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Although name, image, and likeness policy officially changed on July 1, 2021, actions leading up to this policy modification provide insight into the desires and perspectives of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Feeling pressure from individual states and federal legislators, the NCAA engaged in discussion regarding name, image, and likeness in Fall of 2019. In response to newly introduced name, image, and likeness policy changes, the NCAA listed their official statements on the Taking Actions: Name, Image and Likeness webpage. These statements (n = 10) were analyzed using critical discourse analysis methodology underpinned with a Foucaultian perspective. Using critical discourse analysis, we extrapolated three overarching themes related to power dynamics: (a) Establishing Control While Undercutting Oppositional Power, (b) Power Shifts Away from NCAA, and (c) Power Reinforcement. We conclude by discussing the importance of examining discourse within organizations and implications for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late 1980s was a chaotic period in Soviet Estonia. The liberalization process of the Soviet Union brought about a sense of freedom and the possibility that Estonian people would finally have a say in the future of Estonia. This unexpected feeling of freedom formed the basis for various attempts to narrate a better society, including religious visions of a new Estonia. Several of the new religious movements that emerged during this period developed their own ideas about the future of Estonia, with some incorporating utopian perspectives. Although these movements had distinct views on the identity and independence of Estonia, their ideas have not yet been thoroughly researched. The aim of this article is to show how one of the movements, Word of Life, addressed these times of change, and to elaborate on what kind of utopias about Estonia are construed in the discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in many other countries, the #MeToo movement in Poland brought forth a wave of accusations of various forms of sexual violence. In this article, we analyze public statements of men accused of sexual violence in order to explore their constructions of gendered power relations and expose the internal logic of male privilege. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, we distinguish five discursive repertoires employed in the statements: new facts, the real victim, the decent feminist, good reputation, and explicit stigmatization. We argue that our discursive repertoires are similar to strategies extracted in different cultural contexts, thus indicating common connections across cultures in how male privilege operates. We have also observed characteristics specific to the Polish context, including the high importance of the supposed neutrality of the law in the debate around #MeToo and the predominant use of the good reputation repertoire to enhance credibility of privileged men. Given the specificity of the material analyzed and the exploration of the logic of privilege and misogyny, this article aims to contribute to efforts to counter harmful narratives about sexual violence that are prevalent in many countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that studying ultimate questions as "potential mediators" of religious worldviews increases sociological knowledge of religion outside institutional boundaries, as research on secularization indicates. Concurrently, other studies demonstrate that the public communication of science (PCS) influences public orientations toward religion. Integrating these contributions, I deploy a qualitative discourse analysis of 78 genetics and neuroscience PCS monographs to investigate whether and how they raise and discuss ultimate questions together with religious references. The analysis reveals two models for relating science and religion in PCS, conflict and integration, and indicates that the latter prevails. Within the integration model, I conceptualize the "expanded view" of ultimate questions in PCS and discuss in detail its main features, especially its nondualistic approach. Lastly, I discuss the possible social consequences of the expanded view and the contribution of my findings to the sociology of religion and the sociology of religion and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenomenon: Patient-centered communication is an ideal for undergraduate medical education and has been for decades. However, medical students often find the patient-centered approach challenging. The present study finds a possible discordance between formal intentions of a medical curriculum and the corresponding learning environment. The objective of our study was to explore how medical curriculum resonates with the purpose of patient-centered medicine, including how a possible dynamic may have helped maintain this discordance in undergraduate medical education. Approach: The study took a qualitative approach exploring the medical curriculum via a structured communication course. The educational context for the course was considered a discursive environment, partially constructed through documents. The concept of textual agency was used to analyze curriculum and course documents. This was to explore how competencies were presented in the medical curriculum and course descriptions and how they were translated through the practices of the communication course. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze observations made during the course. Findings: Our analysis suggested that the medical curriculum content and structure still emphasize bio-medical disciplines and knowledge domains in students learning. This connected well with the socialization of medical students toward the role as medical experts whose primary task is to provide information, while patients are defined as passive subjects, who received information. The course description also operationalized complexities of patient-centered communication to a measurable, instrumental structure of skills. This focus on one-directional communication frames the students' understanding of the courses and their performance in it. They learn that: (1) meeting a real patient is a rare opportunity, (2) engaging patients' thoughts and feelings in the conversation is challenging, and (3) the biomedical aspect should be prioritized in the conversation. Insights: These findings suggested that the medical curriculum we studied gave limited room for patient-centered medicine, even in communication training. The power of macro-level documents framed and focused micro-level learning activities and could help explain observed disharmonies in patient-medical student encounters. We see how patient-centered medicine – in both texts and practice – is represented and enacted as a peripheral activity and patients are given a marginal position in encounters with students. The findings suggested that there are challenges for progress and change toward a more patient-centered communication training and curriculum. However, empirical findings also offered points of departure for course leaders and curriculum planners wishing to take steps toward a stronger and more reflective patient-centered approach in medical education, supported through the document structure and the translation of the curriculum through relevant learning activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has indicated that healthcare support for sexuality after spinal cord injury appears to be neglected or inadequately provided. The perspectives of people living with spinal cord injuries regarding what is lacking and what support they would like to be provided, and why, has yet to be explored. This paper uses critical theory to explore how societal constructs of sexuality and disability shape how sexuality is supported after a spinal cord injury. To do this, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 11 people with a spinal