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Early career investigators (ECIs) in the Social Sciences and Humanities need to receive adequate information so that they will be empowered to progress in their academic career and deal with the various evaluation processes that constitute an essential part of their professional development. This article relies on an informational-ecosystemic approach originally developed in the context of resilience studies and crisis communication and uses it as a theoretical framework to analyse and understand the "early academic career building information ecosystems" (EACBIEs), into which ECIs professionally develop. The characteristics of these ecosystems are then refined through the analysis of interviews conducted with ECIs from all around Europe in the framework of the European Network for Research Evaluation in Social Sciences and Humanities (ENRESSH), European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action. The analysis reveals the remarkable heterogeneity of the information ecosystems into which early career researchers have to build their career in Europe, articulating a diversity of formal, non-formal and informal learning environments, and several related information channels, as well as showing a geographical spread that covers institutional, national and international levels. Furthermore, although the diverse information channels at hand and geographical levels at which they operate appear in some cases to be complementary, and even mutually reinforcing, they can also, in other cases, be dysfunctional, fragmented and unfair to some extent.

Background: Today's complex information environment requires effective navigation and analysis of multiple sources to make reliable decisions about complex topics. Learners must enact thinking that reliably leads to well-justified decisions, adapt thinking to specific problems and contexts, and recognize the limits of their existing knowledge (i.e. demonstrate fully apt epistemic performance). Experts can enact such performance in their own discipline but questions of whether and how they adapt that expertise to other disciplines remain. More research is needed regarding whether and how experts adapt disciplinary knowledge to tasks for which they have practical knowledge. Methods: We used inductive coding to analyze think-aloud data gathered from professors from a variety of disciplines (i.e. education, social sciences, and natural sciences) as they read and responded to a flipped classroom pedagogy scenario. Findings: Education experts demonstrated fully apt epistemic performance and more nuanced conclusions than other participants. The social and natural scientists successfully adapted their epistemic performance grounded in practical knowledge, particularly about statistics and higher education careers, to their analysis of the scenario. However, natural scientists overgeneralized their research methods knowledge, demonstrating lower epistemic meta-competence. Contribution: Our findings suggest ways in which practical knowledge supports or hinders adaptation of epistemic performance.

This article aims to utilize an adapted version of Trentham's Inverse Consistency Protocol (ICP) as a way in which any ecclesial organization can act productively when confronted with seemingly controversial paradigms such as social emotional learning (SEL). The ICP can help Christian leaders discern potential areas of inconsistency or affirm authentic congruence with an organization's faith tradition. Tenets from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) were submitted through the four-step protocol. Findings suggest that CASEL is a valuable framework when applied authentically and that ICP is a constructive tool for engaging in the social sciences with integrity.

This study provides a "narrative synthesis" of the findings published in journal articles from a broad range of scientific fields about the impact of extracurricular activities (ECAs) on the academic success and employability of university students. The analysis included 39 articles from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, published over the period 2010-2021. Results show that the vast majority of ECAs have a positive impact on the academic success and employability of university students. ECAs showing a negative impact are residual. In light of these results, higher education institutions should promote activities with an educational purpose outside the strictly curricular objectives and beyond the classroom, fostering a more holistic development of students that combines academic success with a better capacity/preparation to enter the labour market.

The biggest difference in statistical training from previous decades is the increased use of software. However, little research examines how software impacts learning statistics. Assessing the value of software to statistical learning demands appropriate, valid, and reliable measures. The present study expands the arsenal of tools by reporting on the psychometric properties of the Value of Software to Statistical Learning (VSSL) scale in an undergraduate student sample. We propose a brief measure with strong psychometric support to assess students' perceived value of software in an educational setting. We provide data from a course using SPSS, given its wide use and popularity in the social sciences. However, the VSSL is adaptable to any statistical software, and we provide instructions for customizing it to suit alternative packages. Recommendations for administering, scoring, and interpreting the VSSL are provided to aid statistics instructors and education researchers understand how software influences students' statistical learning.

Increasingly pervasive digital technologies in societies are placing complex demands on the development of young people's digital citizenship and digital competence. Social science education and teacher education (TE) play important, but poorly understood, roles in this development. Through reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews, this paper explores 15 Swedish teacher educators' (TEDs) views of teaching for digital citizenship, particularly social science TE's role. We also consider organisational and personal conditions that may influence TEDs' views of professional digital competence (PDC) for such teaching. Their views are examined through a postdigital lens, with a focus on democratic implications in evolving socio-technical environments. The results indicate that TEDs acknowledge the importance of social science TE in teaching for digital citizenship, but find maintaining responsiveness to societal changes challenging. Challenges are also posed by the multidisciplinary character of social science education, including how personal trajectories shape TEDs' views of their dual-didactic task of teaching to teach for digital citizenship. This paper contributes knowledge of how TEDs, as 'street-level bureaucrats' in social science TE, navigate between written and performed education policy in teaching for digital citizenship, with specific attention to the dynamic character of PDC in social science education.

