Karen Ross

University of Massachusetts Boston | UMB · Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security and Global Governance

This paper examines the link between dialogue mechanisms and potential outcomes. Using the Soliya Connect Program as a case study, I focus specifically on dialogue norms, distinguishing between explicit and implicit norms of dialogue, and examine how these norms shape the dialogue space. My analysis suggests that as dialogue mechanisms, these norms...

This article emerges from struggles we, two American–Israeli women, have encountered while conducting research in Israel on issues related to Jewish-Arab dynamics. Since beginning our research we have faced a single question in nearly every interview: “Where are you from?” Embedded in this question are a whole host of other queries: “Are you Americ...

Peace-and conflict-oriented international education and training programs (PCIE) are an increasingly important part of higher education, serving as an opportunity to internationalize curriculum, promote engaged learning, and strengthen students' global citizenship. PCIE can also serve as a source of social capital, representing an opportunity to bu...

In this article, we explore the concept of solidarity in the context of empirical social inquiry, a concept that is underdeveloped in the research methodology literature. We do so by drawing connections and contrasts to other more established methodological concepts such as reflexivity and positionality. We draw upon existing literature as well as...

This chapter responds to a rising interest in re-imagining graduate school classrooms as a space for transforming social injustice. The authors situate the exploration of this issue in the context of teaching graduate-level research methodology courses. The chapter brings forth a student-centered and praxis-oriented approach to teaching graduate-le...

Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore the perceived roles of action research networks during times of crisis and then consider our own experiences grappling with our responsibilities as members of the Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA) in highlighting and building solidarity through its Knowledge Democracy Initiative...

Research on restorative justice in prison settings has focused largely on the relationship between restorative and criminal justice, or on the potential of such programs to reduce recidivism rates among participants. Little research focuses on possible other transformations that restorative justice can engender among incarcerated individuals. We ad...

In this article, we explore the concept of validity as it applies to transformative experiences, asking how can we know when individuals are transformed as the result of some experience? What criteria or principles might be used to assess the validity of claims made about transformation? We suggest that validity in this context—what we call transfo...

Across our combined 15 years of experience as methodologists and research methodology instructors, we have found that the concept of ‘failure’ is only a small portion of methodological literature and is similarly missing from scholarship on teaching and learning social science research methodology. We define failure in terms of our inability as res...

This article presents the concept of scaling up in relation to the work of peacebuilding and social justice initiatives. We propose a holistic conception of scaling up that emphasizes the need to look at the impact of peacebuilding and nonviolent movements along the processes that those actions involve. Our model proposes broadening scholars’ under...

Conventional wisdom holds that international education builds cross-cultural capacity, and evaluations of peacebuilding interventions point to significant impacts. Yet, little scholarship links these fields or explores the significance of networks of participants in either area for mobilizing transnational peacebuilding capital. We address this by...

Shared power and democratic decision making are core epistemological commitments of participatory action research. Scholars who engage in participatory action research with youth seek to share ownership and disrupt adult/child or knower/learner binaries traditional in the Global North, in which adults are the active agents who own and transfer know...

In this chapter, we explore how researchers might engage in reflexivity. Reflexivity is closely related to the concept of positionality, which refers to the way we as researchers view our position in the world in relation to others, especially those who are involved in or may read our research. Often reflexivity is issued as a call—an important ste...

In this article I explore the tensions that arise in the context of educational initiatives implemented by organizations that have both pedagogical and political aspirations. I draw on the work of Sadaka Reut, a veteran Jewish-Palestinian peace education organization, to highlight how the ideological commitments held by an organization working for...

Studies of youth‐focused encounter initiatives have long focused on the potential of such endeavors to shift the attitudes of participants. In recent years, scholarship has begun t'o address whether encounters can shift behaviors, as well—particularly in terms of motivating continued engagement in peacebuilding and social change initiatives. Yet st...

In this article, we explore the potential role of social media in helping movements expand and/or strengthen themselves internally, processes we refer to as scaling up . Drawing on a case study of Black Lives Matter (BLM) that includes both analysis of public social media accounts and interviews with BLM groups, we highlight possibilities created b...

In this article, we interrogate the concept of methodological ‘failures’ as they arise during fieldwork, in the process of collecting empirical data. We highlight how the techniques of validity horizon matrices and power analysis can be used as methodological tools to illustrate moments in the fieldwork process where these ‘failures’ occur and to i...

As the level of distrust and alienation between Jews and Palestinians has risen over the past fifteen years, the support for grassroots organizations’ attempts to bring these two groups closer has stagnated. Jewish-Palestinian youth encounter programs that flourished in the wake of the Oslo Accords now struggle to find support, as their potential t...

In this article, I explore methodological approaches to the research process that can potentially empower research participants. I examine empowerment as it arises in the context of specific interactions between researcher and participant within the research process, as well as more broadly as it encompasses choices made by researchers about their...

In this article, I argue for the importance of conducting comparative studies of educational interventions implemented within the same sociopolitical environment. Taking into account both arguments for comparative research in education and recent calls for context-rich vertical case studies, I suggest that horizontal comparisons in a single environ...

Qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) has become increasingly popular among researchers. However, very few discussions have developed regarding the effect of QDAS on the validity of qualitative data analysis. It is a pressing issue, especially because the recent proliferation of conceptualizations of validity has challenged, and to some degree...

Since the 1980s, thousands of Israeli Jews, Palestinian citizens of Israel and Pales-tinians from the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) have participated in inter-group dialogues, often referred to as 'encounter programmes'. In the same historical span, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has proved thoroughly intractable. Given this political re...

In this article we problematize the taken-for-granted nature of the dichotomy between Palestinian and Israeli, or Arab and Jew by illustrating how these identity categories are referenced and navigated by Israelis and Palestinians (Arabs and Jews) in their daily life. Using examples from our observations and conversations with individuals in the re...

In this manuscript, I interrogate the concept of ‘quality’ encounter programs for youth in conflict zones. I focus on two Israeli organizations implementing encounters for Jewish and Palestinian citizens, and draw upon narratives of former participants as articulated during life history narratives to illustrate divergent emphases in each organizati...

This study addresses the little understood relationship between educational attainment and public attitudes towards war in four predominantly Muslim countries contemplating war: Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Turkey. The multivariate analysis using public opinion data suggests that the educational attainment of respondents has no statistically sign...

This article examines Shaping Our Future, an online dialogue implemented by the Network for Peace through Dialogue. It offers examples of strategies used to ensure a high quality dialogue as well as challenges faced in the program's implementation. By drawing on lessons learned from Shaping Our Future, this article suggests initial best practices a...