cord injury from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We drew from the works of various critical disability theorists to analyze what discourses underpinned the experiences people with spinal cord injuries had when receiving sexuality support. Analysis suggested that the following discourses were apparent: (1) broken bodies require repair, (2) sex is penetration, ejaculation then reproduction, and (3) sexual autonomy is required. Findings indicated healthcare professionals need to recognize people with spinal cord injuries as sexual beings with a diverse range of desires, lives, relations, and bodies. Provision of individualized comprehensive high-quality sexuality support is therefore warranted. To achieve this, healthcare professionals should aim to be aware of, and mitigate, ableist and normative assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article examines how intrauterine device (IUD) self-removal is framed in online sources containing the views of contraceptive providers. While research has explored power and knowledge hierarchies in clinical interactions between contraceptive users and providers, and has highlighted the safety of IUD self-removal, little is known about how self-removal is represented by providers in accessible online sources that may be relied upon by contraceptive users for information. A discourse analysis of 42 provider-generated online sources found that provider authority over contraception is reinforced through biomedical constructions of risk and safety in framings of self-removal. The data reveal how the sharing of self-removal experiences between IUD users via online platforms was perceived to threaten contraceptive provider expertise, resulting in the dismissal of users’ experiential knowledge. While some sources were supportive, the framings of self-removal discussed in this paper typically mirror the unequal power relations of in-person contraceptive user/provider interactions. The sources analysed therefore demonstrate how power and knowledge hierarchies are reproduced and extend beyond clinical interactions to the digital context, reflecting broader socio-structural controls over bodies, knowledge, and reproductive decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the exponential increase in the number of refugees and displaced people worldwide, it has become critical to examine the experiences of refugees; particularly their identity, since it is an important marker of their adjustment to the new context. Besides other factors impacting their identity and adjustment, the role of the leader is important as it can impact the construction of refugee identities. This paper explores the construction and negotiation of Tibetan refugee identities through the identity entrepreneurship of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and erstwhile political leader of the Tibetans. It is postulated that leaders are entrepreneurs of identity who shape identity construction and negotiation. With an emphasis on the social, political, and historical context, three kinds of sources are analysed using a discourse‐historical approach to understand how leaders function as entrepreneurs of identity across the various contexts and negotiate identity construction across the shifting contexts. First, 12 speeches by the Dalai Lama on 10 critical events in Tibetan history since 1959; second, six speeches by the Dalai Lama for Tibetan Uprising Day (1961–2009); and third, two international interviews (CNN, 2009; BBC, 2012). The analysis demonstrates that the identity entrepreneurship of the Dalai Lama has strong elements of protection towards the ingroup, that is, the Tibetan refugees, through the crafting of a collective sense of identity for Tibetans. The study sheds new light on the nature of refugee leadership, acknowledging the impact of the shifting nature of identity, from a native citizen to refugee; and the leader's identity entrepreneurship in these evolving and often malleable contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers are increasingly recognizing the importance of human aspects in software development. Because qualitative methods are used to explore human behavior in‐depth, we believe that studies using such methods will become more common. Existing qualitative software engineering guidelines do not cover the full breadth of qualitative methods and the knowledge on how to use them like in social sciences. The purpose of this study was to extend the software engineering community's current body of knowledge regarding available qualitative methods and their quality assurance frameworks and to provide recommendations and guidelines for their use. With the support of an epistemological argument and a survey of the literature, we suggest that future research would benefit from (1) utilizing a broader set of research methods, (2) more strongly emphasizing reflexivity, and (3) employing qualitative guidelines and quality criteria. We present an overview of three qualitative methods commonly used in social sciences but rarely seen in software engineering research, namely interpretative phenomenological analysis, narrative analysis, and discourse analysis. Furthermore, we discuss the meaning of reflexivity in relation to the software engineering context and suggest means of fostering it. Our paper will help software engineering researchers better select and then guide the application of a broader set of qualitative research methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Soviet grand narrative of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) was used in the school educational institution in one of the two Donbas "people's republics" between 2014 and 2021. Using as a case study a Luhansk school with one of the most pro-Russian and pro-occupation administrations, it explores which GPW sub-narratives were present in the school discourse of extracurricular activities, described in the school VKontakte online community. This article employs the elements of discourse analysis to assess visual and verbal texts, published by the school administration, which depict how schoolchildren engage in different Soviet-military contexts, celebrating, commemorating, or learning about GPW-related events. The article concludes that although the school administration incorporated the main Soviet narratives of the Great Patriotic War, present in contemporary Russian education, it also employed two regional GPW sub-narratives, which provide the Luhansk "republican" authorities with the local ideological foundation for militarizing the school youth. The article demonstrates that such militarization of the semiformal school setting is linked with the Russian educational policy and has implications on how pupils of different ages see the social reality and their role in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to explore the range of sustainability-related discourses by the stakeholders within a particular Finnish Higher Education Institution (HEI); interaction between the discourses and the context of the HEI; and the extent to which different understandings of sustainability cause challenges for the implementation of the university strategy for sustainability. Specifically, the paper explores how the employees within the HEI make sense of sustainability in their teaching, research and daily life and the extent to which sustainability-related discourses are aligned with the university strategy. Design/methodology/approach: This research draws upon collected qualitative and quantitative data. It focuses on individual discourses by executives, teaching and research staff within an HEI regarding their understandings of sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Findings: This paper illustrates the key challenges of sustainability and SDG implementation that may emerge in HEIs due to varied understandings. The results indicate a need for efficient HEI strategic vision communication and consideration of the stakeholders' multiplicity