion: School efficiency and Bullying). The results indicated that the prevalence of bullying inside schools within the limits of 10% and 16%. The boy's students in high schools are more violent than girls. The forms of bullying widespread among students are psychological forms as name-calling, humiliation or offensive teasing and being ignored or excluded from a circle of friends. In addition, bullying is related negatively to diligent at school (r = − 0.43, p < 0.001). Students who were bullied become less efficient, they get low marks, have difficulties in concentration and attention, do not participate in school activities, and absent from school. Based on the findings, the study will proposed some recommendation and preventive measures to mitigate the impact of bullying among high school students the importance of a program based on education to develop diligent at school and the wellbeing of students.
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Interdisciplinarity Multidisciplinarity in the Field of Islamicjerusalem Studies
More LessIslamicjerusalem Studies is a field of study that uses interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. Not only history but also archaeology, architecture, geography, politics and Islamic Studies are embedded within this field. The framework thus established includes “theoretical and conceptual, empirical and cultural approaches”, leading to “more constructive dialogue between scholars in several disciplines”. This has been reflected in the various interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies which have been conducted and published in this field. An example where the disciplines of architecture, archaeology and history were applied in a historical study is Haitham al-Ratrout»s monograph of the architectural development of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the early Islamic Period. This monograph explores historical and archaeological evidence, architectural characteristics and proportional relationships and deals with the topic from three different perspectives: theoretical and exegetical, practical and analytical. It is in itself innovative, shedding new light on this complex topic and laying down the foundation for further research, which advanced to further discoveries regarding the ancient places of worship, and the establishment of similarities in their architectural form and plans. Another example where the application of an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach can enrich and offer a different perspective is Maher Abu-Munshar's Islamic Jerusalem and its Christians: A History of Tolerance and Tensions. Here the application of methodologies developed in Islamic Studies leads to a better understanding of how Muslims dealt with non-Muslims in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. This topic had often been studied but without taking into account the theological dimension. Once one adds this dimension and engages with the Quranic, hadith and juridical sources one can understand the ways in which Muslims dealt with the People of the Book in general and in the specific case of Jerusalem. This study will present this relatively new field of study and the latest research on this filed, showing how interdisciplinarity can have a substantial impact on the way we understand history, geography, archaeology, architecture amongst other disciplines. This paper focuses on the case of Islamicjerusalem where much misconceptions, misreading and contradictions have emerged out of either ignorance or part of a political and religious agenda. Therefore three pioneering studies from different disciplines (architecture, history and geography) will be presented to show how studies within this field are enriched through the use of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies.
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Health information and monitoring among Qatari adolescents 2017: An overview
Authors: Klaus Schoenbach, Salma Mawfek Khaled, Ellen Ann Wartella and Marium SaeedI. The first comprehensive and large-scale investigation of Qatari teenagers' health-information and health-monitoring behavior is the basis of our paper. It presents an overview of the results. A survey of more than 1,100 Qataris, 13 to 20 years old, conducted in spring 2017, addressed which the health issues are they are most concerned about, how often they use various types of health-monitoring tools and communication platforms to seek health information, how satisfied they are with what they get through these platforms and tools, how much they trust health information channels, and whether they have ever attempted to change their behavior due to health information or digital health tools. Qatari adolescents face severe health problems. Qatar has the highest rate of overweight boys and young men under 20 years old (34 percent) in the Middle East and in North Africa (Ng et al., 2014). In 2014, according to Qatar's Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), 37 percent of Qatar's population aged 15 and above said that they smoke tobacco (Doha News, September 2014). And in his study of undergraduate students, Abdel-Khalek (2013) posits that mental health problems are also comparatively frequent in Qatar. Of course, Qatar has taken steps to address these health issues through a variety of national initiatives–from campaigns for a healthier diet to health apps. But do these measures in Qatar actually serve their purpose? II. So far, little evidence exists about health-information behavior in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) and, more specifically, in the Gulf, among adolescents: • Arnott-Smith and Keselman (2015) found that GCC residents of all ages “first seek information from conversations with physicians and hospital personnel, followed by family, friends, and knowledgeable elders and religious leaders in the community” (p. 174). • Similarly, 93 percent of respondents in Saudi Arabia first expected health information from their physicians (Al Ghamdi & Almohedib, 2011). • Also, interviews with Qatar Cancer Society (QCS) educators revealed that “the most common information sources about cancer in Qatar originate in advice from friends and family in addition to the patient's physician” (Arnott-Smith & Keselman, 2015, p. 173). These results could be explained through the Arab world's more relationship-based culture, instead of a rule-based one (Hooker, 2012). This means that social behavior is more strongly determined by one's family, peers and superiors. And in his classic work in 1984, Hofstede found a value system for the Arab world that is characterized, among other features, by masculinity and “power distance,” i.e., more hierarchical relationships. These cultural characteristics should indeed make personal health communication more successful. Also, a person's power and charisma could count more than their professional expertise. But interestingly, at least in Qatar, this plausible pattern is not as clear-cut as it looked for Qataris' information behavior specifically about cancer. Because for health information in general, a representative sample of Qataris in 2016 named Primary Health Care Centers (PHCCs) as the most frequently used health information source, followed by family, friends, and then the internet (especially among younger Qataris). Northwestern University's surveys “Media use in the Middle East” (2013, 2015) show that in 2015, almost half (45 percent) of Qatari internet users aged 18 to 24 years looked up health information (in the widest sense of the term) at least once a day–a sharp rise from 24 percent of that same group in 2013. In 2015, almost half (48 percent) of the same age cohort reported that their “most important source for health information” was websites; 31 percent named face-to-face personal communication, and only six percent mentioned television. Social media followed with five percent. III. The results of our large-scale study in 2017 show that young people in Qatar rely heavily on interpersonal sources of health information, including their parents, siblings, friends, and medical providers. Nevertheless, the vast majority of teens also turn to the internet for health information. Only television can compete, to some extent, with online sources. Finally, health campaigns in Qatar do not reach the younger Qatari demographic as often as one would hope. Many Qatari teens, however, have also turned to digital devices–apps and games–beyond online health information. Health trackers have not gained traction among teens. The internet most often serves as a tool for additional information about symptoms, treatments and medication. But it is also a pathway for accessing information that could have a negative impact on health. This is why our study underscores the importance of ensuring that accurate, appropriate, and easily accessible health information is available to teens online. But Qatari teens' naivety when it comes to posting about personal health problems is alarming as well–reasons for making sure teens have strong digital health literacy: They need the judgment and skills to know how to assess and deal with the abundance of information they come across online. References Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (2013). The relationships between subjective well-being, health, and religiosity among young adults from Qatar. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 16, 306-318. Al Ghamdi, K. M. & Almohedib, A. M. (2011). Internet use by dermatology outpatients to search for health information. International Journal of Dermatology, 50,292-299. Arnott Smith, A., & Keselman, A. (2015). Meeting health information needs outside of healthcare: Opportunities and challenges. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Hofstede, G. (1984). Culture»s consequences: International differences in work-related values (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Hooker, J. N. (2012). Cultural differences in business communication. In C. B. Paulston, S. F. Kiesling & E. S. Rangel (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural discourse and communication (pp. 389–407). Maladen, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Ng, M. et al. (2014). Global regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet, 384, 766-781. Northwestern University in Qatar (2013). Media use in the Middle East 2013.Doha, Qatar: Northwestern University in Qatar. Northwestern University in Qatar (2015). Media use in the Middle East 2015.Doha, Qatar: Northwestern University in Qatar.
