education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 57 book review higher education 4.0: the digital transformation of classroom lectures to blended learning by jones kevin anthony, ravi s. sharma, springer, singapore, 2021, x+279pp.,180 (pbk), isbn: 978-981-33-6682-4 xi li 1 , ting pan 2 , & yu wu 3* 1 school of foreign languages, chengdu normal university, chengdu, china 2 school of english, sichuan international studies university, chongqing, china 3 institute of research on yangming and guizhou studies, guiyang university, guiyang, china * yu wu, institute of research on yangming and guizhou studies guiyang university, guiyang, china received: may 10, 2024 accepted: may 20, 2024 online published: june 2, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n2p57 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n2p57 published by the springer nature singapore pte ltd. in 2021, the book entitled “higher education 4.0 : the digital transformation of classroom lectures to blended learning” by kevin anthony jones and ravi s. sharma presents an enlightening research for seeking out the impact of changing the instructional design from traditional lecturing to blended learning on the students’ academic achievements. as professional teacher and researchers of english in education, we read this book with particular interests, believing that it is a well-timed international publication under the global effects of the covid-19 pandemic on teaching forms. the book under review exhibits a well-organized research project based on scientific experiment model, indicating the objectives, scope, methodology and findings of the research through 7 chapters. it provides readers with a thrilling opportunity to dig out the influencing factors in academic performances of students due to the teaching design transition. besides, the significant findings can help improve the blended learning model. we believe this book is an essential guidance for future digital teaching and would appeal to educators and researchers. the book is logically composed of 7 chapters which are all around this research. the first chapter offers a panoramic outline of this educational research, starting with a thesis paper about personal motivations. according to the unified modeling language (uml) class diagram that was slightly adjusted for practicability, the authors elaborate the study’s complete scope of literature search, planning, conduct, and analysis. firstly, to figure out the underlying influences, the research question is segmented into two parts: effect and problem-solution. the former is reflected by scores and the latter concerns the problems in traditional lecturing. secondly, in line with the detailed information of venue and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. participants, the literature class, the design-based methodology and the platform class are determined. finally, what is concluded from scientific analysis of data has brought readers enlightenments about digital transition in instruction, the knowledge system and future relevant study. the second chapter discusses the existing knowledge in learning and teaching about this study, especially the instruction theory by a case of instructional design. initially, the authors point out the setting of formal learning is unrestrained and accidental. then by explaining its didactic model which depicts the relation among teacher, student and content, the development theory and learning strategy are introduced. in doing so, the authors indicate that the main “isms” in strategy and theory are coexisting rather than contradictory. secondly, based on the uml class diagram of relation of existing knowledge, the authors clarify respectively the instruction theory by gagné’s nine events and chickering and gamson’s seven principles, and the related choice of teaching design. finally, the seven learning strategy taken into study and a citation of publication in blended learning are presented for better understanding. the third chapter explains the methodology applied in the system of the research platform and the conduct of the experiment. in first three sections, the authors make it clear that the instructional design of “blended learning” is deployed by scientific high-level plan, principles, six-step method and nine steps of instruction, determining it as the archetypal “40% elearning plus 60% f2f”. in last three sections, being consistent with the mentioned technical procedures, some experiment details are displayed for closer comprehension, including weekly learning activities, the learning journey and educational technology in which items are arranged by uml model and cots is focused as new technology. the fourth chapter elaborates the first tier of the “two-tier composite model”, the learning model, which is fixed by the reputed prosser and trigwell model of learning and teaching of higher education students. the learning model is used for data requirement and theory explanation which are two key procedures. therefore, detailed model design is made known to readers. to begin with an overview, three adjustments of the prosser and trigwell model are made including diagram replacement, term rejection and learning approach change. then structure diagram and behavioral diagram are presented. the former is uml “class” with no overlapping and the latter is uml activity showing behavior sequence. lastly, the authors give some information of concepts in two diagrams such as prior experience, learning situation, learning approaches, learning outcomes and model traceability. the fifth chapter clarifies the second tier of the “two-tier composite model”, the data model, which maps to the conceptions in the learning model and offers the amplification of data in statistical testing. the authors first introduce the content of the data model: a diagram, explanatory words and a data dictionary pertaining to all the 27 variable classes, and make an interpretation of diagram. then they give an elaboration of the associated variables. by the combination of texts and tables, variable-controlling approach and bloom’s taxonomy are prominent in whole research design. to end www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. with, they present the mapping between data and learning model elements, the methodical data collection by time and source classification, and auditability and verification of data by rigor processes. the sixth chapter provides a summary of statistical analysis results of data set in accordance with the afore-mentioned data model. at first, the main structure of the analysis is depicted based on non-uml form, and the authors specify the research question into three detailed questions which contains advantage, disadvantage and predictions in blended learning. then descriptive statistics is demonstrated according to the involved variables by “count”, “summarize”, “t test” and wicoxon (mann-whitney). the authors also scrutinize the influence of prior experience and learning approach to blended learning, dealing with the three questions. finally, a congruity check is made to marks of every semester. the last chapter purposes all exploratory conclusions, contributions to existing knowledge, limits and advices to future research. firstly, conforming to the didactic triangle of formal education, eleven broad conclusions are classified into three categories including “student and learning”, “teacher and teaching” and “curriculum and organization”. it points out what contributes to the improvement on marks and how can the blended learning be enhanced. secondly, the authors indicate the contributions and limits according to the real situation of the research. lastly, they suggest the future direction of blended learning in higher education. the main contribution of the book is that the authors make an exploratory analysis of the research problems “the impact of the change of teaching design from traditional lectures to blended learning on students' academic performance” through the design-based method, which is of great research significance under the background that blended learning is about to become the mainstream in the covid-19 pandemic. this study investigates the learning of higher education students in asia by using scientific uml diagrams, research platforms and models. besides, the conclusions have referential significance for the teaching transformation all around the world. it can not only help researchers and teachers to check students' adaptability in new teaching design and find effective methods in learning and teaching, but also guide schools to make continuous improvements in teaching arrangements. in this research, the author makes a scientific transition between traditional teaching and blended learning according to the design-based research method. as researchers, from the perspective of solving problems, they explore the specific influencing factors of teaching design change on students' performance, so as to improve the current teaching effects and provide reference for the future promotion of blended learning. in addition, the author makes further cooperation between the learning model and the data model through the two-tier composite model, and obtains the conclusions about the influencing factors. through this approach, the authors describe and explain the possible reasons for these conclusions in three aspects, and how to delineate the impact of this teaching design reform at the theoretical level. under current teaching and learning environment, this kind of research helps to provide timely and strict reference, so that teachers and researchers can benefit. therefore, the value of this research can encourage all related teachers and researchers to explore the possible problems and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. solutions of blended learning replacing traditional teaching. the book would be more comprehensive if it adds more cases from different regions and nationalities, which can increase the diversity and hence conduce to the accuracy of research results. yet, the book is of great benefit for higher education institutions and teachers who need to put forward a transition from traditional teaching to blended learning, because it has lead a prospective investigation for future research and practice. this monograph is an academic exploration of learning and teaching in higher education. the book review paper acknowledges that it will not only guide students to make perceived efforts in specific aspects, but also provoke teachers, researchers and universities to develop all involved processes in blended learning. acknowledgement sichuan provincial key research base of humanities and social sciences in colleges and universities-professional development research center of teachers in sichuan primary and secondary schools “virtual reality technology empowers the professional development of foreign language teachers in primary and secondary schools” (grant number: pdtr2022-23). education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper the merits of teaching basic courses in engineering curriculum atef a. ata 1* 1 department of engineering mathematics and physics, faculty of engineering, alexandria university, alexandria (21544), egypt * atef a. ata, department of engineering mathematics and physics, faculty of engineering, alexandria university, alexandria (21544), egypt received: march 26, 2024 accepted: april 7, 2024 online published: april 18, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n2p1 abstract this paper tries to answer the question frequently asked by engineering students, why we are studying basic subjects such as mathematics, mechanics and physics. engineering students study these basic subjects in addition to some other courses such as computer programming, production, chemistry and some humanity courses during their first year of study as a preparatory year for all engineering disciplines. students are expecting to study their major subjects in the first year of study when they enroll in faculty of engineering around the world. it is almost impossible to teach advanced subjects such as fluid mechanics, mechanical vibration, automatic control, modeling and simulation and robotics without prior knowledge of the basic courses. the students could not recognize in their first year of study that understanding basic mathematics and mechanics skills help them a lot in getting the knowledge of advanced courses easily and effectively. for example, all automatic control courses need some modelling techniques which the students can gain by studying engineering mechanics and calculus during their first level of study. basic knowledge of newton’s second law of motion and basic rules of calculus are very important in achieving satisfactory understanding of the advanced topics in all disciplines. some of the advanced topics for example robot jacobian is based on partial derivatives and the equations of motion of a multi-joints robot manipulator are based on lagrange’s equation. the students cannot understand subjects such as heat transfer and thermal power stations and fluid mechanics without basic knowledge of physics. keywords engineering, education, curriculum, mechnics, basic, merits, learning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction teaching engineering mechanics with its two components statics and dynamics is very important for all engineering disciplines. it is almost impossible to find an engineering curriculum without mechanics subject. some universities teach mechanics for one semester, others are teaching mechanics for the first two semesters. alexandria university in egypt teaches mechanics for three semester statics, dynamics of particle and rigid body dynamics respectively. it should be noted that the engineering mechanics course is one of the basic courses in civil engineering as well. it is a bridge between public courses, professional basic courses and professional engineering courses (lin, 2021). due to the importance of mechanics in engineering curriculum, some universities offer the course in the form of lectures and tutorials while others offer the course as lectures and laboratory sessions. bernhard (2000) presented the efforts in establishing microcomputer based laboratory mbl for mechanics course at linkoping university in sweden. the main objective of the laboratory is to promote conceptual change in mechanics. in mbl students perform real experimental, not simulated experiments using various types of sensors (motion, force, torque, light, temperature, sound, proximity) connected to a computer via an interface. the results and graphs are displayed in real-time to bridge the gap between real experiments and the theoretical information. huang et al. (2020) presented a new strategy in teaching engineering mechanics by integrating the subject of optimization theory into mechanics modelling using normal modelling techniques. the main objective of this integration is to promote the students’ structural optimization modelling skills to enhance their understanding of the basic concepts in mechanics and mathematics and master a general method for practical problem solving. the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is demonstrated by the “six principles” for designing thought-revealing activities and the feedback from all participants in the course. montes et al. (2023) demonstrated how the propaedeutic subjects, such as mathematics and/or physics in degrees that combine the need for technical knowledge with creative skills, can promote creative processes of an architectural project. they developed the concept of equilibrium challenge and adapted it to physics subject and create an interaction with other subjects as well. they presented challenges that include experiments with physical concepts and some other learning outcome from different subjects such as mathematics, introduction to architecture, drawing, or history of art. this paper will elaborate on this idea and focuses on the importance of teaching basic engineering subjects such as engineering mechanics in understanding advanced subjects in engineering curriculum in all disciplines. the material of the paper is based on the long experience of teaching basic engineering subjects such as engineering mechanics and mathematics for undergraduate students and advanced subjects such as robotics and modelling and simulation for postgraduate students. some problems faced and possible solutions related to this matter will also be highlighted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. 2. discussion engineering students learn statics during their first semester to enhance their understanding about equilibrium and how engineers can achieve it in all engineering applications. newton’s first and third laws furnish the basis for action and reaction and how to stabilize engineering structures in every application. this course will expand the students’ knowledge about the conditions for equilibrium for what they can see around them in our daily life. the concept of action and reaction will help them in understanding higher subjects in advanced semesters and to be ready to study dynamics in their next semester. there is no doubt that dynamics of particle and rigid body is essential for all engineering students. the fruit of the dynamics course is the determination of the equation of motion for any dynamical systems either in translation or rotation motion. equation of motion is a relation between mass, force and acceleration in translation motion and inertia, torque and angular acceleration in rotation motion. in deriving equation of motion students learn the concept of momentum and energy principle and the difference between them and how to apply each concept to find the equation of motion in any moving object. once the equation of motion is determined, student can compromise between different parameters to properly select the best values for the optimal performance. during this course the engineering students learn how to apply newton’s second law of motion, d’alembert principle of dynamic equilibrium and lagrange’s equation as tools in higher engineering subjects. dynamics course is the secret word in understanding many engineering subjects in higher semesters. these subjects include but not limited to fluid mechanics, machine design, mechanical vibration, theory of machines, automatic control, modelling and simulation, sensors and actuators theory of structures and final year’s projects. in subjects such as automatic control, mechanical vibration and robotics, finding the equations of motion is very crucial in designing control strategy for the moving objects. without mathematical model, of objects either in translation or rotation motion, it is very hard to design the controller using linear control theory. in the absence of mathematical models, some other control strategies such as neural networks, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms can be applied. in the subject of modelling and simulation of dynamical systems, the modelling techniques such as newton’s second law of motion, lagrange equation and hamilton’s principle have great contribution in understanding the subject. for the final year’s project, students are required to integrate their knowledge and come up with some innovative ideas as a working project. in most of the cases, students need to do a force analysis for their structure to make sure that their project structure is stable and will not collapse under the prescribed loads. they can apply their conceptual understanding and knowledge of equilibrium of frames and machines to design their platform. if the project contains moving objects, deriving the equations of motion is essential to select the proper parameters of the project to satisfy the required needs such as velocity, wheels dimensions and actuator sizes. also, the equations of motions of the moving objects is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. very important to draw the block diagram and apply linear control theory to control the motion of the moving object. it should be noted that it is difficult to start teaching design early in the curriculum, because a context in which design can be taught is not available. a degree of student dissatisfaction was apparent due to the absence of engineering in the first two years (belytschko, bayliss, brinson, carr, kath, krishnaswamy, moran, nocedal, & peshkin, 1997). as a concluding remark, engineering mechanics helps in most of the engineering curricula for different engineering courses and applications. table 1 shows some of the engineering courses that depend on the understanding of engineering mechanics in getting full benefits by students. table 1. some of the courses that depend on engineering mechanics in different engineering disciplines courses mechanical engineering electrical engineering civil engineering mechatronic engineering marine engineering fluid mechanics √ √ √ √ √ theory of machines √ √ √ machine design √ √ √ mechanical vibration √ √ √ √ modelling and simulation √ √ √ √ √ automatic control √ √ √ √ √ sensors and actuators √ √ theory of structures √ √ √ √ √ final year’s project √ √ √ √ √ one of the merits of teaching engineering mechanics is increasing the student’s awareness of how the application of the theoretical information can lead to an interesting advanced technological projects. this makes the students anxious to learn more basic knowledge to apply and answer the frequently asked question why we are studying these basic subjects. for instance, the basic knowledge of a two-force member, equilibrium of particle and equilibrium of rigid body, wonderful structures and trusses such as bridges, hanging bridges, communication towers, electric distribution towers, factory www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. and house roofs, advertisement panels, etc. can be designed and implemented. in order to design a moving object ranging from baby toys to a complicated industrial manipulator, the equation of motion should be derived using either newton’s second law of motion or lagrange’s equation. the instructors can always refer to these great applications as a results when teaching the basic knowledge to enhance the students’ desire to appreciate what they are studying. references belytschko, t., bayliss, a., brinson, c., carr, s., kath, w., krishnaswamy, s., moran, b., nocedal, j. & peshkin m. (1997). mechanics in the engineering first curriculum at northwestern university. int. j. engineering education, 13(6), 457-472. bernhard, j. (2000). teaching engineering mechanics courses using active engagement methods. physics teaching in engineering education (ptee 2000), budapest. huang, z., wen, m., yang, t., & fan, b. (2020). an effective teaching strategy for engineering mechanics to develop structural optimization modeling skills of undergraduates. international journal of mechanical engineering education, 48(3), 271-283. doi: 10.1177/0306419018821293 lin, r. (2021). teaching reform of engineering mechanics course based on obe mode with computer aid. journal of physics: conference series mace 2020, iop publishing, 1-5, doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1744/3/032207 montés, n., hilario, l., rivera, j., lópez, a., ferrer, t., verdejo, p., ignacio juan, i., & ábalos, a. (2023). the equilibrium challenge, a new way to teach engineering mechanics in architecture degrees, education. sciences., 13, 398, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040398 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 27 original paper the culture of philosophy withering away on the basis of hungarian philosophical experiences sándor karikó1* 1 university of szeged, jgypk, szeged, hungary * sándor karikó, university of szeged, jgypk, szeged, hungary received: december 6, 2021 accepted: december 14, 2021, 2021 online published: december 20, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n1p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n1p27 absract philosophy is for itself, in other words, it is an activity for itself by itself. it is one of the most precious intellectual treasures and pleasures of a human being. there are many symptoms which show that abstract thinking has lost its former glory, its glorious position in society. unfortunately, the culture of philosophy has become a degraded intellectual phenomenon, and this short study analyses the reasons for its diminished value. it would like to stress there reasons: the first is: the practicable principle and interest as the age symptom. the second is: when the politics intervenes in the philosophy of the function (but we know that act of the way of thought is other as the movement of politics. the third is: the responsibility or irresponsibility of the philosophers. this study remarks some critical point of views in connection of there reasons. in conclusion, i claim that the current state of philosophy is the business of everybody; philosophy is a common intellectual property for all of us. in contrast to the public awareness, it is not an “aristocratic genre” but a “plebeian” one. keywords philosophy, culture, teaching, research, judgement many symptoms show that abstract thinking has lost its former glory, its glorious position in society. philosophy has become a degraded intellectual phenomenon. there can be several reasons for its degradation, and i would like to present some of them. first of all, one should make it clear: the contemporary time period (its general movement and tendency) is not very beneficial for the propagation of philosophy. it is not hard to see that reality is dominated by the pragmatic perspective, principle of direct and immediate practicality and interest at that given moment. nowadays, we do not have enough time, patience and do not want to endeavour to analyse phenomena in their own complexity, their own long-term process and consequences. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. short-term lucrative investment and pursuit of success have occupied the everyday life of institutions, companies and people who work. there is no capacity to process long-term profound general correlations, in many cases the competence itself is missing as well. globalisation, climate crisis, modern migration, pandemic etc. occur in scientific, political and public discourses as general problems, but the universal thinking with a wide historical contextualisation to understand the above-mentioned phenomena is lacking, or at least it only exists as exceptions in society. it is not very surprising that there are no epoch-making representatives of contemporary philosophy, as aristotle, hegel, heidegger or sartre were before. presumably, the last influential philosopher was adorno who lived in the middle of the past century and whose lecture was attended by an audience of 2000 people. we, of course, know that exceptional, ingenious think tanks (and thus artists, social scientific researchers, too) are rarely born. nevertheless, it is obvious to me that we are waiting for a new socrates, new kant, new heidegger, as psychology is waiting for the new piaget, or pedagogy is waiting the new dewey. it is obvious that many brilliant philosophers are working in hungary and the entire world. however, one can rarely come across one whose work would hugely determine the intellectual facet of our era. it can also be the case that we live in a period when there is no need for a superior philosophical authority who tells the ‘truth’, because with the spread of the internet, mobile phones and other gadgets one might have the false impression of being smart and well-informed: as if they could solve the dilemmas of the world and their life on their own. secondly, the role of artificial effects on philosophy cannot be disregarded. above all, i am referring to the appearance of politics. one should not think of the scenario when we trust philosopher as the elected wise with the leadership of a city (and/or a nation), as they are the ones who understand the most the problems the community faces (see plato’s conceptions), but the other way around. when the political will and interest—not tolerating any resistance—penetrate the world of philosophy: its institution, research and education. in the former case, it can turn out well, while in the latter one only harmful effects come into being. without discussing in detail the sensitive relations of hungarian politics and philosophy, i highlight that in the political discourse after the change of regime (in terms of both right and left wing governments) there were serious abuses and reckless measures. once one sees the opinion that “there are too many philosophers in hungary”, the other time the so-called “lawsuit against philosophers” triggers indignation. in my humble opinion, both political reactions harmed the relationship of philosophy and politics. politics should not intervene in the functioning of philosophy (philosophising), because if such attempts are made, philosophy will be degraded and infantilised. furthermore, philosophers will have the illusion of being capable of maintaining their authority and reaching their goals, which will sooner or later lead to the decline of philosophy itself. what the politician and philosopher should consider (or rather accept) is that politics and philosophy are governed by different rules and laws. the activities of the former are ruled by the endeavours for power, the latter one’s focal point is the in-depth analysis of phenomena. politics limits the possibilities, while www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. philosophy is creative and without boundaries. thirdly, i emphasize the professional responsibility of philosophers. philosophers themselves contribute to the given state of the culture of philosophy: both positively and negatively. if one has the perception that philosophy’s influence on society is gradually degrading, then the professional potential and nature of the person conducting philosophy can also be regarded as a cause. in relation to this particular aspect let us turn to the self-critical statement of schopenhauer as an example! philosophers are usually loners and are not really social people. during their long and thorough contemplation, they distance themselves from reality. their thoughts fly above the sky, and they write in a manner that it is nearly or completely impossible for average people to understand their train of thought. they reach a kind of sublime state of mind in which they feel that they are the only ones who are capable of seeing and understanding the dilemmas under investigation. robert musil ironically continues the description that god was cautious when he ordered the elephant to become a new elephant, the cat to become a new cat, but when he ordered the philosopher to be a new philosopher, he did not simply become a new one but the follower or opposer of his predecessor. the former one does not have one single authentic thought, while the latter tries to demolish the work of his ancestor. to me neither of them is better than the other. if philosophers cannot overcome such a weakness, philosophy will lose its convincing power, and such a flaw will have negative impact on the state of philosophy in its integrity, even if politics and society otherwise supported the free development of culture. the above-mentioned objective and subjective processes demonstrate under what circumstances the viewpoint of philosophy can prevail. despite the unfavourable tendencies, philosophy should not give up its position; it should not react with resignation and passivity to the occurring problems but should respond by offering new possibilities, thoughts and experiments in order to take its former position and authority back. it knows the truth, but it should also make society accept the fundamental truth that narrow-mindedness can result in thinking that the independent culture of philosophy is unnecessary. although one can live without aptitude for philosophy and can get on without it. what is more, such an activity will not bring direct and easily graspable values (not in the same way as numerous sciences and practical work), nevertheless, the historical experience up until now is that philosophical thinking, the desire to better oneself and conscious and/or instinctive endeavour for bettering oneself cannot be eliminated from the life of humans. who question the right of philosophy for existence or at least try to decrease the importance of its effects do not know the two-thousand-year-old saying of aristotle according to which humans being started to philosophise due to astonishment. the world is full of secrets, mysteries and unexplainable phenomena, in other words, wonders. the human-being of a given period is continuously inquiring about things, especially the most exciting dilemmas, in other words, what kind of world it is, what he himself is (as a concrete living human being) what the ultimate meaning and task of his life are. it is probable that he will not be able to answer these questions. let us remember the realisation of spengler: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. philosophy is nothing else but the defence against the unknown. but maybe the ultimate goal is not finding the only and undeniable answer but always articulating newer and newer questions or approaching old dilemmas in a more sophisticated and differentiated manner. this poses a challenge big enough. according to my conceptions, i think many other colleagues can share my point of view, philosophy is an activity for itself by itself. it is one of the most precious intellectual treasures and pleasures of a human being. if we accept this argument, we should do everything for it freely and for the sake of our moral and intellectual development. there certainly are many ways to reinforce the social role and significance of philosophy. nevertheless, i must recommend cicero’s statements that he voiced in relation to socrates: let us bring philosophy down to the face of the earth, bring it into the houses and all aspects of life. to relate it to the hungarian reality: professional researchers and educators dealing with philosophy should endeavour to react more rapidly and efficiently to new problematics of reality and could furthermore develop more vivid and respectful relationship among one another in their given community than the one they currently have. furthermore, such an education policy does its job well which desires to re-establish the compulsory and independent courses on philosophy in higher education (it is a painful fact that, for example, in hungary medicine and teacher training have banished such courses!) and orient public education to the goal that teachers of all the disciplines should be willing and ready to discuss the philosophical and ideological aspects of the material they present to students. such a publishing house, radio or tv announcer, international, national or local newspaper owner or editor acts in an exemplary manner who is capable of taking into consideration and discussing the general and profound correlations of phenomena. in fact, the state of philosophy is our common business; in contrast to the public awareness, it is not an “aristocratic genre” but a “plebeian” one. references aristotle. (2009). the nicomachean ethics, ebook. oxford worlds classics. heller, a. (1982). a theory of history. london-boston: routledge and kegan paul. heller, a. (2003). philosophy is in existence nowadays, how is it possible nowadays? in a. heller (ed.), philosophical ball-games. budapest: gond-cura alapítvány—palatinus. kiergegaard, s. (2009). concluding unscientic postsrript, ebook. cambridge university press. márkus, g. (1997). antinomies of “culture”. budapest: collegium inst. for advanced study. musil, r. (1995). the man without quality. london: knopf. plato. (1987). the rebublic. harmondsworth: penguin books. russell, b. (1916). principles of social reconstruction. london: george allen and unwin ltd. schopenhauer, a. (2010). the two fundamental problems of ethics, ebook. oxford university press. spengler, o. (1926-1928). the decline of the west (v. 1. 1926, v. 2. 1928). alfred a knopf. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. thompson, m. j. (2019). georg lukacs and the possibility of critical social ontology, ebook. studies in critical social sciences, 148. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper english reading teaching in senior high school from the perspective of deep learning li xiaofan1* 1 department of foreign languages, taiyuan normal university, jinzhong city, china * li xiaofan, department of foreign languages, taiyuan normal university, jinzhong city, china received: december 27, 2023 accepted: january 6, 2024 online published: january 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p1 abstract the introduction of the concept of deep learning has led to a change in the way of learning, and a new teaching concept has been constructed from the aspects of learning content and overall understanding. in english, students must construct a comprehensive, detailed and systematic knowledge structure when reading and master language under the premise of deep thinking, and then absorb and internalize it through dialectical thinking. practice shows that the combination of deep learning and senior high school english reading teaching conforms to the law of english teaching development, and is also an effective strategy to optimize and upgrade english reading teaching. therefore, on the basis of summarizing the connotation and characteristics of deep learning, the author put forward targeted suggestions according to the existing problems. keywords deep learning, senior high school, english reading teaching 1. the connotation and features of deep learning deep learning is a kind of students’ learning in teaching, rather than students’ self-study. it emphasizes students’ active understanding of knowledge, the cultivation of higher-order thinking such as critical reflection, and the improvement of learning ability such as problem solving. students need to master the subject knowledge, extract the essential core and thinking methods of the subject. high internal learning motivation and correct values have consistency with the core quality proposed in the current education. as for the features of deep learning, firstly, it is highly engaged. learning engagement is the prerequisite and condition for deep learning. true deep learning can only be achieved when the learner is highly engaged, actively engaged, and even selfless. deep learning requires students to actively www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. participate in learning. some studies have pointed out that students’ learning engagement has a positive impact on knowledge, ability and value acquisition. secondly, it emphasizes information integration, which emphasizes associating new information with known concepts and principles and integrating them into the original cognitive structure, so that the understanding of new knowledge and information can be maintained over the long term and the knowledge can be applied to reality. thirdly, it is purposefully transferred and applied. it requires learners to have a deep understanding of the learned knowledge, judge and grasp the key elements of it, and be able to apply the learned knowledge in different contexts. 2. current problems in english reading teaching in senior high schools 2.1 lack the specific textual interpretation reading teaching is different from memorizing words and learning grammar, and there is no specific method for reading teaching. students’ classroom learning mainly relies on teachers’ guidance. some teachers set too broad teaching goals in the teaching process, for example, the following words and sentences need to be mastered through the study of this article. in that case, this goal is too stereotypical and does not specify what knowledge and skills should be mastered through learning and how to apply what is learned to actual reading. there is also a lack of operability in the setting of teaching objectives. some teachers set “improving students’ reading ability” as the teaching objective, but there is no clear explanation on the way and method to improve reading ability and which part of reading ability to improve. the teaching goal lacks the exploration to the theme meaning of the article, so that students cannot dig out the deep meaning behind the article, which can help students obtain the emotional experience of the article. 