of sustainability values. Originality/value: This paper sheds light on the challenges involved in seeking to enhance sustainable development in an academic setting with multiple disciplines and categories of staff guided by academic freedom. The analysis thus advances the understanding of academic sustainability-related discourses and framings as well as mechanisms through which the implementation of sustainability-related efforts can be enhanced in such a context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrating illness experiences in a culturally acceptable manner is essential for retaining quality of life after the disruptive event of being diagnosed for prostate cancer. Psychological pressures caused by treatment side-effects such as erectile dysfunction require reinterpretation of the meanings and impacts of these side-effects on masculinity. This helps maintain coherence in men's lives. We studied how men employ culturally available discursive strategies (compensation, redefinition, recontextualisation, and normalisation) in reconstructing masculinity and sexuality. Our data consists of 22 interviews of heterosexual Finnish prostate cancer patients who had undergone surgery. The aim was to analyse the ways in which various life situations and social relations shaped and limited the use of these strategies. Discourse analysis revealed that older age, a supportive spouse, children, supportive male friends, and good health – were key elements men used in reconstructing a coherent new self-image and conception of life following cancer treatment. Men with sexually active male friends, men without families, younger men and men with new intimate relationships struggled to develop a new version of their masculinity. Being able to effectively utilise certain aspects of one's life situation in re-constructing masculinity is important in maintaining quality of life despite troublesome treatment side-effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of statements issued by the Polish Ministry of Family and Social Policy, relating to care homes and the threat to the health and lives of their inhabitants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the declared intention by the government to carry out the transition from residential care to community-based support, the results of the study reveal that under the slogans of care, safety, and commitment, the traditional vision of disability that promotes the operation of segregated institutions is reinforced. Ensuring safety is understood as strengthening the institution of a care home by emphasizing its importance, allocating additional resources, and introducing organized isolation practices that do not necessarily account for subjectivity and residents' rights. The authors, using the critical approach, point to elements of the discourse that may be remembered most by recipients. The paper is focused on an approach presented by the Polish Ministry of Family and Social Policy during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding care homes. While the discussion about transition from residential care to community-based support in Poland seems to be advanced, there are still facilities for over 100 inhabitants. In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, the Ministry's communication related to facilitating the transition to independent living was pushed aside, while the traditional institutional-oriented approach came to the fore. The communication by the Ministry is transmitting to the public a strong message that presents care homes as safe places that should be supported and developed as a key housing option. The lack of attention to issues such as transition from residential care to community-based support and a human-rights approach in communication led us to formulate the concept of a turbo-institutional approach implicit in the Ministry's communiques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the media construction of Chiquita Evans, the first woman to participate in the NBA 2 K League, uncovering a complex interplay of gender norms and power dynamics. Explored through Foucauldian discourse analysis, her identity negotiation within this unique space, where sport, gaming, and media converge, is illuminated. Evans emerges as a trailblazer who challenges and reshapes established gender conventions in the male-dominated esports arena. While her defiance of gender norms is evident, the media's focus on her physicality inadvertently perpetuates gendered expectations. Moreover, Evans' participation showcases her navigation of racial and gender norms, exposing lingering biases. The intersection of sport and media logic demonstrates evolving dynamics while also highlighting challenges faced by women players. Overall, the media construction of Evans works to encourage acceptance while reproducing established stereotypes, suggesting that increased representation may not inherently challenge power dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine how extremist organizations manage to present themselves as credible actors in the eyes of potential supporters on social media. This paper will address this question by exploring the role of authenticity in strategic narratives, which is believed to help these groups achieve this purpose. Apart from introducing this new theoretical concept, the paper will also apply it to a new case study of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) – the first far-right organization to be designated as terrorist by the U.S. and Canada. By conducting discourse analysis of the group's social media propaganda on the Russian network VKontakte, the paper will show how the RIM makes its strategic narratives authentic and, as a consequence, creates an image of a credible and trustworthy actor and thus manages to reach out to its target audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews issues relevant to the Chinese School of International Relations (IR) theory. After 20 or more years of relentless effort, the Chinese School has achieved concrete breakthroughs, evident in the emergence of Relational Theory, Moral Realism, and Symbiosis Theory. The Chinese School has thus entered a new stage, its primary task having been upgraded from theory innovation to theory development. But to proceed further, the Chinese School needs critical responses from its Western counterparts. Owing primarily to the language barrier, as well as to the non-confrontational academic tradition within Chinese IR, and the ethnocentrism that both sides practice, the few dialogues that have taken place between the Chinese School and Western theories have tended to be problematic, with important issues either ignored or misrepresented. In order to further study a comprehensive and intensive exchange of ideas between the Chinese School and Western theories, this article categorises issues relevant to the Chinese School into three areas. They are: process of evolution; progress in theoretical studies; and the Chinese School's future relationship with other theoretical entities (in particular, Global IR). Predominantly reliant upon the discourse analysis of Chinese School publications, this contribution seeks to provide a foundation for further exchanges between Western theories and the Chinese School. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In early 2023, a new type of weight loss medication, Wegovy (semaglutide), was made available in Denmark. Both subsequent media coverage and public demand were huge. Wegovy is only available by prescription, primarily via general practitioners. However, there is very little knowledge about how healthcare professionals (HCPs) in general practice might deal with the great demand for and attention surrounding a new weight loss drug. The aim of this qualitative study was, therefore, to explore how Wegovy is managed and negotiated in general practice, particularly in terms of prescribing and follow‐up. We conducted a focused ethnography study based on direct observation of consultations and both formal and informal interviews with seven doctors and four nurses from three general practices in Denmark. Using discourse analysis, we identified four central discourses revolving around trust in medicine, individual responsibility for health, the cost of weight loss medication, and the importance of shared decision‐making. This study shows that the availability of a new, sought‐after weight loss medication presents both opportunities and challenges for HCPs in general practice. The management of Wegovy involves numerous factors, including medical, economic, organizational, interpersonal and moral concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several shifts in physiotherapy treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have occurred over time. This paper aims to identify shifts in physiotherapy practice for patients with RA based on the author's work experiences from the 1980s until today at two Norwegian rheumatism hospitals, and to explore why shifts may have happened. A narrative was developed by describing events making a difference, categorizing, and ordering them with the help of narrative analysis and a sensitizing analytic lens on discourses. The storyline from the 1980s to approximately the turn of the millennium is called 'Shifts determined mainly by clinical context-driven events' which occurred in response to medical advances and physiotherapists' clinical experiences. These shifts were later justified by physiotherapists' research in the clinical context. The other storyline covers mainly the 2000s and is called 'Shifts increasingly determined by events beyond clinical physiotherapy context.' They include adjustments to further medical advances and implementation of biopsychosocial understanding of disease at the hospital, and to external research-based recommendations, health reforms, and economy. These processes have moved physiotherapy practice at the hospital from mainly providing individualized remedial and rehabilitative physiotherapy for the purpose to normalize physical function to an increasing focus on generic health measures for the purposes of health promotion and cardiovascular disease prevention. However, this shift may not fully match the complex needs presented by patients in disease remission with unrelenting fatigue and work inability and those who have multiple functional challenges and comorbidities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a critical perspective on the use of conversational agents (CAs) with children at home. Drawing on interviews with eleven parents of pre-school children living in Norway, we illustrate the ways in which parents resisted the values epitomised by CAs. We problematise CAs' attributes in light of parents' ontological perceptions of what it means to be human and outline how their attitudes correspond to Bourdieu's [1998a. Acts of Resistance. New York: New Press] concept of acts of resistance. For example, parents saw artificial conversation designed for profit as a potential threat to users' autonomy and the instant gratification of CAs as a threat to children's development. Parents' antecedent beliefs map onto the ontological tensions between human and non-human attributes and challenge the neoliberal discourse by demanding freedom and equality for users rather than productivity and economic gain. Parents' comments reflect the belief that artificial conversation with a machine inappropriately and ineffectively mimics a nuanced and intimate human-to-human experience in service of profit motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore how pride as a collective emotion is ontologically bound to the securitisation of energy and put forward an innovative method that engages materiality and discourse in securitisation theory. I examine the case of energy securitisation in Azerbaijan to show that collective pride is anchored to materialisations and reiterative identity discourses that stick to energy sites and align with the nation in ways that fit with the coercive and controlling nature of securitisation. While the existing literature on emotions and securitisation engages with the process of threat construction and focuses on the audience's affective experience, I approach securitisation as threat construction and threat management and locate the affective dimension of the process in a transversal space that considers the affective experience of the audience alongside that of the securitising actor. This article pays considerable attention to methods and introduces an experimental new materialist discourse analysis, which accounts for the material, affective and non-human world exerting an agential force on the texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines imaginative geographies of forced migration and refugee settlement in a BBC radio series that follows and gives voice to a Syrian family as they journey to Europe. Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 2015 and 2017, the episodes have since been repackaged as a podcast on BBC Sounds. The paper answers Horton's (2019) call for greater engagement with media and popular culture by foregrounding radio as an understudied medium with the capacity to shape listeners' geographical imaginations. It explores how this series, presented by Manveen Rana, broke new ground through its journalistic-ethnographic form, eyewitness reporting and amplification of refugee voices, and analyses how two imaginative geographies of journey and settlement are constructed through sounds and the spoken word. The paper concludes by theorising radio as a slow medium and demonstrating how Rana's journalism pushes beyond Toal's (1996, p. 171) 'anti-geopolitical eye' to evidence an anti-geopolitical ear: that is to say, Rana encourages a way of listening to Europe's migration 'crisis' that disrupts discursive framings of refugees as 'victims' or 'threats' by recasting the family as tangible and relatable human beings. This finding has significant implications for media reporting on migration and scholarship on journalistic storytelling and the construction of geographical imaginations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this theoretical article, we argue that the imminent collapse of earth systems that sustain life forms calls for mathematics education as a field to reflect on and re-evaluate its priorities and thus practices. We consider both what ecological collapse means for mathematics education and whether mathematics education might offer meaningful gestures in response. We explore how the relationship between the social and the ecological is conceptualised in mathematics education (and other relevant) research and what this implies for mathematics education. We read, in this scholarship, a growing focus on the ecological and conceptualisations of socio-ecological relations between existing entities that are dialectical, or mutually dependent. More rarely, are they seen as entangled and monist, and it is in this thought that we locate our contribution of multi-layered gestures of mathematics education. We describe these, in terms of three broad practices: listening for socio-ecological entanglement; attending to the scales of socio-ecological entanglements; and living entanglement as mathematics educators. We exemplify these gestures through examples of curriculum innovation. This article, a socio-ecological gesture in itself, is written in the spirit of opening a conversation into which we invite others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, many scholars have studied competition between cities and entrepreneurial urban policies. Coming from the evolving field of competition research, we are interested in how competition between cities is constructed and, for this purpose, examine the competition imaginary of Vienna, a city known less for its entrepreneurial policies than for its social welfare policies. The paper employs critical discourse analysis of Viennese policy papers