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Bullying negatively affects victims’ mental health and has been shown to be associated with anxiety and depression. Moreover, many studies have reported the prevalence of mistreatment among medical students (MS), interns and junior physicians. However, there are limited studies on bullying in the Middle East, and no studies on higher education in Bahrain. The authors’ aim was to investigate and compare the prevalence of bullying between MS at a major public university and non-medical students (NMS) at a private university in Bahrain. The authors also sought to explore the associations between bullying, depression and anxiety.

The authors conducted a survey-based cross-sectional study from October 1 to December 31, 2018, using convenient sampling method. A total of 300 students (150 MS and 150 NMS) participated in the study by answering a questionnaire that explored exposure to different types of bullying. In addition, standard anxiety and depression instruments were distributed to students.

The results showed that MS were more exposed to bullying than NMS, with a significant number (41%) reporting mistreatment from multiple sources, including teachers, consultants and peers. Furthermore, the authors found that bullying was significantly correlated with psychological health, anxiety and depression.

There are limited studies on bullying in the Middle East and no studies on the topic of higher education in Bahrain. Furthermore, the learning environment of tertiary education institutions can be improved by addressing the concerns associated with bullying identified in this study.

This study aims to examine the factors influencing Qatari youth’s attitude toward luxury brands and intentions to purchase luxury brands. The appetite for luxury spending in the Gulf region and specifically in Qatar is accelerating even with the fall in oil prices and faltering economic growth.

Both qualitative research in the form of in-depth interviews and quantitative research in the form of survey were utilized in this study. Initially, eight in-depth interviews were conducted with luxury store owners and/or salespersons to identify the most important factors influencing attitude toward luxury brands. Furthermore, 330 Qatari respondents between the ages from 16 to 25 years were interviewed via a mall-interception method at two different malls with high-end/ luxury stores in Doha. Structural equation modeling using AMOS was run to analyze the hypothesized relationships between variables and test the model fit.

The findings indicated the overall fitness of the model. More specifically, the results indicated that fashion involvement, brand consciousness, social comparison and experiential needs have a significant impact on attitude toward luxury brands and consequently on their purchasing intentions.

This study has several limitations. A more comprehensive framework can be proposed including more variables that may also influence the attitude of youth toward purchasing luxury, for example, brand prominence, vanity and functional value. Comparative studies across demographics (e.g. male vs female and adult vs young luxury buyers) as well as across different cultures and countries can also provide interesting insights related to luxury purchasing behavior among youth. Developing a typology for Qatari luxury consumers can also be very insightful, specifically for supporting brand owners in fine-tuning their marketing and targeting strategies. Finally, other moderating variables like influence of social media or peer influence can also be considered in future studies.

The study sheds light on a significantly important and emerging phenomenon; the increasing consumption of luxury in the gulf region and specifically in Qatar in an attempt to understand the main drivers to their attitude toward luxury brands in general.

The chapter compares the survival of old regime elites in Tunisia and Egypt after the 2011 uprisings and analyses its enabling factors. Although democracy progressed in Tunisia and collapsed in Egypt, the countries show similarities in the old elite’s ability to survive the Arab Spring. In both cases, the popular uprisings resulted in the type of elite circulation that John Higley and György Lengyel refer to as ‘quasi-replacement circulation’, which is sudden and coerced, but narrow and shallow. To account for this converging outcome, the chapter foregrounds the instability, economic decline and information uncertainty in the countries post-uprising and the navigating resources, which the old elites possessed. The roots of the quasi-replacement circulation are traced to the old elites’ privileged access to money, network, the media and, for Egypt, external support. Only parts of the structures of authority in a political regime are formal. The findings show the importance of evaluating regime change in a broader view than the formal institutional set-up. In Tunisia and Egypt, the informal structures of the anciens régimes survived – so did the old regime elites.

The authors explore the entanglement of smartphone technology and power in this paper. This paper explores the following question: In what ways does the actualization of smartphone affordances result in empowering outcomes (i.e. increase or reduce oppression) in the daily lives of refugees? Leveraging both affordance and feminist theories, the authors develop a hybrid lens bringing attention to the contextualized relationship between social process goals and affordances for sociality, upon which the authors introduce the notion of “goal-affordance interrelations”. The authors then trace how the actualization of these interrelations increases or reduces oppression.

Using an abductive approach, the authors analyze 32 semi-structured interview transcriptions conducted with Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The analysis in this study reveals four categories of social process goals (meet financial needs, satisfy security needs, communicate and learn and maintain pre-existing social ties) that are intimate components of contextually meaningful affordances. When actualized, the goal–affordance interrelations fundamentally shape refugee experiences of power outcomes. The findings suggest forms of empowerment where powerlessness, marginalization, violence and exploitation are perceived to be reduced. Actualization outcomes are also found to increase perceived oppression. Additionally, the findings reveal that not all interrelations are actualized, such that the anticipation of an oppressive power outcome may limit the actualization of affordances for sociality.

This research raises considerations concerning technology and oppression, and that efforts to empower refugees through technology should critically question whether the lived experiences of oppression will be reduced. The findings of this study reveal various forms of less empowering (i.e. oppressive) outcomes for the refugees sampled, they also point to the potential politicization of the actualization of goal–affordance interrelations.