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Utilizing Digital Literacy in the Arts & Humanities Classroom
By Sam MeekingsMy paper will outline my current project of integrating social media applications into writing and literature courses. It will pay particular attention to how these act as gateways and models to ESL students in Qatar as well as those from non-traditional learning backgrounds. Today classrooms across the globe are filled with students who are wedded to their Smartphones. Instead of banning them, this presentation will discuss how they can be used as an integral part of classes focused on student-led research and writing. Apps like Instagram, Twitter and Youtube link together diverse groups of global communities, and therefore suggest a common language for communication. My paper will examine how these popular social media apps can be used in classroom projects to develop student understanding of narrative, structure, form, voice, authorial intention, and audience reaction. It will focus on utilizing the pre-existing skills and knowledge of a generation of students who are ‘digital natives’ through the tools familiar to them, in order to reconceptualise the process and reception of writing Traditionally, form shapes the way that writing is both transmitted and received: a sonnet or haiku will dictate the structure and composition or a poem, while the physical manifestation of a book signals to the reader the structural limits of the story. The presentation will explore how Twitter voice and style, Instagram narratives and Youtube storytelling each present a model as distinct and formally challenging as a sonnet or novel. Jacques Jouet has suggested, in reference to the Oulipian process of writing through constraints, that “the constraint is the problem; the text the solution” (2001, p.4). The presentation will explore how both practitioners and instructors might respond to the new constraints of online environments to find new ‘solutions’, paying particular attention to how my recent work with the Higher Education Academy in the UK has influenced my practice and research here. In addition, it will suggest ways in which social media apps in the classroom present a range of possibilities for learning about (and indeed experimenting with) character, voice, structure, tone and world-building. As well as speaking to experiences in my own courses in literature and creative writing, I will discuss the ways in which such lessons and activities can be considered in the broader context of undergraduate engagement in the arts and humanities. I will share exercises and examples from my classroom in my presentation, and discuss the cross-curriculum potential for using a number of mobile tools. The presentation will consider a range of possibilities for utilising digital spaces for both discussion, analysis and creation within a classroom format. It will also suggest ways of using the technical, formal, or cross-platform innovations of online applications to extend the lessons beyond the classroom. Consideration will also be given to the problems inherent in using social media platforms for storytelling, and some of the common issues faced by ESL students when using such technology in the undergraduate classroom. In particular, it will address how the creation of digital products, for instance, present a range of issues for instructors in terms of rubrics and assessment, and also relies on instructors being proficient with the latest digital platforms and having the technological skills to both implement and examine the resulting work. I will end by discussing the cross-curriculum potential for such initiatives.
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Assessing the contribution of principal instructional leadership and collective teacher efficacy to teacher commitment in Oman
More LessThe past decade has witnessed dramatic change in the direction of education in the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). During this period, national leaders in this region accepted that the long-term economic growth of their societies required diversification beyond oil and movement towards the development of knowledge-based economies This recognition resulted in renewed investment in education in concert with the adoption of reforms that have sought to reshape the aims, structure, and content of their education systems One consequence of these policy-driven reforms undertaken by the GCC States has been an unprecedented focus on the ‘leadership’ role of school administrators This trend has been notable, for example, in Oman where educational reforms have resulted in new expectations for school principals Whereas Omani school principals previously functioned primarily as ‘administrators’, recent reforms have recast them as ‘leaders of learning and change’ This reorientation from ‘administration’ towards ‘leadership’ is reflected in the redefinition of the principal»s role the content of training programs and on-the-job practices. Scholars in Oman have sought to document and analyze the nature and effects of this redefinition of the principalship in studies of instructional leadership, transformational leadership, servant leadership, and distributed leadership The study reported in this article focused on the ‘instructional leadership’ of primary school principals in Oman. The article was published in the Teaching and Teacher Education Journal (IF, 2.1). The study results showed that: Relationship of principal leadership and teacher commitment partially mediated by teacher efficacy. Strongest effects of principal instructional leadership through collective teacher efficacy. Confirmed importance of principal instructional leadership in Oman during era of education reform.