from 1985–2015, a period particularly shaped by the process of competitization. The analysis shows that Vienna's social and welfare policies are also decisive for the city's positioning in city competition and rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing integration of culture and politics in the digital age, memes tend to be politicized in academic research. Moving beyond the perspective of politicization, this study examines the depoliticizing potential of meme usage. Drawing on sassy socialist memes on the Chinese internet repackaging propaganda posters and slogans for online conversations, we conducted discourse analysis of these memes and interviews with meme users. We find that memes reappropriating political discourse are not necessarily used for political implications. Rather, their meanings vary in usage contexts that are mostly non-political daily conversations—political discourse in China has been gradually resignified to incorporate diverse non-political meanings in the memetic process of cultural reappropriation. Furthermore, the depoliticizing potential of memes is precisely built upon the politicization of propaganda discourse for mass persuasion. The discursive construction of propaganda and its indoctrination in Chinese society are potentially leading to its own deconstruction in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reviews and builds upon Aníbal Quijano's contribution to decolonial theory to sketch out what I refer to as the geopolitics and coloniality of curriculum, broadly understood as an imperial doctrine and a pedagogical mode of domination aimed at producing a modern/colonial subjectivity. It argues that the geopolitics and coloniality of the curriculum reveal the relationship between geopolitical designs, colonialism, and curriculum, thereby contributing to the interrogation of how dominant ways of knowing are propagated discursively and pedagogically. The article focuses on how the geopolitics and coloniality of curriculum enable the reading, interpretation and unsettling of curricular discourses and pedagogical practices reproducing Euro‐Anglo‐American ways of being (ontological violence), individualist ways of knowing (epistemic violence) and racialised affective grammars. It concludes by gesturing towards ways to think, be, act, relate and do otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends academic debates occurring in the discursive intersections between childhood studies and tourist studies. Drawing on theoretical concepts devised by Mikhail Bakhtin and Erving Goffman, it employs a critical discourse analysis that focuses on the representation of tourists in selected travel-themed episodes of three popular children's television series. This study investigates how travel experiences and practices of touristic consumption are discursively constructed and interrogates how this tourist discourse is implicated in relationships performed by children and adults or authority figures in these narratives. The findings imply that children's travel-themed television narratives both challenge and reinforce cultural assumptions about tourist behaviour. This paper highlights how literary devices such as carnivalesque humour and anthropomorphism are employed to convey cultural messages and touristic themes. It also demonstrates that critical discourse analysis is an effective framework for explaining and understanding the various social interactions, roles, and relationships portrayed in these narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentation is a fundamental communicative ability that children develop over time through formal schooling and daily practice with peers and family members. Literature on children's argumentation appears to have focused on their social interactions out of school, clinical environment, or informal pedagogic contexts. Even though there are research inquiries into children's argumentation in formal academic learning, many have been focused on argumentative writing in math or science classes. Much less is known about teacher-led argumentation and the youngest children's emerging argumentation in language art classes, where argumentation is formally and systematically introduced and learned. This paper reports a year-long ethnographic study on argumentation in a first-grade English language art classroom in the United States. Ethnographic discourse analysis was conducted to analyze two key literacy events from the daily reader's and writer's workshop. It is supplemented with qualitative analysis of the researchers' field notes and the students' artifacts. Our findings highlight the inherent intertextual nature of children's argumentation and a critical role the teacher played in eliciting and steering the children's argumentation construction through strategic instructional conversations (especially accountable talk). Our findings also revealed teacher-led children's intertextual argumentation as a powerful heuristic process and tool to enrich students' learning. The paper concludes some classroom argumentation teaching practices based on the research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have called for more critical considerations of social justice and tourism that align with the tenets, values, and practices for sustainability, transformation, and social change. The aim of this research was to map and critically assess the status of refugee-related research in tourism, particularly with regards to the extent to which it adopts, or extends, a social justice-oriented agenda. A systematic literature review of existing studies was conducted. Content analysis assessed three aspects of 37 studies, namely, (1) the topics covered, (2) the extent to which the research aligns with social justice research practices, and (3) the extent to which the research furthers the social justice agenda for transformation. The review revealed a body of work that does not demonstrate social justice research practices; mostly because the refugee-related research topics of focus do not exhibit a social justice-oriented agenda. Our review illustrated that existing tourism research tends to frame refugees negatively and as a threat to destinations, and neglect critical considerations of epistemologies, reflexivity, and research processes. We conclude by highlighting alternative approaches that could contribute to a social justice-oriented agenda, using tourism as a bridge for creating change within structures, discourses, and practices in refugee-related research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lately, there has been massive media coverage of gang-related criminality in 'exposed areas' in Sweden. Politicians have blamed the illegal drugs trade without questioning the country's prohibitionist drug policy. This study analyzes how cannabis is constructed in Swedish newspaper articles that mention both organized crime and cannabis. We ask how the drug and its buyers and sellers are described, what discourses are drawn upon, and discuss the relationship between media coverage and drug policy. We analyzed recent (2021) articles from four newspapers (n = 71) through Critical Discourse Analysis. Cannabis was constructed as a commodity linked to violence and deviance. Agency was attributed to people with power and status (e.g. gang leaders), and recreational cannabis users were described as guilty of feeding organized crime. A combination of economic and moral discourses was used to make the reported events meaningful, and to motivate both prohibition and decriminalization/legalization. The study shows that assumedly neutral journalistic voices emphasized the link between cannabis and violence and problematized cannabis buyers and sellers. This homogenous media coverage will probably contribute to keep the question of cannabis law reform discursively lifeless in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how bereaved individuals co-construct social support and social norms in the social interaction of 14 