PhD (non-)completion rates have been considered important criteria with which to evaluate the effectiveness of doctoral programmes and of universities' performance. To date, there has been a lack of qualitative studies on the voices and experiences of funded international students who discontinue doctoral research degrees. This paper uses qualitative methods and six themes of a life course perspective to uncover the 'hidden' experience of international Vietnamese students who dropped out of funded doctoral programmes in social sciences and humanities. Its findings suggest that linked/independent lives and the timing of live themes helped to understand reasons for international doctoral students to drop out, which underline their engagement with research networks, academic identity and familial responsibilities. Meanwhile, the consequences of dropout illustrate the intersections of five themes: linked/independent lives, development risk and projects, the timing of lives/interplay of human lives and historical times, and diversity in life courses. The five themes capture diverse life trajectories and forms of agency developed by PhD non-completers while negotiating social pressures and institutional politics in their home institution as well as their perceptions of well-being and life priorities. Their life trajectories and forms of agency are gendered and culturally specific, with female non-completers being more active in searching for and building back their 'agentic orientations' through learning new skills, entering motherhood or leaving academic institutions. These findings are useful for reflecting on the current supporting structures, especially mental health support, for international doctoral students and supervisor training.

The European Union Framework Programme (EUFP) is the most institutionalised form of supranational thematic programming in the world and the centrepiece of European Union research policy. Since 1994, the EUFP has also funded collaborative research projects in the social sciences. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to its genesis, development, and effects in shaping the development of European science, especially examined by discipline or multidisciplinary fields. The EUFP is thus analysed here through an "instruments-as-institutions" approach that conceptualises the EUFP as an institution. Content analysis of the official documents of each funding cycle (n = 5) and a sample of European-funded educational research projects (n = 122) was analysed in conducting this research. The results show incremental ideational change of the EUFP's guiding ideas: from knowledge as an instrument to knowledge as a resource; within-the-EU to outside-the-EU internationalisation; and cooperation to an integration rationale of Europeanisation from the EUFP4 and EUFP5 (1994-2002) to the EUFP6 onwards (2002-2020). European-funded educational research contents are shaped by such representations of what is expected of European research. If the policy instrument steers European-funded educational research, ideas more than regulatory features significantly--though incrementally--change the direction of European social science.

Curriculum, as a policy and way of moving through educational experience, is entwined with an ongoing history of invasion in Australia and similar invader-colonial contexts. As a result of this, the conceptual foundations of curriculum in Australia reproduce colonial epistemologies as normative modes of knowing and consideration. One way of seeing how this is possible and easily reproduced is through a consideration of how renderings and representations of "place" -- the complex entanglements of lands, histories, and identit(y/ies) -- mediate both how (a) invasion can be normalised as a historical, geographic, and political "placial" reality, and (b) students and teachers might experience education in and of place. Indeed, "place" is a central guiding concept in official curriculum policy just as much as place is an experienced curriculum both within the school and in the broader world. In this respect, this paper looks to unpack how the concept of place is represented in curriculum policy and the attendant assumptions and implicit discourses that this (re)produces about the experiences of people in/of invaded place. Through a look at the coming revision to the Humanities and Social Science's learning area of the Australian Curriculum, I look to how the curriculum as policy frames place as synonymous with invader place epistemically and how this mediates what students can know and themselves feel about the embodied experience of learning about/in/of place.

The rapidly increasing capacity of technology to collect, organize, and manage data has spurred changes in the practice of statistics: new methods of collecting data, large data sets, new forms of data, different ways to visualize and represent data, and recognition of the importance of being able to understand and to communicate data-based arguments and findings from the perspective of data consumers and data producers. Using a narrative review based on Delphi methods, we asked leading members of the statistics education community to describe trends they have observed in the field and to identify interesting and relevant papers related to those trends. We received 24 responses and over 200 suggestions for papers. Our analysis included papers published in journals, book chapters, conference proceedings, handbooks, and curricular documents. We focused on future directions for statistics education research, and thus included articles based on opinion or principles if the arguments made a strong case supported by evidence as to why the idea was needed. From our analysis of 50 papers in this review, we suggest four emerging themes in statistics education research, challenging what should be taught and suggesting new ways of thinking about the teaching and learning of statistics: Data Science, Visibilizing Statistical Concepts, Social Statistics, and New Contexts for Learning. The review focuses on articles from 2017-mid 2022 and highlights the relevance and importance of each theme. Our choice of a particularly important paper for each theme is annotated in the references.