2.2 question design lacks cognitive order teachers will use a variety of teaching methods in the process of teaching. they ask questions in class, which sometimes deviates from students’ basic understanding. for example, when they use the keyword humour before the class, some teachers ask as follows: “do you know some kind of humour?” such questions is superficial, which is a common sense problem and lacks teaching logic. in addition, questions related to details also need to be carefully considered before students answer them. in real teaching, however, some questions lack hierarchy and progression, and deep-seated questions require students to understand the logic of the article before they can be answered. the setting of such questions makes the steps of classroom questioning unable to play a role effectively, and only ask students questions in a cramming way. although the basic teaching steps have been completed, they have not played a practical role. 2.3 lack the guidance of the topic of text in the process of reading teaching, some teachers tend to explain meanings of paragraphs one by one. the explanation process is often based on the translation of the article. the explanation of each www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. paragraph is not coherent, and there is a lack of main line awareness in the setting of questions and the selection of keywords. for example, in the lesson named reading a master of nonverbal humour, the teacher sets different teaching objectives for different paragraphs, sorts out the time line in the second paragraph, and puts forward key words such as “in 1889” and “by his teens”. in the third paragraph, students are guided to extract chaplin’s character, including appearance, experience, etc. the fourth paragraph focuses on the restoration of film scenes, which can be carried out by asking questions. such teaching link setup deals with each paragraph, but it is not coherent in terms of wholeness and systematism, and lacks the guidance of article theme. students’ learning stays at the stage of extracting paragraph information, which affects deep learning. 2.4 the major points deviate from what-they-should-be in reading teaching english reading learning is a process of continuous accumulation. through reading learning, students’ interest in english learning can be stimulated. at the same time, the vocabulary accumulated by reading learning. however, in the specific teaching process, teachers pay more attention to the improvement of students’ scores and distinguish students’ learning ability according to their scores. some teachers pay attention to the explanation of words and grammar in class and unable to pay attention to the differences in different students’ learning levels. some students with poor english foundation can only memorize grammar and words in reading class. in the long run, these students may think that reading classes are irrelevant to the abilities they should be improved by reading and that they can improve their scores by simply reviewing vocabulary and grammar. some students even have a reverse psychology in reading class, which affects the overall teaching of english subjects. 3. teaching strategies 3.1 create reading situations and improve language skills the development of students’ language ability from the perspective of core english literacy not only refers to the basic ability of students’ english listening, speaking, reading and writing, but also emphasizes the need for students to develop diversified and comprehensive language ability in social situations. in order to ensure the establishment of senior high school students’ english language awareness and good language sense, english teachers in senior high school should use more flexible and diversified methods to create three-dimensional and intuitive reading situations for students based on the text content in english textbooks, and better guide students to dig deeper into the text content, so as to comprehensively perceive and understand the text connotation. to express and apply the english language independently and consciously, so as to realize the comprehensive improvement of language ability. 3.2 explore the subject deeply and solve real problems it is important in reading teaching that form a clear structure of the text and explore the topic of the article. students can use the mind map which is provided by teachers to intuitively grasp the structure www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. of the article. students can mark the keywords and main content of each paragraph according to the structure and content of the article. based on mind maps and key words, students can have a clearer understanding of the main topic of the text and improve their ability to process the text. teachers should start from the theme of the text to help students sort out the structure of the article and summarize the style of writing and language skills. most importantly, understanding the theme of the article is a great way to help students build the overall context of the article and deepen the depth of students’ understanding to this article. teachers should excavate the topic according to the content of the article to improve students’ language knowledge, learning ability and so on, which can improve their comprehensive consciousness. 3.3 cultivate students’ cross-cultural awareness and improve their cross-cultural ability as an important way for students to learn cultural knowledge, english reading is also a key part to cultivating their cross-cultural awareness. in high school english reading teaching, teachers should pay attention to cultivating students’ cultural literacy, strengthen the comparative teaching of chinese and western cultures, so that students can broaden their horizons in the process of learning, enrich cultural knowledge, learn to treat different cultures dialectically, and enhance their sense of identity and inheritance of chinese traditional culture. on the one hand, teachers should make full use of the introduction of the cultural background in the reading text to help students better understand the text and get an in-depth discussion and learning. on the other hand, teachers should design the links of situational communication according to the specific text, so that students can feel the cultural similarities and differences in the context. only through deep learning of the stories behind them can students have a deep understanding of the writing intention and educational value of the text. this kind of cultural literacy training based on deep learning can not only maximize the practical communication ability of students, but also promote the improvement of their core english literacy. 3.4 pay attention to continuous evaluation and perfect deep learning continuous evaluation and timely feedback are effective ways to guide students to deeply reflect on their learning status and timely adjust learning strategies to achieve deep learning. timely feedback of students’ natural growth points to promote the natural generation of in-depth classroom requires teachers to pay attention to students’ learning progress and give timely feedback. the new curriculum standard also suggests that feedback should pay attention to meaningful interaction between teachers and students and among students, and promote the development of high-level thinking and cultural awareness of students. self-evaluation form is used to promote the reflection of learning effect and highlight students’ main position in evaluation. deep learning is student-oriented learning. according to the new curriculum standards, to highlight the principal position of students in evaluation, students should be encouraged to carry out self-evaluation and mutual evaluation, strengthen the interactive exchange of evaluation information among students and between teachers and students, and promote self-supervised learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. references an, f. h. (2014). research on classroom teaching strategies to promote deep learning. curriculum, teaching material and method. kong, y. (2023). senior high school english reading teaching under the concept of deep learning. english journal for middle school students. marton, f., & säljö, r. (1976). on qualitative differences in learning: i—outcome and process. british journal of educational psychology. the ministry of education of the people’s republic of china (moe). (2020). curriculum standard of senior english for china students (2017 edition, 2020 revision). beijing: people’s education press. wang, q. (2017). english reading teaching in the context of core literacy: problems, principles, goals and approaches. english learning (teacher edition). xie, s. j. (2023). a survey on the current situation of deep learning in senior high school english reading classroom. guangxi normal university. zhang, y. (2021). a preliminary study on teaching strategies of english reading in senior high school based on deep learning. english on campus. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 9 original paper some aspects of respect and dignity of individual on the europeanism as values-system: moral and individual sándor karikó1* 1 university of szeged, jgypk, szeged, hungary * sándor karikó, university of szeged, jgypk, szeged, hungary received: october 26, 2022 accepted: november 7, 2021 online published: november 20, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n4p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n4p9 abstract the most philosophical writer of the 20th century, robert musil wrote: the individual is nothing else but one’s own primary performance. god has become deus absconditus—claims milan kundera—humans have become all’s stone. in this matter, europeanism signifies that the individual becomes what one makes oneself become. i think the great challenge of pedagogy (from theoretical and practical aspect aspect): how can the ability and competence of independent thinking be realised during educational work? how does the schooling system facilitate the development of the autonomy of pupils, students and teachers? in my opinion (summary of this study) the respect and dignity are the most beautiful and charming quests of europeanism and education. keywords value, individual, autonomy, philosophy of education motto: “the existence of mankind orients towards values” eduard spranger in the above-mentioned sections the concepts of virtue, moral, responsibility, diligence and so forth have been mentioned, but i have not discussed them one by one. fortunately, europeanism has aspects which are not related to the spheres of politics and economy but virtue and pedagogy. in that manner we must analyse ethical and pedagogical correlations. the european development’s and europeanism’s greatest invention beyond religious, political and economic evolution is that the individual’s social role has become more important. in other words, it is the historical “debut” of the individual. the individual’s general respect and dignity came into being that had not been experienced before. what does it mean? the most philosophical writer of the 20th www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. century, robert musil shortly summarises it: on this level of civilisation, “the individual is nothing else but one’s own primary performance” (musil, 2000, p. 61). in the modern european civilisation, the individual has occurred as the autonomous, virtuous and responsible citizen possessing several skills, abilities and competences. the individual who chooses and professes her or his own life comes into being: who believes in heror himself, own willpower and future. “god has become deus absconditus—claims milan kundera—humans have become the philosopher’s stone” (kundera, 1992, p. 177). in this matter, europeanism signifies that the individual becomes what one makes oneself become. emphasizing once more, the european union and europeanism express a deeper contact and a more general value system than what a political and economic integration can mean. the thought and aim of the individual as a citizen are articulated, and her or his everyday struggle commences. the realisation of such an ideology and its practice or at least the attempt to put into practice give a moral starting point and content to the development process of europeanism. such general and important values, moral principles and virtue come at forefront, as the liberty of the individual, his/her autonomy, the faith in his/her own existence and power, the need and struggle for his/her own dignity, the respect of other individuals and the tolerance of other social groups, states and nations. last but not least, the ability and competence of self-criticism. györgy konrád (contemporary hungarian writer and sociologist) grasps this correlation precisely: “europe is […] is where the most important value is the personal human dignity […] where the liberty of thought, expression […] prevails, where patriotism is contradictory to the interest of the whole continent […] where the liberty of the individual cannot be violated, where they dignity of life is the alpha and omega of value judgement […], where nobody can rule over the other, […] europe is at first in being able to criticise itself” (konrád, 2004, p. 274, pp. 82-83, p. 384, p. 342). a solemn value is being articulated on the author’s side. although not everyone would accept the standpoint of the author, namely that the protection of the individual’s dignity is the most important value of europeanism, one can be certain that the value based on the respect of the individual is as important as the progressive religious tolerance or dynamics of the capital in the history of europe. if it is true (why would one contest such an argument? one will become more convinced about it, if one reads the book of tamás barcsi, a contemporary hungarian philosopher (barcsi, 2013, pp. 399-301)), then one can easily admit that not only the history and theory of religion, economics, political science and legal science are competent in the research of europeanism, but philosophy, ethics and pedagogy as well. in relation to pedagogy, i raise attention to the unfortunate situation that the connection between europeanism and pedagogy has not been accentuated in either the europe-research or the analysis of europeanism. it was also disregarded by practical pedagogy and theory of education. it is an unfortunate fact that seemingly the aspect of education has been disregarded by researchers of europe www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. and europeanism! researchers of pedagogical theory and pedagogues have not seemingly realised yet how important role they could have in educating students towards europeanism. in my opinion, sciences interested in the topic of europeanism could liberate themselves of the aristocratic bias which devalues or at least gives less importance to pedagogy as a science and practical pedagogy. in the other way around as well, pedagogical researchers and pedagogues should give up on their “comfortable’ conception that they do not have any task in relation to europe and europeanism, because the science of history, political science, economics and so forth fulfil it. one can see and experience that the respect, dignity and autonomy of the individual do not come into life on their own, one should educate children toward such values in a conscious and systematic way. pedagogy’s primary task and challenge—although not exclusively—are the independent and concentrated representation of the above -mentioned three values (and other values as well) and value system which lie in europeanism. from this point of view, one can easily identify oneself with patočka’s argument, which seems brave at first glance, claiming that the essence of europeanism in a broad sense is education (patocka, 2003, p. 12). to put it differently, europeanism as a theoretical and practical framework for given values becomes the tutor and cradle of humans and humanity (poszler, 1989, p. 24, p. 54). let me briefly refer to a positive and a negative example for the utilisation of pedagogy in relation to the topic being discussed. 1) at the end of the 1990s the french education policy and science of pedagogy raised the attention to the task of clarifying the relation of education to europeanism. based on it, they suggested the introduction of the term “european dimensions”. its main representative is dominique barthélemy, a french researcher and education politician who firmly stated: “when we are talking about europe, we should think of the words civilisation and value. […] the key term “european dimensions” […] is a method for teachers and their students to practise a difficult task: doubt, humbleness and tolerance (barthélemy, 1999, p. 65, p. 93, highlighted by me—k. s.). the author’s endeavour triggered a re-enactment which could even be felt in the hungarian pedagogical research. one can only agree with the thesis that the essence of europeanism can only be examined on the level of values. what is more, the concrete values in relation to education should be integrated into all spheres of education. sadly, the motion in the beginning has become less intense. in my opinion, the independent, direct and systematic adaptation of such a value system in public education and higher education is still missing. 2) without discussing the hungarian education policy and pedagogical science in detail, i would like to briefly refer to two fresh publications. both of them discuss what difficulties and challenges our educational system and practical pedagogy have. péter radó, while philosophising on the future of the school, raises our attention to the fact that “education towards citizenship cannot only be limited to […] the ‘ghetto’ of civic education […] autocratic systems will become stupid, if the state and public political discourse become stupid” (radó, 2017, p. 69, p. 159). the harsh criticism continues in jános szüdi’s book: “the idea of the state which solves everything is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. part of the public thinking. why would pedagogues think something else if they did not learn about […] the essence of the democratic state, fundamental human rights and european values” (szüdi, 2019, p. 177, highlighted by me—k. s.). the last two negative remarks can be an exaggeration, but it is obvious that there are a lot of things to do in order to clarify certain questions. for example, how does the schooling system facilitate the development of the autonomy of pupils, students and pedagogues? or is it the other way around? does it undermine autonomy? how can the ability and competence of independent thinking be realised during educational work? it is incontestable that the most important tasks of education are making children autonomous and making them respect the dignity of the individual. according to my conception, the latter one is its most beautiful and charming quest. let us get back to the respect of the individual’s dignity (not solely touching upon its pedagogical aspects)! more precisely to the dilemma that such a positive european value has some negative sides. many important issues could be mentioned, but i focalise on two questions which reach beyond the value system of europeanism: one of them concerns the process of global commercial, political and ecological crisis, and the other one is related to negative effects stemmed from the digital society. in connection with the former problem, one should analyse the thoughts of a famous hungarian representative of applied philosophy, tibor szabó: “there are several threats to human existence on the earth […] which warn us more and more intensively that the planet cannot be exploited limitlessly […] instability has become persistent […] in the age of economic and ecological crisis, instability reigned (and is still reigning) over the everyday life of human beings and international relations” (szabó, 2014, pp. 217-218). according to these statements, we are facing such an enormous global problem which pushes humanity towards an era where instability is not a minor side effect among many other characteristics but the main and most important characteristic feature that determines everything. we have reached another era, it is called the age of instability, when humanity wages the bloodiest war against one another for crude oil, water, cleaner air, fertile land, religious faith, preservation of western (and european) values or the destruction of them. undoubtedly, under such political, economic and environmental circumstances partly triggered by the pandemic the situation and security of the individual has been shaken, individuals can be traumatised, and their existence can become insecure. relating it to our topic: the beautiful principle, virtue and value of the respect and dignity of the individual becomes less and less important and charming. furthermore, we are also facing a new and grave danger when we consider the universal reign of the digital society. the application of digital tools brings along many novelties in all aspects of life. its positive effects can be felt on a daily basis among the youth. it is a historic experience that all important scientific and technological inventions cause conflicts and paradoxes. overcoming such negative repercussions can hinder the evolution of the normal and natural adaptation of human beings. in some cases, it makes such an adaptation completely impossible. one can experience various worrisome processes. the digitised world considerably affects the state of mind. the hungarian www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. philosopher miklós almási summarises the problem in the following manner: “the other as a person is gradually disappearing. on facebook and twitter, we are surrounded by followers. in others words, by unknown figures who are around me, but as they are not actual human beings, they are unable to reflect on me, so my personality cannot develop. […] the more followers one has the lesser chance one has to develop a socially integrated personality. one gets excluded from the real world and becomes the citizen of an alternative reality. the social nature of the individual is shaken. the individual as such has not completely disappeared, but the threads leading from the self to the other have been considerably weakened” (almási, 2019, pp. 22-23). social media, smartphones and other gadgets do not see individuals but mere data. they count on creatures stripped of their intellect and emotions who do not live in the actual reality but in a parallel virtual universe, in the omnipotence of the online world. if we consider that the machinery of the digitised society penetrates the private sphere and opens the way for shady businesses, sexual and aggressive instincts, it is superfluous to prove that we are distancing ourselves from the respect, dignity and autonomy of the individual. we will philosophize on and argue a lot about the essence of individual. it does not matter in what way one elaborates on the topic, we can be certain that the desired and needed cooperation can only be established along common values. a teacher is not directly made sure of the effectiveness of his/her job on a daily basis (not in the same way as other practitioners of other professions and vocations): the pupil might not be there “intellectually’; the child might be daydreaming. the pedagogue’s impact can manifest later in an indirect manner. in conclusion, i would like to refer to one of krisztian grecsó’s wonderful ideas. krisztian grecsó, a contemporary hungarian writer and poet articulates: a real pedagogue has a living oeuvre (grecsó, 2008, p. 136). in general, one can say that a pedagogue will never get a direct reassurance of her or his work. independently of it, a teacher can believe that his or her educational work has meaning, significance and effect. faith keeps the whole of our life in an intensive motion, strengthens one’s feeling of responsibility and can help one overcome one’s failures. references almási, m. ( 2019). ami bennünk van. lélek a digitális kor viharában [what is inside us. the soul in the storm of the digital age]. fekete sas kiadó, budapest, 22-23. the author sees other potential dangers: 189. barcsi, t. (2013). az emberi méltóság filozófiája [the philosophy of human dignity]. typotex, budapest, 399-401. i consider the author’s book to be a fundamental literature for the topic. i can only agree with him when he emphasizes the (possible) importance of education in making this basic value conscious. barthélemy, d. (1999). analysis of the concept of european dimension. european education, 31(1), spring, 65, 93. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. grecsó, k. (2008). danceschool. budapest: magvető. konrád, g. (2004). a közép tágulása [the extension of the centre]. noran, budapest, 274, 82-83, 384, 342. (in the order as the quotes themselves). the protection of the dignity of individuals is the most important value of europeanism. see: 248. the title of the book of course refers to central europe. konrád, g. (2004). europas identität und die dominanz amerikas. [european identity and american dominance] osteuropa, 54 jahrgang, heft 5-6, 21. kundera, m. (1992). a regény művészete. [the art of the novel]. európa könyvkiadó, budapest, 177. further: 2002. musil, r. (2000)). essays…bratislava, kalligram könyvkiadó, 61. musil is regarded as the most philosophical austrian writer. see for example (beside the volume called essays) his main work entitled the man without qualities. patočka, j. (2003). európa mint a filozófus útja. idézve mezei balázstól [europe as the way of philosophy, quoted from balázs mezei]. kalligram, 12. poszler, g. (1989). eszmék—eszmények—nosztalgiák [ideologies—ideas—nostalgias]. magvető kiadó, budapest, 24, és 54. radó, p. (2017). az iskola jövője [the future of the school]. noran libro, budapest, 69, 159. spranger, e. (1920). gedanken über die lehrerbildung. konzept für die volksschullehrerbildung [thoughts on teacher training, concept of elementary school teacher training] reference: zsinka, lászló 2012 az európai paideia kultúrfilozófiai alapjai. személy és történelem-kultúra és művelődés. [the philosophical foundations of the european paideia] műhelytanulmány, budapest, corvinus egyetem, 12. in my opinion, spanger, who was a philosopher, psychologist and pedagogy researcher, has never truly been acknowledged in the hungarian public awareness. and maybe he is not appreciated enough in the profession itself. szabó, t. (2014). az instabilitás kora [the age of instability]. belvedere kiadó, szeged, 217-218. the author draws radical conclusions based on a vast international literature (philosophy, sociology, political science, social psychology and historic studies): our age is best described by instability. as far as i know he is the one who introduces this concept to hungarian social theory. this concept has been adapted by many authors since then. szüdi, j. (2019). csináljunk rossz iskolát! [let’s make a bad school]. wesley jános kiadó, budapest, 177. it is sad the training material (documentation) for teacher training does not contain either the european value system. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper on literary stylistics zhang zhiqin 1* 1 foreign languages department of taiyuan normal university, shanxi, china * zhang zhiqin, foreign languages department of taiyuan normal university, shanxi, china received: april 13, 2024 accepted: april 22, 2024 online published: april 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/eshs.v6n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v6n1p1 abstract literary stylistics is a discipline mediating between linguistics and literary criticism. its concern can be simply and broadly defined as thematically and artistically motivated verbal choices, which is a progression from linguistic form to literary significance or interpretation. this paper explicates the foregrounding theory and interpretative process. keywords literary stylistics, foregrounding, interpretative process 1. introduction literary stylistics is a discipline mediating between linguistics and literary criticism. its concern can be simply and broadly defined as thematically and artistically motivated verbal choices. in other words, as the object of investigation, it refers to thematic and aesthetic values generated by linguistic forms, values which convey the author’s vision, tone and attitude, which embody the mingling or shifting of points of view, which add to the affective or emotive force of the message, which contribute to characterization and make fictional reality function more effectively in the thematic unity. this investigation is a progression from linguistic form to literary significance or interpretation. this progression, having the theoretical foundation, involves three correlated levels: structural features, psychological value and literary significance. the paper will begin with the explication of the foregrounding theory. for the question maybe asked what particular linguistic features in a text are going to be relevant to interpretation. analysts often restrict themselves to those features which, for some reason or other, attract some degree of foregrounding. then i will discuss the theoretical foundation. thirdly, the process of interpretation will be touched on. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 2 published by scholink inc. 2. the theory of foregrounding foregrounding is considered as the most basic feature in literary language and demarcation line between literature and non-literature, short termed stylistics as “linguistically deviant, and therefore foregrounded”. the notion was first put forward by mukrovsky of the prague school. by foregrounding he means that “the aesthetic exploration of language takes the form of surprising a reader into a fresh awareness of, and sensitivity to, the linguistic medium which is normally taken for granted as an automatized background of communication.” he emphasizes that the main manifestation of foregrounding is deviation. later halliday defines it as not only deviation from a norm but attainment of a norm. leech and short specify that deviation is a matter of degree, hence, qualitative, i.e., deviation from the language code itself—a breach of some rule or convention of english—or quantitative, i.e., deviance from some expected frequency. 2.1 deviation deviation is departure from the norm, which is itself relative and hard to define. we can talk about the norm of a historical period, the norm of a writer, or even the norm manifested in a text. but a creative writer can sometimes go outside the conventions of a language for special effects. such deviations are called external deviations because the norm is determined outside the text. as widdowson argues: literary discourse is characterized by the creation of language patterns over and above those which are required by the linguistic code and these patterns bestow upon the linguistic items within them certain meanings which, when fused with the signification these items have as code elements, constitute their unique semantic value. the following are a few random examples: the rain set early in tonight, the sullen wind was soon awake, it tore the elm-tops down for spite, and did its best to vex the lake. [browning] the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes. [eliot] a large number of selection restriction violations involve giving the feature of animacy (or/+animate/) to nouns which are specified as inanimate (or/animate/) in the description of the language system. widdowson has also tried to show how the literary discourse deviate from substitution table where the items on the horizontal plane are syntagmatically related and those on the vertical plane are paradigmatically related. here is an example: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 3 published by scholink inc. table 1. substitution the items in each column are equivalent from the structural point and whichever is chosen will, when combined with the items in the other columns, form a correct sentence. thus nurse and teacher are equivalent but not arthur and harold wilson, which are equivalent to each other. again, disappeared and objected are equivalent, appearing as they do in the same column, but they are not equivalent to shot or ridiculed but only to shot the archbishop of canterbury or ridiculed a man from the bbc since it is these verb phrases and not the verbs themselves which share the same column as the intransitive verb phrases. what the substitution table makes clear is that a sentence is both a selection and a combination and these two can be said to be the basic principles of linguistic organization. but widdowson points out that in literary discourse, a selection is made of a series of items from the same column and equivalence is thereby transferred from the vertical plane of selection to the horizontal plane of combination. thus, the lines quoted from eliot’s four quartets words strain, crack and sometimes break, under the burden, under the tension, slip, slide, perish, decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, will not stay still. might be arranged into a substitution table: table 2. substitution words strain crack break under the burden. under the tension. slip. slide. perish. decay with imprecision. will not stay in place. will not stay still. the nurse teacher disappeared. objected. arthur harold wilson shot ridiculed a man from the bbc. the archbishop of canterbury. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 4 published by scholink inc. such a table yields a number of paradigmatic choices which can be made to form a complete sentence: words strain under the burden, words slip, words decay with imprecision, words will not stay still and so on. what eliot does, however, is to combine all the choices so that the linguistic elements become equivalent in combination as well as in selection, and the distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations is neutralized in this context. it happens to fit in with jacobson’s assertion, “the poetic function projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination”. a text may set up its own secondary norms. the features of language within a text may depart from the norms of the text itself: they may stand out against the background of what the text has led us to expect. this is the phenomenon of internal deviation. a case in point is a sudden variation in sentence complexity in hemingway’s the old man and the sea. the culmination of the old man’s battle with the fish is related in unusually complex sentences, conveying a climatic frenzy of movement against the background of hemingway’s more usual simplicity of style. the contrast can be appreciated if we first quote a more characteristic passage from the same episode. [1] that way nothing is accomplished, he thought. his mouth was too dry to speak but he could not search for the water now. i must get him alongside this time, he thought. i am not good for many more turns. yes you are, he told himself. you’re good forever. on the next turn he nearly had him. but again the fish righted himself and swam slowly away. [2] he took all his pain and what was left of his strength and his long gone pride and he put it against the fish’s agony and the fish came over onto his side and swam gently on his side, his bill almost touching the planking of the skiff, and started to pass the boat, long, deep, wide, silver and barred with purple and interminable in the water. the old man dropped the line and put his foot on it and lifted the harpoon as high as he could and drove it down with all his strength, and more strength he had just summoned, into the fish’s side just behind the great chest fin that rose high in the air to the altitude of the man’s chest. he felt the iron go in and he leaned on it and drove it further and then pushed all his weight after it. 2.2 parallelism the other major form of foregrounding is through parallelism which is over regularity in language use. the creative writer may restrict himself in language choice, which shows parallelism or repetition. for foregrounding through parallelism, we try to look for both the similarities and dissimilarities in it. let us look at an example taken from a tale of two cities. it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 5 published by scholink inc. we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way. this passage is full of syntactic parallelism which leads to foregrounding. in effect, it is made up of seven series of antithesis, each one including two conflicting words. the number of words in each clause is the same, except the last one, in which the other way has broken up the pattern set up by the previous lines, and thus secured much emphasis to itself. “the other way” is, actually “we were all going”. therefore, it displays vividly before us the social reality rife with conflicts and disturbances. placed in the beginning, it reveals explicitly the theme of the novel. another example from i have a dream is to show how the main idea is foregrounded through parallel structure. but one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the negro is still not free. one hundred years later, the life of the negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. one hundred years later, the negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. one hundred years later, the negro is still languishing in the corners of american society and finds himself an exile in his own land. here we can see clearly the parallel structure leading to foregrounding. each of the four lines consists of the same adverbial phrase followed by an independent clause, all of which carry a similar contextual meaning. the first clause is the starting statement, which expresses the main idea of the passage. the following are the restatements, which effectively hammer at the main idea by repeating and emphasizing it in different words. so the passage foregrounds the main idea by restatements. 3. the process of interpretation the interpretative process of literary stylistics depends on interpretative experience and intuition. while it stresses close reading of the text and grounds the intuition on evidence, most stylisticans relate interpretation to language description. by reading the text repeatedly, they single out the linguistic features relevant to thematic significance and aesthetic effect and analyse them employing apparatus of linguistic description and then elucidate their literary significance. in such stylistic study, description and interpretation are inseparable. the linguistic features that are described are those, after being interpreted, artistically relevant, whereas the linguistic observation in its turn reinforces or modifies interpretation. the process is demonstrated by nash in a figure www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 6 published by scholink inc. intuition perception of linguistic/stylistic devices figure 1. interpretative process according to nash, the reading of a prose text is a process of mutually supportive responses. intuition (literary sensitivity, a predisposition to find patterns of meaning) is vital, but after the first impulses it does not continue to work unprompted. further promptings come with the observation of linguistic/stylistic features which are marked by pairings, contrasts or some other method of foregrounding. intuition is thus strengthened or modified, and is equipped to begin the definition of structural levels in the text. the discovery of one level involves the perception of another, and meanwhile the detection of linguistic features continues supporting or qualifying the structural interpretation, guiding the intuition to further discoveries. this process has its theoretical foundation. 3.1 the theoretical foundation the existence of stylistics is justifiable in terms of theoretical legitimacy, i.e., backed up by a set of underlying conventions. the major concern in this section is to make explicit the theoretical foundation. as burton states: all observation, let alone description, must take place within an already constructed theoretical framework of socially, ideologically and linguistically constructed reality, whether the observer/describer of observations is articulately aware of that frame work or not. as regards its theoretical foundation, let us consider an analysis of a short poem translated from the chinese original by arthur wally: swiftly the years, beyond the recall. solemn the stillness of this spring morning says. these two poetic lines exhibit a skillful use of syntax to mime the meaning. line 1 is “incomplete” in a sense not applicable to line 2. the adverb swiftly leads us to expect verb which could still appear after beyond recall (read aloud, the intonation should preserve that possibility). the second line, therefore breaks in upon line 1, as if line 1 were short of time, and in incompleteness it represents time stilled instead of snatched away. in the case, we can see a “parallel” between syntactic form and literary interpretation. in its understanding, intuition constitutes one of the two direct involved factors. however, as distinct from such a case as, say, the sight of a tiger causing a sense of horror, the awareness of non-literary sign systems, etc response to aesthetic patterns in art generally structural level 1 plane of articulation structural level 2 plane of information www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 7 published by scholink inc. subjective impression prompted by a linguistic form is not a matter of simply instinctive response. underlying the stylistician’s response there exist certain literary conventions that constitute the theoretical foundation of the stylistician’s argumentation. the existence of the underlying conventions “guide the interpretative process and impose severe limitations on the set of acceptable or plausible readings”. in structuralist poetics, culler argues at length about literature as an institution about (the implied) readers as readers equipped with literary competence (that is a set of conventions for reading literary texts, and the reading activity as a rule governed process of producing meanings. thus culler states: to read a text as literature is not to...approach it without preconceptions; one must bring to it an implicit understanding of the operations of literary discourse which tells one what to look for. shen dan argues that three conventions constitute the basic theoretical foundation both of stylistician’s claim and of the reader’s acceptance of such a claim,—(a) the rule of significance, (b) there being some analogy or parallel, (c) thematic unity of form and content. only due to the existence of convention (a), will a writer manipulate linguistic forms to achieve certain effects. convention (b)makes the point that “to be an experienced reader of literature is, after all, to have gained a sense of what can be done with literary works and thus to have assimilated a system which is largely interpersonal”. by virtue of convention (c), the stylistician always takes into account features which surround the linguistic forms concerned in context. it is a fundamental principle that directs the interpretative process and imposes severe limitations on the acceptable or plausible readings. these conventions are at work in the interpretative process. they constitute the theoretical foundation of the stylisticians’ mode of argumentation and form the criteria with which to gauge the plausibility of an analysis. the interpretative process, grounded on the conventions, accords with the image used by spitzer of the philological circle. 