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The article discusses the impact of the 2022 FIFA World Cup on Qatar and its connection to transnational law. The World Cup was controversial due to accusations of corruption, the decision to hold the event in extreme temperatures, the abuse of migrant workers, and the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community. These issues led to a transnational legal struggle, with claims being made against Qatar and FIFA for human rights violations. The article explores the transformative effects of this struggle and the connection between mega-sporting events and human rights issues. It also highlights the lack of scholarly engagement with this topic and aims to provide long-term lessons from the transnational legal struggles surrounding the World Cup. [Extracted from the article]

Our analysis focuses on evolving global capitalism's production of high-skilled temporary migrant labour through the technology of special economic zones. Drawing on debates in economic geography on zones as globalised spaces of production and interdisciplinary scholarship on economic transformation in the Arabian Peninsula, we interrogate a relatively new type of zone that agglomerates foreign higher education institutions: transnational education zones. We conceptualise these zones as a distinct form of exceptional space produced by aspirations for a knowledge-based economy. Transnational education zones provide financial benefits and legal exemptions to state territory for international higher education investors who operate offshore campuses. By conducting a situated empirical analysis of transnational education zones' logics and mechanisms in Dubai and Qatar, we show how these zones function as sites of circulation and containment that allow governments to harness globally circulating people and institutions for building a knowledge-based economy, while aiming to contain their social and political impact locally. While the underlying contradictions of simultaneous circulation and containment of knowledge and knowledge workers are modulated by the exceptional character of the zones, they cannot be fully resolved. In many ways, transnational education zones constitute a continuation of established strategies for economic development by exception that have been pursued by governments in the Gulf, which aim for global connectivity and rely heavily on controlling a temporary and contingent migrant workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study investigated the relevance of the revised 2-factor study process questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) for exploring medical students' approaches to learning in Qatar and identify how factors like gender, age, educational attainment, and prior experience with health care influence students' adoption of deep approaches to learning. Methods: The sample consisted of 108 medical students (44% male, 56% female) from all four years of medical school at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q). Participants completed the 20-item R-SPQ-2F questionnaire to measure their learning approaches through a structural model contrasting deep and surface learning. Participants also completed a survey collecting demographic information. Results: Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in deep learning approaches across year levels for both men and women. Additionally, educational attainment played a significant role in students' approaches to learning. Conclusions: Based on structural equation modeling, this cross-verification study supports the R-SPQ-2F instrument and offers additional evidence for its robustness and application to medical education. These findings may help educational and program leaders in Qatar better understand medical students' learning approaches to enhance their pedagogical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on transnational education (TNE) and student academic identity development. In recent years many North-American universities opened branch campuses abroad. This phenomenon resulted in growing interest in TNE. However, for the most part, the body of research on TNE reflects the perspective of the home institution, which privileges focus on curriculum design and program administration. There is still need for studies from an ecological perspective. Arguably, more attention needs to be given to the lived experience of students negotiating disparate discourses and conflicting cultural value systems, especially in the Middle East. The author presents a case study of a university on a mega-campus in Doha, Qatar to explore students' perceptions of their identity negotiation in a new complex social and symbolic space of a TNE campus. Discussing the findings of an exploratory research project, she asks what pedagogical practices can best help students to function between languages and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lingua franca promoted at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar belongs to few as a first language. The implementation of an English-medium curriculum at Qatar's only medical school has proved a double-edged sword. Despite English being deployed out of necessity as part of a strategy geared to improve health care provision and medical research in Qatar, its use has had some unintended consequences. Student engagement with this international language of science and its perceived impact on identity, pedagogy, and professional engagement is explored in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who benefits from the rapid development of transnational education institutions? Despite concerns of academic capitalism or neocolonial imperialism, both the sending institutions and the host countries can benefit from these educational initiatives. I suggest that American liberal education is uniquely placed to combine local and foreign expertise in educational partnerships. Using the example of undergraduate research grant funding, I demonstrate that the international branch campuses of Qatar's Education City have engaged in research and knowledge creation that mutually benefits the local and foreign academic communities. The sending institutions should institutionalize incentives that prioritize student learning and local expertise and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the growth, incentives, and progress of overseas campuses of major American educational institutions is an important academic pursuit. To have a complete picture, one must also consider the impact these branch campuses are having on the lives of their students. The Northwestern University in Qatar's journalism program was invited to teach its curriculum, unalloyed, in a region that has had an alternative perception of the role of journalism in society. This essay offers personalized and informed reflection on these issues. Answers to the questions raised about overseas education become clearer when looking at the "classroom" and the associated symbolism [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most students enter Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) poorly prepared to face the challenges and seize the opportunities of an American-style education grounded in the liberal arts owing to their inadequate preparation in grade school. NU-Q's mission is to produce graduates who will be leaders and innovators in the media industry and the larger society. We must ensure that, in their four years at NU-Q, we help them to become such individuals by providing them with a curriculum, pedagogy, and activities that afford them the requisite opportunities and support to develop abilities that enhance leadership and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qatar can afford to purchase pretty much anything- including top-quality American university education. However, given the vast differences in culture, dress, religion, and social mores, along with youth's global unemployment rates and their hankering for all things technological, does it make sense for Qatar to import a course in acting? Many academics debate whether bringing Western liberal curricula to Middle Eastern classrooms is a good idea at all, but learning to see and experience the world from other people's perspectives can be a lesson worth learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on topics discussed at meetings the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) and the Georgetown University in Qatar in Singapore on June 2-4, 2015 is presented. Topics discussed include lecture on the topic "Iran's Nuclear Talks" delivered by professor Mehran Kamrava, a roundtable on "Contemporary Migration Research in the Arab Gulf and South(east) Asia: Interdisciplinary and Transnational Approaches" and advancing financial education for transnational families.