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Students' understanding of chemistry concepts in a premedical foundation year POGIL – oriented chemistry course
Authors: Sheila S Qureshi and Venkat R VisnumolakalaThe study concerns foundation year students' understanding of chemistry concepts in a Qatari POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) context. The ongoing study involved the use of a pre-test and delayed post-test design involving two - tier chemistry diagnostic tests (Acids-bases chemistry achievement, chemical and covalent bonding tests) to ascertain the extent to which students' understanding of chemistry concepts changed when using an active learning pedagogy like POGIL (Moog et al., 2009). Two-tier multiple choice tests have been developed and used by several science education researchers for the purpose of identifying students' alternative conceptions (Treagust, 1988). These two-tier diagnostic tests are considered easy to administer. The first tier of the each item consists of a content question with two or four choices. The second tier of each item contains a set of four possible reasons for the chosen answer in the first part. Students' selection of response-reason combination is analysed to explore their alternative conceptions. The theoretical framework for the research study was based on social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978) and the learning cycle approach (Farrell, Moog, & Spencer, 1999). The quantitative research design consisted of quasi-experimental – one group – pre and post-test design with no comparison group (Creswell, 2005). Results of t-test analyses indicated that each students' understanding in the post test improved statistically significantly over their individual scores. The effect sizes ranging from 0.44 to 1.75 indicate positive impacts of POGIL on students' understanding of chemistry concepts. Findings from this study support the view in the literature (Brown, 2010; Brown, Pond, & Creekmore, 2011) that student-centred pedagogical practices like POGIL help students to understand chemical concepts more effectively as self-learning groups from carefully structured learning materials. Table 1: Comparing students' (n = 8) conceptual understanding of chemical bonding (Paired samples t-test): Test Pre Test Post Test Mean Difference t df Sig. (2-tailed) Effect Size (Cohen»s d) Mean Std. Dev. Mean Std. Dev. Covalent Bonding 5.13 1.43 7.38 1.06 2.25 4.03 7 .005 1.75 Chemical Bonding 1.38 1.06 3.25 1.04 1.88 3.23 7 .014 1.23 p < 0.01 Table 2: Comparing Acids-Bases Chemistry Achievement Test - ABCAT scores (n = 8) Section Pre Test Post Test Mean Difference t df Sig. (2-tailed) Effect Size (Cohen»s d) Mean Std. Dev. Mean Std. Dev. Section A 6.63 1.51 7.25 1.28 0.63 0.89 14 .386 0.44 Section B 4.50 1.31 5.88 0.99 1.38 2.37 14 0.03 1.18 p < 0.05 References Brown, S. D. (2010). A process-oriented guided inquiry approach to teaching medicinal chemistry. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 74(7), 121. Brown, S. D., Pond, B. B., & Creekmore, K. A. (2011). A case-based toxicology elective course to enhance student learning in pharmacotherapy. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 75(6), 1-118. Creswell, J. W. (2005). Educational research. planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Farrell, J. J., Moog, R. S., & Spencer, J. N. (1999). A guided-inquiry general chemistry course. Journal of Chemical Education, 76(4), 570. doi: 10.1021/ed076p570 Moog, R. S., Creegan, J. F., Hanson, M. D., Spencer, N. J., Straumanis, A., & Bunce, M. D. (2009). POGIL: Process-oriented guided-inquiry learning. In N. Pienta, M. M. Cooper & T. J. Greenbowe (Eds.), Chemists» Guide To Effective Teaching (Vol. 2, pp. 90-101). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Treagust, D. F. (1988). Development and use of diagnostic tests to evaluate students' misconceptions in science. International Journal of Science Education, 10(2), 159-169. doi: 10.1080/0950069880100204 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Exploring the Challenges of WorkFamily balance among Qatari Families: Experiences and Implications
Authors: Azza Abdelmoneium, Abdullah Badahdah and Anis BrikIntroduction In many Arab countries, including Qatar, the family is an important institution and the corner stone of society. The family is particularly important for all individuals including working parents who find challenges in balancing between their work and the family. Work-family balance is an issue, which remains a central for all employed parents and employers alike. With the global economic downturn, work-family balance continues to be of great importance to societies because in more countries women's' labor force participation has increased. It is a key challenge to sustain a balance between the family and the work and to retain time to properly care for the young, old and vulnerable members of the family groups (O'Brien 2012). The potential effects of work-family balance on families and on working parents in particular may be numerous. Previous research has found that parents with more work-family conflict felt less competent in their role as parents. Therefore, those parents with high work-family conflict may suffer from a reduction in parental, marital, and life satisfaction related to their inability to carry out the nurturing role associated with being a “good” parent (Erdwin et al 2001). However, none of this research is conducted in Qatar and only few studies has been in the Arab region on the issue of work –family balance. This research gap is problematic since reports suggest that employed parents, single parents, widows, divorcees, single women face challenges in balancing between their work and their families (Greenhaus et al 2003). Thus, how can we meet the needs of working employees between their work and their families? Purpose: This study addresses this aforementioned gap in social scientific inquiry by investigating the experiences of Qatari families working and having families. More specifically, we focus on exploring how working parents balance between work and family and the challenges they face. As such, this research focuses on the lived experiences of the working parents and the consequences for working parents to have a satisfactory balance between work and family and the conflict that arises, coping strategies and resources available for working parents. This study will add to the literature on work and family balance by providing knowledge about the unique cultural context of working and performing tasks within the family in Qatar. This study will address this research gap by investigating the experiences of Qatari working parents working and taking care of their family members whether children, old people, parents etc. More specifically, the research will focus on the stresses, burden and coping of work and family care. Theoretical framework and Method There are two clusters of approaches in the literature which examined work-family balance. One cluster focused on how family demands affect work and much of the writing in the management literature followed this approach. The other cluster examines the different ways work impact the family. They belief that the structure, stresses, and demands of work can make it more difficult for individuals to fulfill their family responsibility as well as experiencing job stress at home. Some refer this to as the spill over approach. The most popular view of relationship between work and family was put forth by Spillover theory (Walia 2012). Several researchers suggested that workers carry the emotions, attitudes, skills and behaviors that they establish at work into their family life (Belsky et al., 1985; Kelly and Voydanoff,1985) and vice-versa (Belsky et al.,1985; Crouter, 1984). In addition, Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) gave a model of the sources of work family conflict. They suggested three major sources of work family conflict (a) time based conflict (b) strain based conflict and (c) behavior based conflict. The model proposed that any role characteristic that affects person's time involvement, strain or behavior within a role, can produce conflict between that role and another role. According to the model, work domain pressures include the number of hours worked, inflexibility of the work schedule, role conflict, role ambiguity, expectations for secretiveness and objectivity and family domain pressures include the number of children, spouse employment, family conflict, low spouse support and expectations for warmth and openness (Greenhaus et al 2003). Because this study aimed to explore the challenges and experiences of working parents in balancing between work and family, this research employed a qualitative and quantitiative research design in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon under study; it relied mainly on participants' views of the situation being studied and draws attention to its complexity (Creswell, 2003). In this paper, we will present the qualitative data. Aligned with qualitative research, this study therefore used an inductive approach to generating knowledge by beginning with interviews and moving towards identifying patterns based on the experiences of participants (Rudestam & Newton, 2001). Utilizing qualitative, semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions based on the methodological approach of transcendental phenomenology can assist in gaining a better understanding of the themes that arise in peoples' descriptions of work family and balance, the stressors, benefits, and coping strategies and resources for this sample of working parents. Findings: In total, we interviewed 20 Qatari (10 males and 10 females) aging in range from 30-60 years. The findings reported in this presentation/poster focus on the different stressors and challenges of working and taking care of family members. Among them are conflict in balancing between work and family life, long working hours, stressful duties, parental responsibilities, vacations, family obligations, child caring, commitment to work, gender equality, maternity and paternity leaves, coping strategies and resources available. We will discuss the implications from these findings and recommendations for policy changes.