bereavement group meetings in Denmark. To study this, we used a discourse analytical approach focusing on how the participants position their social supporters. The results show that the participants designate, uphold, and presuppose two hierarchical positions to bereaved and non-bereaved supporters with different abilities to understand them. Based on this finding, the concepts of "grief participation rights" and "social support hierarchy" are proposed to supplement existing notions of "rights to grieve" and "grief hierarchy." These concepts suggest that non-bereaved supporters are not accorded the same participatory rights in social support conversations as bereaved individuals who have suffered a similar loss as the speaker. The concepts are discussed in relation to effective social support and in the context of research on social disconnection in grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Named entity recognition (NER) plays a pivotal role in Natural Language Processing by identifying and classifying entities within textual data. While NER methodologies have seen significant advancements, driven by pretrained word embeddings and deep neural networks, the majority of these studies have focused on text with well-defined grammar and structure. A significant research gap exists concerning NER in informal or unstructured text, where traditional grammar rules and sentence structure are absent. This research addresses this crucial gap by focusing on the detection of product names within unstructured Turkish text. To accomplish this, we propose a deep learning-based NER model which combines a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) architecture with a Conditional Random Field (CRF) layer, further enhanced by FastText embeddings. To comprehensively evaluate and compare our model's performance, we explore different embedding approaches, including Word2Vec and Glove, in conjunction with the Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory and Conditional Random Field (BiLSTM-CRF) model. Furthermore, we conduct comparisons against BERT to assess the efficacy of our approach. Our experimentation utilizes a Turkish e-commerce dataset gathered from the internet, where traditional grammatical and structural rules may not apply. The BiLSTM-CRF model with FastText embeddings achieved an F1 score value of 57.40%, a precision value of 55.78%, and a recall value of 59.12%. These results indicate promising performance in outperforming other baseline techniques. This research contributes to the field of NER by addressing the unique challenges posed by unstructured Turkish text and opens avenues for improved entity recognition in informal language settings, with potential applications across various domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of financial risk management, the accuracy of portfolio Value-at-Risk (VaR) forecasts is of critical importance to both practitioners and academics. This study pioneers a comprehensive evaluation of a univariate model that leverages high-frequency intraday data to improve portfolio VaR forecasts, providing a novel contrast to both univariate and multivariate models based on daily data. Existing research has used such high-frequency-based univariate models for index portfolios, it has not adequately studied their robustness for portfolios with diverse risk profiles, particularly under changing market conditions, such as during crises. Our research fills this gap by proposing a refined univariate long-memory realized volatility model that incorporates realized variance and covariance metrics, eliminating the necessity for a parametric covariance matrix. This model captures the long-run dependencies inherent in the volatility process and provides a flexible alternative that can be paired with appropriate return innovation distributions for VaR estimation. Empirical analyses show that our methodology significantly outperforms traditional univariate and multivariate Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models in terms of forecasting accuracy while maintaining computational simplicity and ease of implementation. In particular, the inclusion of high-frequency data in univariate volatility models not only improves forecasting accuracy but also streamlines the complexity of portfolio risk assessment. This research extends the discourse between academic research and financial practice, highlighting the transformative impact of high-frequency data on risk management strategies within the financial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the one hand, feminists critique the securitization of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) on various grounds, but, on the other hand, also raise concerns that the Western hyper-fixation on CRSV reproduces colonial narratives about race, gender, and sexuality. However, the productive effects of specifically Western state discourse about CRSV have yet to be fully examined in this context. How do Western states make use of the colonial gaze in constructing CRSV as an issue of grave concern, and to what ends? Further, what are the implications of this for the nexus of feminist critique and praxis? This article utilizes a macro-structural approach to discourse analysis to analyze the 2014 Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, led by the United Kingdom. It argues that Western delegates securitized CRSV by relying on tropes of racialized men as maintaining backwards practices of gender and sexuality, and the construction of CRSV as a “pre-modern” weapon of war. This frame reproduces a racialized hierarchy of masculinity that constructs men from “conflict countries” as potential perpetrators in need of intervention, and men from “safe countries” as role models for gender-conscious militarized manhood. The article concludes by identifying potential practical implications of this discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports findings from a study that examining how cross-platform social media analysis can help to map the digital discourse on sustainable mobility and sustainable transport, and enhance the understanding of sociotechnical low-carbon transport transitions. Using the hashtag search queries #sustainabletransport and #sustainablemobility, 33,121 Tweets (2013–2021) and 8,089 Instagram images including captions (2017/2018–2021) were scraped using the Python modules Twint and Instaloader. Quantitative text and sentiment analyses were applied to the Tweets and image captions. Additionally, an automated machine learning-based image analysis of the Instagram images was conducted using object detection via OpenCV. Synthesized results formed the base for a cross-platform analysis inspired by Rogers' method comprising hot topics/key themes, user mentions, sentiment polarity, and co-hashtags. Notably, electromobility emerged as a prominent theme, particularly on Instagram, while #sustainabletransport was closely associated with active travel, notably bicycling, and #sustainablemobility showcased a dominance of electromobility discourse. The study demonstrates the investigative potentials of cross-platform social media analysis studies to enhance the understanding of sociotechnical low-carbon transport transitions. Drawing on key results, the paper suggests an adapted version of the Geelsean Multi-Level Perspective on Sociotechnical Transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article discusses the use of multiple identities in narratives by refugees engaged in higher education paths at Kakuma camp (Kenya). Following the Positioning theory, we explored identity displays in narratives collected through semi-structured interviews. The analysis deepens 5 narratives which had been considered exemplary to showcase the transformative valence of higher education. Different identity positioning was analyzed looking at before and after graduation as a crucial episode. Results showed three different narratives, and a range of diverse identity positions: the first narrative is about becoming a community leader, which responds to the very aim of the diploma course; the second narrative is about becoming successful, prevalently as professionals and as community members; and the third one concerns women perspective about an emancipatory and empowering educational path that challenges the status quo. This study contributes to the analysis of refugees’ identities from a critical perspective that challenges stereotyped notions by showing the use of narratives to mobilize and display multi-faceted selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain fog is a phenomenon that is frequently reported by persons with chronic pain. Difficulties with cognition including memory impairments, attentional issues, and cloudiness are commonly described. The current medical literature demonstrates a similar cloudiness: there is no clear taxonomy or nomenclature, no well-validated evaluations and a dearth of effective interventions. To focus our understanding of this complex phenomenon, we will perform a discourse analysis to explore how brain fog is described in public posts on social media. Discursive methodology will generate insights regarding the societal understanding and meanings attributed to brain fog, by sampling perspectives of persons with lived experience, currently underrepresented in the medical literature. It is anticipated that the results of the proposed study will 1) help healthcare professionals better understand the experience of chronic pain-related brain fog and 2) generate hypotheses for future research. To conclude, by incorporating innovative and contemporary methods, this proposed discourse analysis of social media sources will generate nuanced insights, bridging the gap between researchers, health care providers, and persons with lived experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to explore how students interpret and negotiate menstruation in PE in online forums. We conducted a qualitative discourse analysis of 12 threads from 4 different German-language online forums, in which menstruation in PE is discussed by students. Our goal was to analyse which topics structure this online discourse and how menstruation in PE is constructed as a discourse phenomenon. The study found that participation in PE during menstruation and the use of hygiene products are the dominant topics, with swimming in PE gaining particular attention. The results further detail that students’ online posts invoke specific causes, conditions, consequences, and strategies for dealing with menstruation in PE. The results indicate that students posting in online forums mainly interpret menstruation as an individual, shameful, restrictive, and unpleasant issue, stabilising norms of silence and concealment. Future research and pedagogical approaches must account for this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This corpus-based study scrutinizes South Korean media's portrayal of North Korean defectors (NKDs), especially women. Analyzing data from five leading newspapers (Chosun Ilbo, DongA Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, Hankyoreh, and Kyunghyang Sinmun) and Women News, this article explores power and gender dynamics in media language shaping NKD identities. Using corpus tools, statistical analysis of keywords, and collocations, the study integrates critical discourse analysis of narratives obtained through concordance search. Key findings reveal the significant underrepresentation and misrepresentation of NKD women, often stereotyping them only as victims of violence. The research advocates for a broader gender perspective in media coverage and diverse portrayals of NKD women and men as integral members of the community, emphasizing the need for gender-sensitive and inclusive language in South Korean media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study combined ecological, environmental, nature-based, and epistemic interpretations of older adulthood to gain a previously unresearched look at how older adults feel that their relations with nature are treated by others. Sixty older adults were interviewed in-depth, and data was analyzed using the Eco-Appreciation framework and Thematic Content Analysis. The results indicate the concurrence of processes of withdrawal of older adults from spaces of nature and discourse about nature. These processes obstruct older adults' wellbeing; entail the infliction of existential epistemic injustices and "eco-ageism" toward them; and emphasize the crucial role social work can play in responding thereto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explore the potential challenges that may arise when employing generative AI models in the process of Shi'i ijtihad. By drawing upon academic literature and relevant primary sources, the essay surveys the most critical AI-related hurdles in this field, including issues of accessibility, privacy concerns, the problem of "AI hallucination" and the generative nature of AI models, biases in AI systems, the lack of transparency and inexplicability, the intricacies of interpreting and understanding sensitive topics, accountability, authority, trust and acceptance among lay believers. Using discourse and content analysis as method, the article concludes that, given these challenges, generative AI models are not yet suitable for utilization in this process. However, the rapid progress in AI may eventually make it an effective tool for this purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on ten semi-structured interviews with mothers about their maternal selfie practices in order to explore how they use and navigate the form in relation to their motherhood identities and experiences. Whilst work on the form is still emerging, we examine the claim that maternal selfies offer space for a uniquely subjective expression/depiction of motherhood. As part of this, we explore how discussions of their selfie practices – and appraisals of the cultural circulation of the maternal selfie – resist and (re)produce discourses on acceptable digital and cultural paradigms of motherhood. The themes which emerged from these data were 1) the maternal selfie as empowerment, 2) authenticity as regulatory discourse and 3) the risks of negative affect. In drawing on work on neoliberal and intensive mothering frames, the article examines how the increasing emphasis (in digital cultures in particular) on displaying the complex realities of motherhood are implicated within the surveillance and self-surveillance of maternal visibility in ways which may (further) delimit the possibilities for maternal self-expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the burgeoning literature on how women construct resistance, project their agency and sculpt a positive identity for themselves. It employs feminist critical discourse analysis as a framework to examine how Nigerian blogs on gender issues constitute a discursive site for sociopolitical action, the interrogation and deconstruction of gendered social structures and the amplification of women's voices(s). The article analyzes discursive strategies used in the blogposts to resist gender inequality, women's exploitation and female subjugation while constructing a positive image for women and emphasizing their empowerment. The results reveal three main strategies: (1) denouncing patriarchy and gender discrimination, (2) countering toxic gender narratives and (3) calling out sexist attitudes and praising women who resist such behaviour. Together, these mechanisms contribute to a sociopolitical critique of systematic gendering of privilege aimed at social transformation and Nigerian/African women's emancipation. Implications of the study for research on marginalized, disenfranchised groups are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subjective experience of neurological symptoms provides useful information for assessment, intervention and care. However, research in the subjective experience of aphasia is limited. Word production difficulties are universal to aphasia, and interdisciplinary research has produced sophisticated models of the multiple stages and processes involved. Critically, this word-production research does not incorporate the subjective experience of symptoms. We carried out a metaphor-led discourse analysis on autobiographical accounts written by people with aphasia, to determine whether subjective descriptions of word finding difficulties are consistent with the stages and processes of psycholinguistic models. Metaphor-led discourse analysis was used to identify, code and interpret metaphorical expressions describing word production difficulties in 12 English-language autobiographical accounts written by people with aphasia. These expressions were then analysed to determine the systematic metaphors (i.e., the related concepts which are used consistently to describe a particular topic). Two distinct types of systematic metaphor emerged in the analysis: conventional systematic metaphors frequently recurring throughout all or most of the accounts; novel systematic metaphors used in one or two extended passages in an overlapping subset of the accounts. 