Purpose: This research lies in the domain of Vedic mathematics, and it explores the application of the related Vedic sutras in different branches of mathematics, science, education, and engineering across Asia and Europe. Design/methodology/approach: The study embraced a qualitative research design followed by a systematic literature review (SLR) approach which describes the significance of Vedic mathematics. The study made use of purposive sampling through which the data were collected from 102 articles by using inclusion and exclusion criteria. It includes publication years, the types of research methods, and uses of Vedic mathematics sutras in different branches of knowledge stated by the researchers. Its goal is to offer a more thorough explanation and an evaluation of how the inquiry affected the conclusions. The articles examined in this review included all the journal articles and doctoral theses from the databases of Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, and Sodhganga which were published during the period 2010-2022. Findings: The research found that the application of the sutras of Vedic mathematics has been increasing immensely in India. The researchers in this area are fond of qualitative research methods. This research has shown that sutras of Vedic mathematics especially "Urdhvatiryakbhyam" and "Nikhilam Navatascaramana Dasastah" have been frequently used in mathematics and engineering in technical higher education. The impact of other sutras has been quite useful, which augments that in many disciplines where the applications of Vedic mathematics are prevalent, it can be functional. The study concludes by reprising the result, its limitations, and the use of Vedic mathematics as a sustainable source of knowledge. Research limitations/implications: Vedic mathematics is an area where a lot of potential applications are created in science, mathematics, engineering, and education. Even with the latest technological advancements like learning analytics, artificial intelligence has its connection with this branch of learning, which is the greatest treasure of the Indian knowledge system. The research in this area is not reported in any databases or any standard format so researchers find it difficult to locate and study this broad conceptual domain. Practical implications: It will help the reader and other academic stakeholders to widen their view on the new and innovative techniques of Vedic mathematics. It is advised that additional studies would look at and evaluate papers published after this time so that readers may get a wider view of the concept of Vedic mathematics. Social implications: It will help society to know the essence of Vedic mathematics that how useful it is. Vedic mathematics helps learners to learn in a very factual and accurate manner especially while dealing with mathematical calculations. It will enhance the problem-solving skills among learners. It will be beneficial for all types of learners which will help them to become better individuals for a nation. Originality/value: The paper enriches understanding of the potential applications of different sutras from Vedic literature in different fields of knowledge. The outcome of the research encourages educationists and policymakers to include Vedic mathematics in the curriculum to foster quantitative reasoning and problem-solving at varied levels of learning.

A multi-section coordinated math for social sciences course at a Hispanic-Serving Institution went through a major revision which included the addition of many resources. One resource was educational songs, including a lyric video on the three possible outcomes when solving a system of linear equations. The learning objective associated with this topic is one where learning (if not also teaching) may fall short, thus motivating a creative way to increase engagement. We discuss results from anonymous surveys of students and instructors to assess this educational song's potential to support student engagement (and hopefully learning), contextualized with qualitative data such as classroom observation. Recommendations for future assessment and class use are provided.

Vlogs, asynchronous video blogs where individuals film themselves to share personal experiences, have been widely used in educational settings. This study explores the integration of Microsoft Flip (Flip), a vlogging platform, in higher education, focusing on its use by academics during a 3-year pilot preceding institution-wide adoption. Grounded in Driscoll and Burner's (2005) constructivist theory, this research involved interviews with 10 academics from an Australian university, examining their experiences, challenges and recommendations for using Flip. The findings reveal that Flip facilitates innovative activity design, promoting user-friendliness, interaction and self-directed learning. However, privacy concerns, technical difficulties and engagement shortfalls were identified consistent with broader educational technology adoption issues. To minimise these challenges, academics suggested setting clear guidelines on how to use Flip to enhance learning and offered suggestions on how to organise the activities effectively. This research offers insights for academics and learning designers considering Flip in the tertiary educational context, highlighting its potential as a tool for enhancing learning experiences.

In the UK, all doctoral programmes are expected to include some form of periodic progression assessment, with individual institutions having autonomy to design and implement their own structures. Yet, despite the potential significance of this assessment to individual doctoral journeys, the design of progression assessment processes has previously received very limited attention. This paper reports on a study which investigated doctoral students' experiences of progression assessment at one UK university, where the process involved both written and oral components. Utilising the concept of assessment for learning to support the analysis of narrative interviews with six doctoral students studying in the social sciences and humanities, the paper considers the pedagogic potential of doctoral progression assessment. The findings of the study indicated that the students perceived the dialogic aspects of the assessment to have the most significant potential for supporting learning and understanding, particularly where invitational, reflective, coaching format questions were utilised. The potential of assessment dialogue to present opportunities for reframing and disrupting thinking is explored, as well as the significance of this assessment in supporting autonomy, permission and motivation. The paper advocates careful consideration of both assessment design and practice in relation to these aspects.

While classroom discussion is often cherished as a cornerstone of effective social science teaching, knowledge on when and where discussions tend to turn deliberative is lacking. To make up for this lack of knowledge, the present study examined classroom discussion in three conditions: a whole-class condition, a small group condition, and a pair condition. The study made use of video observations from a classroom intervention to evaluate how each condition affected the deliberative quality of the discussion process. To this end, 585 student utterances were coded for aspects of deliberation using the Stromer-Galley observation manual. The results showed that both the small group and pair conditions promoted key aspects of deliberation compared to the whole-class condition. The small group condition generated the highest levels of contestation and engagement, whereas the pair condition generated the highest level of equality. While these results suggest that the deliberative quality of classroom discussion might sometimes benefit from the teacher's absence, more research is needed to determine the circumstances in which this is likely to be the case.

As research continues to dissect the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the teaching profession, the experiences of teachers of Color remain overlooked. Thus, this article explicitly centers the lived experiences and insider knowledge of six secondary teachers of Color who taught virtually during the pandemic to answer the question, "How do teachers of Color describe the change in their practices and pedagogies as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?" Their narratives described how they cultivated humanizing relationships with students in a virtual context, how their teaching practices and pedagogies shifted to prioritize students' needs, and how they rejected deficit, neoliberal discourses of "learning loss" espoused during the pandemic. Collectively, their actions embodied elements of authentic caring that prioritized and sustained the humanities of students of Color during a time of immense upheaval. Their narratives underscore the importance of cultivating and enacting authentic caring to challenge harmful schooling practices during times of crisis and beyond.