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The Application of Qualitative Research Methods within a Qatari Context: Lessons Learned
More LessDr Waleed Serhan and Dr Katarzyna Wodniak Through this paper, we aim to present the practicalities of using qualitative research methods within a Qatari context. While we are not suggesting that we have formulated a regionally-specific research methodology, what we will present can assist current and future researchers in avoiding some of the practical shortcomings or inconsistencies of applying Western-based research methods within an Arab regional context. These practical recommendations have emerged during the first year of the research project “National Museums and the Public Imagination: A Longitudinal Study of the National Museum of Qatar”. This research project is led by Dr Karen Exell and is funded by the Qatar National Research Fund from 2016-2019. In its first year, it involved nine academics and eight research assistants. The project aims to examine the perceptions and attitudes of Qatari nationals and expatriates towards the new National Museum of Qatar, as well as what they imagine the museum will be in terms of content to be included or excluded. The study is divided into three stages including a pre-opening stage of the museum, immediate post-opening, and a longitudinal study one year from the opening. In the first year, or the pre-opening stage, the project's research team conducted 75 semi-structured in-depth interviews and four focus groups. The interviews included 44 Qatari nationals and 31 Expatriates. The focus groups included two Qatari groups and two expatriate groups. Conducting research on this scale allowed us to gain some practical insights on what may be considered best practice in the ethnically diverse context of Qatar, and possibly the wider region. It was not only the research respondents that were diverse, but also the researchers and research assistants themselves. The latter included Qataris, Arabs (non-Qatari), South Asians, North Americans, and Europeans. Through this non-intentional composition of the research team, we were able to recognize differences and similarities in responses depending on the combination of researchers-respondents. Moreover, we become aware of certain research questions that just do not work or more accurately work better in a Qatari or Arab context, and we have adapted our interview guide for the second year of research. This would have not been possible without initial “testing” in the field. Here again, we identified practical techniques to overcome barriers or respondent-aversion to certain research questions without having to reconsider the research approach in the midst of the research process. Finally, know-how was gained in terms of managing and analysing data originating from a diverse set of respondents as well as researchers. This know-how related specifically to the area of data triangulation. While this paper will only examine qualitative methods, the research project also included a quantitative dimension consisting in a telephone survey with 1500 Qatari and Expatriate respondents. Thereby, data emerging from different methods, diverse respondents, and diverse researchers was triangulated. Within the diverse and multi-layered Qatari context, this presented an additional challenge that the research team had to approach innovatively.
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دور الإعلام القطري في تشكيل اتجاهات المواطنين نحو جهود الحكومة في مواجهة أثار الحصار
More Lessالمقدمة: إذا كان التعريف الكلاسيكي للازمة أنها عبارة عن خلل يؤثر تأثيرا ماديا على النظام كله كما أنه يهدد الافتراضات الرئيسية التي يقوم عليها هذا النظام ، فان هذا الوصف ينطبق إلى حد كبير على الأزمة الخليجية التي حدثت في الخامس من يونيو 2017 بقطع كل من المملكة العربية السعودية والبحرين والإمارات ومعهم مصر للعلاقات الدبلوماسية مع دولة قطر ، وإغلاق كافة المنافذ البرية والبحرية والجوية ، أجبرت تلك الإجراءات المعلنة فجأة مواطني قطر على الخروج من الدول الخليجية الثلاث في غضون 14 يوما، ومنعت أي من مواطن قطري من الدخول في أزمة تهدد ليس فقط استقرار منطقة الخليج بل المنطقة العربية والشرق الأوسط بوجه عام ،و شتتت تلك القرارات شمل مئات الأسر، وانتهكت حق التنقل، والتعليم، والعمل، وحرية الرأي، والصحة ، والإقامة والتملك، إضافة إلى الحرمان من ممارسة الشعائر الدينية، والتحريض على العنف والكراهية. وقد شكلت تلك الأزمة صدمة للمواطن الخليجي بوجه عام والقطري بوجه خاص باعتباره المتضرر الأكبر من تلك القرارات ، ولذا حاولت الحكومة القطرية الاستجابة السريعة من خلال اتخاذ تدابير إجرائية لإجهاض الآثار المحتملة لتلك الازمة غير المسبوقة في العلاقات الخليجية البينية او على الأقل التقليل منها في عدة مسارات منها المسار السياسي والدبلوماسي ، والاجتماعي والاقتصادي والديني. ونظرا لان المسارات الاجتماعية والاقتصادية هي الأقرب لحياة المواطن ، فقد حاولت الحكومة توفير السلع والخدمات بأسعار مناسبة ، وفتح قنوات استيراد مع دول جديدة ، واستحداث خطوط ملاحية تعوض إغلاق الحدود البحرية مع دول الخليج و إغلاق المنفذ البري الوحيد للدولة مع السعودية ، كما حاولت تشجيع المنتج الوطني وتوفير بدائل للسلع التي كان يتم استيرادها من دول الخليج او عبر موانئ تلك الدول ، كما شكلت الحكومة لجنة لحصر التعويضات للأفراد المتضررين من الحصار على المستوى التجاري للقطريين الذين يمتلكون عقارات او شركات او مصالح تجارية مع دول الخليج بعد منع تلك الدول دخول القطريين الى أراضيها ، كما قامت نفس اللجنة بحصر المتضررين في المجال التعليمي والصحي والديني وغيرها من المجالات ، ورغم الجهود التي بذلتها الحكومة القطرية في محاولة احتواء اثار الأزمة ، ورغم الدعم الإعلامي إلا ان