Political Conflict and Youth: A Long‐Term View

Abstract

Abstract Over the past two decades, the scientific study of youth experience with political conflict has come into its own as a recognized, vibrant field of scholarship. This essay briefly reviews the state of the research. It notes the upsurge in volume and increase in the sophistication of the research, including larger and more representative samples, inclusion of locally defined assessments of youth functioning, and the study of the broader social ecology of youth who experience political conflict. These elements of progress notwithstanding, the research remains overwhelming driven by psychopathology models and has yet to extend either to systematically explore a broader focus on youth social, civic, economic, and political functioning or to seriously consider youth's cognitive and behavioral engagements in political conflict. The bulk of the essay focuses on a different and crucial need for research refinement: namely, adopting a longer term view in to youth's development and functioning. As the large majority of young people survive the violence of political conflict without serious dysfunction, the field needs to examine the degree to which the normative transitions of their onward lives are shaped by their experiences with political conflict. The essay invokes classic theory from sociology and developmental psychology in advocating for such a life course perspective and it details a methodology—event history calendaring—ideally suited to collect such data. The essay closes with a brief overview of an ongoing study of the adult functioning of Palestinian youth of the first intifada to illustrate the feasibility and utility of this methodology.