Research suggests that community college alumni may be underrepresented within PhD programs. As such, we implemented and evaluated the Community College to PhD (CC2PhD) Scholars Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. CC2PhD was a 7-month undergraduate research and PhD preparation program for community college sophomores in the social sciences. Like other undergraduate research programs, CC2PhD participants received research training and conducted research. What is novel about CC2PhD is that it purposefully equipped community college students with the skillsets to navigate forthcoming institutional barriers that transfer students will face when trying to apply for upper-division undergraduate research opportunities and engage in PhD preparation. During the program, CC2PhD participants conducted a qualitative interview research project, applied for external summer undergraduate research programs, wrote an upper-division research grant proposal, and developed a PhD preparation plan. To evaluate short-term program outcomes, we used a pre- and post-survey design and analyzed the survey data using t-tests. Out of 25 students who initially started the program, 19 students completed the 7-month program and completed the pre- and post-survey. We found statistically significant gains in four survey scales: Technical Research Skills, Research Proposal Writing, Research Program Application Components, and PhD Preparation Knowledge (all with p < 0.001). These gains all had large effect sizes, with Cohen's d values above 0.8. However, there were non-statistically significant declines in two survey scales: Interest in Academia and Soft Research Skills.

It has been argued that due to the growing importance attributed to research impact and forms of its evaluation, an academic 'culture of impact' is emerging. It would include certain concepts, values, and skills related to the area of generating and documenting impact. We use thematic and discourse analysis to analyse open answers from 100 questionnaires on research impact submitted by ECRs working in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in Europe. We explore ECR's early-career stage positions relative to societal impact and the trade-offs necessary to assure an academic career. The results show how, as the first generation of scholars to be socialized towards value of academic research beyond academia, ECRs are confronted with policy signals that encourage a drive for impact, which are at the same time often in line with respondents' personal values around impact beyond academia. However, ECRs face a number of competing signals about research value within the evaluation spaces necessary to navigate an academic career. Current evaluative structures often dismiss the achievement of societal impact favouring instead narrower definitions of research excellence. Career structures and organizational realities are often unfavourable to impact-related activity, which has implications for an ECRs' ability to develop coherent professional positionings.

This article provides a conceptual reformulation of Merton's scientific ethos widely known by the acronym CUDOS (i.e. communism, universalism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism). While Merton perceived the threat to the autonomy of science as coming from "outside" the walls of academe, mainly in the form of nationalism and racism, the subsequent rise of neoliberalism and global market forces means that the scientific ethos is being undermined largely from "within" the university itself, leading to the DECAY (i.e. differentialism, egoism, capitalism and advocacy) of CUDOS. The STEM-ification of the humanities and social sciences academic community has led to the rise of a post-academic ethos. This manifests itself in professional pragmatism with academics facing both ways at the same time by remaining largely committed to Mertonian norms in theory but needing to adapt to the performative demands of DECAY as a new set of institutional norms that prevails in practice.

The swift evolution of digital spaces challenges the established norms of ethical research policy. Ineffective ethical review diminishes researchers' ability to conduct cutting-edge and socially sensitive research, institutions' ability to engage at the forefront of technology, and the relationship between researcher and committee. In criminology and other disciplines that navigate sensitive research, especially when working with ephemeral data in digital field sites, researchers require fast ethical approval turnarounds and ethics committees that can navigate ethical issues that challenge norms of analogue research. Few publications consider the ethical challenges that digital research on topics of criminological interest encounter. This study appraises experiences of ethical review in published studies and draws on a survey of digital criminological researchers who faced rejections and roadblocks from ethical review. We show that, when researchers report a disconnect between their needs and their ethics committees' responses, roadblocks to ethics approval emerge and preclude research, that may be authorized in other comparable research institutions, from proceeding.

Timely insightful feedback during the supervision process is crucial to completing a dissertation and acquiring sustainable research skills. Insightful feedback from research supervisors can significantly improve the quality of the dissertation. This study was focused on finding out factors that hinder timely feedback during the supervision process. This study adopted the exploratory case study research design. A qualitative methodology was used. The study participants were 66 research supervisors in the Social Sciences from two universities in Cameroon. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data. The qualitative data collected was analysed thematically. The study found that late feedback during the supervision process is due to heavy workload, poor quality of the dissertation, lack of engagement with the supervisory feedback, late submissions by students, the disparity in research interest, lack of reward and recognition. Implications are given to ensure timely feedback during the supervision process.