الثابت ان هناك اثأرا سلبية لتلك الأزمة ظهرت أثارها على المواطن بشكل او بأخر على المستوى الاقتصادي سواء في عدم توافر بعض السلع او زيادة أسعارها والتراجع الحاد للبورصة وانخفاض التصنيف الائتماني لقطر من جانب المؤسسات الدولية ، وعلى المستوى التعليمي حاولت الحكومة استيعاب جميع القادمين من دول الخليج في المدارس والجامعات القطرية غير انها اصطدمت برفض تلك الدول منح إفادات للطلاب القطريين او عرقلة مناقشتهم لرسائل الماجستير والدكتوراه سواء بشكل مباشر او غير مباشر. مشكلة الدراسة: تعرض المواطن القطري منذ الخامس من يونيو إلى أزمة حقيقية لها الكثير من الأبعاد النفسية والاجتماعية والاقتصادية على حياته اليومية ما بين رسائل إعلامية قطرية تؤكد عدم جدوى الحصار وقدرة الحكومة على استيعابه بل وتحويله لفرصة اقتصادية والتأكيد على أن الاقتصاد القطري بعد الحصار أفضل مما قبله من جانب ، وبين ما يلمسه المواطن في تعاملاته اليومية وما يمس حياته الشخصية من جانب أخر خاصة مع موقف حكومي نابع من رفض مطالب تمس سيادته الوطنية. وإذا كانت الحكومة القطرية قد تعاملت بسرعة مع الآثار المباشرة للازمة بتوفير بعض السلع والخدمات- ولو بأسعار مرتفعة –واستيعاب القادمين من دول الخليج في التعليم والعمل ، إلا أن هناك اثأرا غير مباشرة تحتاج إلى مدى زمني أطول في التعامل معها مثل تعويض المتضررين عن فقد أملاكهم او شركاتهم في ضوء احتياج ذلك لتقاضي دولي خاضع لكل الاحتمالات مع حملات إعلامية وحملات علاقات عامة تساهم في تأجيج الأزمة حسب مصالح كل طرف من جانب ومع تصريحات أمريكية وأوربية متضاربة للموقف من تلك الأزمة. وإذا كانت الآثار والتعويضات المادية والاقتصادية يمكن حساب عوائدها وخسائرها إلا أن فقدان صلة الرحم والتفريق بين الأسر والحرمان من الحج او العمرة الآمنة تعد بلا شك اثأرا نفسية يستحيل قياس أثرها خاصة وأنها طالت العديد من الأسر القطرية المرتبطة بصلات وأواصر نسب مع دول الخليج الثلاث. ولذا تتحدد مشكلة الدراسة في تحديد طبيعة اتجاهات المواطنين القطريين نحو جهود الحكومة في التغلب على اثأر الحصار في ضوء تناقض المشهد الإعلامي من جانب مع ما يعيشه المواطن في حياته اليومية من جانب أخر. وتأتي أهمية الدراسة في أنها تمثل أول رصد علمي مقنن لتقييم جهود الحكومة في التعامل مع أثار الأزمة سواء على المستوى الاقتصادي والاجتماعي حيث سيتم قياس طبيعة ومدى سلامة وصحة وملائمة وكفاية وكفاءة تلك الإجراءات مع إمكانية وجود رؤى أو مقترحات جديدة تعزز من تلك الإجراءات خاصة مع حالة التوحد الوجداني التي خلقتها الأزمة بوقوف المواطن خلف قيادته وحكومته ، وبالتالي توفر الدراسة فرصة ملائمة لمشاركة والتعبير عن وجهة النظر الشعبية في تلك الأزمة. منهجية الدراسة: تجمع الدراسة بين الأسلوب الكمي والكيفي حيث ستعتمد الدراسة على المنهج المسحي لعينة طبقية عشوائية من الذكور والإناث القطريين من سن 18 سنة فأعلى حجمها 400 مفردة في البلديات السبع لدولة قطر وسيتم توزيعا بأسلوب متناسب حسب أعداد السكان في تلك البلديات ، كما سيتم توزيعهم عبر المستويات التعليمية والوظيفية المختلفة ، وسيتم الاعتماد على استمارة استبيان مقننة سيتم جمع بياناتها بالمقابلة الشخصية وسيتم استخدام مقياسي ليكرت والتمييز الدلالي في قياس الاتجاهات ،وسيتم التعاون مع معهد البحوث الاقتصادية والاجتماعية المسحية بجامعة قطرSocial and Economic Survey Research Institute في تصميم وتحكيم استمارة الاستبيان ، كذلك سيقوم الباحث بإجراء 8 مجموعات نقاشية مركزة مع كل من الذكور والإناث من الشباب والكبار في بلديتي الدوحة والريان والوكرة والشمال بهدف تفسير النتائج التي سيتم التوصل اليها في نتائج المسح الكمي حيث سيتم تسجيل المناقشات وتفريغها لكتابة التقرير النهائي للدراسة وذلك بالاعتماد على تصميم دليل للنقاش يتضمن الابعاد المختلفة للدراسة. ومن المتوقع أن تساهم نتائج تلك الدراسة في توفير دليل علمي لرصد اتجاه المواطن القطري نحو جهود الحكومة بما يمكن ان يساهم في تعديل او تغيير او تعزيز تلك الجهود ، كما يسمح بالاستفادة من مرئيات المواطن القطري لاحتواء اثار الأزمة والتغلب عليها.
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Migration Policies in Qatar: Did it work Enough to Attract the HighlySkilled Migrants
More LessThe increase in Qatar's population, over the last decades, has not been caused primarily by a natural growth of indigenous population, but by the influx of migrant workers (MW). During past last four decades, Qatar population multiplied 15 times from 111,000 to 1,624,761 in July 2011 (Permanent Population Committee, 2011). The total number of MW in Qatar increased during the period 2004-2014 from 400,000 to 1,400,000, with annual growth rate of 14.7 percentage, 70 percentage are semi/unskilled workers in the private sector (4th Qatar Human Development Report, 2015: 48). Overtime, the MW has become one of the most dynamic economic factors in Qatar. More recently, the employment of large numbers of MW has been a structural imperative in Qatar, as the oil and gas-related projects, construction development, Education City, specific projects as the Pearl, Lusial, Qatar Rail, and Qatar 2022 depends on the importation of foreign technologies and require knowledge and skills. Such uncontrolled growth resulted in population imbalances in terms of nationality for the sake of non-Qataris and gender for the sake of male population imbalances, as well as labor market segmentation, mainly government/public and private, and skilled and un-semi-skilled market, where the former is dominated by the Qataris while the latter is dominated by the MS. Over the last two decades, Qatar has revised its policies related to migration in order to monitor and supervise the influx of MW. In turn, this led to the establishment of some local institutions, membership of some international institutions, and issuing some rules and regulations that conform to international standards. This paper discuss those policies, with special focus on sponsorship system, kafala, and to what extent it supported Qatar»s need of Highly-Skilled Migrants (HSM) in driving its economy.