3.2 philological circle of spitzer philological circle, a kind of interpretative model, was proposed by spitzer, father of literary stylistics. he advocated that critics should treat a text synchronically by working from the surface of a text to its “inward life-centre” and then, on “arrival” at the centre to integrate the details of analysis into “the creative principle which may have been present in the soul of the artist”. once this done, you then make the return trip to the surface of the text. this process he called the “philological circle”. spitzer argues that the reader is struck by a detail which is followed by a conviction that this detail is connected basically with the work of art. this means that the analysis begins on an intuitive observation, which in turn raises a question about textual meaning that then requires an answer. but as spitzer points out, there is no way to guarantee “either the impression or the conviction”, they are the result of talent, experience and faith. he wrote: ...all beauty has a mysterious quality which does not appear at first glance. but there is no more reason for dodging the description of the aesthetic phenomenon than of any natural phenomenon...i would www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 8 published by scholink inc. maintain that to formulate observations by means of words is not to cause the artistic beauty to evaporate in vain intellectualities; rather it makes for a widening and a deepening of the aesthetic taste. here is an argument that analysis of literary texts by linguistic means is not brutalizing of a work of art, but a worthwhile intellectual pursuit that sees the text as a series of clues to understanding a significance beyond language; beyond what the words of the text mean. leech and short consider the philological circle as a cyclic motion whereby linguistic observation stimulates or modifies literary insight, and whereby literary insight in its turn stimulates further linguistic observation. this motion is something like the cycle of theory formulation and theory testing which underlies scientific method. the cycle is represented in a figure. seeking esthetic function a b seeking linguistic evidence figure 2. philological circle 4. structural features, psychological value and literary significance linguistic form covers many specific categories such as surface syntactic choice, lexical choice, figurative expression, metre, alliteration, or modes of speech presentation. these linguistic features are constituted by virtue of the relation or contrast of these structures to their paradigmatically or syntagmatically related structural elements. such relations or contrasts, often give rise to quite constant psychological values. in the conventionalized syntactic hierarchy, a subordinate clause is seen to be psychologically less prominent than a corresponding main clause. similarly, the mode of direct speech is seen to have more immediacy or impact by contrast to indirect speech, the different psychological values taken on by linguistic features are frequently exploited in literary contexts as a means of achieving various thematic significance. the following passage from joseph heller’s novel, catch-22 is a case in point. it was a night of surprises for appleby, who was as large as yossarian and as strong and who swung at yossarian as hard as he could with a punch that flooded chief white halfoat with such joyous excitement that he turned and busted colonel moodus in the nose with a punch that filled general dreedle with such mellow gratification that he had colonel cathcart throw the chaplain out of the officers’ club and ordered chief white halfoat moved into doc daneeka’s tent, where he could be kept literary appreciation linguistic description www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 9 published by scholink inc. under a doctor’s care twenty-four hours a day and be kept in good enough physical condition to bust colonel moodus in the nose again whenever general dreedle wanted him to. in depicting a brisk sequence of events, the writer uses a long run on sentence to generate an effect of everything happening at once. there is here a shorter distance between the basic psychological effect of “the syntax being interconnected” and the contextual significance of “the eventing being interconnected, to the point of a pseudo-simultaneity”. another example: curley’s fist was swinging when lennie reached for it (john steinbeck, of mice and men, ch.3) this sentence has been discussed by leech and short: the second clause of this sentence describes the turning point in the fight between lennie and curley, and yet lennie’s action is backgrounded by its subordinate status. on the face of it, steinbeck would have done better to write something like: “as curley’s fist was swinging, lennie reached for it”. but what he did write fits in very well with his overall strategy in the novel, that of absolving lennie of responsibility for his actions. by downgrading lennie’s part in the fight, he makes it seem an inadvertent and blameless reaction to curley’s onslaught. from the two cases mentioned, it is important to note that syntactic connection does have to do with the connection between events. that is to say, syntactic relation is conventionally used to reflect or underline the relation between events, syntactic subordination is used to foreground or background events. similarly, passive voice offers a means of obscuring the agent role; indirect speech, in contrast to direct speech, provides a means of toning down and distancing the speech. there is an intrinsic link between the basic psychological effect associated with the linguistic features and the thematic significance associated with the features in the given literature context. 5. conclusion the paper has made an inquiry into the foregrounding theory, the interpretative process so that we can have a better knowledge of literary stylistics, which in turn contributes to our interpretation and appreciation of literary works. references burton, d. (1982). through glass darkly: through dark glasses. in carter (ed.), language and literature. london. george allen & unwin. culler, j. (1975). structuralist poetics. london: routledge. dan, s. (1998). literary stylistics and fictional translation. beijing: beijing university press. haliday, & hasan. (1976). cohesion in english. london: longman. leech, g., & short, m. (1985). style in fiction. london: longman. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 6, no. 1, 2025 10 published by scholink inc. nash, w. (1982). on a passage from lawrence’s “odour of chrysanthemums”. in carter (ed.), language and literature. london: george allen & unwin. short, m. (1984). who is stylistics? journal of foreign language, (5). spitzer, l. (1948). linguistics and literary history. princeton: princeton university press. turner, g. w. (1975). stylistics. harmondsworth: penguin, reprinted. widdowson, h. g. (1975). stylistics and the teaching of literature. london: longman. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 61 original paper research on the construction of deep learning-oriented college english blended gold course in the context of new liberal arts huijun fu 1 & xuwei li 1 1 college of foreign language education and international business, baoding university, baoding, china received: march 28, 2024 accepted: april 12, 2024 online published: april 26, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p61 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p61 abstract comprehensively promoting the construction of new liberal arts is an inevitable requirement for the education and teaching reform of liberal arts majors in colleges and universities in the new era. different from the traditional liberal arts, the new liberal arts can better serve the national development and regional social progress. based on the background of the new liberal arts, this paper discusses its new requirements for college english. by investigating the current situation of college english blended teaching, the paper finds the deficiencies, and mainly analyzes the necessity of applying deep learning to college english teaching based on its concept. on this basis, it proposes new initiatives for building the deep learning-oriented college english blended gold course based on the new liberal arts from five aspects, namely, teaching environment, teaching resources, teaching process, assessment system, and teacher competencies, so as to promote the connotative and innovative development of the college english course and achieve the goal of all-round education. keywords new liberal arts, deep learning, college english, blended gold course introduction in august 2018, the central committee of the communist party of china (cpc) proposed the concept that “higher education should strive to develop new engineering, new medicine, new agriculture, and new liberal arts” (referred to as the “four new”). in april 2019, 13 departments including the ministry of education, the ministry of industry and information technology, and the ministry of science and technology officially launched the “six excellence and one top” plan 2.0, which has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 62 published by scholink inc. started the “four new” construction with that of the new liberal arts included, and pointed out the direction for college talent training as well as education and teaching reform. the concept of deep learning was first mentioned by ference marton and roger saljo in their article on qualitative differences in learning: i-outcome and process (1976). based on the way learners acquire and process information, the paper categorizes learners into deep-level processors and surface-level processors, and develops the two concepts of deep learning and surface learning. later, biggs and collis (1982), ramsden (1988), and entwistle (1997) and other scholars also studied deep learning from different perspectives. in china, the concept of deep learning was first seen in the paper promoting deep learning in students (he & li, 2005). deep learning refers to the learning in which learners critically learn new ideas and knowledge on the basis of understanding, integrate them into the original cognitive structure to interrelate numerous ideas, transfer existing knowledge to new situations, make decisions and solve problems. domestic scholars such as duan jinju and yu shengquan (2013), guo hua (2016), hu hang and dong yuqi (2017) have also conducted research on deep learning. in recent years, deep learning has attracted more and more academic attention. in june 2018, at the national conference on undergraduate education at higher education institutions in the new era held by the ministry of education, minister chen baosheng proposed for the first time to reasonably increase difficulty, depth and selectivity of courses, so as to truly transform the “water courses” into the “gold courses” with depth, difficulty and challenge. in august of the same year, “eliminating „water courses‟ and creating „gold courses‟” was officially published for the first time in the notice on implementing the spirit of the national conference on undergraduate education at higher education institutions in the new era issued by the ministry of education (ministry of education, 2018). referring to the “high-level, innovative and challenging” standards of gold courses, this study is based on the construction of the new liberal arts, and explores the construction of blended college english course oriented to deep learning, with a view to promoting the reform of college english teaching, improving the teaching effect and talent training quality, and serving the national and regional economic and social development. 1. new requirements by the new liberal arts for the teaching of college english in november 2020, the ministry of education issued the declaration on the construction of new liberal arts, which points out that the new mission in the new era requires that liberal arts education must accelerate innovation and development. to enhance comprehensive national strength, build greater confidence in our own culture, foster a new generation, build higher education power, and achieve the integrated development of liberal arts education all require the construction of new liberal arts. the mission of the new liberal arts construction is to build a world-class liberal arts talent training system with chinese characteristics (ministry of education, 2020). as an innovative concept, the new liberal arts keeps pace with the trend of the times and breaks through the traditional liberal arts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 63 published by scholink inc. education model. it reshapes the nurturing value of liberal arts, emphasizes the cross and integration between disciplines, and has interdisciplinary attributes. along with the gradual development of the new liberal arts, liberal arts courses, including college english, are also undergoing an important educational transition. the new liberal arts has the following specific requirements for college english teaching: (1) reflect the responsibility of liberal arts education in the times and highlight the value guidance of college english course. the new liberal arts requires that through the study of college english course, students are able to develop the ability of self-analysis, reflection and critical thinking based on respect to western history and culture. they are trained to have an international vision and are able to develop firm confidence in the socialist system and culture on the basis of the comparison of chinese and western cultures. they are also able to take the initiative to inherit and carry forward the traditional chinese culture and the advanced socialist culture, and develop a deeper love for the country and its people, so as to better tell china stories in english, convey china‟s wisdom and solutions, and better serve the community with a shared future for mankind. (2) promote the integrated development of disciplines and highlight the connection between college english and other disciplines. on the basis of mastering basic english language knowledge and english language skills such as listening, expression and communication etc., students will be able to break through the traditional liberal arts mode of thinking. the cross and integration of the college english course and other courses should also be paid attention to. in this way, students can understand certain knowledge of other subjects and specialized knowledge, broaden its breadth and depth, and be able to communicate in english on certain topics of their major, thus promoting the development of students‟ future professional competencies. (3) present the innovative development of liberal arts education and highlight that college english can keep pace with science and technology. the course should focus on cultivating students‟ practical ability and innovation ability, promote the cultivation of students‟ comprehensive competency, and broaden the caliber of talent training. at the same time, the college english course should effectively integrate advanced information technology into specific teaching practices, provide students with a smart learning environment, and promote the reform and innovation of teaching methods and modes, so as to enhance the teaching effect, improve the high-quality talent training system, and cultivate top-notch innovative talents who can meet the needs of the times and contribute to national rejuvenation. 2. the current situation of blended teaching of college english in order to grasp the current situation of blended english teaching in our university, the research group conducted a questionnaire survey on a total of 183 students in 4 ordinary college classes of grade 2021 in our university in july 2022. respondents of the four classes are from the majors of educational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 64 published by scholink inc. technology, chemistry, exhibition economics and management, and intellectual property. the respondents in the first two classes are science students, and those in the other two classes are liberal arts students. the four classes are similar in class capacity, and are taught by 4 different teachers as to the college english course. the teachers have the same titles and academic qualifications. meanwhile, they are similar in age. the findings show that online and offline blended teaching is currently carried out in all the classes, which to a certain extent benefits students‟ english learning in style, time as well as space, and conforms to the trend of the teaching reform of college english in our university. however, some deficiencies still exist in the present college english blended teaching, which needs to be improved urgently. the deficiencies are as follows: (1) the moral education function of the curriculum is not fully displayed. college english teaching has not fully involved current affairs, major knowledge, excellent traditional chinese culture and unique campus culture, which is not conducive to students‟ acceptance of moral educational content. moral education in the course is often preached obviously, and cannot exert an imperceptible influence on students‟ emotions, attitudes and values. students study english mostly for the purpose of passing cet-4 (college english test-4) and cet-6 or postgraduate entrance exams. they lack the ability to consciously spread chinese culture and tell china stories in english. (2) curriculum learning can not meet the development of the major. as the lessons are mainly based on the textbook, and there are many teaching units, students feel depressed about the learning content. online learning resources are mostly centered on unit themes, and mostly remain in the consolidation of language knowledge. teachers‟ self-constructed resources are insufficient, lacking the integration of language knowledge and major knowledge. there is also a serious lack of personalized information resources. extracurricular activities related to this course are not rich enough to meet students‟ expectations. (3) the effect of online and offline integration is not ideal. students mainly watch and learn online videos and micro-lectures. they feel that the use of platforms is a burden, which cannot fully activate their interest in online learning, resulting in the boredom of autonomous learning. classroom teaching is mainly taught by teachers. teaching methods are relatively monotonous. students have low participation in the course. there are not many opportunities for individual presentations and students‟ collaborative learning, and there is a lack of effective interaction with the teacher and other students. students‟ english learning mostly remains at the surface level of grasping language points, and their understanding of texts is superficial. they are also too passive to think about the profound connotations underlying the language, and lack in-depth understanding. besides, teachers are not able to answer students‟ online questions, track their learning and provide online guidance in time. incentives for online learning are insufficient, and students are easily distracted by irrelevant online information. (4) the course assessment is not reasonable. the assessment of knowledge is emphasized, while the assessment of practice and moral elements is not paid enough attention to. the current assessment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 65 published by scholink inc. involves five performances including that on xuexitong app, unipus, utalk, iwrite etc. although it covers the training of the five skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation, the assessment mostly focuses on textbook knowledge, and is relatively weak as to the application of the textbook knowledge to students‟ major, which is not conducive to the cultivation of students‟ ability to solve comprehensive problems. at the same time, the course assessment also lacks the reflection of moral elements, which can not realize the value guidance to students and is not helpful to whole-process education. 3. the necessity of applying the concept of deep learning to college english teaching through more than 40 years of development, deep learning is no longer just a way of learning to understand basic knowledge and skills, but more of a meaningful learning based on understanding and pursuit of the transfer. by deeply engaging students in learning and appropriately adopting advanced learning strategies, it promotes the development of higher-order knowledge and skills, and realizes the transfer of them in new situations or the generation of higher-order of them (peng & zhu, 2020). according to bloom‟s classification of learning objectives, deep learning highlights that learners have a higher cognitive level, such as application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of the knowledge learned. it is necessary to integrate the concept of deep learning into the whole process of college english teaching, which is embodied in the following four aspects: (1) deep learning is conducive to students‟ in-depth learning of english. when students encounter new situations, they will actively establish connections between new knowledge and old knowledge based on their previous understanding of the old one. the construction of new knowledge and complex concepts is developed through the transfer and integration of previous knowledge. deep learning is a meaningful learning process. it can improve students‟ ability to solve complicated problems in real situations and promote the development of an open and comprehensive knowledge system. (2) deep learning is conducive to students‟ collaborative active learning. by giving full play to their initiative, students develop intrinsic learning motivation to carry out autonomous learning. they actively search for relevant learning resources, explore their in-depth understanding of english knowledge and social and cultural phenomena, and make individualized learning plans to shape and improve their own cognition. at the same time, students can expand their knowledge through group discussions, joint completion of group tasks and other collaborative learning methods, thus realizing the sharing and in-depth exploration of knowledge. (3) deep learning is conducive to the cultivation of higher-order thinking ability. zhu kaiqun (2017) pointed out that in the adaption to knowledge economy, lifelong learning, information society and globalization era, “problem solving, critical thinking, open vision and innovation ability” are internationally recognized as higher-order thinking skills in the 21st century. as to some english learning unit, students get rid of the superficial understanding of the text, and deeply discuss the social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 66 published by scholink inc. topics or phenomena related to the unit theme based on the comparison of chinese and western cultures. by analyzing the causes of the phenomenon, students judge whether it is reasonable or insufficient, and give a scientific judgment, so as to improve independent thinking ability, help to discover new problems, new viewpoints and new rules, and adjust their value orientation and behavior. (4) deep learning is conducive to students‟ positive emotional experience. according to wu yongjun (2019), while deep learning, students‟ commitment is thorough, which involves all aspects not only limited to thinking, but emotions, will, motivation, spirit and even body. by actively participating in deep learning, they can try to obtain the sense of satisfaction and achievement in acquiring new knowledge, and develop a love of learning as well as the learning attitude of active thinking, in-depth inquiry, daring to criticize, and actively creating. this positive emotional experience not only influences their exploration of knowledge and understanding of chinese and western cultures, but also helps to cultivate their positive attitudes and values. 4. new initiatives of constructing deep learning-oriented college english blended gold course based on the new liberal arts the construction of the new liberal arts meets the needs of talent training in the new era of china, and plays an important role in promoting the reform of college english teaching, which also means that college english teaching should serve the national development and cultivate international talents having “proficiency in one language with multilingual competence and one specialty with multiple capabilities”. based on the above analysis of the current situation of college english blended teaching and the necessity of deep learning, exploring the construction of deep learning-oriented college english blended gold course under the background of the new liberal arts requires scientific planning and precise measures. the specific new initiatives are as follows: (1) adhere to technology enabling, and create a smart blended teaching environment. increase investment in smart teaching infrastructure as well as the number of smart classrooms. fully grasp the achievements of modern science and technology, such as 5g, big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, and apply them to the construction of the smart teaching platform for college english. analyze the functions of various existing college english learning applications, develop immersive learning modules, and integrate each application to give full play to the concentrated advantages. monitor students‟ learning data, scientifically analyze students‟ cognition based on the monitoring results, and automatically push teaching resources tailored to students‟ cognition, so as to promote deep learning. through the application of robot language partner, students can get answers to their learning questions. meanwhile, personalized learning services are provided to stimulate students‟ learning motivation and meet their diverse needs. (2) promote the integration of disciplines, and enrich blended teaching resources of college english. based on the teaching themes of college english units, find its connection with students‟ majors, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 67 published by scholink inc. build a curriculum resources database that can mobilize students‟ learning interest and meet their needs for deep learning. expand the type and quantity of blended teaching resources, which are not only limited to videos and animations, but also include china university mooc, english version of xuexi qiangguo (an app: learn more to make your country stronger), cgtn, courseware, exercise base, question base and so on. at the same time, blended teaching resources also include self-built micro-lecture resources, co-constructed wechat public platforms, students‟ self-made v-logs, etc. these resources aim to take different students‟ learning preferences into account. besides, they are clear in logic and step-by-step, presenting the advancing characteristics, which helps students to carry out systematic autonomous learning and promote their in-depth understanding of knowledge. (3) strengthen moral guidance and optimize blended teaching process oriented by deep learning. moral education is carried out throughout the whole process of college english teaching giving full play to its educational function, so that students can build up their chinese confidence and put forward chinese solutions on the basis of understanding western culture. therefore, cultural exchanges between china and the west are promoted. task-based language teaching (tbl), production-oriented approach (poa), heuristic teaching method and other teaching methods are adopted appropriately. in terms of blended teaching under poa, the teacher releases learning tasks through online learning platforms before class. students learn vocabulary and text content on their own to gain a preliminary understanding of the main idea. they can expand their knowledge by reading extracurricular learning materials, and present online feedback on learning difficulties through preliminary attempts on the unit output task. in class, the teacher makes reasonable use of apps according to the teaching content, and carries out group discussions, teacher-student interactions, project-based teaching, etc., so that students can solve the key and difficult knowledge in the lexical, syntactic and textual aspects on the basis of mastering the text structure. the teacher provides scaffolding to guide students to make in-depth interpretation of the text and explore the social and cultural phenomena underlying the text. attention is given to the interconnections among disciplines. students consult a wide range of materials, engage in active thinking, and complete each subtask. after class, students consolidate what they have learned, improve the unit output task, and make evaluations through the online platform. based on what they have learned in the unit, the teacher provides major-related online learning resources to further guide them to conduct individualized deep learning. (4) realize assessment for learning, and build a multi-dimensional and open curriculum assessment system. college english teaching in the context of new liberal arts is not only limited to classroom teaching, but also actively develops extracurricular activities related to this course, promotes the integrated development of industry, academia and research, and realizes collaborative education inside and outside the class, so the evaluation subject is also expanded from the original teachers and students to mentors, off-campus institutions, and so on. combining online and offline assessment, it should cover both formative and summative assessment. as to the evaluation index, both students‟ academic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 68 published by scholink inc. performance and their emotions, value orientation and other moral elements should also be taken into account. the purpose of the above open and multi-dimensional construction of curriculum assessment system is to enable students to identify deficiencies in the learning process through assessment and to make continuous improvement in their learning, so as to promote their overall development. (5) advocate the update of concepts, and strengthen the comprehensive professional competencies of teachers. in order to create college english gold classes, teachers‟ teaching quality is very important. in the context of the new liberal arts, college english teachers should have noble professional ethics and deep love for education. they need to take the initiative to learn and actively participate in academic conferences, so that they can constantly update teaching concepts and master modern foreign language teaching theories. they need to expand their knowledge, pay attention to its connection with other disciplines or industries, and have the comprehensive ability to teach general english and english for special purposes (esp). college english teachers should also master certain information technology, be good at using modern teaching tools, and strengthen the ability of courseware making, micro-lecture making, resources searching, etc., so as to lay a solid foundation for blended teaching. in short, the improvement of teachers‟ teaching research and teaching practice ability is a strong guarantee for teachers‟ professional competence. 5. conclusion in the context of the new liberal arts, the construction of deep learning-oriented college english blended gold course should adhere to student development as the center, continuously optimize the effect of online and offline blended teaching with the help of modern information technology, and guide students to carry out deep learning, so that they can solve real-life problems with the help of the english language, and realize both language learning and practical application. on the basis of promoting their academic quality, students should be educated to keep our country in mind, possess international vision and innovative spirits, and realize all-round growth, so that more innovative and interdisciplinary talents will be cultivated for society to serve the development of new quality productive forces. since the construction of the new liberal arts is a long-term process, the research group also needs to make continuous improvement on interdisciplinary deep learning resources and teaching quality, so as to make the course meet the standards of “high level, innovation and challenge” and ensure every lecture is a gold lesson. funding this research was supported by english teaching reform research and practice project of hebei colleges and universities, 2022, research on the construction of deep learning-oriented college english blended gold course in the context of new liberal arts. project number: 2022yyjg062. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 69 published by scholink inc. conflicts of interest the authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper. references he, l., & li, j. h. (2005). promoting deep learning in students. modern teaching, 2005(5), 29-30. marton, f., & saljo, r. (1976). on qualitative differences in learning: i-outcome and process. british journal of educational psychology, 1976(46), 4-11. ministry of education of the people‟s republic of china. (2020). declaration on the construction of new liberal arts. [eb/ol]. retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/20 2011/t20201103_498067.html ministry of education of the people‟s republic of china. (2018). notice on implementing the spirit of the national conference on undergraduate education at higher education institutions in the new era issued by the ministry of education [eb/ol]. retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/ a08/s7056/201809/t20180903_347079.html peng, h. c., & zhu, z. t. (2020). deep learning research: the development vein and bottleneck. modern distance education research, 32(01), 41-50. wu, y. j. (2019). on the renewed understanding of deep learning. curriculum, teaching material and method, 39(02), 51-58, 36. zhu, k. q. (2017). “deep teaching” based on deep learning. journal of shanghai educational research, 2017(05), 50-53, 58. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 30 original paper shining light into teenage depression julia koifman1* 1 kinneret academic college, emek ha-yarden, israel * julia koifman, kinneret academic college, emek ha-yarden, israel received: september 10, 2023 accepted: september 18, 2023 online published: september 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n3p30 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n3p30 abstract teenagers often suffer from depression, which may be caused by many reasons: poor grades, overweight, problems with friends or parents—as a result, they are upset and demotivated. teachers sometimes find their students refusing to participate in classroom activities due to “a bad day” or “lack of energy”. they often avoid coming to school and prefer staying at home. probably, they have depression, which is characterized as the oppression of mental activity, mainly in its emotional-volitional component. unlike innate neurodiversity, depression is an acquired disorder that can be cured successfully with the help of clinical psychologists or psychiatrists. nevertheless, it often accompanies the forenamed psychological or neurological disorders. this article researches depression in schoolchildren as one of the mental health conditions and how to help them overcome it and improve their school performance. keywords depression, learning disabilities, neurodiversity, mental disorder, special education 1. introduction vinney (2022) claims that depression is “the most widespread mental disorder”. many studies have shown that depression in adolescents is associated with their failure in various interpersonal relationships. the most important are the relationships with parents and other relatives, friends, classmates, and teachers. teens want to be understood and accepted; anxiety and stress overtake them if something fails. when they are lonely due to a lack of friends, they express ongoing sadness, anger, or self-doubt—and become vulnerable to depression (young, 2017). depressive conditions in children have a complex pathogenesis, representing a combination of endogenous and exogenous—the actual depressive symptoms and personal protective reactions in response to their failure. such reactions include neurosis-like disorders, including school phobias, i.e., “feeling of failure or difficulty with a new teacher, were associated as the incidence of frightening events in school” (waldron et al., 1975, p. 805). such phobias often cause poor school performance and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. behavioral disorders, up to a complete refusal to attend school. as a result, depressive states in children lead to conflicts with teachers, parents, and peers and gross discipline violations. attempts of administrative influence in the case of behavioral disorders and poor progress only exacerbate the state of a depressed child, creating insurmountable difficulties in learning. a loss of interest in school and extracurricular activities, including games, often accompanies depression in children (panicker et al., 2016). the child is overwhelmed and does not know what to do. neither do teachers and parents. so, only their cooperation can create appropriate treatment, pedagogy and methods, and effective ways to help children overcome depression and study better (health & wellness library, 2022). 2. method 2.1 symptoms of teen depression depression in adolescents is a mental disorder manifested by constantly low mood, sadness, melancholy, despair, and other emotional disorders. according to the scientists of the national institute of mental health (2022), depression is a serious mood disorder that affects sleeping, eating, learning, and other daily activities. rapid growth and hormonal restructuring of the body, fatigue from the study load, increased emotionality, and difficulties in relationships with peers and parents lead to psychological vulnerability in adolescents. they can withdraw into themselves, become irritable and apathetic, and immerse themselves in their inner world and experiences. a person is diagnosed with clinical depression if the symptoms last more than two weeks. parents can’t distinguish real depression in children and adolescents from a crisis of adolescence on their own. this can only be done by an experienced psychiatrist who knows the specifics of this disease’s course and uses complex diagnostic methods. depression in adolescent boys and girls is displayed differently. boys suffer from depression less often, but they become irritable and aggressive, avoid former friends, can contact “bad company,” and become addicted to alcohol and drugs. girls become sad, withdrawn, and lonely, avoid contact with people and concentrate on their inner feelings. tearfulness appears, and self-esteem falls (young, 2017). often such girls try to alleviate their suffering and “prove” their attractiveness by going out with two or more boyfriends. vinney (2022) describes the main signs of depression in adolescents, which parents and educators should pay attention to in the first place, are: * low mood, sadness, hopelessness, melancholy; * fatigue, weakness; * irritability, excitability, aggressiveness, anger; * guilt, low self-esteem, tearfulness; * anxiety; * loss of habitual interests; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. * avoidance of social contacts, isolation; * distraction, decreased concentration, forgetfulness; * decrease in school performance, increased fatigue, lack of interest in learning, difficulty with the assimilation and memorization of material. 