With increasing focus on the outcomes of doctoral education, especially regarding employability, we aimed to explore how PhD graduates from humanities and social sciences (HASS), and science disciplines perceived the development of a holistic set of graduate attributes during their doctoral study and the application of these attributes in the workplace. We analysed 136 survey responses and interviews with 21 PhD graduates from one NZ and two US universities. We found that overall, PhD graduates are satisfied with their development as researchers, but had concerns regarding the development of some transferrable skills and attributes. Graduates from the three universities perceived the application of attributes in the workplace similarly. Comparisons of graduate attribute application to their development revealed the following areas requiring better support: teamwork, communication, project management, entrepreneurship, and networking. While development of affective attributes related to global citizenship was lower than expected, graduates perceived these were not always required in the workplace. Universities should consider how their doctoral training programmes can promote a more holistic development of desirable skills and attributes. We provide a possible categorisation to evaluate attainment of desirable attributes for PhD graduates, to ensure researchers and institutions are targeting key attributes.

The article underscores that the cartographic language used in social science textbooks for primary education in Spain is unsuitable and does not meet the demands of the official syllabus. Consequently, pupil literacy in geography with regard to regional geography is markedly ethnocentric. To demonstrate this, the cartographic content of textbooks is compared to the knowledge pupils have acquired on regional realities towards the end of this education stage. Specifically, certain aspects of mental maps of the Balearic Islands produced by year six primary pupils at twelve Majorcan schools are analysed. Based on this school cartography, a diagnostic exercise is performed on island pupils' literacy in geography in their last year of basic education. The use of spatial analysis tools enables us to conclude that there is low-level intersectionality between academic knowledge (insufficient) and ethnocentric knowledge (majority) - symbolic proof that the educational philosophy at most Spanish schools provides significantly poor learning.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the strategy and innovation of the Faculty of Adab and Humanities in developing the quality of education in digital era by using anthropology of education approach. Design/methodology/approach: In accordance with the research purpose to demonstrate the strategy and innovation of the Faculty of Adab and Humanities in developing the quality of education in the digital era using an educational anthropology approach, the method used is descriptive qualitative, which refers to data in the form of interviews obtained from the field. Findings: The results of this research indicate that there are strategies and innovations to develop the quality of higher education at the Faculty of Adab and Humanities in the digital era. These include adjusting the curriculum with the context of the era, implementing the learning process based on research and reinforcing on aspects of digital literacy among students through the innovation of the library based on digital. Originality/value: This study can be considered in the process of evaluating policies related to quality reinforcing strategies and innovations at the Faculty of Adab and Humanities in facing the challenges of the times. The study is only limited to tracing and analyzing strategies and innovations to reinforce education in the Faculty of Adab and Humanities and their impact on human resource development. For further research, it can be done in more detail and depth and on a larger scale.

Educators have recently highlighted the importance of social science courses for students entering the medical field. This has led to the inclusion of sociological theories and concepts on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), a requirement for any student seeking formal medical training. Using open-ended survey data responses provided by students who recently completed the MCAT, we explore how students perceive that sociology courses prepare them for the MCAT and their lives more generally. We find that students report that their sociology courses introduced them to key concepts and laid a foundation for material assessed on the exam, but those courses could improve by aligning with the MCAT structure by prioritizing application of concepts and critically analyzing case studies. Students also reported that sociology courses helped them develop empathy and inclusivity and use their sociological imaginations, which will ultimately positively impact their careers in the medical field and lives overall.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand demographic group (race, first-generation college graduate, gender, age) differences among perceived family and faculty social and family financial support within the US graduate school admissions pipeline in the social sciences. Design/methodology/approach Using data from a cross-sectional convenience sample survey (N = 99), this paper looks at ordinal social support variables (faculty member support, family social support and family financial support) by demographic groups. This paper uses a Mann-Whitney U test to compare first-generation status, race and gender and a Kruskal-Wallis H test to compare age groups. Findings: This paper finds that applicants over 27 years old had significantly less faculty support in the graduate admissions pipeline compared to other age groups; differences in faculty support across race were marginally significant (p = 0.057). Regarding family social support, this paper finds first-generation applicants, male applicants and applicants over 27 years old report lower levels of support. Finally, this paper finds first-generation applicants and applicants over 27 years old report lower levels of familial financial support. Originality/value: Previous literature on graduate admissions -- published in this journal (Pieper and Krsmanovic, 2022) and others -- does not consider experiences up to and before applicants hit the "submit" button on graduate applicants, which the authors term the graduate admissions pipeline. Instead, most previous literatures focus on faculty committees and validity of required application materials. Thus, this study begins to answer Posselt and Grodsky's (2017) call to develop an understanding of applicant experiences and support within the graduate admissions pipeline.

Although suicide has been identified as a major public health issue in the United States, social work education has not yet clearly determined its role in suicide prevention. There has been a dearth of research on suicide content and education within social work programs, particularly baccalaureate programs. This teaching note presents the result of a cross-sectional survey of social work practice instructors (N=289) from Bachelor of Social Work (46.7%) and Master of Social Work (53.3%) programs. Almost all participants (87.5%) include suicide content in some of their practice courses. Teaching practices about suicide in suicide education are described, including frequency that topics and competencies are taught, factors affecting the inclusion of suicide content in the classroom, and instructors' perceptions of student competence on completion of the course. Implications for social work education are identified, including the need to increase continuing education for practice instructors, and to expand coverage of some topics, such as evidence-based practices, and the role of culture in suicide assessment.

