Mohammed Abdalhadi, a University of Arkansas doctoral student, has been awarded funding for the second time from the Open Society Foundations based in New York to support his research on the impact of teaching and learning human rights concepts.

Abdalhadi received the Civil Society Scholar Award. He specifically studies the impact of these concepts in the Palestinian curriculum on United Nations Relief and Works Agency students. He is a graduate assistant in the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

Open Society Foundations is an international organization that supports academic and professional people who work in fields including human rights, law and civil society.  Competition for the award is extremely rigorous, according to the award letter.

The Civil Society Scholar Award is designed to support international research activities, such as fieldwork, research visits, or research collaboration at institutions outside of the country in which the recipient is working or studying.

Abdalhadi, a native of Palestine, has a bachelor's degree in English from the Islamic University in Gaza and two master degrees. One is in human rights from the University of Essex in England in 2005, and the other is in curriculum and instruction, specializing in English as a second language, from the University of Arkansas in 2007. His faculty adviser is Felicia Lincoln, associate professor.

He expects to complete his doctorate in the spring of 2017 and plans to work in the academic field teaching at a university or college. He also has experience working with international NGOs and plans to continue his involvement in that area.