2.2 types of depression teenagers are very vulnerable. at this time, they realize themselves, try to find their place in the world, understand their role, and talk about what they live for. also, they begin to make their first decisions at this age independently. they often react very sharply to everything that happens around them. poor performance at school, troubles in the family, and the first love that broke the heart are the primary life tests that leave an imprint on the psyche (young, 2017). some teens, growing up, painlessly cope with all problems and successfully form a future behavior model; for some, disappointments become severe stress. it is vital to help them overcome it to know what type of depression they suffer from. according to the health and wellness library (2022), there are six main types: ● major depressive disorder (mdd). it lasts for more than two weeks when a child suffers from an intense or severe mood disorder or depression itself. ● persistent depressive disorder (pdd). in the case of pdd, a child experiences milder symptoms of depression than in mdd, but they last longer, for instance, a year or longer. it is also called dysthymia. ● adjustment disorder with depressed mood (iddm). it characterizes a depressed mood after a very stressful event, for instance, a parental divorce or the death of a close relative or a pet. such depression also happens after a range of triggering events. usually, it is normal until it lasts for some months and affects the child’s daily functioning. ● seasonal affective disorder (sad). it is a form of mdd, which happens in the northern hemisphere in winter when the daylight hours are shorter, and it rains or snows a lot. ● bipolar disorder. alternating episodes of depression, mania, and an adequate state characterize this disease. these episodes can last from several weeks to several months. ● disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (dmdd). dmdd is diagnosed when a teenager displays anxiety, tantrums, and aggressive behavior without visible reasons. he is angry most of the day, and such behavior has lasted for over a year. depression is not just sadness or a bad mood. teenagers faced with a problem cannot force themselves to do well at school by an effort of will and recover overnight. parents also cannot help them. without the right treatment, symptoms can last for months or years, and mild depression develops into severe depression over time. as a result, the quality of their life is greatly reduced (karpova, 2022). http://www.childrens.com/specialties-services/conditions/bipolar www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. 3. result 3.1 who is more prone to depression? according to the research, 12.5% of adolescents aged 12-17 suffer from depression (national institute of mental health, 2022). therefore, teenagers are more vulnerable than kindergarten and elementary school kids for many reasons. plett (2016) describes the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (bdnf), which is essential in the brain for memory, learning, and higher-order thinking. that is why teens are often concerned about their appearance, school performance, and relationships with others. they compare themselves with their peers, and if something goes wrong, they feel it acutely. “during adolescence, the body produces extra receptors for oxytocin, the “bonding hormone,” so they want to be understood and accepted in society (plett, 2016). there are many possible explanations, but one of the most likely causes is stress, which leads to the forenamed mdd, pdd, iddm, or dmdd (national institute of mental health, 2022). today’s teens face more academic pressure than ever before and are also dealing with social media comparisons and other issues that did not exist a few years ago. moreover, rapid physical growth and hormonal restructuring of the body, fatigue from the study load, increased emotionality, and difficulties in relationships with peers and parents cause psychological vulnerability in adolescents (young, 2017). they can withdraw into themselves, become irritable and apathetic, and immerse themselves in their inner world and experiences. depression often progresses to bipolar disorder, described by kraepelin in the xix century. it usually begins with an episode of depression that lasts indefinitely. if the state enters the manic phase, the euphoria of the adolescent experience is accompanied by feelings of happiness or irritability (zivanovic & nedic, 2011). stone (2020) states that many creative people suffer from it. thus, creative and gifted teenagers change their moods rapidly depending on success and failure. for instance, they may have excellent cognitive abilities in art, music, or technology and struggle in the classroom. school plays a huge role in the system of education and training. “classroom environment and learning activities should stimulate students’ motivation” (ahmad, 2021, p. 53). motivation, self-awareness, character traits, and peculiar behavior characterize each child. with each variant of personality development, children may experience school problems that contribute to the emergence and further development of school failures. 3.2 psycho-pedagogical approach to depressive states of adolescents successful treatment of depression is possible when teachers, psychologists, social workers, and parents cooperate. this process is time-consuming, and in the first stage, it is vital to help teenagers find their strengths and believe in themselves. wagnild and gantner (2022) explain that depression can be overcome with the help of resilience. it can be developed with the help of cognitive therapy, social work, appropriate teaching, and other psycho-pedagogical techniques. step-by-step, such ways of correction will form a teen’s self-esteem, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve academic progress. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) for depression consists of interrelated techniques that have undergone severe clinical trials in working with depressed patients. these techniques are applied within the theory explaining the psychological structure of depression (ehmke et al., 2022). “the role of the cognitive therapist is to translate the problems of the patient who comes to treatment into a case formulation that explains the core beliefs or schemas that have interacted with life events to eventuate in the process leading to depression” (dobson, 2008, p. 6). the goal of cbt is to relieve anxiety, emotional distress, and other symptoms of depression achieved through the study and correction of erroneous interpretations, dysfunctional attitudes, and maladaptive behavior of the patient. when working with cognitive formations, the therapist must closely monitor the patient mood changes. social workers can help students get interested and motivated. parents should cooperate with teachers, school principals, and psychologists. (health & wellness library, 2022). the teacher and the student may need help to get on well, so the child can take individual tutoring, which is provided in most israeli schools, for instance, offer afternoon tutoring. when they understand the material, they continue doing well in school. suppose students need to see a school psychologist who will find out possible ld and create an individual curriculum with the help of the homeroom teacher. this case might be the most time-consuming to help the kids overcome ld, prevent or cure depression, and help them do well in school. teachers working with teenagers know that they often suffer from depression. despite this, many educators say that due to their unpreparedness for such work, they cannot provide significant assistance to students struggling with depression. moreover, the existing timetable at the school limits the possibility of lengthy consultations for students. for this reason, many teachers feel powerless regarding serious problems in students’ lives. however, despite all the difficulties, educators are in a special position to help students cope with depression. they must develop healthy relationships with their students and accommodate the need for different approaches to learning (das, 2020). since they are responsible for student’s academic performance, they can offer the parents some ways of schooling that might be appropriate for their children. 4. discussion which learning system should parents choose? it is evident that the standard education system in ordinary schools is often unsuitable for a child with any psychological or neurological disorder accompanied by chronic clinical depression. nevertheless, how can he acquire foreign languages, mathematics, literature, biology, or geography knowledge? how can they get cbt? there are some options. 1) inclusive practices in a regular school this type of education is gradually being introduced into many mainstream schools in israel and other countries. children with depression and possible ld, as well as with physical disorders, continue www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. studying in a regular class. therefore, teachers must teach the whole class and try to find an individual approach to a student currently in a challenging situation. it only sometimes works because the other 25-30 students need the teacher’s attention more. however, in many schools, kids can get individual tutorial sessions and have an opportunity to talk to teachers (das, 2020). if a student is upset and complains of “a bad day” or “lack of energy”, teachers should leave him alone and allow him not to participate in the lesson. alternatively, they can provide him with self-checking electronic exercises on his personal device. 2) special education schools are suitable for children with severe ld and depression. such a system is well developed in many countries, including israel, where special schools are small centers with classes of 5-8 students with similar disorders. they get psychological help from highly qualified specialists. if such a small team is unsuitable for a child who gets nervous surrounded by classmates he does not get on with well, teacher’s assistants or tutors conduct one-on-one lessons. the advantages of this system are that all children interact with each other and equally participate in many school activities. the disadvantage is that the division into classes is based on academic performance. so, kids with disorders might bully each other. as a result, their depression and anxiety worsen, which might cause poor academic progress (amen, 2021). 3) homeschooling is a good option for teaching children with severe psychological problems. teachers of a public education institution or specially hired tutors and psychologists visit the child and conduct classes with him directly at his residence. after completing the education, the child is issued a school graduation certificate indicating the program in which he was trained. homeschooling can be conducted according to a general or auxiliary program, taking into account the child’s capabilities and learning style. on the one hand, the child is calm because he is protected from difficulties and conflicts. moreover, due to the individual approach, he makes significant progress in his studies. on the other hand, he is completely cut off from society. in addition, it is necessary to consider the teacher’s preparedness to communicate with special children (nguyen, 2021). he must understand the principles of communication and education of a child with a specific disorder only then will the training be effective. 4) online therapy and education have become more accessible for the last few years. it is often considered equally effective as meeting a teacher or a therapist in person. you can keep the child in touch with the distance learning center and conduct surveys through a webcam and chats. today, with the help of distance learning, it is possible to get a secondary and higher education—many psychotherapists practice online training, including cbt (ehmke et al., 2022). the main disadvantage is, like in homeschooling—the need for more contact with peers. moreover, in case of being disconnected while psycho-pedagogical treatment, students might get anxious and depressed again. so, the school actively participates in programs for education, socialization, and children’s well-being. studies show that such programs increase the child’s attention to their physical health, improve their self-control, reduce the frequency of deviant behavior, and prevent aggressive and antisocial behavior. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. parents can choose the learning system for their children depending on their needs. 5. conclusion today’s teenagers are forced to cope with the growing fears and intense pressures that are the product of competition (young, 2017). the number of high school students unhappy with their school progress, appearance, and relationship with parents, peers, and teachers is still high. teens are vulnerable and sensitive to what others think and say of them and compare themselves with their peers. many of them are perfectionists, and in case of failure, they get depressed. family plays a crucial role in their upbringing, nurturing, and monitoring. among the risk factors related to the family environment, there is an authoritarian and rigid style of family upbringing and physical and psychological abuse. lack of attention, neglect of the children, and endless criticism make them withdraw into themselves and even run away from home. as a result, although many of them used to do well in elementary school, they lost their motivation and got low grades. only if parents and other relatives support children and give them good advice, they avoid depression or overcome it successfully. although depression is not innate neurodiversity, it often comes together with adhd and other ld, which reduce school progress. something similar happens after a long stay at home or in the hospital because of a physical disease. the situation worsens if parents do not support their children and criticize them often. they might end up with severe depression. other problems are peer rejection and lack of teachers’ help, which can also be demotivating factors (ahmad, 2021, p. 54). they might lead to school phobia (waldron et al., 1975). the school’s main task is to create a favorable school climate for psychological well-being. it is necessary to reduce the stress for students associated with the learning process and to prevent difficulties in relations with peers and school staff. this requires regular monitoring of the psychological well-being of children with the consent of children and parents. teachers must stop bullying and encourage schoolchildren to contact a school psychologist. they should also monitor the involvement of parents in the child’s education and, if necessary, involve the school psychologist in communication with them. references ahmad, c. v. 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(2011, april 15). kraepelin’s concept of manic-depressive insanity. journal of affective disorders, 15-24. retrieved fro https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21497402/ education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 7 original paper integrating cultural-historical activity theory and authentic learning with technology in teaching and learning: a case study analysis tommie hamaluba, phd1* & moono hamaluba, m.ed.2 1 open schooling, botswana open university, gaborone, botswana 2 counseling department, boitakanelo college, gaborone, botswana * tommie hamaluba, phd, open schooling, botswana open university, gaborone, botswana received: august 30, 2023 accepted: september 10, 2023 online published: september 20, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n3p7 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n3p7 abstract this research work presents a comprehensive framework that merges cultural-historical activity theory (c), authentic learning (a), and six distinct roles of technology (t) in the context of teaching and learning. the study reviews five individual case studies that explore the utilization of technology in educational settings, examining their alignment with the cat framework. the research highlights the significance of adventure games as an effective medium for knowledge construction, wherein embedded puzzles and core content serve as extrinsic mediators, while discussions between players intrinsically mediate knowledge construction. additionally, artifacts of mass media, such as games, software, and other media, facilitate knowledge production when they function as tools rather than objects of the activity. drawing on vygotskian concepts of social tool-mediated dialogical knowledge construction, the research concludes that games and media play an integral role in enhancing teaching and learning experiences. this study aims to contribute to the broader understanding of technology integration in education, encouraging educators to adopt transformative approaches to optimize the benefits of technology in the learning process. keywords technology, teaching and learning, adventure games, cultural-historical activity theory, authentic learning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the primary aim of this study is to explore and discuss the application of a theoretical framework that supports the integration of technology and contemporary media in educational settings. in both residential and distance education systems, learning management systems (lms) are widely employed. however, the design of lms may partly hinder innovative, collaborative, and interactive learning experiences (reeves, herrington & oliver, 2004). several lms designs tend to prioritize content (finger & jamieson-proctor, 2009), focus on technical aspects (dutton, cheong, & park, 2004), utilize commodified learning materials (amory, 2010a), concentrate on information over the learning process (paulsen, 2003), and replicate traditional instructional practices (blin & munro, 2008; browne, jenkins, & walker, 2006; dutton et al., 2004; yueh & hsu, 2008). amiel and reeves (2008) argue that technology should be an integral part of the learning process rather than an isolated unit of learning. however, teachers encounter challenges beyond lms design when integrating technology and media into their teaching practices. for instance, pre-service teachers designing text-based web quests and powerpoint presentations often focus on lower-order thinking skills, overlooking the ideological dimensions inherent in all media (reid et al., 2006). media content employs symbols and signs that are not politically neutral, objective, or impartial, often perpetuating dominant cultural values (torres & mercado, 2006). mitchell (2008) highlights that contemporary media theory is often associated with themes of war machines, coercion, aggression, surveillance, and propaganda, as described by mcluhan’s “the medium is the message”. on the other hand, gibson (2008) argues that the meaning or message of content is shaped by the ways in which we use media. this paper investigates the integration of media (content), educational technology, and interactive learning environments into instructi onal designs that align with the current dominate pedagogical paradigm of sociocultural dialogic activity (vygotsky, 1933/1978). additionally, the paper briefly introduces the aforementioned framework and reviews illustrative examples to highlight its essential aspects. the framework employed in this study incorporates three key elements: cultural-historical activity theory (c), authentic learning (a), and potential roles of educational technology (t) in the context of teaching and learning. vygotsky’s theory (1933/1978) posits that learning is never a direct process but rather occurs through the mediation of cultural and psychological tools. these tools act as intermediaries through whom we acquire knowledge about the world, enabling us to develop mastery over our surroundings and ourselves. engeström (1987) expanded vygotsky’s subject-object-tool triad to include additional components such as rules, the community, and division of labor, providing a more comprehensive understanding of human activity and work (as depicted in figure 1). central concepts associated with this socio-cultural dialogic activity framework include the object of activity, social interactions, and mediation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. figure 1. redrawn from engeström (2008), the activity system diagram depicts the framework: activity system diagram the central focus in activity theory is the object and its associated actions (engeström, 2008). however, kaptelinin (2005) points out that the object can hold different meanings: “objekt” refers to material entities that exist independently of the mind (representing something to be realized), while “predmet” denotes a thought or action (representing the object of desire). it is essential to distinguish that the motive behind the activity is not solely the object. when we instantiate an object, we formulate it, and we realize an object when we achieve a particular outcome (nardi, 2008). socio-cultural interactions play a fundamental role in cognitive development, as vygotsky (1933/1978) posits that every function in a child’s cultural development occurs twice: first between people (interpsychological) and then internally within the child (intra-psychological). in the mediation of knowledge construction, psychological and cultural tools are of utmost significance. according to wertsch (2007), mediation encompasses two formulations: explicit mediation, where a stimulus is intentionally introduced into an ongoing activity stream, evident and non-transitory; and implicit mediation, which relies on signs, especially language, primarily serving the function of communication. hence, within the activity framework, we must give meticulous attention to two essential components. firstly, the design of a learning activity should prioritize an easy-to-use approach when creating the object of the activity (the design of the learning actions). secondly, the role of technology and media/content in the system requires clarity. amory (2012) proposes that authentic learning could aid in describing the object of the learning activity and suggests various ways in which technology could be effectively integrated into such a system. according to reeves et al. (2004), well-designed learning environments should include authentic tasks that possess certain characteristics. these tasks should have real-world relevance, be ill defined with multiple subtasks, and require students to engage in complex investigations. additionally, they should offer opportunities for students to explore the tasks from various perspectives, foster collaborative and reflective learning experiences, and integrate different subject areas. the assessment should also be integrated into the tasks, allowing for the generation of multiple iterations of potential products and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. accommodating diverse and competing answers or solutions. technology assumes various roles within the system, encompassing the delivery of learning resources, research materials, and administrative information essential for educational processes. it also acts as a facilitator of communication, accommodating both real-time synchronous interactions and asynchronous interactions for anytime collaboration. collaborative authoring and other online services enable co-authorship and co-construction of content, as exemplified by google docs, where multiple authors can simultaneously edit documents. moreover, technology serves as an information transformation tool, enabling the conversion of information from one or multiple sources into alternative streams. for instance, a written novel could be transformed into a storyboard using technology. additionally, it functions as a professionalization tool, offering specific technological tools directly associated with particular professions. for example, architecture students might use computer-aided design software to enhance their professional skills. explicit mediation, where a stimulus is intentionally introduced into an ongoing activity stream, evident and non-transitory; and implicit mediation, which relies on signs, especially language, primarily serving the function of communication. hence, within the activity framework, we must give meticulous attention to two essential components. firstly, the design of a learning activity should prioritize an easy-to-use approach when creating the object of the activity (the design of the learning actions). secondly, the role of technology and media/content in the system requires clarity. amory (2012) proposes that authentic learning could aid in describing the object of the learning activity and suggests various ways in which technology could be effectively integrated into such a system. according to reeves et al. (2004), well-designed learning environments should include authentic tasks that possess certain characteristics. these tasks should have real-world relevance, be ill defined with multiple subtasks, and require students to engage in complex investigations. additionally, they should offer opportunities for students to explore the tasks from various perspectives, foster collaborative and reflective learning experiences, and integrate different subject areas. the assessment should also be integrated into the tasks, allowing for the generation of multiple iterations of potential products and accommodating diverse and competing answers or solutions. technology assumes various roles within the system, encompassing the delivery of learning resources, research materials, and administrative information essential for educational processes. it also acts as a facilitator of communication, accommodating both real-time synchronous interactions and asynchronous interactions for anytime collaboration. collaborative authoring and other online services enable co-authorship and co-construction of content, as exemplified by google docs, where multiple authors can simultaneously edit documents. moreover, technology serves as an information transformation tool, enabling the conversion of information from one or multiple sources into alternative streams. for instance, a written novel could be transformed into a storyboard using technology. additionally, it functions as a professionalization tool, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. offering specific technological tools directly associated with particular professions. for example, architecture students might use computer-aided design software to enhance their professional skills. 2. methods, results and discussion the research utilized a collective case study approach to evaluate the effectiveness of the object-tool-social framework in incorporating video games into the teaching and learning process. the case studies can be categorized into three types based on their objectives: intrinsic studies, which explore the uniqueness of individual cases; instrumental studies, which aim to advance theoretical understanding; and collective studies, which employ multiple cases to serve an instrumental purpose (stake, 1988). in this particular study, the unit of analysis for individual cases was the understanding of pre-service teachers regarding the use of video games in the classroom. simultaneously, the collective case analysis aimed to develop a theoretical foundation for leveraging video games in teaching and learning. five individual case studies were reviewed to achieve this purpose (creswell, 1998). these case studies encompassed various scenarios, such as rural school students playing a game to overcome misconceptions related to photosynthesis and respiration (case 1), orphans from soweto engaging in an interactive game to learn about diseases (case 2), third-year bed students using a game to design a learning intervention (case 3), postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) students using a game to address misconceptions related to mendelian genetics (case 4), and education students at honors level undertaking authentic tasks to enhance their understanding of technology use in the classroom (case 5). 2.1. case 1 during the study, two groups of form 3 students from kang bou centre engaged in playing an adventure game designed to address misconceptions related to photosynthesis and respiration (foko & amory, 2008). the results, as shown indicated that individual play (n=19) led to only 31.9% of the concepts being understood by the participants. interestingly, it was observed that those who couldn’t solve the game puzzles memorized the answers from their peers who could. additionally, some participants faced difficulties comprehending the english test instrument. in the second group (n=16), the students played the game in pairs, and they were given the opportunity to seek language clarification during gameplay. this collaborative approach and the provision of language assistance led to a noticeable improvement in test scores, with 50% of the concepts being understood. overall, the findings highlight the importance of collaboration and language support in enhancing learning outcomes when using video games as a tool for overcoming misconceptions related to photosynthesis and respiration among form 4 students at gaborone secondary school. 2.2 case 2 botswana open university’s kang regional centre teenage participants, consisting of orphans from kang aged 14 to 18 years (n=12), took part in playing an adventure game focused on the biology of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. various diseases, including hiv/aids and tuberculosis. the participants were divided into groups of three members, and each group played the game for a total of 10 hours (amory, 2010b). knowledge gained through gameplay was then assessed and compared to the performance of first-year biology students and first-year non-biology students. comparing teenagers’ understanding of biology in various diseases after gameplay with first-year university students (biology and non-biology) at the university of botswana (ub). table 1. teenage participants group mean score ± sd (%) teenage participants 57.1 ± 8.9 first-year biology 61.4 ± 10.2 first-year non-biology 37.6 ± 8.1 the results indicate that the average scores of the teenage participants were comparable to those of the first-year biology students (57.1 ± 8.9% vs. 61.4 ± 10.2%). in contrast, the first-year non-biology students scored significantly lower at 37.6 ± 8.1%. the difference between the teenage participants’ scores and the first-year non-biology students’ scores was statistically significant (t-test=-7.982, df=116, p < 0.001). it’s worth noting that one group of teenage participants preferred not to collaborate and was the only group that did not complete the game. the findings indicate that gameplay in this adventure game effectively enhanced the participants’ understanding of biology-related diseases, with their performance comparable to that of first-year biology students. 2.3 case 3 in case 3, third-year bed students (n=184) participated in playing an adventure game aimed at exploring an object-social vygotsky framework (amory, 2011). the gameplay was conducted in pairs. as part of the examination, participants were tasked with submitting three of the semester tasks they considered most beneficial for their personal development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. figure 2. presents the performance of third-year students in various aspects of the course, including course work, authentic tasks, and examination portfolio tasks examination of the participant portfolio outcomes (figure 2) revealed that certain individuals found significant value in playing the educational game. upon analyzing the reasons for this preference, they expressed that they experienced enhanced learning outcomes when engaging in collaborative gameplay. additionally, some participants identified the primary objective of the activity as “evaluating the game for learning”. 2.4 case 4 assessment of misconceptions in genetics among pgce students before and after gameplay table 2. assessment of genetic misconceptions among pgce cohort test mean score ± sd (%) pre-test | 29.8 ± 4.7 post-test 44.4 ± 6.5 ** significantly different, t-test=-3.69, p < 0.001 life science pgce students (n=11), divided into pairs, played an adventure game designed to rectify misconceptions related to mendelian genetics (amory, 2011). the evaluation of their understanding before and after gameplay showed a significant improvement. their mean score increased from 29.8 ± 4.7% in the pre-test to 44.4 ± 6.5% in the post-test (t-test=-3.69, p < 0.001). the students recognized that the game puzzles acted as a tool, facilitating discussions between team members and mediating their learning process. the interactive gameplay significantly contributed to their understanding of difficult mendelian genetic concepts. 2.5 case 5: authentic tasks and tools in an honours level education course unlike the previous cases that utilized complex adventure games for mediating knowledge construction, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. this case employed various authentic tasks, core readings, and software tools in an education course at the honours level. the authentic tasks encompassed activities such as evaluating e-maturity at a school using google docs, presenting software tools to support e-maturity via google presentation, creating a knowledge, skills, and attitudes mind map using free mind, designing a website on open source and open access materials in schools through weebly, and developing a film script for a future educational system using a storyboard. at the conclusion of the semester, participants were asked to assess the authenticity of the course (amory, 2012). additionally, their performance was evaluated in comparison to similarly designed courses (research methodology) and dissimilarly designed courses (education theory). figure 3. student assessment of authentic task design principles all the authentic attributes of the course, except for reflections, received high ratings from the participants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. table 3. descriptive statistics for different courses course participants mean score (%) standard deviation educational ict 30 60.73 10.66 research methodology 30 56.07 16.48 education theory 30 50.07 11.33 the results of a 1 x 6 x 3 repeated measures analysis of variance revealed significant differences between three different courses: educational ict, research methodology, and education theory. post hoc pairwise comparisons indicated that both the educational ict and research methodology courses differed significantly from the education theory course (p=0.0001 and p=0.006, respectively). however, there was no significant difference between the educational ict and research methodology courses (p=0.25). 3. conclusion the research reviewed here leads to three significant conclusions: firstly, when introducing game puzzles, core reading, and suitable software into a learning activity, these elements act as the extrinsic mediator, while the discussions among players intrinsically mediate their comprehension. secondly, artefacts, including games, media, and software, contribute to knowledge production when utilized as tools rather than mere objects of the activity. thirdly, the vygotskian concept of social tool-mediated dialogical knowledge construction emerges as an appropriate framework for incorporating games and media in teaching and learning. these findings provide valuable support for the design of learning objects within activities applicable to both residential and distance education systems. implementing these principles can enhance the overall learning experience and foster meaningful knowledge acquisition for students. acknowledgement i am deeply grateful to my family, whose unwavering support and understanding have been a constant source of motivation throughout this journey. their encouragement and belief in my abilities have pushed me to excel and complete this work. i extend my heartfelt thanks to the participants who willingly took part in the case studies and generously shared their insights and experiences. their valuable contributions have enriched the findings of this research. i would also like to express my appreciation to my friends for their encouragement and understanding during the ups and downs of this project. their presence and support have been a great source of comfort. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. this work would not have been possible without the collaboration and assistance of all the individuals involved. i am truly grateful for the support of my family, participants, and friends in making this research a reality. references amiel, t., & reeves, t. c. (2008). design-based research and educational technology: rethinking technology and the research agenda. educational technology & society, 11(4), 29-40. amory, a. (2010a). education technology and hidden ideological contradictions. educational technology & society, 13(1), 69-79. amory, a. (2010b). learning to play games or playing games to learn? a health education case study with soweto teenagers. australasian journal of educational technology, 26(6), 810-829. amory, a. (2011). pre-service teacher development: a model to develop critical media literacy through computer game-play. education as change, 15(sup1), 111-122. amory, a. (2012) tool-mediated authentic learning in an educational technology course: a design-based innovation. interactive learning environments (id: 682584 doi: 10.1080/10494820.2012.682584). blin, f., & munro, m. (2008). why hasn’t technology disrupted academics’ teaching practices? understanding resistance to change through the lens of activity theory. computers & education, 50(2), 475-490. browne, t., jenkins, m., & walker, r. (2006). a longitudinal perspective regarding the use of vles by higher education institutions in the united kingdom. interactive learning environments, 14(2), 177-192. creswell, j. (1988). qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five traditions. thousand oaks: sage. dutton, w. h., cheong, p. h., & park, n. (2004). the social shaping of a virtual learning environment: the case of a university-wide course management system. electronic journal of e-learning, 2(1), 69-80. engeström, y. (1987). learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. helsinki: orienta-konsultit. engeström, y. (2008). enriching activity theory without shortcuts. interacting with computers, 20(2), 256-259. finger, g., & jamieson-proctor, r. (2009). assessment issues and new technologies: eportfolio possibilities. in c. wyatt-smith, & j. j. cumming (eds.), educational assessment in the 21st century (pp. 63-81). dordrecht: springer. foko, t., & amory, a. (2008). social constructivism in games based learning in the south african context. in j. luca & e. weippl (eds.), world conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. and telecommunications 2008 (pp. 5757-5764). vienna, austria: aace. gibson, t. (2008). double vision: mcluhan’s contributions to media as an interdisciplinary approach to communication, culture, and technology. mediatropes, 1, 143-166. kaptelinin, v. (2005). the object of activity: making sense of the sense-maker. mind, culture, and activity, 12(1), 4-18. larose, f., grenon, v., morin, m.-p., & hasni, a. (2009). the impact of pre-service field training sessions on the probability of future teachers using ict in school. european journal of teacher education, 32(3), 289-303. mitchell, w. j. t. (2008). addressing media. mediatropes, 1, 1-18. nardi, b. a. (2005). objects of desire: power and passion in collaborative activity. mind, culture, and activity, 12(1), 37-51. paulsen, m. f. (2003). experiences with learning management systems in 113 european institutions. educational technology & society, 6(4), 134-148. reeves, t. c., herrington, j., & oliver, r. (2004). a development research agenda for online collaborative learning. educational technology research & development, 52(4), 53-65. reid, d., dawson, v., & forster, p. (2006). trends in the design of ict teaching resources created by pre-service science teachers. teaching science, 52(4), 28-33. stake, r. e. (1988). case study methods in educational research: seeking sweet water: complementary methods in research in education. in r. m. jaeger (ed.), complementary methods for research in education (pp. 253-300). washington, dc: american educational research association. torres, m., & mercado, m. (2006). the need for critical media literacy in teacher education core curricula. educational studies, 39(3), 260-282. vygotsky, l. s. (1933). mind in society. the development of higher psychological processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. wertsch, j. v. (2007). mediation. in h. daniels, m. cole, & j. v. wertsch (eds.), the cambridge companion to vygotsky (pp. 178-192). new york: cambridge university press. yueh, h. p., & hsu, s. (2008). designing a learning management system to support instruction. communications of the acm, 51(4), 59-63. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 41 original paper attitudes of primary school pupils to physical education tomáš polívka1* & ludmila fialová1 1 charles university (department of pedagogy, psychology and didactics p.e: and sport), prague, czech republic * tomáš polívka, charles university (department of pedagogy, psychology and didactics p.e: and sport), prague, czech republic received: december 18, 2021 accepted: december 31, 2021 online published: january 21, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n1p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n1p41 abstract background: the descriptive study focuses on pupils’ attitudes towards physical education lessons. there are also two other issues discussed in the physical education community. the first is p.e. assessment of pupils. the second issue is relieving from p.e. lessons. the motivation of pupils at the beginning of school and the subsequent evaluation of their activity is important for development of positive attitudes among all pupils. aim: the aim of the research is to find out how pupils perceive p.e. lessons because physical activities are important for health and a healthy lifestyle. methods: the data were statistically analyzed in the r program. the chí-square test for non-parametric data was used to assess statistical significance. we used the coefficient of determination to evaluate material significance. results: almost 88% of respondents engage in sports activities at different levels. material significance is found in the following cases: physical education is more popular with boys and is also much more important for boys. statistical significance wasn’t found for two items. conclusion: we see a link between the low level of motor abilities and the reasons for the absence of pupils in physical education classes, as well as their positive feelings when p.e. classes get cancelled. keywords physical activity, motivation; attitudes to p.e., current topics in p.e 1. introduction the descriptive study focuses on topics related to the perception of p.e. by primary school pupils. health is the most important value in life therefore this topic should be included in discussions with children from an early age. according to the who, lifestyle is a result of childhood education. hancox, milne and poulton have the same opinion, arguing that excessive television viewing in childhood is associated with overweight and obesity, low fitness, smoking and increased cholesterol in adulthood. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. jeřábek and tupý consider the education of children for active advancement, responsibility and protection of physical health as a priority of the current educational trends in primary education in the czech republic (hancox, 2014; jeřábek, 2007; who, 2002). hbsc (health behavior in school-aged children) follows the health behavior of the young generation. the hbsc results have several sections. we present some results regarding physical activity from 2016, because they directly relate to our study. hbsc claims that most czech children are conditioned with their lifestyle. compared to other countries, the czech republic is rather at the bottom of the ladder. most children suffer from lack of physical activity (80%). many children spend a lot of time watching tv and using computers. obesity affects 29% of 11-year-old boys, 28% of 13-year-old boys and 23% of 15-year-old boys. czech children are no different from the international average (gecková, 2016). the aim of the research is to find out how pupils perceive p.e. lessons because physical activities are important for health. children’s perception of the value of health is influenced by school and family (who, 2002). information about the value of health is passed on to children in health education. health education has been implemented in school curricula since 2007. one component of health is physical health, p.e. deals with this component. the main objectives of physical education are complex. fialová defines the objective of physical education at school as follows, “the main objective is to stimulate and promote a bio-psycho-socially effective lifelong exercise regime, health prevention, mobility skills, physical skills, knowledge, personal characteristics and positive attitudes of pupils towards exercise”. the last part of the definition is the most important. this section emphasizes the nurture of pupils’ positive attitudes towards physical activities. sufficient, quality physical activity is an important determinant that contributes to human health (fialová, 2010, p. 89). there are also two other issues discussed in the physical education community. the first is p.e. assessment of pupils. the second issue is relieving from p.e. lessons. cihlář points to an important function of assessment in that positive assessment influences the attitudes of the pupil towards p.e in the dimension related to performance and health. an interesting finding is that the activity of the parents has an impact on the activity of the child. the motivation of pupils at the beginning of school and the subsequent evaluation of their activity is important for development of positive attitudes among all pupils. cihlář also observes a low level of motor abilities in his research. it measured performance using the unifittest 6-60 test battery. most probands are below average and over 60% of children do not get even one hour of exercise a day (cihlář, 2017). 2. method 2.1 research tool the research tool is a questionnaire divided into five sections. in this study, we present the results of the first and second section of the research tool. there are two types of items in these five sections. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. first type is an open question. the second type is the answer to a question bounded by a scale. the first section has 6 questions focused on popularity, significance and intensity of p.e. for pupils. this section was taken from the standardized questionnaire of hrabal and pavelková (hrabal, 2015). the questionnaire was used to determine the relationship of czech pupils to individual school subjects. the second section has four questions and tracks feelings and emotions in p.e. lessons. part of the questions is taken from frano, other questions are open and supplemented by antala. questions supplemented by antala explore what pupils are afraid of and what activities they do not enjoy (antala, 2012; frano, 1977; frömel, 1999; hrabal, 2015; sigmundová, 2012). 2.2 research sample the research sample was chosen deliberately and consists of secondary school pupils. in the results section, we divided the set into boys and girls in order to observe differences in attitudes between the sexes. the questionnaires were administered by faculty of physical education and sport charles university students as part of their practice. a total of 589 questionnaires were completed. the conditions for exclusion from the research were set out as follows: no identifying data (height, weight, age), more than three unanswered entries in the questionnaire, or a nonsensical answer to an open-ended question. if the respondent wrote that they didn’t understand the question, we wrote the missing code into the data. we didn’t take that as a missed question. analysis of the data showed these problems mainly concern two items, we didn’t include these items in the interpretation of the results. this way, we ensured the relevance of the data. following this correction, we included 480 questionnaires to the research. you can see the representation of each type of education programme of the sample in table 1. we used the international classification scale (isced) of 2011 to divide the probands. table 2 shows psychometric indicators according to the educational programme. table 1. division by educational programme boys girls all lower secondary isced 2 37 41 78 8-year grammar school isced 2 95 67 162 6-year grammar school isced 2 11 10 21 4-year grammar school isced 2 52 83 135 high school with graduation isced 3 27 57 84 all 222 258 480 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. table 2. psychometric indicators of the research sample age (years) sd height (cm) sd weight (kg) sd boys 15.69 1.83 171.17 10.93 59.67 12.21 girls 15.67 2.31 165.50 7.72 55.00 9.30 all 15.68 2.10 168.13 9.75 57.16 10.98 2.3 statistical analysis the cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to evaluate the internal consistency of the psychometric indicators that were analyzed. the data was analyzed in the r program. we transformed answers into tables. we used the chí-square test to determine statistical significance (skutil, 2011). the hypothesis is established as follows: there is no difference in the results between the group of boys and girls. if the resulting chí-square value of the test is less than 0.05 (,,p=.05”) the null hypothesis will be rejected. as part of the interpretation of the data, we decided to work with effect size. the coefficient of determination can be applied to ordinal data. for this coefficient, the effect occurs if the difference between elements is more than 10% in this case, we point to material significance. data not bounded by a scale were converted into a graphical form. we used percentages to interpret the data (sigmundová, 2012). 3. results in the following chapter, we present the results of our research. cronbach’s alpha is 0.7, this value shows good internal consistency. table 3 contains descriptive statistics. the most common median value is 2. this indicates a rather more positive expression of the individual items. modus is identical to the medians of the individual items. the item evaluating motivation is at 4, in this case indicating a low level of motivation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. table 3. descriptive statistics for individual items mean sd mode median quartile 3 quartile 1 irq skew kurtosis popularity of p.e. 2.27 1.00 2 2 3 1 2 0.49 -0.21 attitude to p.e. 2.33 0.91 3 3 3 2 1 0.26 -0.52 motivation to p.e. 2.70 1.00 4 4 4 3 1 0.12 -0.36 significance of p.e. 2.76 1.11 2 2 3 2 1 0.21 -0.42 difficulty of p.e. 3.28 1.03 2 2 3 2 1 0.66 0.55 talent in p.e. 2.77 1.00 2 2 3 2 1 0.32 -0.21 feelings in p.e. lessons 2.18 0.83 2 2 3 2 1 0.46 0.20 feelings when p.e. lesson is cancelled 2.35 1.17 3 3 3 1 2 0.41 -0.75 the sample was divided by sex. the samples were compared using the chí-square test, to search for statistical significance. in table 4 we provide results of the data analysis. we point to the statistical significance between boys and girls (,,p=.05”). statistical significance was demonstrated in six items. table 4. statistical analysis of individual items item sex scale range very popular unpopular popularity of p.e. chi-square 0.000 boys girls 17% 35% 37% 33% 36% 22% 8% 8% 2% 3% very hardworking i don’t try at al attitudes to p.e. chi-square 0.000 girls boys 15% 16% 54% 47% 23% 29% 7% 6% 1% 3% very motivated not motivated motivation to p.e. chi-square 0.000 girls boys 11% 10% 33% 34% 40% 37% 12% 14% 4% 5% very important insignificant significance of p.e. chi-square 0.000 girls boys 9% 18% 23% 37% 38% 27% 18% 16% 12% 3% very demanding very easy difficulty of p.e girls 5% 17% 40% 27% 12% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. chi-square 0.146 boys 5% 13% 41% 25% 15% very talented talentless talent in p.e. chi-square 0.051 girls boys 10% 12% 26% 35% 38% 34% 19% 14% 7% 5% always good always bad feelings in p.e. lessons chi-square 0.000 girls boys 14% 12% 45% 50% 34% 23% 6% 2,.5% 1% 0.5% i’m always happy i’m always upset feelings when p.e. lesson is cancelled chi-square 0.012 girls boys 38% 24% 21% 50% 27% 23% 9% 2.5% 5% 0.5% first item shows the popularity of p.e. physical education is more popular with boys than girls. in the categories very popular and neither popular, nor unpopular, differences are higher than 10%, we observe material significance. the category very popular was more frequently checked by boys (18%). the category neither popular, nor unpopular was more frequently checked by girls (14%). chi square showed statistical significance between boys and girls. pupils’ approach to physical education lessons is shown on the second item. most pupils are in the category hardworking or in the sometimes i try category. we do not observe a difference of more than 10% in the approach of individual groups and we do not observe material significance, but statistical significance is demonstrated. third item shows the self-assessment of a pupil’s motivation. an important element of motivation in our set will be external motivation by the teacher. over two-thirds of both boys and girls are in the “motivated” and “moderately motivated” categories. chi square showed statistical significance between boys and girls. the significance of p.e. is shown in item four. for the girls’ sample, the distribution is very similar to the normal distribution. as for boys, only a few individuals are in the “insignificant” category while most boys checked the “important” category. this category appears to be significant. it can therefore be concluded that for the boys is p.e. more important than for the girls. chi square showed statistical significance between boys and girls. fifth item presents findings on the difficulty of p.e. lessons. girls perceive p.e. as more demanding. most of the sample is in the “moderately demanding” category. we don’t observe statistical significance. pupils’ talent for p.e. is shown in item six. there is a trend in responses approaching a curve showing normal distribution. pupils overestimate rather than undervalue their talent. only 18 girls and 10 boys checked the “talentless” category. this is a relatively positive finding. statistical significance has not been demonstrated for this item. feelings about p.e. are shows in item seven. most often, pupils www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. marked the category “mostly good.” at the other pole, “always bad” was checked by very few pupils. in the category of “sometimes good”, we observe material significance. girls marked this category much more often than boys. we observe statistical significance between boys and girls. item eight shows pupils’ feelings when their p.e. class is cancelled. many of the girls are always happy. the most common answer for boys is, “i often like it”. for this item we observe material significance for two categories. the “i’m always happy” category for girls and the “i often like it” category for boys. chi square showed statistical significance between boys and girls. activities that pupils are afraid of are shown in figure 2. we only include activities that were checked by at least 5% of respondents. the most common responses are “nothing” and “gymnastics” figure 1. activities i’m afraid of the figure number 3 shows the 7 least popular activities that were checked by respondents. we include activities checked by at least 5% of respondents. the least popular activity is gymnastics, the others are different forms of running. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. figure 2. activities i don’t like 4. discussion we have identified some important information in our research. we point to statistical significance between boys and girls. statistical significance wasn’t demonstrated in two items, “difficulty” and “talent”. we consider these findings to be significant. physical education is more popular with boys. we also observed material significance in the item detecting feelings when p.e. classes are cancelled. this is a question that deserves further investigation. boys and girls agree on the activities they are worried about, most often mentioning gymnastics, running and sports games. different forms of games are important for motivation to exercise. we can agree with this because pupils are afraid or dislike activities where game forms and competitions are not used (athletics, gymnastics, running). gosset compares two programs to teach p.e. these programmes differed precisely in competitive form, gosset didn’t prove a statistical difference between the samples. bernstein’s study shows that educational programs based on competition and racing are less popular among elementary school students. pupils and parents from ireland share the same opinion, particularly appreciating the fun and experiential form of p.e. (bernstein, 2011; coulter, 2020; gosset, 2019; rikard, 2007). attitudes to p.e. are positive in our sample. many studies point to the fact that the interest and positive attitude towards p.e. classes decrease with age, for example in pereira, which examines the relationship of portuguese pupils to physical education. in our sample, we do not observe a decline in popularity with age, just as cruz in his study points to a positive attitude of filipino children to physical activities even after graduating from secondary school (arabaci, 2009; cruz, 2021; dismore, 2010; chen, 2015; pereira, 2020; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 49 published by scholink inc. subramanjam, 2007; veseli, 2015). wang compares a sample of children from china and the us, its results suggest that chinese pupils have a more positive relationship with p.e and also that boys feel more positively about p.e. than girls. we observe this finding in our study, but it is not statistically significant (cihlář, 2017; hancox, 2004; philips, 2015; wang, 2019). chinese students see p.e. as an important part of their lifestyle. there is a significant difference in the preferences of activity in girls and boys, this can also be seen in our ensemble. irish pupils know that a positive relationship with activity is important (coulter, 2020; cruz, 2021; zeng, 2016). if we compare the results of our study with antala, we reach the following conclusions. p.e. is a relatively popular school subject for all pupils but czech pupils seem to enjoy p.e. more than their slovak counterparts. both sets consider p.e. an undemanding subject with czech pupils indicating lower difficulty of the subject. on the other hand, slovak pupils consider p.e. to be more important than czech pupils. we found the same difference in terms of motivation in p.e. classes. the czech set makes more effort in p.e. classes than the slovak set. our study limits are the sample size and the non-standardized research tools. there is no standardized tool in the czech language that would evaluate students’ attitudes and opinions towards p.e. we found some interesting tools in the research. we think about translating one tool used in the world into the czech language for better comparison of issues in individual states. at the same time, we think that the tool we have used is good enough for this research. 5. conclusions the positive perceptions of physical education in our research are good news. we see a link between the low level of motor abilities identified by cihlář and the reasons for the absence of pupils in physical education classes, as well as their positive feelings when p.e. classes get cancelled. an interesting finding was that a significant part of the sample is afraid of gymnastics and some individuals even of the teacher. these are factors where causes need to be identified and worked on. the low level of motor abilities may also be related to activities that pupils do not like to perform (athletics, gymnastics, running). these activities are very important for the development of motor abilities. we think the next step is to find the variables that affect pupils’ attitudes to p.e. in future research. acknowledgement funding: this research was funded by progres q19, svv 260599 informed consent statement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1txys9_ihth4vobnvj-_jtojuplgc9-9otnf7j_z6hzi/edit?usp= sharing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. data availability statement: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1og-7ojd4hwsqjittcaix_qzrqtlt8netied2w8dft6e/edit# gid=444716115 conflicts of interest: “the authors declare no conflict of interest”. references antala, b. et al. (2012). telesná a športová výchova v názoroch žiakov základných a stredných škôl. batislava: end, spol. s r.o, topoľčianky. arabaci, r. (2009). attitudes toward physical education and class preferences of turkish secondary and high school students. lköretim. bernstein, e., philips, s., r & silverman, s. (2011). attitudes and perceptions of middle school students toward competitive activities in physical education. journal of teaching in physical education, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.1123/jtpe.30.1.69 cihlář, d. (2017). hodnocení žáků 2. stupně základních škol v ústeckém kraji a jejich postoj ke školní tělesné výchově. praha. dissertation ftvs uk. coulter, m., mcgraine, b., & woods, k. (2020). pe should be an integral part of each school day: parents’ and their children’s attitudes towards primary physical education. education 3-13, 48(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2019.1614644 cruz, a. (2021). post-primary school students ’attitudes toward physical education and physical activity preferences: philippines’ k-12 program. the asia-pacific education researcher. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-021-00598-2 dismore, h., & bailey, r. (2010). attitudes toward physical education following transition. physical education & sport pedagogy, 15(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/17408980902813935 fialová, l. (2010). aktuální témata didaktiky: školní tělesná výchova. praha: karolinum. frano, j. (1977). vplyv povinnej telesnej výchovy na postoje a záujmy žiakov gymnázia v oblasti telesnej kultúry. kandidátska dizertačná práca, bratislava. fromel, k. et al. (1999). pohybová aktivita a sportovní zájmy mládeže. olomouc: univerzita palackého. gecková, a., dankulincová z., sigmundová, d., & kalman, m. (2016). mezinárodní zpráva o zdraví a životním stylu dětí a školáků. olomouc: univerzita palackého v olomouci. gosset, m., & silverman, s. 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(2016). a study of chinese collegiate attitudes toward physical education. international research in higher education, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.5430/irhe.v1n2p1 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 12 original paper on becoming an official in sakya’s aphorisms and bacon’s essays shen qunying1* 1 pre-college education school, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china * shen qunying, pre-college education school, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china received: may 6, 2020 accepted: may 20, 2020 online published: may 29, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n2p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n2p12 abstract sakya’s aphorisms and bacon’s essays make a profound observation of social reality, comment on various social phenomena, and convey their rational meditation and political views on social and political life. here is a comparative study of the two classic literary works with a distance of more than 300 years so as to inherit and carry forward the excellent traditional culture at home and abroad, nourish and enlighten today’s officials to take the right way, follow the law and the correct path of cadre growth, and reserve the corresponding competences. keywords bacon’s essays, sakya’s aphorism, official, competence 1. introduction there is a chinese saying, “you will be rich if you start a business and engage in business, and you will be promoted and even become a dignitary person if you are an official in politics”. people often face the career choice of being a political official, a businessman or a farmer sooner or later in the world, especially in the developing countries. being a government official is one of the career orientations with a profound historical and cultural tradition in the world. how to become an official? maybe we can find the answer in sakya’s aphorisms and bacon’s essays (hereinafter referred to as sakya and bacon) which show the world rational meditation and political views on social and political life. this paper only makes a comparative study on how to become a government official in order to take in their political wisdom and empower the present cadres’ world. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. 2. self-cultivation bacon (2018, p. 157) asserts that the molding of a man’s fortune is chiefly in his own hands and everyone is the designer of his own fortune, and the exercised fortune makes the able man. it is no doubt that one’s fortune is much in one’s self. similarly, sakya shows that one has to rely on his own wisdom if he wants to be happy in the present and the next life (1985, p. 4), and that people who are both smart and diligent can achieve anything (1985, p. 53). both of them inspire people to consolidate their own growth path, achieve corresponding political competencies and fulfill their perfection out of their intelligence, diligence and courage. 2.1 going for becoming an official 2.1.1 the ambition to serve the public bacon(2018, p. 148) has a deep insight that honor (i.e., seeking power and position) has three things of the vantage ground to do good, the approach to kings and principal persons, and the raising of a man’s own fortunes, which shows selfishness or selflessness of honor-seekers. in reality, there are more than a man in the world who is eager to become an official in politics in order to “purchase himself profit or pleasure or honor or the like” (2018, p. 15); there is many an official in the world who has gone for privatization, utilitarianism, and humanization of political power; there is certainly no lack of helpful officials who cling to the principles that the power is used for the people’s interests, and their feelings are tied with the people, listening to the people’s complaints and calls, attending to the people’s thoughts and concerns, intending to solve the people’s difficulties, and going for meeting the people’s desires and demands. in bacon’s opinion, the official-admirers ought to “divide with reason between self-love and society, and be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others, specially to thy king and country” (2018, p. 92), and to remember “men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so they have no freedom, neither in their persons nor in their actions nor in their times (2018, p. 38)”. similarly, sakya advocates benefiting others, dedicating to society, and seeking human interests and well-being by saying, “if one wants to work for his own welfare, he should work for others first (1985, p. 92); although a sage lives far away, he can also take care of his relatives and friends (1985, p. 9)”. obviously bacon and sakya hint that those who aspire to politics should set up a clear political ambition, make careful designation of their own career, prepare to lose their own liberty for power, strengthen the spirit of dedication and the sense of service, and have the notion that “i will not lose myself and live up to the people”. 2.1.2 the determination to persevere as the folk saying goes that greatness is made out of sufferings and endurance, bacon(2018, p. 38) tells people that “the rising unto place is laborious”, and sakya (1985, p. 54) has the similar view that one’s success has to depend on his fortune although one works hard. in their opinion, success in official career originates from a good opportunity, a fit place and the harmony of people. but bacon (2018, p. 17) exhorts people “the virtue of adversity is fortitude; prosperity is not without many fears and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes; virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed”. and he tells people that “timing of the suit is the principal (2018, p. 148), and the ripeness or unripeness of the occasion must ever be well weighed (2018, p. 86), since a man may not look to sow and reap at once, but must prepare business and so ripen it by degrees (2018, p. 187)”. instead, he warns people that hasty drawing of profit in the first years is unreasonable (2018, p. 132). he persuades people “if a man have the fortitude and resolution to enfranchise himself at once, that is the best (2018, p. 152), and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come (2018, p. 15); one should pass his soul in patience (2018, p. 218); a wise man will make more opportunities than he finds (2018, p. 201)”. it’s clear that bacon hints people to be far-sighted instead of speedy profit, and strengthen people’s confidence and perseverance in seeking a political status, for the opportunity always favors those who are prepared. likewise, sakya (1985, p. 1) enlightens people not to be pleased by praise, nor displeased by criticism, and to maintain properly their good qualities, settle down to pursue knowledge. and he (1985, p. 2) encourages people “when a wit man suffers from a failure, he can still make more efforts”. in sakya’s (1985, p. 10) opinion, one should have a foresight to the future，and even when obstructed，he should still be patient; as long as he perseveres in these, even a servant can become a minister. sakya and bacon point out that it is not easy to become an official. they encourage people to work hard and persevere step by step, they will succeed sooner or later, just as su dongpo (su, 2009, p. 1811) said, “those who made great achievements in ancient times not only had extraordinary talents, but also had perseverance”. 2.2 improving competences 2.2.1 intellectual quality as is known, learning is the way to improve knowledge, skills and abilities, the ladder of growth and progress, and the power to enter the official career and promote career development for people. in the historical view, those politicians who could plan strategies and commanded the overall situation mostly came best from those who were learned. only by study can one enrich his own knowledge first, and improve his abilities in lingual, literal and emotional expression, the capacity of analysis, judgment and decision as well as executive capability, all of which are just necessities for political officials. in bacon’s opinion, custom (i.e., education)only does alter and subdue nature (2018, p. 152), and studies perfect nature, even studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability;(2018, p. 194) men’s thoughts are much according to their inclination, their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinion; there is no trusting to the force of nature nor to the bravery of words, except it be corroborate by custom (2018, p. 154). there is no other power in the world except knowledge and learning, which can establish a throne in the mind and soul, understanding, imagination and belief of human beings (su, 2000, p. 207). obviously, bacon attaches importance to education and advocates learning. in the same way, sakya thinks that learning can increase wisdom and insight and even govern ignorance, for “a fool is ignorant because he doesn’t like to learn and ignorance makes a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. man simple in this life (1985, p. 9)”. sakya (1985, p. 2) encourages people to persist in studying today even if they are to die tomorrow morning. moreover, sakya says frankly: to judge whether one is learned or not is to see if he can tell the right from the wrong (1985, p. 1); no matter how profound knowledge he grasps, who can be good at making a good choice is a capable person (1981, p. 17). it is clear that the learned people can tell the right from the wrong and is good at making choices. likewise, bacon believes reading makes a full man, conference a ready, and writing an exact man, for the aims to weigh and consider (2018, p. 195) and be able to hold judgment in discerning what is true (2018, p. 129) so that discretion of speech is more than eloquence (2018, p. 131). these are just the necessary qualities to be an official in politics knowing the right and the wrong, distinguishing the true from the false, being able to balance and good at making choices. above all, sakya and bacon advocate human learning to improve cultural quality, social ethics and awareness of law and discipline, to enable independent thinking and judgment, to distinguish the right from the wrong, and make sensible choices, to avoid ignorance and confusion, and to get truth in thoughts and freedom in action. people not born with knowledge should be open-minded to seek advice. just as sakya says: one without wisdom should consult scholars modestly (1985, p. 68); even if one has profound knowledge, he still needs to absorb merits of others; if he can go on like that, he will understand all knowledge. (1985, p. 3) he inspires people to “get close to noble people, consult learned talents, make friends with loyal people, and in the way he can achieve life satisfaction” (1985, p. 75). we can learn that people should learn with modesty from others to enrich themselves. similarly, bacon warns people “in suits which a man doth not well understand, it is good to refer them to some friend of trust and judgment” (2018, p. 192). what’s more, bacon urges people to seek advice from books for “books will speak plain, it is good to be conversant in them, specially the books of such as themselves have been actors upon the stage (2018, p. 83)”, and “histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend (2018, p. 195)”. these are the necessary competences for people to enter successful political career. sakya and bacon value learning. at present, the phenomenon of “doctors or professors working in politics” reflects the idea of learning optimization to officials, and highlights the professionalization and intellectualization of cadres, which contributes to improving the officials’ decision-making and governing abilities. 2.2.2 character and moral cultivation generally speaking, if one intends to enter the official career, he should cultivate himself to be a virtuous talent. sakya (2015, p. 199) affirms that one must only do that which helps others if one wants to achieve stature for oneself, and he (1985, p. 92) points out the villain only regards self-interests as happiness, while the sage thinks others’ interests as happiness, for when one does things for others, he is actually doing things for himself; when one does one’s own things, he is actually serving others. he (1985, p. 114) assures people if one wants to seek well-being for himself, he should first strive to seek the good of others; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. those who think about only themselves can never realize their dreams. we can draw from sakya’s views that to be an official in politics, one should be happy to benefit people, devote himself to society, and seek the interests and well-being of mankind, just as sakya (1985, p. 2) says: scholars study all knowledge, then they benefit the world. likewise, bacon affirms that goodness is altruism as he says (2018, p. 46) “goodness is the affecting of the weal of men. the inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man, insomuch that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures”. but he (2018, p. 201) offers “to apply one’s self to others is good, so it be with demonstration that a man doth it upon regard and not upon facility”. he (2018, p. 3) puts forward his own ideal of morality—“it is heaven upon earth to have a man’s mind in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth”. but bacon (2018, p. 46) criticizes “the desire of power in excess causes the angels to fall. without goodness man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin”. bacon thinks that being an official in politics should have the virtues of politeness, compassion, gratitude, self-sacrifice and forgiveness. he (2018, p. 18) appreciates “virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed”. similarly, sakya (1985, p. 86) points out that greed makes people shameless as those who are extremely greedy suffer from continuous pain like rain in spring, while those who can lessen desire will enjoy endless pleasure. he (li, 2013, p. 12) admires a noble man never takes back what he has given, and can be willing to bear the insult of a mean man, and will never forget the benefits of others, which are the marks of a noble man. he (1985, p. 11) motivates people to assure if the sage is kind to his enemies, the enemies will be conquered by him and whoever is kind to people will be made the king by them. sakya (2015, p. 197) thinks “knowing how to obtain things, giving impartially with skill, being subdued, having consideration for others’ feelings, being grateful for those who quell one’s fears: if one aspires to these qualities, one achieves the world”. he means those who become officials should be decent, fair, modest, tolerant, selfless and grateful. 2.2.3 down-to-earth and self-reflection competences in order to realize their ideal and ambition of being officials, people must have strong abilities to solve problems and make decisions, and great capability of coordination, agglutination, reflection and correction. people show their real ideas, basic attitudes and value orientation in their own words, show their action and execution through how many difficulties they have solved and how many practical things they have done when they are faced with the important task at the grass-roots level, and show their interests and cooperation through their making friends, so as to show their adaptability to the development and change of things and so on. bacon and sakya criticize blind obedience and recklessness, advocate observation and analysis, and make their own judgment and treatment in line with the actual situation through independent thinking. people should attend to matters and avoid greed. bacon enlightens people “he that is only real had need have exceeding great parts of virtue, as the stone had need to be rich that is set without foil (2018, p. 200). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. he that doth not divide will never enter well into business, and he that divideth too much will never come out of it clearly (2018, p. 98). in business, the keeping close to the matter and not taking of it too much at once, procureth dispatch (2018, p. 96)”. likewise, sakya firmly exhorts people to learn to observe and think, “even if success is due, people still need to think thrice beforehand; to think afterwards over and again is foolish and insane; even if a scholar is cheated, he will not be deluded” (li, 2013, pp. 5-8). but he (1985, p. 16) criticizes “a person, who can’t tell the right and the good from the wrong and the bad, with no thinking and hearing, only knowing to fill the belly, is a hairless pig”. sakya (2015, p. 151) attacks one who likes to start a hundred different schemes, is unable to achieve even one success; if one does too many things, one with great wisdom will destroy oneself just as a king with too many ideas brings much degradation to the land. in bacon’s (2018, p. 38) opinions, the rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. but he (2018, p. 92) lets people be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others, specially to thy king and country. bacon (1983, p. 85) gives insight into that a wise man is careful in his steps, but a fool turns to deceive others. bacon instructs people to make reflection on whether their words and deeds conform to the etiquette and law, on whether their words and deeds are recognized by the public and based on the normal intention and sincerity by a proper way to achieve their desires. similarly, sakya says “although a goal may be achieved through wrongdoing, why would the wise admire it? although something done right may go wrong, the wise may not feel ashamed (2015, p. 68). the sage will correct even a small mistake; a mean man will never care about even his worst sin (1985, p. 9). the excellent observe their own faults, while the coarse seek faults in others (2015, p. 59). a wise can eradicate faults, but a foolish can not (2015, p. 3). even those of limited intelligence should analyze their faults and eliminate them; by implementing the antidotes in this way they increasingly enhance themselves (2015, p. 188)”. it is obvious that bacon and sakya educate people to reflect on self-image, recognize their own shortcomings and faults, and seriously correct them, which are the expression of morality. 3. turning to others since people are unique social animals, they are motivated by social needs and fully involved in work and life. they can get along well with others around them and gain a sense of identity. a person can get into an official position mostly due to his own efforts, partially to the appreciation and recommendation from his leaders as well as the recognition and support of colleagues and friends. 3.1 making friends and discussion sakya (1985, pp. 1-6) has an insight that a man with good moral cultivation can get along well with others, and as long as one is a learned scholar, he will be surrounded by others. man is a gregarious animal and many things can’t be achieved by himself alone. sakya instructs people “it doesn’t matter if one has no wealth and servants, and he can achieve a lot if he has intelligent and reliable friends (li, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. 