This mixed-methods study reports the results of a survey completed by a sample of Puerto Rican social and natural scientists (STEM-S) regarding their perceptions of the intersectionalities of racism, colorism, colonialism, and the culture of science. Most participants ranked themselves as light-skinned and were familiar with the racist stereotypes presented in the survey, with female participants reporting hearing racial stereotypes significantly more frequently than males. Dark-skinned Latinx scientists were more likely to experience discriminatory practices in general, in K-12 schools, and at meetings with colleagues or peers. The higher the professional level, the fewer the interactions with coworkers or peers who were darker-skinned. Power differences among lighter and darker-skinned scientists were attributed to systemic and covert racism, discrimination, and the influences of slavery and colonialism. Fostering anti-racist education in K-16 STEM courses, and more Black and Afro-descendant mentors and role models were suggested as ways to challenge racial inequities in STEM-S fields.

As HE professional educators in Social Sciences, we teach a curriculum which foregrounds inequalities. This includes inequalities related to diverse social groups and differences of race, class, gender, disability and sexuality, underpinned by global approaches. Learners are asked to reconsider the social world through a critical lens with perhaps very different explanations of inequalities and the (re)production of power. This paper illuminates early considerations arising from primary research of those teaching moments described as 'difficult' by our participants. The difficulty created for the teacher/student partnership is often experienced by us through the resistance by students who often cannot imagine a world view beyond their own. They can believe their way of knowing themselves in the world is how the world is for everyone. The critical educator recognises that in any given moment they are required to consciously manage the pedagogical illuminations of structural inequalities and individual agency. These difficult moments produce struggle for the student who is learning and pedagogical challenges for the lecturer. This paper captures a snapshot of some of the experiences of educators teaching diversity across a range of subject areas. We also reflect on the potential for professional development and possibilities for embedding best practice in preparing academic staff to deal with difficult moments.

Cambodian upper secondary education is divided into two tracks: science and social science. Students make their track selection in grade 10 and begin their enrollment in grade 11. The enrollment in the science track has witnessed a steep decline from 96% in 2014 to 34% in 2020, while the enrollment in the social science track has seen a remarkable surge from 4% in 2014 to 66% in 2020. This tendency poses a significant challenge to the government's endeavors aimed at promoting workforces in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This survey study aimed to examine factors influencing students to leave science-track classes. The survey was administered to 696 grade-12 students from 20 upper secondary schools. The two-level hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used for data analysis. The findings revealed that at the individual level, age, ease of national examination, high passing rates, preference for good grades, expense on private tutoring, STEM major choices at the territory level, attitudes toward science, parental advice, and family income significantly influenced students' decision to opt for social science track over science track. At the school level, school location was a significant predictor of track choices. The findings were discussed with practical implications to improve enrollment in the science track at Cambodian upper secondary schools.

Social entrepreneurship is a research topic that has received great attention from academics especially in recent years. However, the results in the literature are far from univocal, for example, there is no clear conceptual delimitation of the term, and it is often analyzed using the same theoretical models of traditional entrepreneurship. With the present study, we have attempted to overcome this problem by analyzing different antecedents, closer to the social and emotional universe, and detached from a male-centric and traditional vision of entrepreneurship, with the aim of understanding social entrepreneurial intentions in higher education. Results obtained from a sample of 962 college students showed that prior experience with social problems (PESP) and empathy (EMP) have a significant and positive impact on social entrepreneurial intention (SEI). Furthermore, social self-efficacy (SES-E), moral obligation (MO), and perceived social support (PSS), in addition to directly influencing SEI, mediated the relationship between PESP-SEI, and the relationship between EMP-SEI. More interestingly, gender (male vs female), but not the different type of study (social sciences vs economics and business sciences), moderated the relationship between EMP-SEI to the benefit of women. Given the importance of social entrepreneurship as an alternative solution to the current economic crisis, these are important results because, on the one hand, they make it possible to overcome the male-female gap that characterizes traditional entrepreneurship, on the other, they underline the need to introduce different constructs closer to the social and emotional sphere into entrepreneurship education programs.

This study aims to explore the experience and training of pre-service and in-service teachers (n = 470) using visual diagrams. For this purpose, they answered a questionnaire regarding their training and experience with them throughout their entire education. The results show that teachers' experience with visual diagrams was very limited at all educational stages and subjects. They consider them valuable for learning, but they have received little instruction on diagrams, copying existing materials rather than producing original ones. They mainly produced their own visual diagrams in Natural and Social Sciences. They also produced other type of diagrams (mainly quantitative and verbal) in non-STEM subjects. The results indicate a need to provide teachers with training and opportunities to practice with visual diagrams, and to make them competent to use them in their teaching to increase their didactic use with their students throughout the educational system.

The scientific literature reveals the impact of applying game-based videos and gamification on undergraduates' learning. This work proposes, within an online context, using these educational strategies to make students the active protagonists of their learning. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the students' perception of the effectiveness of the application of game-based videos (within a flipped classroom framework) and gamification to improve knowledge and competencies. The study was conducted for four months with pre-service teachers (n = 190) in an online Social Sciences course. The students were provided with the lesson plan and filled in an ad hoc questionnaire using a quasi-experimental design in an ecological environment. The results indicate a positive impact in all the assessed aspects after implementing the innovative experience. Utilizing a different teaching style, one with the student as the protagonist of the learning process plus the improvement of learning shows significantly positive educational results. These preliminary findings enhance the development of pre-service teacher training and a student-centered teaching--learning process. Consequently, guidelines are provided to advance innovative educational experiences in online higher education.