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هل نجحت المرأة القطرية في ريادة الأعمال؟
More Lessتمكنت دولة قطر من تحقيق مكاسب هائلة من خلال تطوير قطاع الموارد الهيدركربونية واستثمار عوائده في بناء البنية التحتية الاجتماعية للدولة. وتفاديا لتقلبات أسعار النفط والغاز وعدم استدامتهما كموارد طبيعية، وسعيا لتأمين الأمن والاستقرار الاقتصادي والاجتماعي للجيل القادم حسب رؤية قطر الوطنية 2030، فقد توجهت قطر مؤخرا نحو تنويع اقتصادها في المجالات التي تمتلك فيها قدرات كامنة ومواطن قوة. وقد تمكنت قطر خلال العقود الثلاث الأخيرة الماضية من تحقيق إنجازات متلاحقة في مجالات التنمية الاقتصادية والسياسية والاجتماعية، كان للمرأة القطرية دور هام فيها وذلك بفضل الدعم الحكومي لها والذي أنعكس جلياً في ارتفاع مستوى تحصيلها التعليمي ومشاركتها في الاقتصاد الوطني وسوق العمل وريادة الأعمال. وفي سبيل ذلك، قامت الحكومة القطرية باتخاذ عددا من الاصلاحات السياسية والتعليمية والاجتماعية وعددا من التدابير اللازمة لسد فجوات النوع الاجتماعي وبما يُمكن المرأة القطرية من أداء دورها المأمول في التنمية بكل مجالاتها، كما قامت بدعم المرأة تشريعيا وهيكليا من خلال سن العديد من التشريعات والسياسات المُشجعة لها على ممارسة وريادة الأعمال بل والمشاركة في سلسلة أوسع من الأنشطة الاقتصادية من خلال انشاء عددا من الأجهزة التشغيلية وتحديدا بنك قطر للتنمية وشركاؤه وتقديم الكثير من الأطر والمبادرات لتمكينهن اقتصاديا. تبحث هذه الدراسة الوصفية في دور المرأة القطرية ومساهمتها في التنوع الاقتصادي لقطر، حيث يتم أولا تقديم عرض مختصر لتطور الاقتصاد القطري والتوجه المؤخر نحو التنوع الاقتصادي، ثم يتم مناقشة تطور التحصيل التعليمي المتميز للمرأة القطرية ومشاركتها في سوق العمل، كما سيتم تحليل خوض المرأة القطرية لريادة الأعمال بما في ذلك التطرق للدعم الحكومي لها من خلال الاجهزة التشغيلية التي تم انشاؤها وأخيرا أهم التحديات المؤسسية والتنظيمية التي تواجهها المرأة القطرية في ريادة الأعمال. وقد خلصت الورقة الى أهمية الدور الذي لعبه التحصيل العلمي للمرأة القطرية في ريادة الأعمال رغم بعض الصعوبات والتحديات- كالتمويل- التي تواجهها سواء في بداية انطلاق أعمالهن أو تلك الضامنة لاستمرارها لاحقا. ورغم الدعم السياسي والحكومي الُمقدم للمرأة القطرية وبالذات التأهيلي والتدريبي واللوجستي، فما زال هناك حاجة الى بذل المزيد من الجهود وتطوير بعض اللوائح والأنظمة التي من شأنها تفعيل مشاركة المرأة القطرية في التنوع الاقتصادي، حيث اظهرت الدراسة الحالية أنه لا بد من تطوير المزيد من الأطر والأدوات والتسهيلات الخاصة بالمرأة القطرية لدعم ريادتها للاعمال علاوة على ضرورة توفير المعلومات الاقتصادية والتنظيمية والتشريعية بشكل عام وتلك المتعلقة بالسوق المحلي وفرص ريادة الأعمال الجديدة ومنافذ التوزيع والتسويق بحيث يُمكن لهن اتخاذ القرارات الواعية المبنية على الاحتياجات الفعلية للسوق مما يمكنهن لاحقا من حُسن ادارة أعمالهن واستمراريتها وتطويرها. وتخلص الدراسة الى انه كلما هدفت الأطر والخدمات الداعمة لتنيمة وتطويرة الأعمال المرأة بشكل خاص، كلما كانت هذه الخدمات أكثر فعالية في زيادة فرص حصولهن على مساندة أكبر لبدء واستمرارية وتنمية أعمالهم.
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Unskilled Labour Migrants in Qatar: Issues and Policy Developments
More LessMuch of the literature on migrants in the GCC has focusses primarily on the treatment of construction labourers who have relocated from mostly South Asia. Fottrell (2015). Okaz News (2017). Their plight has been published in many newspapers and journals and countries within the GCC have made some headway into introducing legislation to address the protection of migrant workers to bring about policy change. BBC News (2016), BBC News (2017), Piper (2014), Martin and Malit (2017), The Guardian (2017), Mohammad and Sidaway (2016). Surprisingly, stemming from the present Gulf crisis, there have been accusations by the blockading countries of abuses to migrant labour in Qatar. This applied, non-experimental and quasi-evaluative research uses both primary and secondary sources to conduct an investigation to obtain information about the issues of migrant labour in Qatar and the extent to which their problems have been addressed in terms of legislation. Wickramasekara (2015), Wickramasekara and Baruah (2017), Kamrava (2015), Ulrichsen (2009). The purpose of this work is to establish an evidence base regarding the issues of migrant workers and what positive actions have been undertaken to address the issues surrounding migrant management. It also aims to report on the effectiveness of the legislation and suggest possible amendment.
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موقع التعليم العالي في المشاريع التنموية بالوطن العربي الخصوصيات والأدوار الإستعجالية رؤى نظرية
More Lessتستهدف الورقة استكشاف فرص الاستفادة من التطورات الدولية المعاصرة في تحديث رسالة التعليم الجامعي وتوسيع آفاقه لتطال جوانب التنمية البشرية والمادية بمجتمعاتنا العربية ، ولتصبح أكثر فعالية في التنمية المجتمعية ، بالشكل الذي يجعل منها الآلية الأفضل للحراك الاجتماعي والإصلاح الاقتصادي والتنموي والمدني في المجتمع. انطلاقا من كونها مصدر القوة المجتمع، ومركز الإشعاع الثقافي والعلمي والحضاري، تجسد رسالتها غايات الأوطان ومتطلبات تنميتها والدفع بها للانخراط في مجتمعات المعرفة المعاصرة والمستقبلية ، و تمدها بالطاقات البشرية المؤهلة لتدوير عجلة التنمية التي ترسم مشاريعها رؤى مستقبلية طموحة في كثير من البلدان العربية خليجيا ومغاربيا ، وتعيقها حاجات الواقع العربي الهش في الأمن والاقتصاد والاجتماع والتربية والثقافة..... ومن منظور عربي تبرز مسئولية جامعاتنا في الاستجابة لأعباء وتحديات تأهيل الأفراد والأوطان للقرن 21 وتفعيل المشاريع والأهداف التنموية التي تستهدف اللحاق بالعصر وأدواته المادية والمعرفية استعداد لمستقبل ستزداد صور الهيمنة الغربية فيه شراسة ، ويزداد التنافس بين المجتمعات ضراوة على الأسواق والمعرفة والأمن وغيرها....، بما يعينه ذلك من تحديث للقيم والرؤى وبما يفرضه من متطلبات للتوفيق بين اعتبارات التنمية المحلية ، وتكلفة الانفتاح علي قيم العولمة والتكنولوجيا والمعلوماتية... والتعايش معهما والاستفادة من فرصها ، فضلا عن متطلبات التعامل مع تحديات التنمية والانبعاث الحضاري في أبعادهما الشاملة.... وعلي المستوي الدولي حيث تزداد الدوائر والمسؤوليات تداخلاً وتعقيداً. في ظل تنامي مشكلة التنافس والهيمنة المعرفية والتكنولوجية ومتطلبات الانخراط في مجتمعات السلم وثقافة الحوار وقبول الآخر والتعايش مع متطلبات البعد عن مسببات التطرف ودوافع الإرهاب دينيا وثقافيا واقتصاديا... ، وما يفرضه من تبعات ومسؤوليات علي الجامعات العربية في الرسالة والمنهج والممارسات ، ليس فقط بسبب ضرورات تأهيل الأفراد لأدوارهم المجتمعية والامتداد بها في البعد الدولي الإنساني ، كضامن لتمكين الفرد العربي من مكانة مقبولة دوليا ، ولدفع عجلة التنمية والخروج من دوائر التبعية الاقتصادية والثقافية ، بل يتعلق الأمر بدور ومسئولية الجامعة في إنتاج المعرفة وإعادة تدويرها واستغلال التقدم التكنولوجي لخدمة المجتمع العربي ومشاريعه التنموية ،والمساهمة بايجابية في صياغة استراتيجيات محلية للتعامل مع شبكة التفاعلات الإقليمية والدولية بشكل يزيد فرص وعوائد الموارد البشرية المحلية تكوينا وتأهيلا وتمدنا.