2013, p. 97); one can accomplish a great cause only if he must rely on his friends, just as fire can ruin the forest only if it must rely on the strong wind (2015, p. 208). people are not all rounders, and one may know quite well how to do things alone, but all tasks should be done through consultation; those who fail to collaborate with others buy expensive regret for themselves (2015, p. 196)”. sakya advocates that wise people will consult others on even trivial thing (1985, p. 66), and further worthy wisdom can arise when two wise people engage in discussion (2015, p. 9). in sakya’ s views, regarding action taken after careful analysis, how could things possibly turn out poorly (2015, p. 198)? it is possible for heated arguments to result in close friendships; usually following controversy reconciliation is observed (2015, p. 119). likewise, bacon expounds the importance of making friends widely that friendship can calm feelings, develop reason and strengthen judgment, and also help and participate in all activities and affairs. he (2018, p. 93) belittles “whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god and that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness”. above all hints one has very limited knowledge and scanty information without friends. he (2018, pp. 98-100) frankly illustrates that as for “anyone who thinks too much in his heart, if he can talk and discuss with others, his mind and understanding will become clear and different and even he will become smarter than ever. an hour’s communication is more effective than a day’s meditation. even if you don’t have a friend who can give you advice, you can increase your knowledge through verbal communication with others. discussion is like a stone, and thought is like a blade. two phases of sharpening will sharpen your mind”. it is ever honorable to take advice of some few friends, for lookers-on many times see more than gamesters; and the vale best discovers the hill (2018, p. 189). obviously, sakya and bacon convey “peace in admonition” (2018, p. 73) and that discussion makes people wise (1983, p. 179). they enlighten one is supposed to avoid arbitrariness or self-righteousness to be an official in politics and that one should make concerted efforts, give full play to collective wisdom, guide people to learn how to get along with others and communicate and discuss and get thinking collision, mutual inspiration and complementation, and draw on the strengths of all schools of thought. sakya and bacon hint that those who are arrogant are in danger and single-minded. they also encourage people to be approachable, open-minded, and get friends support in democratic elections. 3.2 recommendation and promotion in sakya’s (2015, p. 125) opinion, things achieved through the strength of merit, like the light of the sun, depend on nothing else; things achieved through the strength of effort, like the light of a butter lamp, depend on everything else. bacon (2018, pp. 188-197) represents that “mean men in their rising must adhere; ordinary followers ought to challenge no higher conditions than countenance, recommendation, and protection from wrongs; nothing is thought so easy a request to a great person as his letter. “ both of them mean that people are easy to become an official with the guide and help of others to advance in their life. sakya (2015, p. 165) says even the lowly and weak will succeed when www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. they rely on others who are great. he compares one who can be promoted to the high social status relying on a great man to the vine climbing the top against the tall tree (1985, p. 50), reminds people that although the local leader is angry, he should be friendly to him just as he slips on the ground, he should rely on the earth (1985, p. 69); for it is a kind of etiquette to be praised as emperors or great figures out of kindness and respect (1983, p. 186). he encourages people if one is good at using wit and strategy, it is also easy for him to conquer the great (1985, p. 4). he hints people to become the right arm of the leaders by studying problems, solving problems, adapting and developing, and making decisions. this is just like bacon’s (2018, p. 175) intuitive judgment that friendship only exists between superiors and subordinates, because they share weal and woe and depend on each other. saban and bacon inspire people to be loyal to their leaders, share their worries and implement their duty, since if you work for a sage, you can get a generous reward; if you offer a sour hawthorn tightly, you will get a prince’s reward (1985, p. 11). he hints people to do well the tasks assigned by great people or those in power, and get their appreciation and reuse so as to realize the possibility of gaining power from those who are close to you. it is an unavoidable problem for the superior leaders to know, select and employ potential officials. sakya and bacon highly praise the method of selecting talents only by virtue. in sakya’s opinion, if a sage is appointed to be an official, the common people can get well-being (1985, p. 8); a wise and upright minister can accomplish all the things of the monarch and the people (1985, p. 43). bacon (2018, p. 148) says frankly generally let princes and states choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty than of rising; and such as love business rather upon conscience than upon bravery. he says, “there be that are in nature faithful and sincere, and plain and direct, not crafty and involved: let princes, above all, draw to themselves such natures (2018, p. 82), and employ those who are willing to do things and are willing to serve (2018, p. 173); but he advises it is good not to use men of ambitious natures except it be upon necessity (2018, p. 146), and the kings and the states must not choose as servants those who do wrong things for their own self-interest, against the interests of his lord or the state (2018, p. 85). it can be seen that sakya and bacon advocate the wise and upright, disinterested, capable and responsible orientation of selecting and appointing people, which implies that people should understand and be familiar with the method of selecting and selecting people, cultivate themselves according to it, improve themselves in virtue, ability, diligence and performance, and become honest people with outstanding talents, so as to gain the trust, appreciation and support of leaders. recommendation and even direct promotion help him succeed in becoming an official. 4. conclusion the classic works of sakya’s aphorism and bacon’s essays put forward many opinions on how to become an official, which have practical significance for today’s cadre education. a person’s success in political status is mainly based on his own subjective efforts. in addition, it is inseparable from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. cultivation of units and organizations, leaders’ appreciation and recommendation, as well as the recognition, support and assistance from colleagues and friends. these internal and external conditions contribute to the speed and height of a person’s growth. but sakya (1985, p. 21) warns people “if one relies too much on others’ help, he will collapse sooner or later; the tortoise raised into the sky by the raven, eventually falls down to the ground”. bacon enlightens those who want to enter the official career to follow the law of cadre growth, and practice and be down-to-earth to reserve the corresponding qualities along the growth path of cadres, instead of “short track overtaking” such as flattery and feeding humors and even “bribing someone’s servant or relatives” (francis, 1983, p. 126). fund project: this paper results from the key project named “multiple dimension comparative study on sakya aphorisms and bacon’s essays with no. 18sa0196”of humanities and social sciences of sichuan provincial department of education. references francis, b. (1983). a collection of bacon’s essays (shui tiantong, trans.). beijing: commercial press. francis, b. (2018). bacon’s essays, notes and guide (shen yiwen, inter.). beijing: china aerospace press. li, zh. q. (2013). tibetan gnomic verses translated into english. changchun:changchun press. saban, g. (1981). sakya aphorism (a combination of chinese and tibetan) (wang yao, trans.). xining: qinghai nationalities press. saban, g. (1985). sakya aphorism (zidandoji, trans.). lhasa: tibet people’s press. saban, g. (2015). sakya legshad (trilingual version. english translated by john thomas davenport, chinese translated by renzengcairang and caigongtai). lhasa: china tibetology press. su, d. p. (2009).complete works of su dongpo: huang cuolun (vol. 33). beijing: yanshan press. su, n. (2000). enlightenment personality: bacon. wuhan: changjiang literature and art press. author: shen qunying (1969-), female, han people, born in renshou, sichuan province,china; a professor of english language and literature, and a teacher of preparatory education school of sichuan minzu college. research orientation: applied linguistics and translation. address: pre-college education school, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china, 626001. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 34 original paper how team player styles impacts followership behavior tim o. peterson 1* , claudette m. peterson 2 & brian w. rook 3 1 department of management & marketing, north dakota state university, fargo, north dakota, usa 2 school of education, north dakota state university, fargo, north dakota, usa 3 rook consulting, fort wayne, indiana, usa * tim o. peterson, department of management & marketing, north dakota state university, fargo, north dakota, usa received: april 15, 2024 accepted: april 30, 2024 online published: may 14, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n2p34 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n2p34 abstract this empirical research study examines the effect of parker’s (2008) team player styles on followership behavior. while most research focuses on the team leader, most of the work accomplishments are attributed to the team players on the team. of the four team player styles, only one, contributor significantly increases followership behavior. however, it does not add enough to raise the followership behavior into the exemplary range. discussion of the findings is provided coupled with a post hoc analysis and ideas for future research. keywords team player styles, followership behavior, team player impact 1. introduction workplace teams were predicted to be the building blocks of organizations in the 21 st century (senge, 1990). research on teams in the workplace has increased in recent years examining the team player, social interdependence, and organizational performance (johnson & johnson, 2005; millhiser et al., 2011; parker, 2008; taggar & haines, 2006). this trend has paralleled the evolution of the construct of team player as organizations have emphasized the importance of the team player (parker, 2008; scarnati, 2001). particularly, research on the impact of team players on an organization demonstrated a critical difference in performance between high-performing teams and other teams (katzenbach & smith, 1993). based on social exchange theory, teams are interdependent, and success is reliant on the actions of other people (blau, 1964). moreover, teams involve social interdependence theory which asserts that an individual’s performance on a team is dependent upon the interactions between team members www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. (deutsch, 1949). parker’s (2008) definition of team bridges historical understanding with modern applications suggesting teams are “a group of people with a high degree of interdependence geared towards the achievement of a goal or completion of a task” (p.13). parker’s definition of team shares similarities with followership, particularly with chaleff’s (2009) definition of followership as an exchange of influence between people to achieve a shared goal. the exchange of influence is based on leader-member exchange wherein relationships between leaders and followers significantly impact the followers’ performance and contributions to the shared goals (lindsey hall et al., 2016; xu et al., 2019). followers who work on a team are contributors to the shared goal with their team members and leader. parker (2008) has identified differing team player styles while peterson et al. (2021) have identified differing levels of followership. the purpose of this research is to examine relationships between team player styles and followership scores. 2. literature review according to katzenbach and smith (1993) a team is a small group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a shared purpose and a team approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. the complementary skills that the team members bring to the team are: technical skills, problem-solving skills, interpersonal skills, and managing skills. while there are countless differences in the people that encompass teams, there are also similarities that can categorize team players into common methods of interaction to achieve shared goals. parker (2008) suggested that team players participate with a group through one of four styles to achieve a shared purpose. one of those team player styles is categorized as a contributor. these team members are usually responsible, thorough, and reliable team members who focus on tasks and technical information. their strengths lie in sharing information with the team and making sure every aspect of a project is completed on time. parker (2008) says that contributors are task-oriented individuals who enjoy providing the team with good technical information. they do the assigned pre-work, they set high-performance standards, and they make effective and efficient use of resources. similar to those team members who bring technical skills to the team (katzenbach & smith,1993). the second category of team player style is collaborator. these individuals are generally forward-looking, goal-directed, and imaginative team members who focus on goals and the big picture. collaborators make sure the project stays on track. according to parker (2008), the collaborator is a goal-directed individual who sees the purpose of the team as central to its existence. however, the collaborator is also open to new ideas, willing to pitch in and work outside their defined role. their focus is on the purpose of the team, not their personal recognition. most likely these team members bring problem-solving skills (katzenbach & smith,1993) to the team with their ability to diverge and converse on solutions to problems the team faces to achieve the goals of the team. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. the third category according to parker is communicator. these individuals are generally supportive, considerate, and tactful team members who focus on process and consensus building. these team players are dedicated to ensuring effective process management. parker (2008) would say that the communicator is an effective listener and facilitator of involvement, conflict resolution, and consensus building. they bring interpersonal skills coupled with some managing skills (katzenbach & smith,1993). since these individuals focus on the process or the way work is planned, resources are organized, how the work is implemented, and the way the work is monitored, they provide the managing skills needed by the team. the final category is challenger. these individuals are generally honest, outspoken, and ethical team members who focus on questions regarding methods and goals. they are looking at the larger purpose of the team and continually asking why. again parker (2008) says the challenger is a team member who questions the goals, methods, and even the ethics of the team. they are willing to question the leader. they are very principled individuals. these individuals might bring technical skills (katzenbach & smith,1993) and because of their expertise, they might challenge the way a task is accomplished. they might bring problem-solving skills (katzenbach & smith,1993) and challenge either the creative portion of problem-solving or challenge the alternative selection process. parker suggested these styles are not hierarchical, and one style is not greater than the others, rather they are diverse ways in which team players participate in achieving the shared purpose of the team. while parker has suggested that no style is greater than others, researchers have suggested that teams focused on collaboration are more likely to have shared mental models. burke et al. (2006) postulated that teams who have similar goals and work to support each other’s goals experience a higher level of team adaptation or collective performance. a modern study, however, reported that team adaptation was not significant in a team’s task performance (yue et al., 2019). this would suggest that there are varying results in collaborator team player styles and team performance. followership researchers have suggested that followers fall into three categories: low, moderate, and exemplary, wherein exemplary followers are high performers as team players (peterson et al., 2021). individuals with low followership are not committed to the shared purpose of the team and do not act out expectations with the intention of supporting the team or fulfilling the shared purpose. gallup’s (harter at al., 2009; ott, 2007; wagner & harter, 2006) engagement level of active disengagement is similar to this type of follower. actively disengaged individuals are described as employees who have intentions of doing more harm than good to the team and organization. this type of follower aligns with the commitment level that etzioni (1961) labeled alienative committed. alienative committed employees would not feel any commitment to the team or the purpose. individuals with moderate followership perform their required job duties to the minimal extent of expectations. however, they may not be committed to the shared purpose of the team. these followers may function well within the team but do not contribute ideas and tend to focus on personal goals over www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. team goals. these followers may be easily distracted or more apt to be not engaged based on the behaviors of team members around them. etizioni’s (1961) description of calculative commitment is similar to this type of followers in that followers may appear exemplary; however, their participation is based on personal wants or needs. this is similar to gallup’s (harter et al., 2009; ott, 2007; wagner & harter, 2006) engagement level of not engaged where followers would only give minimal effort and energy towards the shared purpose. exemplary followers are committed and engaged in achieving the shared purpose of the team. these followers frequently share their expertise with the team, are actively engaged in achieving the shared purpose of the team, and regularly go beyond the duties expected of their assigned role. this type of follower aligns with gallup’s (harter et al., 2009; ott, 2007; wagner & harter, 2006) definition of engaged employees in that exemplary followers are passionate about the shared purpose and contribute new ideas. moreover, exemplary followers would be morally committed according to etzioni’s (1961) definition because they would internalize the values and standards of the team. kelley (1992) suggested that exemplary followers, much like contributor team players, share responsibilities and are highly reliable workers on their teams. moreover, kelley suggested that exemplary followers complete tasks; however, kelley differentiates from parker in that exemplary followers prioritize tasks based on team needs rather than personal needs. kelley, also suggested that exemplary followers, like collaborators and communicator team players, are focused on shared goals and supportive of other team players in achieving the shared goal. chaleff (2009) suggested exemplary followers, like challenger team players, must ask difficult questions to ensure the team continues to focus on the shared goal. moreover, chaleff suggested exemplary followers are courageous at times when they are needed to challenge the direction of the leader if it does not align with organizational or team goals. the connection between kelley (1992), parker (2008), chaleff (2009), and peterson, et al. (2021) is that accountability is placed on the individual as part of a group rather than the group as one unit. mcintyre and salas (1995) suggested that teams are more effective when organizations conceptualize and support teamwork. hirschfeld et al. (2006) added to mcintyre and salas (1995) reporting that teams were more effective when the individual participants were clear on what they viewed as an effective team. hirschfeld et al.’s paradigmatic shift in modern times to understanding effective teams from the individual input level is consistent with our concept of exemplary followership. this coupled with the strong linkage between parker’s team player styles and katzenbach and smith’s complementary skills has led to the following four hypotheses: h1: subjects who indicate higher levels of contributor as a team player will show greater exemplary followership. h2: subjects who indicate higher levels of collaborator as a team player will show greater exemplary followership. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 38 published by scholink inc. h3: subjects who indicate higher levels of communicator as a team player will show greater exemplary followership. h4: subjects who indicate higher levels of challenger as a team player will show greater exemplary followership. 3. method participants were recruited through surveymonkey, which recruits participants for surveys from their users. surveymonkey screens their participants based on user profiles set up on their site with matching demographics (surveymonkey, 2018). the participants are paid a minimal amount ($0.35) for their responses. the screening process required that participants be at least 18 years of age and work in some role in the healthcare industry within the united states. two instruments were concatenated into one electronic survey along with demographics such as gender, age, ethnicity, education level, and length of employment. the survey was then distributed by surveymonkey to individuals who met the screening requirements. this resulted in 215 usable responses. the instrument we used to identify team player styles of participants was developed by glenn parker (2008) called the parker team player survey (ptps). the ptps is an 18-item self-report instrument that reports one of four team player styles. this uses a rank order scale for each of the 18 items which consists of possible behaviors. each respondent ranks the behavior they are most likely to do as #1, with #4 being the one they are least likely to do. the range of scores for each style is from 18 (low reporting of that specific team player style) to 72 (high reporting of that specific team player style). the ptps has been tested and retested for reliability. parker (1991) reported cronbach’s alpha for the subscales as: contributor = .67, collaborator = .55, communicator = .71, and challenger = .51. parker used this instrument in a healthcare setting noting the distribution of styles: contributor = 12.9%, collaborator = 27.6%, communicator = 12.1%, challenger = 20.2%, and two or more primary styles = 27.2%. our sample came from the healthcare industry as well. followership was measured using the peterson et al. (2021) instrument with 32 items. it uses a likert scale ranging from 0 to 6. there are three anchors on the scale: 0=never, 3=occasionally, and 6= almost always. the highest possible score with this followership instrument is 192. the score range is categorized into three categories: low followership (0-64); moderate followership (65-128); and exemplary followership (129-192). all factor loadings for the 32-item scale exceeded .5. the overall followership cronbach’s alpha for their instrument was .97. next, we report on our findings between the relationships of team player styles and followership behavior. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 39 published by scholink inc. 4. results all 215 participants completed both the 18-item team player style portion of the survey and the 32-item followership portion. when participants failed to answer one item on the team player assessment. the sample size was large enough that we used the mean for that item to fill in those blanks. no participant had more than one blank on this portion of the overall survey. a total of 182 (85%) females participated along with 31 (14%) males and two who preferred not to identify their gender (1%), which is consistent with the healthcare industry which is typically comprised of more than 80 percent female employees. the mean age of the respondents was 38 years ranging from 18 to 64. seventy-four percent of the population was caucasian. 9% were african american, and the remaining 17% spread across many other ethnicities. the vast majority (92%) had some college or professional certification and only 8% reported having only a high school education. the mean length of employment was 7.9 years, ranging from a half year to 39 years of employment. the descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for all of the variables are shown in table 1. table 1. descriptive statistics and zero order correlations (n = 215) variable mean (s.d.) 1 2 3 4 1.followership 118.42 (24.05) 2.contributor 43.69 (5.41) .22** 3.collaborator 43.10 (4.94) -.08 -.21** 4.communicator 45.20 (5.87) -.08 -.53** -.15* 5. challenger 47.65 (5.50) -.10 -.16* -.42** -.42** * p < .05; ** p < .01 one interesting finding from the correlation matrix is that the four-team player styles are significantly different from each other so that when one style goes up the other styles go down. in addition, the only team player style that is positively correlated with the followership variable is a contributor. this is consistent with collins’ (2001) level two leadership, which he defines as contributing team member. at this level, the team member uses their knowledge and skills to help the team succeed. the contributing team member works effectively with other members of the team. the other three styles are negatively correlated with followership, not something we anticipated. it is important to point out that while they are negatively correlated with followership none of these correlations are statistically significant. since the four-team player styles are categorical variables, using the mean value we divided each team player style into two subgroups – those with scores above the mean were considered high in the subgroup (coded as 2) and those with scores below the mean were considered low in the subgroup (coded as 1). next, t-tests were used to determine if the scores above the mean were significantly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. different than the scores below the mean. this process was done for all four team player styles to answer each hypothesis. as a reminder, we have placed the hypothesis here. h1: subjects who indicate higher levels of contributor as a team player will show greater followership behavior. an independent samples t-test was conducted between the followership means for contributor team player style to compare followership behavior from contributors who scored below the mean to those who scored above the mean. table 2 below displays the t-test results. table 2. t-test for contributor style (n= 215) variable high contributor m (s.d.) low contributor m (s.d.) t(213) df=2 p cohen’s d followership 121.99 (20.54) 114.38 (27.01) 2.34 .02 .32 there was a significant difference in the followership behavior for participants who scored higher on contributor than the participants who scored lower on contributor. these results indicate that the followership mean score was significantly lower for contributors reporting a lower contributor style. cohen’s d = .32 indicated a medium effect size and when converted to r 2 the amount of variance in the followership scores for contributors was a small effect size of .16. the results do support hypothesis 1: subjects who indicate higher levels of a contributor as a team player will show greater followership scores. based on these results, hypothesis 1 is supported. the next hypothesis examined the collaborator style as it relates to followership behaviors. the hypothesis read: h2: subjects who indicate higher levels of collaborator as a team player will show greater exemplary followership behavior. we followed the same process as for hypothesis 1 by dividing the collaborator team player style at the mean into two categories of high and low based on their score compared to the mean. then we performed a t-test on the two independent samples. the results are presented in table 3. table 3. t-test for collaborator style (n= 215) variable high collaborator m (s.d.) low collaborator m (s.d.) t(213) df=2 p followership 118.54 (24.03) 118.33 (24.16) .06 .95 this hypothesis was not supported. the two means and standard deviations are almost identical. because there is no significant difference, there was no reason to calculate the r 2 . these results suggest that a person’s collaborator style does not impact a person’s followership behavior. we next examined the communicator team player style. the hypothesis for this team player style was similar to the first hypothesis: h3: subjects who indicate higher levels of communicator team player www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. style will show greater followership behavior. again, an independent samples t-test was conducted between the followership means for participants who indicated the communicator team player style to compare followership behavior from communicators who were below the communicator mean to those above the mean. table 4 below displays the results. table 4. t-test for communicator style (n= 215) variable high communicator m (s.d.) low communicator m (s.d.) t(213) df=2 p followership 116.89 (26.41) 119.90 (21.52) -.92 .36 there was no significant difference in the followership scores for participants who scored high on communicator (m = 116.89) and participants who scored low on communicator (m = 119.90). the results indicate that hypothesis 3 is not supported. while this hypothesis is not supported, it is interesting to note that the followership score is higher for those low in the communicator style than those high in the communicator style. finally, an independent samples t-test was conducted for participants who indicated the challenger team player style to compare followership behavior scores from challengers who were below the challenger mean to those above the mean. the hypothesis read: h4: subjects who indicate higher levels of challenger as a team player will show greater exemplary followership. table 5 below displays the results of this analysis. table 5. t-test for challenger style (n= 215) variable high challenger m (s.d.) low challenger m (s.d.) t(213) df=2 p followership 115.57 (25.52) 121.24(22.26) -1.74 .08 there was no significant difference in the followership behavior scores for participants who scored lower on challenger and participants who scored higher on challenger. however, once again those who scored lower on challenger scored higher on followership behaviors. these results indicate that hypothesis 4 is not supported but they do raise some interesting thoughts for the discussion session of this manuscript 5. discussion our findings suggest exemplary followers must be contributors to the shared purpose of the team. while our results are significant and the effect size according to cohen (1992) is medium, it is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. important to note that the mean value of the high contributor style (121.99) does not reach the exemplary level which ranges from 129-192. so, while the contributor style is statistically significant, the results have made us pause to reevaluate our analysis. in the study, there are only five individuals (2.3%) in the low followership category. this did not really surprise us too much since these individuals would be labeled as alienated committed by etizoni (1961) and actively disengaged by harter et al. (2009), ott (2007), and wagner and harter (2006). we generally would not expect these individuals to even participate in studies about their organizations and their followership behaviors. on the other hand, there are 136 individuals (63.3%) of the sample that identify as exhibiting moderate followership behaviors. the final 74 (34.4%) identify as exemplary followers. could it be that the mean split for the different team player styles is diluted by the five low followers? could it be that the correct dependent variable is followership behaviors and the independent variable is the team player styles? this thinking led us to conduct a set of post hoc analyses. 6. post hoc analysis we began our post hoc analysis by examining the five individuals who scored below the cutoff, which was 64. their scores ranged from 1 to 57. the mean score was 37.2 and the standard deviation was 22.96. we reexamine the individual who scored a 1 on the followership assessment. in fact, the person had completed the whole survey and had placed zeros in all of the followership items except for one which he rated a 1. since the followership assessment came first and the individual completed all the other items on the survey including the demographics, we are sure that this individual intended to indicate that they are not much of a follower. we decided to eliminate the five individuals and then rerun all of our statistical analyses. having done this, we found that the elimination of the five individuals did not change our results. still, none of the team player styles allowed participants to rise to the exemplary followership level. this seems to confirm our earlier analysis that while the contributor style does increase followership, it does not increase it enough to reach exemplary status. our second post hoc analysis was to flip our initial analysis on its head by using followership as the dependent variable and team player styles as the independent variables. our thinking was that as individuals move from lower levels of followership up to exemplary followership, they might incorporate the different team player styles that parker (2008) has identified. we returned to the full sample of 215 participants and split the followers into three categories: low (0-64), moderate (65-128), and exemplary (129-192). we then did four one-way analyses of variance on each of the team player styles. our results still showed that the contributor style was significantly different between the exemplary followers and the low followers. however, there is no significant difference between the exemplary followers and the moderate followers. again, there is no significant findings for the other three team player styles. the mean score for the contributor style is 44.5 for exemplary followers. given that the maximum score on this style is 72, it clearly indicates that while exemplary follower in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. this study exhibited more contribution to the team it does not help us better identify a team player style that if developed would lead to exemplary followership. what are the implications of this research? many businesses use the parker team player styles in professional development sessions to train employees to be better team members. while the assessment is easy to administer and interpret, it will not increase followership on the team or within the organization. it might even harm the team functioning by employees placing labels on different members of the team. based on those labels team members might develop expectations of different team members, such as expecting someone with the label of communicator to carry the conversation in team meetings, allowing other team members to sit back and not share in the communication process. another implication of this research is to signal to other followership researchers that this is not a fruitful vein to follow in conducting followership research. in conclusion, while the contributor style does increase followership, it does not raise it to an exemplary level. while this is disappointing, it has pointed us in a different direction that might be more fruitful. we are now turning our attention to psychological capital (luthans, youssef, sweetman, and harms, 2013), etzioni’s (1961) commitment scale, and gallup’s (harter et al., 2009; ott, 2007; wagner & harter, 2006) engagement assessment. we will be collecting a new sample using these assessment tools to better understand exemplary followership and to identify factors that organizations can use to develop an increase in exemplary followership in their teams and their organizations. references blau, p. m. 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(2019). reversing the lens: how followers influence leader-member exchange quality. journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 92(3), 475-497. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 43 original paper education policy: addressing racial health disparities in educational contexts beth d. williams-breault1* 1 division of social sciences, college of liberal arts and sciences, lesley university, cambridge, massachusetts, united states of america * beth d. williams-breault, division of social sciences, college of liberal arts and sciences, lesley university, cambridge, massachusetts, united states of america received: april 28, 2020 accepted: may 5, 2020 online published: may 9, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p43 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p43 abstract race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (ses) influence physical and mental health throughout the life course. institutional and interpersonal discrimination is particularly detrimental, especially for children, and is associated with poor health outcomes. one of the most important determinants of long-term health is lifelong educational attainment. center-based early childhood education (ece) and school-based health centers (sbhcs) can help overcome educational obstacles and increase medical services in disadvantaged populations while fostering health equity. educators involved in ece programs and sbhcs for poor and minority youth must be involved in the policy making process in order to ensure that educational quality is considered essential to the long-term effects of health equity. keywords race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, health, equity, early childhood education, school-based health centers 1. introduction racially and ethnically stigmatized people experience higher rates of illness, impairment, and death than the average society in the u.s. and globally (assari, 2018; phelan, link, & tehranifar, 2010; williams & anderson, 2016). across multiple health outcomes, these disparities are seen in early onset of illnesses, severe diseases, and poor quality of care for minorities (williams & anderson, 2016). socioeconomic status (ses) is one of the most robust determinants of variations in health outcomes in almost every society throughout the world (assari, nikahd, malekahmadi, lankarani, & zamanian, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. 2017; who health commission, 2008; williams & anderson, 2016). understanding the complex ways in which race, ethnicity, and ses influence health outcomes is a critical task in addressing disparities across the socioeconomic spectrum (assari, nikahd, malekahmadi, lankarani, & zamanian, 2017; williams & anderson, 2016). the categorization of social groups into races has historically reflected oppression, exploitation, and social inequality (assari, 2018; williams & anderson, 2016). the identification of specific racial categories has been driven by historical circumstances and social and political factors. we consider “race” as primarily a social category that encompasses what is commonly referred to as ethnicity common geographic origins, ancestry, family patterns, cultural norms and traditions, and the social history of specific groups (williams & anderson, 2016). 