Globally, scholarships for international higher education play a critical role in human capital development. While substantial research has documented the benefits such scholarships provide for individuals, their impact on the creation of pathways for social change remains under-researched. This paper bridges this gap by examining the extent to which a government scholarship for international education has created pathways for social change in Kazakhstan. Data were collected through interviews with 67 scholarship alumni. Drawing on Dassin et al.'s (2018) framework for pathways to social change, the findings reveal that international education fosters social change in Kazakhstan in four ways. First, the scholarship program develops local talent and builds agents of change. Second, it widens access to international education, particularly for individuals from marginalized communities, who would otherwise lack access owing to their scarce financial resources. Third, the program develops alumni's cosmopolitan and intercultural competencies and strengthens international collaborations. Finally, it creates associations and groups through which alumni can collectively contribute to society. The findings highlight that while the interviewed alumni foster strong patriotic feelings and are determined to contribute to the prosperity of their country, underdeveloped industries, economic volatility, and top-down bureaucracy in workplaces limit their potential contributions to social changes. These findings may help policymakers and administrators to reconsider and improve on the design and structure of scholarship programs.

A series of studies have identified gender bias in teaching evaluations in higher education--with women being evaluated lower than men. However, other recent studies indicate that gender bias is not present across all contexts. Our study adds to the understanding of the role of gender in teaching evaluations by focusing on a Danish university--a national context with relatively high educational gender equality and support for egalitarian gender norms. Crucially, the study pays systematic attention to the role of students' gender in explaining evaluation outcomes. In a quantitative analysis of 125,000 evaluations in the social sciences at a Danish university, we identify a same-gender affinity. While there is no overall gender bias in the evaluations, students evaluate a teacher of their own gender best. To understand the mechanisms behind this pattern, we analyze comments provided by students in teaching evaluations and 20 interviews with students. Students are generally more positive in their descriptions of a teacher of their own gender. Moreover, we identify gendered patterns in the perceptions of teachers as well as in the aspects of teachers' behavior and characteristics appreciated by students.

To participate fully in the global knowledge economy, all countries require strong research and innovation eco-systems. This crucially depends on the efficiency of doctoral education and training. We examined the trajectory of doctoral education in Uganda over the past four decades focusing on number of doctoral awards and equity in regard to sex, STEM versus Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and private versus public providers. We collected data from all institutions providing doctoral education in Uganda through comprehensive review of documents. Our analysis of data revealed low capacity for doctoral education in Uganda. There was under production of doctorates depicted by the low number of doctoral awards; and inequalities in regard to sex, STEM versus Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and the public versus private providers. We argue that the trends in equity and number of doctoral awards translate into low number of researchers per million inhabitants, low number of researchers engaged in research and development (R&D), and gender disparity in researchers' participation in R&D. We conclude that the low number and inequalities in doctoral awards have deterring implications to the attainment of national development goals. We proffer desired trajectories for the future of doctoral education and training in Uganda.

Given the increasing popularity of the science-fiction genre, its capacity for worldbuilding and its long-durée vision, coupled with both the difficulty of discussing issues of migration in today's world as something more than a problem of the present and the necessity to go beyond this presentism, the author argues that science-fiction films provide an excellent tool for peace education inside and outside the classroom in general and to address migration in particular. This article discusses the why and how of using science fiction films for peace education, which the author claims is not necessarily taught in the classroom or special programs but should also be seen as part of lifelong learning/continuous education.

Multiple perspectives on geographical thinking are lacking in the teaching of climate change in school geography. This study establishes an epistemic model through a co-construction design to support geography teachers' curriculum making with respect to climate change. We developed the preliminary model with four main geographical perspectives, including natural scientific, humanistic, social scientific, and posthuman perspectives, by drawing on studies in academic geography. Based on interviews with nine geography education researchers who have been involved in the GeoCapabilities project, we examined the educational potentials of multiple geographical perspectives in developing student's capabilities to react to climate change.

University students' collaborative learning, particularly groupwork, has been more often investigated in Western settings than in countries that have borrowed this Western pedagogy. This qualitative study re-examines Chinese university students' groupwork responses regarding their expectations, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Their responses, the findings revealed, could be conceptualized as strategic navigation resulting from students, as rational and pragmatic learners, negotiating and navigating the interplay among multiple cultures of learning brought by policies, teachers, and the labor market. The study supplements the literature on collaborative learning and borrowed pedagogy and reflects university policymakers' and teachers' need to rethink making student groupwork truly collaborative.

Policy makers increasingly call on higher education to prepare learners for challenges such as global health emergencies or ecological crises. These can be understood as 'wicked problems', which are unbounded, complex and resist simplistic definition. Wicked problems involve stakeholders with incompatible value positions and attempted solutions can result in unforeseen outcomes. How academics stay committed to teaching about such challenging topics -- despite the many difficulties of contemporary higher education -- is an under-researched area. In this study, we interviewed academics who were deeply engaged with teaching about wicked problems. We drew on the concepts of landscapes of practice, boundary work and academic identities to make sense of the teachers' persistence and practices in this space. We conclude with advice for policy makers on how to support academics in this work.