4020 metaphorical expressions described word production, predominantly using conventional metaphors about communication and cognition. The conventional metaphor WORD-PRODUCTION AS MOVING OBJECTS OUT OF A CONTAINER was the most prevalent, with elaborations and variations allowing mapping of different symptoms. Other conventional metaphors included: WORD PRODUCTION AS A JOURNEY/HUNTING/HERDING THROUGH A LANDSCAPE, allowing description of effortful or partial retrieval, neuroplastic recovery, and internal strategies; APHASIA AS BODILY IMPAIRMENT, which described various symptoms in terms of different body parts, including self-monitoring difficulties; and APHASIA AS FRAGMENTATION AND PERSONIFICATION OF SELF and SELF AS MACHINE/COMPUTER to describe a disrupted sense of agency and attention. Novel systematic metaphors were used to describe certain symptoms: APHASIA AS SILENCE and APHASIA AS SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE were used to describe a lack of 'inner speech', and APHASIA AS A DISMEMBERED TREE to describe problems making semantic associations. This research demonstrates the many consistencies of subjective descriptions of word production difficulties in aphasia with theoretical models, but also shows that some subjectively salient symptoms, in particular attentional and self-monitoring difficulties, and a lack of inner speech, are not captured by all theoretical models. Careful attention to the way that people with aphasia describe their symptoms can provide a valuable source of information to be integrated with objective measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an implication of the ethnically and nationally diverse nature of Mediterranean polities, identification-driven boundary-making strategies bear considerable relevance for their political processes, both in the contemporary context and in the historical past. By utilizing a Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), this study provides an interpretative exploration of Greek-Cypriot elite discursive framing strategies regarding Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot ethno-national identity during the Cypriot Civil War (1963–1967). The available historical interpretations of this period lead us to expect an exclusionary strategy of boundary contraction to be more prevalent than the inclusionary one of boundary expansion in the discourse of Greek-Cypriot elites. Through an examination of a sample of primary textual sources, the analysis disconfirms such an expectation, as elite figures primarily constructed broader, inclusive frames of ethno-national identity during the civil war. The relative absence of boundary contraction and the prevalence of boundary expansion indicate the applicability of Wimmer's (2008) universalist approach to ethnic boundary-making, in contrast to the expectations that are built by the Cyprus-specific historical evidence. This study thus lays the groundwork for future research to delineate the discursive framing strategies of elite figures in Cyprus and beyond the ethno-nationally divided island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore discourses about social emotional learning (SEL) and trauma-informed practices (TIP) as school interventions in response to resistance from students and guardians. We analyze an illustrative example and one data source that casts light on the deficit impact of SEL and TIP discourses on both teacher/school practices and children and guardian experiences in navigating such discourses. Resistance is explored and ultimately defended in the context of the interventions being enacted upon the children/youth and as a literacy of survivance for children/youth with traumatized histories, along with the guardians who advocate for and shield them from such interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science educators are integrating more and more computational thinking (CT) activities into their curricula. Proponents of CT offer two motivations: familiarizing students with a realistic depiction of the computational nature of modern scientific practices and encouraging more students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, some studies show that increasing exposure to computing may not necessarily translate to the hypothesized gains in participation by female students and students of color. Therefore, paying close attention to students' engagement in computationally intense science activities is important to finding more impactful ways to promote equitable science education. In this paper, we present an in‐depth analysis of the interactions among a small, racially diverse group of high school students during a chemistry unit with tightly integrated CT activities. We find a salient interaction between the students' engagement with the CT activities and their social identification with publicly recognizable categories such as "enjoys coding" or "finds computing boring." We show that CT activities in science education can lead to numerous rich interactions that could, if leveraged correctly, allow educators to facilitate more inclusive science classrooms. However, we also show that such opportunities would be missed unless teachers are attentive to them. We discuss the implications of our findings on future work to integrate CT across science curricula and teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youths with physical disabilities experience various obstacles in their transition to adulthood which can contribute to poorer health and socioeconomic outcomes in later life, compared to their non-disabled peers. Transitional care offers these youths the necessary support to overcome such obstacles. The objective of this study was to explore participants' experiential learning in the development of life skills within the transitional care program TranXition, and their perceived contribution of the program to their goal attainment. Data were collected using photo-elicitation. Five participants were recruited from the TranXition program to audio-visually record (photographs or videos) their meaningful experiences in the program and to reflect on them during interviews. Participants felt the TranXition program helped them build their self-awareness and self-efficacy, and to feel more confident and skilled, whether at home, in school or in the community. Moreover, they appreciated the program's group cohesion which facilitated learning life skills from others in order to achieve their goals. Finally, results suggest that group interventions, while important, may need to be complemented by individual consultations. Rehabilitation programs in real-world settings, such as the TranXition program, may be a promising adjunct to traditional transitional care for youths with physical disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]