2. race, ses, and health outcomes ses is a complex and multi-dimensional concept that includes economic resources and power that can influence health at different times throughout the life course (braveman et al., 2005; williams & anderson, 2016). according to the 2014 u.s. census bureau, for every dollar of wealth that whites have, asian households have 83 cents while blacks have 6 cents and hispanic/latinos have 7 cents (ryan & siebens, 2012). race and ses reflect distinct processes of stratification that can affect health outcomes (williams & anderson, 2016). however, income can diminish racial differences in economic status in some social contexts. race matters for health after ses is considered. in addition to being influenced by current ses, health is also affected by exposure to adversity throughout the life-course. early life adversity, such as poverty, abuse, and traumatic stress, vary by race and ses, and has been shown to influence multiple indicators of physical and mental health later in life, including cardiovascular, metabolic and immune function (williams & anderson, 2016; shonkoff, boyce & mcewen, 2009). race matters to health disparities due to the lack of equity of ses indicators across racial groups. compared to whites, blacks and hispanic/latinos receive less income at the same education levels, have less wealth at equivalent income levels, and have less purchasing power due to higher costs of goods and services in the residential environments where they are disproportionately located (massey, 1990; williams, mohammed, leavell, & collins, 2010). racism is one of the most critical distinctive social exposures experienced by racial minorities. discrimination across both institutional and interpersonal levels remains ubiquitous in contemporary societies (pager & shepherd, 2008; quillian, 2006; williams & anderson, 2016). residential segregation by race, an example of an institutional racism, has created racial differences in education and employment opportunities which produces racial differences in ses (massey, 1990; williams & anderson, 2016). self-reported experiences of discrimination have been associated with a broad range of disease outcomes, preclinical indicators of disease and health risk behaviors (lewis, cogburn, & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. williams, 2015; williams & anderson, 2016). as with other forms of early life adversity, discrimination is particularly detrimental to children, with associated poor health outcomes reported in childhood and adolescence increasingly documented internationally (byrd & mirken, 2011; priest et al., 2013; williams & anderson, 2016). institutional and cultural racism can also harm health through stigma, stereotypes, and prejudice all of which can contribute to stunted socioeconomic mobility and reduced access to a broad range of societal resources and opportunities required for health (williams & mohammed, 2013). racial minorities have a higher risk of exposure to a broad range of psychosocial stressors as well. institutional discrimination and socioeconomic disadvantages lead to the overrepresentation of minorities in toxic residential and occupational environments that can lead to risks of exposure to major hardships, conflicts and disruptions such as crime, violence, material deprivation, loss of loved ones, recurrent financial strain, relationship conflicts, unemployment and underemployment (pager & shepherd, 2008; williams & anderson, 2016). children from low-income and racial or ethnic minority populations in the u.s. are less likely to have a conventional source of medical care and more likely to develop chronic health problems than are more-affluent and non-hispanic white children (knopf et al., 2016). 3. educational interventions in the u.s., inequities by race, ethnicity, and income in key health outcomes and educational achievement are well documented (bloom, cohen, & freeman, 2012; hahn et al., 2016). lifelong educational attainment is one of the most important determinants of long-term health (who, 2008; hahn et al., 2016). incomplete or poor-quality education can jeopardize a child's prospects for health and well-being. inequities in health by race and ses highlight the urgent need for a renewed research focus of identifying interventions at multiple societal levels that will be effective in reducing and ultimately eliminating racial inequities in health (williams & anderson, 2016). center-based early childhood education (ece) can potentially foster the larger public health goal of health equity, with a focus on low-income and racial and ethnic minority populations in the united states (hahn et al., 2016). the term health equity refers to a widespread, systematic, achievable equality in health and in the major social determinants of health that benefit all social divisions of a population (arcaya, m. c., arcaya, a. l., & subramanian, 2015; hahn et al., 2016). ece programs are defined as programs designed to improve the cognitive or social development of 3 and 4-year-old children prior to kindergarten enrollment (goerge et al., 2015; hahn et al., 2016). programs include an educational component that addresses one or more of the following learning objectives: literacy, numeracy, cognitive development, socio-emotional development, and motor skills. eligible programs may offer additional components including recreation, meals, health care, parental supports, and social services. some programs enroll children younger than 3 years (hahn et al., 2016). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. state and district programs and the federal head start program are publicly financed, whereas model programs often have been implemented in well-funded research projects, closely monitored for fidelity of implementation, and staffed by highly trained staff (goerge et al., 2015; hahn et al., 2016). ece programs can affect education and health by several interrelated intermediate determinants. the programs can increase motivation and readiness of children for formal schooling by engaging with caring teachers and other same-age children. engagement with teachers and peers promotes social behaviors that facilitate learning and enhance the long-term life skill of positive social interaction (goerge et al., 2015; hahn et al., 2016). teacher contact also increases early identification of social, health, and cognitive challenges of individual children and enables early referral for intervention when needed. interactions among teachers and ece parents strengthen parents' capacities, including their ability to reinforce the education and socialization of their children (goerge et al., 2015; hahn et al., 2016). by enhancing social and educational skills before children enter formal schooling, ece programs strengthen the foundation for ongoing learning, with substantial long-term health benefits. ece programs are critical for low-income and minority children who have not been exposed to the learning environments generally more available to higher-income families (hahn et al., 2016; yen & lee, 2019). high-quality ece programs that increase participation of low-income and racial and ethnic minority children are expected to improve long-term educational and health outcomes and reduce disparities (goerge et al., 2015; hahn et al., 2016; yen & lee, 2019). children from low-income and racial or ethnic minority populations in the u.s. are more often chronically stressed, tired, and hungry, and more likely to have impaired vision and hearing—obstacles to lifetime educational achievement and predictors of adult morbidity and premature mortality (knopf et al., 2016). school-based health centers (sbhcs) can help overcome educational obstacles and increase medical services in disadvantaged populations (love, schlitt, soleimanpour, panchal, & behr, 2019; knopf et al., 2016). sbhcs improve educational and health-related outcomes in disadvantaged students and they can be effective in advancing health equity (knopf et al., 2016; ran et al., 2016). health outcomes and educational achievement are related to each other in several ways. health problems (e.g., vision and oral health problems, asthma, teen pregnancy, malnutrition, obesity, chronic stress, and inattention and hyperactivity disorders) and risk-taking behavior (e.g., aggression and violence, unsafe sexual activity, unhealthy eating, physical inactivity, and substance use) are associated with low scholastic performance (basch, 2010; bradley, & greene, 2013; knopf et al., 2016). low academic achievement is positively associated with risk-taking behavior, compromised health status, and reduced longevity (braveman, egerter, & williams, 2011; fiscella & kitzman, 2009). children from low-income and racial or ethnic minority populations in the u.s. are more likely to develop chronic health problems than are more-affluent and non-hispanic white children and less likely to have a usual source of medical care (bloom, cohen, & freeman, 2012; knopf et al., 2016) sbhcs are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 47 published by scholink inc. defined as clinics that provide health services to students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. services may be offered onsite (i.e., school-based centers) or offsite (i.e., school-linked centers) and are often established in schools that serve predominantly low-income communities (knopf et al., 2016; riley, laurie, plegue, & richardson, 2016). sbhcs can improve educational and health outcomes through several pathways. specifically, increased access to and satisfaction with health-related services are expected to increase receipt of recommended services that lead to early detection and treatment or prevention of disease (knopf et al., 2016). increases are expected in school achievement and the proportion of students with a usual place of care, along with reductions in illness, injury, and healthcare overuse (knopf et al., 2016). when sbhcs offer health education and counseling, reductions in risk behavior are also expected. overall, sbhcs are expected to improve the health prospects of low-income and racial and ethnic minority students (bersamin et al., 2016; knopf et al., 2016). substantial educational benefits associated with sbhcs include reductions in rates of school suspension or high school non-completion, and increases in grade point averages and grade promotion (bersamin et al., 2016; knopf et al., 2016). healthcare utilization improves, including substantial increases in recommended immunizations and other preventive services, and a small increase in the proportion of students who reported a regular source of health care (bersamin et al., 2016; knopf et al., 2016). regarding sexual and reproductive behaviors associated with sbhcs, contraceptive use among females increases, childbirth decreases, and prenatal care improves (bersamin et al., 2016; knopf et al., 2016). sbhcs are effective in improving an array of educational and health-related outcomes. increased effectiveness is associated with extended hours of availability and increased range of offered services (knopf et al., 2016). because sbhcs aim to meet the needs of disadvantaged populations, address the health-related obstacles to educational achievement, and address the cultural, financial, and privacy and transportation-related barriers to clinical, preventive, and healthcare services, they have the potential to promote social mobility and improve health equity (duncan & murnane, 2011; knopf et al., 2016). increased parental work time and reduced child care, transportation needs, time, and costs have been identified as additional benefits of sbhcs (hutchinson, carton, broussard, brown, & chrestman, 2012; knopf et al., 2016; tai & bame, 2011). since many sbhcs are open to others in the community, improvements in health (and education) in the broader community are also expected. sbhcs provide more-sensitive care such as reproductive health and mental health than may be available in other settings,and improve quality of care and patient satisfaction with and acceptability of care (keeton, soleimanpour, & brindis, 2012; klein et al., 2007; knopf et al., 2016). additionally, benefit is anticipated to extend beyond sbhc users, as many sbhcs offer health education and promotion activities to the entire student body, and non-users may adopt some of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. promoted health behaviors such as abstaining from drugs and alcohol (knopf et al., 2016; mcnall, lichty, & mavis, 2010). sbhcs also have been reported to improve student academic expectations, safety and respect, and school engagement; to increase adolescents’ responsibility for and awareness of their health; and to strengthen connections between community and school (keeton, soleimanpour, & brindis, 2012; knopf et al., 2016; strolin-goltzman, 2010). due to improved vaccination uptake, reduced transmission of vaccine-preventable diseases is also expected. additionally, most sbhcs help children and families enroll in medicaid and the state children’s health insurance program (knopf et al., 2016). 4. education policy: massachusetts political support is needed to utilize the best available research to reduce social inequalities in health. interventions should focus on improving the health of disadvantaged groups more rapidly than the rest of the population so that progress can be made in eliminating inequalities. many education policies that promise the greatest benefit in improving population health are sometimes likely to actually widen disparities (mechanic, 2002; williams & anderson, 2016). in massachusetts, state aid for education is determined by a calculation outlined in chapter 70 of the massachusetts general law. collectively referred to as “chapter 70”, the statute includes a formula for determining an “adequate” amount of money each district must spend on education, called the foundation budget, and the “equitable” division of state funds to assist each district in meeting their mandated spending level (britt & hall, 2009). chapter 70 is designed to provide “adequate and equitable funding for public schools in the commonwealth”. this funding has become the most significant and only growing source of local aid to massachusetts cities and towns and is heavily scrutinized by a variety of stakeholders due to a perceived lack of transparency (britt & hall, 2009; decosta-klipa, 2019). massachusetts had historically relied on local property taxes to finance education, which created significant inequities in school funding between wealthy and poorer communities. growing concerns about the disparities in public education across the commonwealth coincided with the state supreme court case mcduffy v. secretary of the executive office of education, prompting legislators to enact the education reform act in 1993 (britt & hall, 2009). the act included provisions intended to reform public education in massachusetts to meet the state’s constitutional mandate to provide a quality public education to all of its citizens (britt & hall, 2009; decosta-klipa, 2019). crucial to these reforms was a dramatic revision of the way public schools were financed. in order to provide equal access to quality public education across the commonwealth, the state first needed to determine what constituted a quality education by identifying the minimum level of spending required to meet that standard. (britt & hall, 2009; decosta-klipa, 2019). additionally, in recognition that not all districts could meet an expanded financial obligation on their own, the state needed to provide www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. additional funding to those communities. these premises form the basis of what is known today as chapter 70 (britt & hall, 2009). the program calculates a “foundation budget” for each school district—based on enrollment, student demographics (including grade levels, low-income students, and english language learners), inflation, and local wage levels—to determine the minimum funding needed to provide an adequate education to each student (decosta-klipa, 2019). every school district then gets a mix of local and state funding. based on each municipality’s wealth (using property values and personal income), the formula establishes a goal for how much each city or town should be contributing to its foundation budget. all districts are guaranteed some minimum funding from the state (decosta-klipa, 2019). although the 1993 reform bill did help improve the achievement gap in massachusetts and close some of the inequalities that existed at the time, there are still wide disparities in school funding between rich and poor communities. those disparities have led cities like brockton and worcester—in the wake of teacher layoffs and increasing class sizes—to consider bringing new lawsuits challenging the chapter 70 formula (decosta-klipa, 2019). in 2015, state lawmakers established the foundation budget review commission to review the chapter 70 formula—and its shortfalls. in a report, the commission found that some of the formula’s assumptions can become outdated, resulting in underfunding. the commission found that an achievement gap persisted for low-income students and english language learners (ell). the report stated that many school districts, particularly those with high concentrations of low-income and ell students, faced “unique costs” and needed additional funding to close the achievement gaps for those group (decosta-klipa, 2019). along with a number of additional tweaks to the formula, the promise act intends take the 2015 commission’s recommendations and phase them into law. this bill would increase the base rate of funding schools get for low-income and ell students by 50 percent to 100 percent per student, depending on the wealth of the district. the legislation would create a data advisory committee made up of education experts and officials focused on streamlining and strengthening school-level staffing, spending, and student demographics “to better inform future policy decisions”. gov. charlie baker was expected to introduce legislation to amend the chapter 70 formula in 2018 and is optimistic that lawmakers will get something passed (decosta-klipa, 2019). 5. discussion in 2015, the national network of state teachers of the year released an important new report, “engaged: educators and the policy process”, which applauded the ways in which teachers are involved in policy decisions today. the number of opportunities through which teachers can engage in education policy has grown significantly in recent years. in addition to the national education association and the american federation of teachers, which have represented teachers in policy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. conversations for decades, the national network of state teachers of the year, teach plus, hope street group, america achieves, educators 4 excellence, leadership for educational equity, and teach for america have launched initiatives to train current or former teachers in policy analysis and content and to provide them with opportunities to use their voices to influence policy (brown, 2015). by bringing teachers into the conversation, programs and processes improve the likelihood that policy will be well-designed, well-received, and well-implemented in the classroom. by providing teachers with new challenges and new opportunities, new professional growth opportunities for teachers are created, helping them to receive recognition for their contributions and to stay energized by their profession (brown, 2015). there are some important lessons that policymakers should take from the national network of state teachers of the year report. first, policymakers should be selective about the perspectives they seek. one great aspect of the network of teachers in policy conversations is that all the teachers involved have demonstrated excellence in their field. second, trust is essential and relationships take time. policymakers who seek teachers’ input after policies have been formulated are likely to be less well-received than those who put in the time on the front end to cultivate a bond. third, policy can be complex, and teachers need training to understand how policy shapes their classrooms. simply asking teachers for their perspective without a strong foundation of knowledge about the frameworks of local, state and federal law is not always going to result in a productive conversation (brown, 2015). racism is an organized system of social stratification that combines with, and even transforms ses to influence health. action is critically required to address how the health of socially disadvantaged groups is determined by exposures to risks and resources linked to living and working conditions, and how intervening in these contexts can lead to improvements in health. educators involved in ece programs and sbhcs for poor and minority youth must speak with policy makers to address educational quality as an important modifier of the long-term effects of health equity. since poor and minority children are likely to live in poor neighborhoods, they are also more likely to attend lower-quality schools. ece programs and sbhcs improve both educational and health outcomes and must be supported by bills such as the promise act. since ece programs and sbhcs are commonly implemented in low-income communities and communities with high proportions of racial and ethnic minority populations, this source of student health care may be a prominent means of advancing health equity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 51 published by scholink inc. references arcaya, m. c., arcaya, a. l., & subramanian, s. v. 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(2010). race, socioeconomic status and health: complexities, ongoing challenges and research opportunities. annals of the new york academy of sciences, 1186, 69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05339.x williams, d. r., priest, n., & anderson, n. b. (2016). understanding associations among race, socioeconomic status, and health: patterns and prospects. health psychology, 35(4), 407. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0000242 yen, s. c., & lee, a. y. (2019). jumpstart program efficacy: the impact of early childhood education advancement initiatives on low-income preschool children’s literacy, agency, and social relations. cogent education, 6(1), 1592063. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2019.1592063 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper psychiatry and religion: a stance peter j. verhagen md phd1&2 1 psychiatrist, ggz centraal mental health institution, harderwijk, the netherlands 2 endowed professor, faculty of theology and religious studies, ku leuven, belgium received: may 19, 2023 accepted: may 28, 2023 online published: june 12, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n2p1 abstract a dialogue between psychiatry and religion is still not easy to conduct despite the awareness that religion (and spirituality) can play an important role in the way patients cope with their mental disorder. in this contribution the goal is to pave the path in the hope that it will promote dialogue. to achieve this goal, we take three steps. we will start with describing science and religion as social practices characterized by epistemic, practical, collective and individual goals. the next step is some analysis of what we mean by commitment. based on what we have found we will be able to describe what we mean by a stance, followed by what in our view characterizes mostly the stance “psychiatry and religion”. holism, values, a certain conception of the professional role, and inclusiveness are the essential issues. keywords psychiatry, religion, science, social practices, certainties, stance 1. introduction this contribution is about developing a position or a stance with regard to one of the most intriguing and much debated issues of human nature: religion and mental functioning. to a certain extent this theme is as old as human thinking on the human condition. in a sense this fascination is not surprising, nor is the religious viewpoint from which ordinary people and philosophers viewed and reasoned. what kinds of explanations were available in premodern and prescientific eras other than religious belief and philosophical ways of reasoning? this pertains not only the issue of human nature and her functioning but also mental health and illness. from the beginning the inexplicable in its mystery had been something tremendum et fascinans (otto, 1917/1947), obviously strongly connected with gods and demons. however, intrigued and even annoyed by this “atopon” (“ατοπον”; something not at its understandable place, aristotle) philosophical and theological thinking sought understanding (note 1) (jüngel, 2003, pp. 274-275). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. at first understanding was sought under the umbrella of faith (“fides quaerens intellectum”, anselm [1011-1109]), but since the enlightenment humankind has got the courage to think for themselves (kant, 1783/1983). science has taken a huge flight. it enables us to understand, to control, to predict and to adjust in almost every domain of daily life in various and successful ways. and still there are issues or needs that science cannot or only very limitedly address, issues we usually call spiritual, religious or existential. issues that arise when life becomes questionable. therefore, both religion and science search for intelligibility; science aims at technological and predictive intelligibility, religion at existential intelligibility (stenmark, 2004, p. 29). extension of science, medical discourse became a successful alternative for religious explications of mental health issues not earlier than at the beginning of the nineteenth century. however, from its very beginning psychiatry was at odds with religious authority and its discourse. and, surprisingly or not, it still is. 1.1 religion and psychiatry “psychiatry was religion before it was psychiatry” (stone, 1998, p. xi). this sentence is the first line of the prologue of stone’s history of psychiatry. it is about the function religion used to have, addressing our needs on an individual and social group level, especially with regard to ethics and morals, but also to raising children. he illustrates his idea behind this statement by telling a few anecdotes, which make his point clear. each anecdote highlights a specific aspect out of different religious traditions. healing speech in christianity, healing encounter in buddhism, anagogy in zen, freedom from anger, greed, and lust in hinduism. stone does not deny the resemblances between the traditions he points at, his point is that psychiatry’s “taxonomy has changed considerably (…) since the time of buddha, our ways of healing the deluded through verbal means, while different perhaps in outward form, have in their essence changed very little over the past three millennia” (stone, 1998, p. xix). perhaps the scientifically educated reader is frowning upon such a view, however to quote stone once again: “and there are no chemicals (…) that will replace a healing speech, a mother’s soothing word, a father’s reassurance, a religious leader’s wisdom, or a psychiatrist’s warmly supportive comment or life-unifying interpretation” (stone, 1998, xiii). therefore, the coherence, interface, interaction, or complicated relationship (whichever word one wants to use for proper typology) between religion, mental illness and treatment is of all times and all places, and still is. 1.2 taking a position this article is about developing, and taking a position in this ongoing debate. what is meant by the noun position? we do not mean making a choice, pro or contra this or that opinion, although that is an element of it. it is about more than that. it is not merely my or somebody’s personal position either, so purely subjective. however, a personal element—it is my belief—is always present in whatever discussion, especially in controversial issues such as religion in psychiatry (sims, 2009). therefore, it is a strange argument from the opposite to say not only that religion is just a personal matter, but also that the topic of religion in psychiatry is just an esoteric activity of certain psychiatrists with a special www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. inclination to or bias towards religious issues based on their personal history and religious socialization. that might be a risk, but the same holds true for the counterparts and their opinions in connection with their life history. however, there is far more to it. yes, a position means a commitment, but a commitment, even a religious or spiritual commitment, cannot be dismissed as a subjective disadvantage or defensive attitude. 2. science and religion as social practices with differentiated goals as stenmark, swedish philosopher of religion, (and many others) made clear, religion and science are “both not merely sets of statements, theories, linguistic discourses” (2004, p. 42). individual practitioners and practitioners together may acknowledge individually or together what the goals of religion or science are. they are both social practices, and therefore can be looked at on an individual and a social level. so individual scientists or professionals or groups of scientists or professionals may decide what their goals of religion and science are. stenmark postulates that there are not only epistemic (intelligibility) and practical goals (shaping epistemic goals), but also personal and collective goals. collective goals refer to the goals that are shared by the members of a certain community. personal goals refer to the goals of the individual scientist or religious believer in science or religion (e.g., finishing a paper on religion and psychiatry/science; stenmark, 2004, p. 32, p. 35, p. 42). religion and science, religion and psychiatry as a field of inquiry, have their communities of practitioners. these communities have their epistemic, practical, collective, and individual goals, their social contexts, and their traditions. the epistemic and practical goals, although important and indispensable, are not my first interest here. it means that when i am interested in developing and assuming a position, i am not only interested or developing a personal involvement based on a personal commitment, even though the personal aspect is not excluded from the outset. from the very start i am working towards a collective position based on collective goals and a commitment in the psychiatric community worldwide. that seems quite ambitious. it is, and, as we will see, not in vain! 2.1 a case: the wpa section on religion, spirituality and psychiatry imagine a group of professionals who put their heads together and conclude to set up a working group. then this group acquires the status of scientific section by a worldwide professional organisation of psychiatrists, the world psychiatric association (wpa). subsequently, this section expands to a worldwide network. this is in short the history of the wpa section on religion, spirituality, and psychiatry, founded in 2003 (verhagen, 2017). and the section formulated its epistemic, practical, collective, and personal goals. briefly summarized, as a group of professionals we aimed to contribute to what could be called the long-term project of understanding a certain aspect of human nature, especially the aspect of mental health and illness in connection with religion and spirituality. the section aimed at stimulating research and developing knowledge and knowhow. formulated this way, it indicates the epistemological and practical goals. however, there is a problem, here. even at the time of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. the founding of the section a lot of knowledge and knowhow was already available. nonetheless, that availability did not mean that use was made of it, at least not in mainstream psychiatry. take for instance guidelines. religion and spirituality are rarely mentioned. even in the run-up to dsm 5, well documented proposals to expand the dsm text on specific features and differential diagnosis to include the impact of religion and spirituality were not integrated in the final text (peteet et al., 2011). so, the section not only aimed at epistemological, but even more strongly at practical goals. how to make the available knowledge and knowhow work? besides, that practical goal served both collective and personal goals. therefore, in the view of the section, advancing awareness and promoting knowledge, skills and change of attitude among professionals was an extremely important goal on all four (epistemic, practical, collective, and individual) levels. the goals, of course, are closely related. this is only one side of the functioning of a professional working group like a scientific section of the wpa. professional members of this specific group, at least a lot of them, are committed to religion and spirituality in various ways. that means that there might be goals not just from the scientific point of view but also from the religious/spiritual realm. perhaps these goals are more or less explicit but are not forbidden in advance. the religious or spiritually committed professional could be interested in the epistemic aspects of religion and spirituality in psychiatry from a religious point of view as well. health (mental) and illness are most certainly important issues in religious traditions, and in the way people describe their spirituality. could the religious and spiritually committed professional also contribute to these issues? it might not be the main challenge, but nevertheless. they certainly can and they actually do. in that way these committed professionals could contribute to the welfare of religious and spiritual communities and their members. and that is not the only point. it might be that this contribution from the religious or spiritual realm could have positive significance for the scientific knowledge and practice of the profession as well. that is what interests us here mostly. again, stated this way, we become aware of personal and collective, epistemic, and practical goals, but from a religious point of view. besides, this is of course not only valid for religion and spirituality, it applies equally to other views of life. 2.2 differences between science and religion too objectionable? surely, this approach is not without difficulties. one could point at the differences between the epistemic goals of science and of religion, as stenmark explains (2004, p. 43). he points at the fact that religion is about being religious, about living religiously. religious epistemology is more complex, “not purely” epistemic as in science. this might be true, but it is confusing and evokes possible misunderstandings. being religious and living religiously is certainly not without epistemic claims, as stenmark admits (2004, p. 43). just like scientific knowledge has to fulfil certain external criteria, religious knowledge or view of life has to fulfil these criteria as well. otherwise, that knowledge would be nonsense instead of science, or superstition instead of religious knowledge (drees, 2010) (note 2). stenmark points at another difference. according to him the epistemological collective goal of science www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. is to increase the general body of knowledge, whereas in religion “it is to increase the knowledge of its practitioners personally to such an extent that they can live a religious life successfully” (2004, p. 44). that might be true if one compares pure science and religious practice, but it is not entirely true in applied science like medicine, especially psychiatry. it is common practice to disseminate knowledge to each of the practitioners to such an extent that they can fulfil their professional role in accordance with the prevailing standards. it is important to nuance this issue, as stenmark does (2004, p. 44). in fact, we need to differentiate between religion and theology. the aim of theology is similar to the aim of science. compared to that, i actually make a comparison between applied or practice-oriented science (e.g., psychiatry) and applied or practice-oriented theology (religious life and spiritual life). something similar can be said about the personal and collective practical goals of the religiously committed professional. such a professional might be interested in contributing to the welfare of patients including their religious or spiritual health as part of their personal welfare. such a professional might be motivated to develop his or her skills and attitude according to the professional’s personal view of live, be it religious or non-religious. with this i have depicted the climate and the ambitions of the group. this depiction serves as background for the development of the position or stance, which is the personal (what is the author’s position with regard to psychiatry and religion) practical (how is the available knowledge useful in practice and what knowledge does practice need) and collective goal (promoting [awareness of] knowledge in the psychiatric community) of this thesis. that is to say, this stance should ultimately serve a collective goal. 3. being committed there is, however, another aspect that deserves attention. what is the meaning of being “committed” to science and/or religion or spirituality? a position or stance is also but not solely about commitment. i will propose to look at this “being committed” in a certain way. according to mühling, a german theologian, there is an important difference between the anglophone approach of the dialogue between theology and science and the german approach (mühling, 2014, p. 14). the anglophone approach, illustrated by the typology proposed by barbour (2000), suggests that “theology and science are different poles of a spectrum”, that they share certain characteristics despite the differences that are certainly there. the german approach is more one of contrast or distinction. the natural sciences stand opposite the humanities. of course, the difference between the two approaches is not so black and white. however, mühling proposes a creative third way, which is very helpful in our goal to clarify what could be meant by being committed. whatever the goals scientists and theologians have, and a derivate of these professionals in applied science and religion, they do something. mühling focuses on the concept of action, of doing something, paving the way for his approach. his claim is that doing something presupposes among other things a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. specific set of what he calls certainties (mühling, 2014, p. 14; 2012). what are certainties? certainties are a specific kind of pragmatic knowledge. mühling gives the example of drafting a book (2012). if i want to author a book, i have to know what the book is about, how to write, how to use facilities, and that it is meaningful to write this book. probably some of these beliefs are not very explicit, but nevertheless, one thinks about it, one becomes aware of these and probably other beliefs or certainties. certainties like these are always there. they are not securities, they are not infallible, and one can question them. secondly, according to mühling, certainties are no hypotheses. the practice of science and theology may aim at the development of and search on hypotheses, the practice itself presupposes certainties. “therefore, where hypotheses provide the advantage that potential actions only imply potential consequences no one is actually responsible for (because they are only potential, not actual), actual actions imply certainties that do imply real consequences – they alter the state of the world we live in – and are therefore my responsibility” (mühling, 2014, p. 15). “certainties are always a serious matter, whereas hypotheses only stand to become serious” (mühling, 2014, p. 15). certainties have an action-guiding meaning. most of the time, we are probably not aware of our certainties since they are undisputed or self-evident. nevertheless, it can be useful to make them explicit, for instance in the dialogue between science and theology, and between psychiatry and religion. of course, as mühling explains, certainties are bound to persons, hypotheses are less bound in that sense. does that mean that certainties are merely subjective? no, it does not. certainties are particular and belong to a common narrative tradition (mühling, 2014, p. 16). nobody is without tradition, which could be dubbed the objective aspect of certainties (markus, 2004, p. 149). these certainties, therefore, have three aspects: guiding, subjective and objective. one further important distinction is necessary. there are two kinds of certainties. some of them are empirically testable, others are not. each action presupposes both. take the example of writing a book. how to write is empirically testable. whether it is meaningful to write the book is not empirically testable and of a different level. one could decide to interview readers of the book about its meaningfulness after it has been published, which would give some empirical information afterwards. however, we are not talking about the meaningfulness for readers but for the author. at the same time, it does not mean that we do not have reasons for our certainty about the meaningfulness of book. we have reasons, no proof. and if we did not have such reasons, it would probably not be very reasonable to write the book. empirical certainties concern natural and social circumstances, and facts. it is about certain knowledge contents which we can trust and which we actually do trust. of course, these certainties can always be revised. the non-empirically testable certainties concern meaningfulness of certain actions, views of life, views on human being, views on reality, religious beliefs, and spiritual views. in other words, it is reasonable to expect that certainties of this second type have religious or spiritual content. there is another aspect to it. non-empirically testable certainties are value-laden. we already pointed at the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. action-guiding meaning of certainties. with regard to the non-empirically testable certainties it means that there is a normative element to this action-guiding aspect. that normativity is of course important because it holds the professional to certain convictions and rules based on his or her religious or non-religious worldview. surely that may influence the professional’s view on science as well. in other words, certainties like these can have a regulatory meaning. a final important element needs to be mentioned. we started this paragraph with mühling’s third way of focusing on action. what does that mean for the dialogue between science and religion? it can only mean that certainties always influence the work of the scientist and the professional. in two directions. implicitly non-empirical certainties will shape the attitude, the work, and the goals of the scientist and professional. as mühling states, it will happen all the time (mühling, 2014, p. 25). on the other hand, scientific findings and discoveries will always shape the certainties and commitments of the scientist and the professional (mühling, 2014, p. 25). in fact, they can have huge effects, not just minor changes, but ground-breaking changes as well. take for instance the impact of the evolution theory and psychoanalysis on religious thinking. this bidirectional impact brings mühling to the conclusion that “every interdisciplinary dialogue always implies an inter-religious dialogue” (mühling, 2014, p. 26). to conclude this paragraph: the concept of certainties illuminates what we mean by commitment and it gives more content to the base on which professionals in science/ psychiatry and religion act as they do. 4. intermezzo: motives let us draw up an interim balance. this contribution is about developing a position, a stance with regard to religion and spiritualty in psychiatry. thus far i have outlined a context: a group of professionals in mental health care, especially psychiatrists, connected in a worldwide network under auspices of the wpa. i clarified that parallel to a scientific and religious community, whose group is focused on certain epistemic and practical, personal, and collective aims. we also realized that members of the group personally and collectively do hold to certainties that at least partly typify their commitment and guide their actions. these two elements are indispensable for the next step of our endeavour. however, before going into that, another question arises. one might still be suspicious of the motives behind our aim. quite often, attempts to ask for awareness of religion and spirituality in psychiatry are met with scepticism. is it not a religiously inspired old missionary drive, and is it not in fact a violation of professional boundaries? so let me try to explain my motives and give a disclosure on this (sims, 2009). first of all, wonder. wonder is an interesting emotion. it is usually elicited when something powerful or beautiful strikes us (fuller, 2006, 1-15; schreurs, 2006). fuller quotes descartes stating that wonder has the function of being aware of what appears only rarely, and that it “originates in response to novel or unexpected stimuli” (2006, p. 10, p. 14). in that sense wonder can stimulate new commitments (see also james, 1902/2002). this wonder is, secondly, a source of curiosity. there is this intellectual and practical curiosity to explore what it could www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. mean to look at religion and spirituality from a psychiatric point of view, and vice versa. if we intend to take a whole person approach as the most appropriate and respectful approach toward psychiatric patients, then there can be no ban on this curiosity. if, for the sake of the discussion, we would assume that there is no missionary drive at stake, the effect of our investigation could quite go into an opposite direction. psychiatry does not need to submit to whatever religious claim, but psychiatry could be enriched. its approach of the patient could become more differentiated and more tailored. and patients might profit from it. last but not least, our plea might help to remove all kinds of misunderstandings. again, the topic “religion and psychiatry” is much debated on. however, misunderstandings persist, despite the progress that has been achieved. it is therefore important to eliminate these misunderstandings, wherever possible. 