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تطبيق ذكي للغة العربية لتعلم حروف الجر القبلية والبعدية
Authors: Hany Abdel Ghlel Fazza and Sherif Shaaban Elsharkawyالمقدمة:تعد التطبيقات الذكية في تعليم اللغات الحية لغة العصر الحالى حيث تنتشر الأجهزة اللوحية بين المتعلمين و يتم دمجها في التعلم والتعليم بما توفره من استراتيجيات حديثة في اكتساب اللغات، ومع سهولة الوصول للإنترنت بشكل أكثر من الماضي أصبح الانغماس اللغوي (Linguistic immersion) يتطور من معناه الاجتماعي إلى معناه التقني بسبب هذه الوفرة الكبيرة من التطبيقات الذكية لتعلم اللغات، وتعددت المسميات لهذه الثورة الذكية في تعلم اللغات في الأدبيات التربوية الحديثة تحت مسميات عدة مثل: التطبيقات اللوحية Mobile Applications التي تستخدم التعليم النقّال (Mobile Learning) في صفوف اللغات الأجنبية واللغات الثانية، كذلك يسمى التعلم المتنقل، والتعلم المتحرك، والتعلم الجوّال، والتعلم بالموبايل، والتعلم عن طريق الأجهزة الجوالة المتحركة٬ بشكل عام يقصد بالتعليم النقال ذلك النوع من التعليم الذي يتم من خلال الهواتف المحمولة، وما توفره من سيل الخدمات التفاعلية مثل: خدمات الوسائط المتعددة وخدمات الشبكة الدولية وغيرها. لذا أطلقت جامعة جورجتاون في قطر مبادرات ومشروعات بناء وتصميم تطبيقات ذكية لتعلم اللغة العربية مواكبة لاستراتيجيات التعلم الحديثة في مجال اكتساب اللغات؛ لبناء بيئة تعليمية تفاعلية تعتمد على الهواتف الذكية والأجهزة اللوحية خاصة في تعليم اللغة العربية كلغة أجنبية أو ثانية ، ومن مشروعات جامعة جورجتاون تطبيق تعلم اللهجة القطرية Qatari Phrasebook App الذي حقق نجاحا باهرا بمجرد صدوره ، ويعد نقلة نوعية للمتعلمين في تعزيز مهاراتهم في اللغة العربية باللهجة القطرية حيث يعتمد استخدام الأدوات التكنولوجية الحديثة الممتعة والتفاعلية لتطوير مهارات التحدث باللهجة القطرية في أي مكان وزمان، ويعد كذلك أداة تعليمية متعددة الجوانب حيث يُساعد التطبيق الطلاب والمعلّمين علي تقديم محتوى شائق تفاعلي ينمي الثقافة المجتمعية المحلية القطرية، ثم كانت المبادرة الثانية للجامعة ببناء تطبيق ذكي للغة العربية لتعلم حروف الجر القبلية والبعدية.الهدف:إن هذا العرض يهدف إلى مشاركة تجربة قسم اللغة العربية في كلية الشؤون الدولية جورجتاون قطر بتصميم وإعداد تطبيق ذكي يستهدف إدخال التقنيات الحديثة في مجال تعليم العربية عبر استخدام التعليم النقّال وبالأخص التطبيقات الذكية للأجهزة المحمولة واستكشاف فاعلية هذه التقنيات داخل الصف وخارجه. وسوف يوفر هذا التطبيق الذكي إلى جانب الانغماس اللغوي التقني تدريب متعلمي العربية على تراكيب حرف الجر وما يصاحبها من سوابق ولواحق، والفئة المستهدفة لاستخدام هذا التطبيق هما متعلمي العربية لغير الناطقين بها ومتعلمي التراث Heritage Learners. ونقصد بمتعلمي التراث هؤلاء الطلاب العرب الذين يمتلكون عامية عربية ويعيشون في بلاد عربية ولكن دراستهم في مدارس دولية جعلت الإنجليزية لغتهم العلمية وتضاءل استخدامهم للفصحى وانحصرت العربية الفصيحة في قدرات متفاوتة لمهارتي الاستماع والقراءة مع نقص شديد في مهارتي الكتابة والتحدث بالفصحى.تصميم التطبيق: ينقسم التطبيق إلى قسمين: القسم الأول هو تقديم ١٧٠٠ تركيب لغوي مقسمة على حروف الجر الشائعة. وهذه التراكيب قد استخلصت من المعاجم المتخصصة بالمتصاحبات collocations والمتلازمات اللغوية بالإضافة إلى قوائم المفردات الشائعة مثل: Çمعجم الحافظ للمتصاحبات العربية و معجم المفردات الشائعة في العربيةÈ. كل تركيب لغوي مشكل ومترجم للإنجليزية ومصحوب بتسجيل صوتي آلي. القسم الثاني لتدريب المعلمين والطلاب وقياس تحصيلهم حيث يتكون هذا القسم من ٣٤٠٠ جملة مأخوذة من لغة الإعلام الجارية ومن الذخائر اللغوية Corpora المتوفرة على شبكة المعلومات(الانترنت) كأمثلة حية وواقعية استخدامات حروف الجر في اللغة المعاصرة.كذلك يتيح التطبيق اللوحي للمتعلم العديد من المواصفات والملامح التقنية التي يتفاعل معها المتعلم الذي أضحت التقنية اللوحية جزءا من حياته اليومية. فيتمكن المتعلم من اختبار تقدمه اللغوي عن طريق خاصية اختيار عشر جمل عشوائية آليا في صورة أسئلة موضوعية Çاختيار من متعددÈ مع الإجابة في وقت محدد سلفا. وقد بنيت هذه التدريبات على قوائم المفردات الشائعة المستخلصة من الذخيرة اللغوية الموضوعة من قبل جامعة برجهام يونج (BYU) بالولايات المتحدة. نتائج المشروع:يتوافر التطبيق على منصتي أندرويد و iOS مجانا.سهولة استخدام التطبيق على الهواتف الذكية والأجهزة اللوحية.إرسال نتائج التدريبات، الاختبارات فوريا إلى المعلّم، المدرّب عن طريق البريد الإلكتروني أو مشاركة النتائج عبر شبكات التواصل الاجتماعي.حفظ التراكيب اللغوية في قائمة المفضلات.تشكيل كل جمل الأمثلة اللغوية.إمكانية البحث عن التركيب اللغوي باللغة العربية أو ما يقابلها.سهولة تصفّح قوائم تراكيب حروف الجر.وجود بطاقات عرض تفاعلية (Flash Cards) لكل تركيب مع إمكانية التبديل بين العربية والإنجليزية.كلمات مفتاحية: التطبيقات اللوحية/ التعليم النقال/ حروف الجر القبلية والبعدية/ الذخيرة اللغوية/ متعلمو التراث
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Social Economic and Cultural Rights and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities CRPD Perspective The Qatar Case Study
More LessMaría del Carmen Barranco Avilés, Human Rights Institute “Bartolomé de las Casas”, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Khalid Al Ali¶ Patricia Cuenca Gómez§ Rafael de Asís Roig§ Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo* § Instituto de Derechos Humanos Bartolomé de las Casas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid ¶ Qatar University * Division of Medical Ethics, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar This publication was made possible by the NPRP award NPRP-7-380-5-051 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of The Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. ABSTRACT The Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is a new paradigm for international law, grounded on the consideration of disability as a human rights issue and on the social model of disability. This new paradigm provides a modification of the kind of public policies used to tackle to disability issues. The CRPD also remarks the indivisibility and interdependence of human rights, putting at stake the long-standing distinction between civil and political rights (traditionally understood as negative rights) on the