Both challenges and opportunities are inherent with a growth in Chinese international students in UK Higher Education. However, teachers from the West may not understand the differences in Chinese educational practices, which can lead to negative stereotyping of these students as passive and problematic. This paper rejects this deficit perspective, focusing on the views of Chinese students as to what might need to change about the UK teaching and campus environment to improve their learning experience. Two focus groups were held with Chinese social science Masters' students in a UK university. Some of their key requests included to reduce class sizes; to provide more guidance around study skills; to offer more timely and accessible information; to provide a more flexible range of services and learning support; and to create more social time with staff and other students. The discussions particularly brought out the importance of 'relational pedagogy'. These requirements will need more staff time and institutional flexibility which will necessitate adequate funding. The authors conclude that, despite Chinese students' significant contribution to the local economy and to University finances, there does not seem to be a commensurate investment in protecting their wellbeing and ensuring they receive a quality education. We consider it is important to listen to and act on the students' suggestions outlined here if UK Higher Education is to remain the destination of choice for many Chinese and other international students.

Student dropout is a major concern in studies investigating retention strategies in higher education. This study identifies which variables are important to predict student dropout, using academic data from 3583 first-year students on the Business Administration (BA) degree at the University of Barcelona (Spain). The results indicate that two variables, the percentage of subjects failed and not attended in the first semester, demonstrate significant predictive power. This has been corroborated with an additional sample of 10,784 students from three-degree programs (Law, BA, and Economics) at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), to assess the robustness of the results. Three different algorithms have also been utilized: neural networks, random forest, and logit. In the specific case of neural networks, the NeuralSens methodology has been employed, which is based on the use of sensitivities, allowing for its interpretation. The outcomes are highly consistent in all cases: both a simple model (logit) and more sophisticated ones (neural networks and random forest) exhibit high accuracy (correctly predicted values) and sensitivity (correctly predicted dropouts). In test set average values of 77% and 69% have been respectively achieved. In this regard, a noteworthy point is that only academic data from the university itself was used to develop the models. This ensures that there's no dependence on other personal or organizational variables, which can often be difficult to access.

In the past decade, moderated mediation analysis has been extensively and increasingly employed in social and behavioral sciences. With its widespread use, it is particularly important to ensure the moderated mediation analysis will not bring spurious results. Spurious effects have been studied in both mediation and moderation analysis, but this issue remains unexplored in moderated mediation analysis. To fill this gap, we examined the conditions under which a spurious moderated mediation effect in a dual stage moderated mediation model might occur. Specifically, with a hypothetical example and three theorems, we illustrated how the index of moderated moderated mediation may conclude a moderated mediation effect which does not actually exist. As a remedy to rule out the spurious results, we proposed two methods which are simple and easy to implement. Based on the simulation results, we offer researchers some practical guidelines to apply the methods in empirical research.

Scholars assert that, worldwide, doctoral provision is increasingly characterised by accelerated scales of production, competitive funding, centralised administration, and interdisciplinary, cohort-based training. The situation in the UK appears to mirror this picture but scholars have long noted that national settings mediate the forms that broader trends take. We therefore examined the case of the UK's social science doctorates, which have seen both marked growth and a range of policy changes, to explore the potential extent of alignment with these trends. Invoking institutional isomorphism, a conceptual framework which asserts how convergence can be driven by different factors, we interviewed senior staff at a range of UK HEIs to examine the activities and underlying rationales behind their social science doctoral provision. We were able to establish that, while there is a degree of isomorphism around their social science doctorates, this is a complex and uneven situation because different kinds of HEIs are subject to a varying combination of simultaneous and often conflicting forces. Our analysis highlights not only how the relationship between national policies and higher education culture can be fraught, but also how organisations' individual positioning and history has implications for how they are able to act in policy contexts.

Espousing Indigenous Research Methods including Kîyokêwin/Visiting, beadwork as an embodied pedagogical and research practice, and storytelling, this article explores the authors' experiences working in senior academic leadership positions to support indigenization at the Royal Military College of Canada. The authors consent to learn in public and discuss opportunities for role-modeling individual leadership in institutional contexts and for building small 'safe enough' spaces that generate energy and momentum that have the possibility of supporting broader-scale indigenization efforts. The authors understand the call to indigenize education as a non-negotiable imperative, and argue that it is an ethical responsibility for all who live in Canada to engage intentionally in concrete acts of reconciliation - in (re)building relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

In this paper, we utilize the concepts of "racial knowledge" and "subjective understanding" to demonstrate how the metaphor of surrogacy encodes a racialized discourse via the epistemic authority of social science research. Taken together, we demonstrate how the pervasive use of surrogacy as a metaphor reflects the subjective understanding of Black male teachers produced through the racial knowledge of social science discourse. We argue that the metaphor of surrogacy has become so unquestioningly ubiquitous throughout education and popular culture that it has become the default conceptual framework regarding all reforms for Black young men and boys.