one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights (traditionally understood as negative rights on the other. Starting of these general ideas on the CRPD, this paper examines what impact the Convention will have on the Qatar's legislative framework regarding some economic, social, and cultural rights: right to health, right to education, right to employment, and right to an adequate standard of living and social protection. Its intends to analyze how these domains need to be re-evaluated in light of the CRPD: where recent improvements in the rights of persons with disabilities in Qatar can enable compliance and where the greater challenges lie. In the health domain, the positive dimension of the right to health of persons with disabilities does not seem to be a problem in Qatar, the concern (which becomes clear in the case of compulsory admission) is to take into consideration the will of persons with disabilities. In relation to this question, the idea of the indivisibility and interdependence of the rights becomes clear. The main shortcoming in the implementation of the provisions of the CRPD (Article 12) on the right to health in Qatar is the lack of development of the right to equal recognition before the law, thereby securing equal guarantees for consent to health care, not just simply access to health services, for persons with disabilities. Regarding the right to education, Qatar is facing a paradigm shift from a model based on special schools, towards a more inclusive model. However, children with disabilities can still stay outside of the educational system and special education still seems to be the chosen way for persons with intellectual disabilities. A more effective model shift based on inclusive education is needed; to achieve this goal, Qatar already has professionals trained in the more recent advances in educational psychology, such as universal design for learning. It is also important to clarify the educational curriculum from the point of view of diversity, ensuring continuity for persons coming from a special system and providing persons with disabilities tools for vocational training, to achieve the highest levels of education if it is their choice. Qatar's legislation on the right to work of persons with disabilities is anchored in the medical model; for example, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs may stop paying the relevant pension if they reject rehabilitation. Qatari law also lacks measures aimed at adapting the workplace to persons who might need particular modifications. The regulation of disability from the specialty perspective is a technical problem, because the applicable legal requirements concerning persons with special needs remain isolated from general regulation. As a result, the system in place regarding access to work also seems not to support the inclusion of persons with disabilities, which is a main goal of the Convention. Any measure to be implemented in favor of persons with disabilities pursuant to labor rules must be tied to general labor law provisions. Qatar seems to have a good level of social protection for persons with disabilities. Nevertheless, from a legal perspective it remains unclear who are considered persons with disabilities in order to qualify for social protection. In addition, most of the services are designed from the specialty perspective. Accordingly, the field of social protection illustrates some of the general shortcomings of this approach, for instance: absence of the social model, the lack of a unified concept of a person with disabilities, absence of participation of persons with disabilities in the design of public policies on disability, or the absence of persons with disabilities in the design of his or her own life plan. According to this analysis, the paper concludes that the main challenges faced by Qatar regarding the implementation of the CRPD in these domains – as in other domains - are related to the adoption of the traditional treatment of disability based on the medical model of disability, the point of view of assistencialism, and the strategy of specialized solutions. Moreover, the shortcomings also have to do with requirements that are far beyond considering these rights specifically as social rights. Although we usually hear the claim that social rights depend upon the economy, Qatar's situation shows how even under good economic conditions these rights can still be ineffective. Usually civil and political rights are deemed to be negative rights, provided with judicial guarantees, whereas economic, social, and cultural rights are considered rights to obtain benefits, the scope of which must be debated and negotiated in the political arena and not within the legal domain. Insofar as they are rights to obtain certain benefits, social rights are expensive, so their effectiveness is subject to the existence of resources. Therefore an argument in favor of differentiating both categories of rights can be made, departing from the analysis of the situation faced by Qatar regarding the implementation of the CRPD. Indeed, persons with disabilities in Qatar face several barriers in order to enforce their social rights. This is due to the prevalence of a legal capacity regime where persons with disabilities are not granted the right to equal recognition before the law and where accessibility is not guaranteed. The long-standing distinction between categories of rights that has placed such rights in different pieces of legislation within the universal protection system does not account for the new scenario where the principle of indivisibility and interdependence has come into play.
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