5. a stance in order to achieve my goal, i will propose to consider “religion and spirituality in psychiatry” as a particular stance within the field of mental health care, especially in psychiatry. what is meant by a stance? the american philosopher van fraassen coined the concept, “a philosophical position can consist in a stance (attitude, commitment, approach, a cluster of such—possibly including some propositional attitudes such as beliefs as well). such a stance can of course be expressed, and may involve or presuppose some beliefs as well, but cannot simply equated with beliefs or making assertions about what there is” (van fraassen, 2002, pp. 47-48). in other words, a stance is not just a belief or opinion, although beliefs and opinions are part of it. it is a certain way of reasoning, and of doing research, and of acting. it would take too long to go into the background or history of the concept here. in short, daniel dennett introduced the term, but unlike van fraassen, he used the term for strategies for dealing with any system, as tactics of interpretation (bennett & hacker, 2003, pp. 419-427); van fraassen, 2004). he stipulated three tactics: the physical, the design and the intentional stance to explain or predict behaviour of a system. bolton and hill used his approach, especially the intentional stance, in their philosophy of psychiatry (bolton & hill, 1996; see also fulford et al., 2006). rashed elaborated the intentional stance and added a “spirit stance” as an intentional stance which subverts the person’s agency, and at the same time maintains a form of intentionality (rashed, 2020). here we follow van fraassen’s use of the concept as a policy or strategy, that guides ways of action, based on choices, decisions and goals (van fraassen, 2004). the link to dennett is not the only possible one. van fraassen also points to the german philosopher wilhelm dilthey (1833-1911), who introduced the (german) term weltanschauung (worldview, emphasis added by van fraassen, 2004, p. 177). this is an interesting connection, because dilthey linked the term not just to the intellectual capacity of the human mind but also to the emotional, volitional, and behavioral capacities (loonstra, 2016). in other words, he sees a worldview as cluster of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. beliefs, values, attitudes “required to be in alignment with the holder’s modes of representation, volition, and values” (van fraassen, 2004, p. 177). worldviews, according to dilthey (and later on to karl jaspers) arise from the need to integrate experiences that come from our being related to life. in accordance with van fraassen’s description i would like to formulate the case of psychiatry and religion as such a stance (note 3). that is as a set of related commitments, certainties, goals, attitudes, and concerns, that are guiding and unified in a coherent whole, involving “a self-regarding commitment for its own preservation” (emphasis added by van fraassen, 2004, p. 177). i remind the reader that we used these keywords in the description of science and religion as social practices and in our analysis of commitment. using the concept in that way is not tried out here for the first time. others have applied it to complex lines of thought as well, for example van den brink and smits (2015), who coined a reformed stance. in our case the concept of a stance might help us to bring together the elements with which our argument is structured. that might bring us a set of advantages, which would help us beyond the controversial status quo we are in. what would these advantages look like? in the first place, psychiatry and religion as a stance is in a formal sense not fundamentally different from any other stances in psychiatry. a stance is a conglomerate of professional knowledge, attitudes, certainties, and goals. in that way, one stance does not fail for the other, unless the stance does not meet the characteristics as postulated by van fraassen. it does not signify that disagreement in the sphere of professional knowledge, attitudes, certainties forecloses criticism; on the contrary. van fraassen wishes to emphasize this. otherwise, our approach would become a license for whatever nonsense or superstition. however, psychiatry without the psychiatry and religion stance would be incomplete. on the other hand, a psychiatry and religion stance does not intend to claim a special position as if the issue of religion and spirituality is a more favourable or more meaningful position than any other one, leaving the others behind. as if it would be possible to develop a religious (read christian) psychiatry or religious (read christian) psychotherapy. as a matter of fact, this has been done, and most recently by johnson (2017; e.g., hyder, 1971; minirth, 1977). that would be a mistake as well. “religion and psychiatry” is a valuable stance, no more and no less than any other position. so, what would then be the special contribution of a psychiatry and religion stance? it is a matter of accentuation, of importance attributed to human functioning and welfare, and of intensity and urgency attributed to certain aspects of illness and health, which would otherwise be neglected (note 4). 6. the “psychiatry and religion” stance when we look closely at the question of a special contribution, we will be able to distinguish some elements that can be considered specific, if not exclusively, for a psychiatry and religion stance towards psychiatry and mental health. in the first place i think of a holistic approach to the patient as a person. this, of course, is not an exclusive input of a psychiatry and religion stance. take for instance the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. biopsychosocial model, which suggests a holistic approach. however, grosso modo it does not function that way, and religion, spirituality or worldview are not included (lewis, 2008; de haan, 2017). therefore, a biopsychosocial-spiritual model has been suggested, especially for this reason: the holistic approach of the patient as a person (culliford & eagger, 2009). the interesting corollary is that it opened and opens research to other issues than the usual ones. this is not insignificant, because it is not only what has happened and happens in research, but it happens in clinical practice as well, an opening up of other aspects related to mental illness and health. closely related to this holistic approach is the issue of culture and values, which is also a typical element from the perspective of a psychiatry and religion stance. and again, this is not the exclusive input of our stance. values-based medicine and values-based psychiatry, values-based care have made an enormous contribution to this aspect of clinical practice. cultural psychiatry has made a major effort in this domain of psychiatry and care. however, the religious and spiritual aspects are subordinated to values and culture, and not sufficiently estimated at its own value. thirdly, the psychiatry and religion stance refers strongly to the professional and his or her personal worldview. that seems to be a predictable and obvious issue, but it is not. for a long time, the person of the professional, the worldview of the professional and how this relates to the professional role had not been accounted for, because it simply did not matter in that way (glas, 2017, 2019; schreurs, 2020). this idea and approach were a formidable mistake. it turns out that religious, spiritual, existential or worldview issues inevitably belong to the centre of professional role fulfilment, and that they do not just fulfil a subordinated, if not negligible, role. such professional performance requires general virtues such as integrity, reliability, compassion, respect, altruism, which find their natural resources and inspiration in one’s worldview (glas, 2019). fourthly, we are not using the word religion exclusively here. on the contrary, that would only undermine the psychiatry and religion stance, as if we only had religious and spiritual traditions in mind. by religion and spirituality we mean the entire domain characterized by beliefs, values, and attitudes that people have about themselves, about the world around them (immanent and transcendent) and what people can know, say, and do about it. and that takes place within a religious or spiritual tradition, on the edge of it or (far) beyond it. it is not unusual to describe “worldview” in this or similar way as a more comprehensive term (stenmark, 2022). a term such as “lived religion” has also come into circulation in recent years and is about this inclusiveness (verhagen, 2022). all these terms are intended to be maximally inclusive in order to do maximum justice to the diversity in the religious and spiritual realm and beyond. the psychiatry and religion stance is intended to maximize this diversity. 7. conclusion our aim was to develop a stance with regard to religion and spirituality in psychiatry. in order to do so we needed several concepts from philosophy of religion, philosophy of science and theology. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. everything was considered with a view to an interdisciplinary dialogue between scientists and practitioners on science and religion, but also between clinicians and patients on psychiatry and religion. the efforts of the group, the wpa section on religion, spirituality and psychiatry succeeded in the acceptance of a position statement on spirituality and religion in psychiatry by the executive committee of the wpa (moreira-almeida et al., 2016)! in this contribution i reflected about what has become indispensable and necessarily developed and formed over time as the basis of the entire trajectory. the result is a well-founded so-called psychiatry and religion stance. references barbour, i. g. (2000). when science meets religion. enemies, strangers or partners? new york: harper sanfrancisco. bennett, m. r., & hacker, p. m. s. (2003). philosophical foundations of neuroscience. oxford: blackwell publishing. bolton, d., & hill, j. (1996). mind, meaning and mental disorder. the nature of causal explanation on psychology and psychiatry. oxford: oxford university press. culliford, l., & eagger, s. (2009). assessing spiritual needs. in c. cook, a. powell, & a. sims (eds.), spirituality and psychiatry (pp. 16-38). london: rcpsych publications. de haan, s. (2017). the existential dimension in psychiatry: an enactive framework. mental health, religion & culture, 20(5-6), 528-535. fulford, k. w. m., thornton, t., & graham, g. (2004). oxford textbook of philosophy and psychiatry oxford: oxford university press. fuller, r. c. (2006). wonder. from emotion to spirituality. chapel hill: the university of north carolina press. glas, g. (2017). on the existential core of professionalism in mental health care. mental health, religion & culture, 20(5-6), 536-543. glas, g. (2019). person-centered care in psychiatry. self-relational, contextual and normative perspectives. london: routledge. hyder, o. q. (1971). the christian’s handbook of psychiatry. old tappan, ny: fleming h. revell company publishers. james, w. (2002). the varieties of religious experience. a study in human nature. london: routledge (original work published in 1902). johnson, e. l. (2017). god & soul care. the therapeutic resources of the christian faith. downers grove, il: ivp academic. jüngel, e. (2003). ganz werden. theologische erörterungen v [becoming whole. theological discussions v]. tübingen: mohr siebeck. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. kant, i. (1983). beantwortung der frage: was ist aufklärung? [answering the question: what is enlightenment?] in immanuel kant. schriften zur anthropologie, geschichtsphilosophie, politik and pädagogik. werke in sechs bänden. band vi, ed. w. weischedel, 53-61. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft (original work published in 1783). lewis, b. (2008). the biopsychosocial model and philosophical pragmatism. is george engel a pragmatist? philosophy, psychiatry & psychology, 14, 299-310. loonstra, b. (2016). worldview and psychotherapy. an analysis of the christian integration debate. aachen: shaker verlag. markus, a. (2004). beyond finitude. god’s transcendence and the meaning of life. frankfurt am main: peter lang. minirth, f. b. (1977). christian psychiatry. old tappan, ny: fleming h. revell company. mühling, m. (2012). systematische theologie: ethik. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. mühling, m. (2014). resonances: neurobiology, evolution and theology. evolutionary niche construction, the ecological brain, and relational-narrative theology. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. moreira-almeida, a., sharma, a., janse van rensburg, b., verhagen, p. j., & cook, c. c. h. (2016). wpa position statement of spirituality and religion in psychiatry. world psychiatry, 15(1), 87-88. otto, r. (1947). das heilige. über das irrationale in der idee des göttlichen und sein verhältnis zum rationalen [the holy. about the irrational in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational]. münchen: biederstein verlag (original work published in 1917). pargament, k. i. (1997). the psychology of religion and coping. theory, research, practice. new york: the guilford press. peteet, j. r., lu, f. g., & narrow, w. e. (eds.). (2011). religious and spiritual issues in psychiatric diagnosis. a research agenda for dsm-v. arlington: american psychiatric association. rashed, m. a. (2020). more things in heaven and earth. spirit possession, mental disorder, and intentionality. journal of medical humanities, 41, 363-378. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-018-9519-z rowbottom, d. p. (2005). the empirical stance vs. the critical attitude. south african journal of philosophy, 24(3), 200-223. schreurs, a. (2006). how fool is a “holy fool”? philosophy, psychiatry & psychology, 13, 205-210. schreurs, a. (2020). how to integrate spirituality in psychotherapeutic practice. working with spiritually minded clients. london: routledge. sims, a. (2009). disclosure of religious beliefs. correspondence. british journal of psychiatry, 195, 368. stenmark, m. (2004). how to relate science and religion. a multidimensional model. grand rapids: william b. eerdmans publishing company. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. stenmark, m. (2022). worldview studies. religious studies, 58, 564-582. stone, m. h. (1998). healing the mind. a history of psychiatry from antiquity to the present. london: pimlico. van den brink, g., & smits, j. (2015). the reformed stance. distinctive commitments and concerns. journal of reformed theology, 9, 325-347. van fraassen, b. c. (2002). the empirical stance. new haven: yale university press. van fraassen, b. c. (2004). replies to discussion on the empirical stance. philosophical studies, 121, 171-192. verhagen, p. j. (2017). psychiatry and religion: consensus reached! mental health, religion & culture, 20(5-6), 516-527. verhagen, p. j. (2022). lived religion. proposal for a new, congenial definition. academia letters, article 4713. https://doi.org/10.20935/al4713 notes note 1. theological thinking starts with wonder as well, however, there is a difference compared with science. in theology its wonder is evoked by that which has no “topos”, that which comes to the world. in that sense understanding leads deeper and deeper into wonder (jüngel, 2003, p. 275; see also fuller, 2006). note 2. markus (2004) developed a set of criteria of formal and practical adequacy for assessing views of life. views of life demand internal and external consistency and internal and external coherence, and practical adequacy (existential suitability, universalisability, integrity, inspirational quality), otherwise the processes of ascribing meaning and religious coping would fail (see also pargament, 1997). note 3. to avoid misunderstandings, i do not mean an individual stance but the stance of the group. as rowbottom puts it, the psychiatry and religion stance is a set of individual stances “{s1, s2, s3, …sn}” (rowbottom, 2005, p. 214). note 4. van den brink & smits (2015) introduced the notion of intensification in the debate of what a stance is. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 154 original paper gender difference in the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science among secondary school students in migori county, kenya polycarp o. gor1*, lucas o. a. othuon1 & quinter a. migunde1 1 department of educational psychology, maseno university, p.o. box 333-40105, maseno, kenya * polycarp o. gor, department of educational psychology, maseno university, p.o. box 333-40105, maseno, kenya received: october 21, 2020 accepted: october 31, 2020 online published: november 9, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p154 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p154 abstract the purpose of this study was to investigate the gender difference in the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science. a sample of 327 form four students in migori county was used. questionnaires, focus group discussion guide and interview schedules were used for data collection. quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation. qualitative data were organized into themes and interpreted. overall, boys had higher levels of performance in science (mean=39.21) than girls (mean=30.80) and the mean difference was statistically significant (t=3.89, p=.00). boys had higher levels of self-efficacy (mean=2.89) than girls (mean=2.81) and the mean difference was not statistically significant (t=1.56, p=.12). further, the overall correlation between self-efficacy and performance was statistically significant with r=.236 (p=.002, n=327). the correlation between self-efficacy and performance for boys was significant with r=.250 (p=.005, n=200) and non-significant for girls with r=.085 (p=.558, n=127). it is concluded that boys outperform girls in science and record higher scores in self-efficacy than girls. in addition, the variance shared in common between self-efficacy and performance is higher for boys than girls. to improve performance and also reduce the gender gap in science performance, self-efficacy should be enhanced for students but more particularly so for girls. keywords self-efficacy, performance in science, gender, kenya www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 155 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction gender bias in mathematics and science classrooms has been and still continues to be a problem (diane, 2003). despite improvements in the past two decades, girls are still less likely than boys to take physics and higher-level mathematics and science courses in high school. as a consequence, fewer female students may study mathematics and science at the college level. the types of courses taken in high school and how students perform in these courses can impact acceptance into college, choice of college major, and subsequent career choice (diane, 2003). a growing demand for professionals in science, technology, mathematics and engineering (stem) is met with a significant labor shortage in these fields as women account for just 28 percent of global researchers but the figure masks wide variations between countries and regions (unesco, 2016). women are often underrepresented in stem, and their low levels of participation can be traced back all the way to their school years, where a number of influences from society and culture, education and the labor market are all at play (unesco, 2016). statistics canada (2007) reports that as of 2006 only 22% of professionals in natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics are women, an increase of a mere 2% from 1987; and since women continue to account for a small sector of the student population in these fields, there will probably be little change to this statistic in the near future (fried & maccleave, 2009; statistics canada, 2007). similar situations are visible in the united states and europe. in the united states, women comprise 50% of the workforce but only 15% of scientists are female (weinburgh, 2000). while more women are receiving phds in science nowadays there still is no equity as far as their career is concerned (burrelli, 2008; unesco, 2007). at the end of the 20th century, still fewer than 6% of the highest attainable academic positions were held by women (fox, 2001). this trend is also seen in other parts of the world. in europe, although women represent more than half of the student population, only 11% of top academic science positions are held by women (dewandre, 2002; european commission, 2009). while women represent 52% of professionals and technicians, only 32% of scientists and engineers are women. efforts in europe to encourage more women to obtain their phds have been successful in life sciences and humanities, where women are 41% of phd holders; however, in engineering and physical science, only 25% of phd holders are women (european commission, 2009). women scientists attribute this skewed representation to small discriminations along the way that finally end up creating this gender gap (baker & leary, 2003; ceci & williams, 2007). studies in nigeria have however revealed mixed reports on gender difference in science performance. some researchers have provided reports that there are no longer distinguishing differences in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor skill achievements of students in respect of gender (abayomi & mji, 2004; bilesanmiawoderu, 2006 & din, ming & ho, 2004). girls are being encouraged and sensitized into developing positive attitudes towards science. other researchers have reported www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 156 published by scholink inc. differently on this issue. for example, in one study carried out by eriba and sesugh (2006), they found that boys outperformed girls in integrated science and mathematics achievements. some other research studies reported that males are becoming the disadvantaged gender in schools, and that fewer males are interested in science (omoniyi, 2006). in uganda, a study conducted by the female education in mathematics and science in africa project, found that women’s performance in science subjects (which is the gateway to computer science studies) in the uganda certificate examinations is very low compared to that of men (ochwa-echel, 2011). he further reckons that although there has been some rhetoric from politicians and educators in uganda about improving the teaching of mathematics and science courses to women, not much has been done and the deficiencies and inadequacies continue. the concern this raises is that women are not participating fully in the sector, meaning that their potential is not being fully realized and their capabilities to participate in the development of the country in particular, and in the human development process in general, are being curtailed. the situation in kenya is no better as recent literature show that there has been a big problem of poor performance in stem subjects in the country as a whole as girls perform even worse in comparison with the boys (forum for african women educationalists, 2008). the same position is held by wambua (2007) in his study as he found that boys performed better than girls in stem subjects. this has caused a lot of public outcry as poor performance by girls in stem would automatically translate to fewer women enrolling for stem courses (fawe, 2008). wambua (2007) reckons that as a result of the gender gaps in performance in stem subjects, fewer girls as compared to boys qualify to join science, mathematics, engineering and technology related courses. the situation in the kenyan universities is no better. the figures from the commission for university education indicate that a third (33 percent) of university students enrolled in stem courses are women. the presence of women varies according to the field of study. in 2015, at the undergraduate level, the share of female students’ enrolment was particularly low in the clusters of manufacturing (16 percent), engineering (17 percent) and computing (22 percent). but there was near gender parity in the health and welfare cluster (49 percent) (cue, 2018). consequently, at the kenya certificate of secondary education (kcse) examination, boys continue to outshine girls in science and mathematics. in 2019 boys defeated girls in all the science subjects. in the 2018 kenya certificate of secondary education examination girls defeated boys in metal work only and lagged behind the boys in the other science and technology-related courses, including biology, chemistry, computer studies, electricity, general science, mathematics, physics, power mechanics, agriculture, and aviation. a similar result was evident in the 2017 kcse results where, of the examinable subjects, boys scored better than girls in 23 subjects, defeating girls in all sciences, whereas girls only defeated boys in 6 subjects of; english, kiswahili, cre, home science, art, and design and electricity (knec, 2019). migori county in kenya has not done any better in terms of science performance as well. the county www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 157 published by scholink inc. had girls scoring an average of 22.63% for all sciences against the boys’ 26.65%, giving a gender disparity of 4.02%. consequently, just 10.22% of girls in comparison with 20.46% of boys who sat for 2019 kcse examination did all the 4 science subjects (migori county education office records, 2019). migori county risks lagging behind in contributing to scientific development, since stem subjects contribute towards industrialization, environmental conservation, medical research, food management and improved agricultural production. as a result, kenya risks losing out on her aspirations to achieve the sustainable development goals and attainment of vision 2030. subsequent to the conflicting research findings regarding gender differences in sciences, it is important to conduct more studies in this area, particularly at secondary school level. one possible explanation of gender disparity in performance in sciences is that girls tend to have lower levels of self-efficacy in science than boys. titilayo, oloyede and adekunie (2016) explained that self-efficacy reflects the extent to which students believe that they can successfully perform in school. thus, science self-efficacy may be defined as the extent to which students believe that they can successfully perform in science. consequently, if a girl believes she is unable to succeed in science, her perception may be subsequently altered and this is likely to manifest in lower scores or in avoiding science subjects altogether (corbett, hill, & rose, 2008). previous research has established that science self-efficacy is associated with science achievement and science-related choices across grade levels (kiperman, 2002; lau & reeser, 2002). titilayo, oloyede and adekunie (2016) sought to establish whether the dismal performance of nigerian candidates in school certificate chemistry could be traced to their self-efficacy. the study however found no significant relationship between self-efficacy and chemistry students’ academic achievement in chemistry. the above notwithstanding, the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science subjects cannot be underscored (ochieng, 2015). in his study on the relationship between self-efficacy and mathematics achievement, the results showed that male students had higher levels of self-efficacy than their female counterparts. his study further observed that there was a significant gender difference in self-efficacy. while some studies showed a relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science (corbett, hill, & rose, 2008; kiperman, 2002; lau & reeser, 2002; ochieng, 2015); others have shown no significant relationship between these two constructs (titilayo, oloyede, & adekunie, 2016). based on these conflicting findings, one cannot conclusively posit whether or not self-efficacy is related to performance in science, and if it does, it would be worthwhile to explore the nature of such a relationship across gender. whereas corbett, hill and rose (2008), kiperman (2002) and lau and reeser (2002) assessed the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in physics, titilayo, oloyede and adekunie (2016) assessed the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in chemistry while ochieng (2015) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 158 published by scholink inc. investigated the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in mathematics. these studies did not examine the relationship between self-efficacy and science as a combined subject area. rather, they each focused on one science subject only. this may lead to inaccurate findings as each science subject is unique in its own way. this study therefore sought to fill this gap by looking at gender difference in the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science among secondary school students in migori county, kenya. 1.1 objectives of the study the study was guided by the following objectives: i. to establish secondary school students’ level of performance in science subjects across gender. ii. to establish secondary school students’ level of self-efficacy in science across gender. iii. to determine the overall relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science among secondary school students. iv. to examine gender difference in the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science among secondary school students. 1.2 limitation of the study one limitation is that the science achievement test used in the present study tested the theoretical aspects of the science subjects only, leaving out the practical segment. therefore the results of the test could be slightly inaccurate as the practical segment makes a reasonable part of science as a subject. to remedy this, qualitative data were collected from the heads of science department on the level of performance in science with respect to both theoretical and practical aspects to complement the results obtained from the science achievement test. 1.3 significance of the study the findings of this study may be useful to both teachers and students as it would seek to provide ways of improving confidence in science, particularly for female students who have consistently shown a weaker performance in science. the findings would also be useful to curriculum developers and teacher trainers in the development of content and methodology that may improve learners’ confidence in science. 2. method 2.1 research design a mixed methods research design which includes both quantitative and qualitative paradigms was adopted in the study. more specifically, the convergent parallel mixed methods approach was used. 2.2 study population the population for this study consisted of form four students of the year 2020 and the heads of science department in migori county, kenya. the form four students in this target population were those who took all the four science subjects, namely, mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 159 published by scholink inc. they were approximately 2,200 in total, i.e., 1550 boys and 650 girls spread out in the 240 public secondary schools in the county (migori county director of education office records, 2019). the population of the heads of science department (hosd) was approximately 240 since the 240 public secondary schools were believed to have one hosd each. the hosd were selected because they were perceived to have a better understanding of student performance in the four science subjects. 2.3 sample size and sampling technique fisher et al. (1991) formula was used to arrive at a sample size of 327 students. the study used stratified sampling method and simple random sampling technique to sample the students for study. in this regard, schools were divided into 4 strata; national, extra-county, county and sub-county. of the 240 public secondary schools in the county, 2 are national schools, 8 are extra-county, 14 are county and 216 are sub-county schools. to get the number of students to be sampled from each stratum, a proportion was worked out based on the following formula: n= x sample size where n is the number of students in each stratum. from this formula, 294 students were randomly selected from sub-county schools, 19 from county schools, 11 from extra-county schools and 3 from national schools. ten groups comprising of 6 participants each were selected to take part in the focus group discussion. thirty heads of science department from 30 schools were also selected for the study. 2.4 research instruments four tools were used for data collection; science self-efficacy scale (sses), science achievement test (sat), focus group discussion guide and head of science interview schedule (hosis). the tools are described below. 2.4.1 science self-efficacy scale (sses) the science self-efficacy scale was used to measure the level of science self-efficacy. the scale is an adaptation from capa aydin and uzuntiryaki (2009), high school chemistry self-efficacy scale. the scale was modified to capture science in general rather than just focus on chemistry which was the case with the original scale. the scale has 12 items scored in a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from no confidence at all (very low level)=1, very little confidence (moderately low level)=2, much confidence (moderately high level)=3 to complete confidence very high level)=4. the original instrument gave a reliability of .90 (uzuntiryaki, capa aydin, ceylandag & cömert, 2011). the current scale was subjected to reliability tests to ascertain its suitability in the local environment. 2.4.2 science achievement test (sat) science achievement test was used to measure the students’ performance in science subjects. the test was developed from the 2012 kenya certificate of secondary examination from which questions drawn from the forms 1 and 2 syllabi were selected. the test was made up of 4 subjects; physics, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 160 published by scholink inc. biology, chemistry and mathematics with each subject having a total of 25 marks. the items in the scale fell under 4 sub-scales of physics, biology chemistry and mathematics. the total score for the 4 sub-scales was 100 with scores below 50 being weak performance while scores above 50 being good performance. the scale was subjected to a pilot study to ascertain its reliability before being adopted for use in the main study. experts from the department of educational psychology, maseno university advised on the face and content validity of the instrument. 2.4.3 focus group discussion guide (fgdg) the focus group discussion guide was used to get more information from the students on the study variables and was meant to give more insight to the quantitative data got from the questionnaire. the discussion served to complement the quantitative data and also provide peripheral information that may have not been covered by the study questionnaires. focus group discussion guide was used due to its ability to give a more detailed and in-depth insight of the issues provided. consequently, it allows for integration of the quantitative and the qualitative data (creswell, 2013). the instrument was be administered to groups from 10 randomly sampled schools. the groups will be made up of 6 students each who will have completed the questionnaires. the scale was subjected to content validity tests to remove the irrelevant or redundant content. 2.4.4 head of science interview schedule (hosis) the head of science interview schedule was used to obtain qualitative data on the variations in science performance across gender from the teachers’ point of view. the schedule is made up of 5 open ended questions which seek to find out the factors responsible for gender disparity in science performance. 2.5 procedure for data collection permission for data collection was first sought from the maseno university school of graduate studies (sgs) and maseno university ethics review committee. thereafter, the migori county director of education (mcde) was provided with information about the intended study. the principals of the samples schools were then requested to seek permission from the parents association (pa) to allow students participate in the study. it was at this point that actual data were collected through administering questionnaires and interview schedules as well as conducting focus group discussions. 2.6 methods of data analysis descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and simple linear regression were used to analyze quantitative data. the software used for quantitative data analysis was the statistical package for the social sciences (version 24). qualitative data was analyzed thematically. 2.7 ethical considerations all the protocols for conducting research in psychology were observed. the study was approved by maseno university ethics review committee prior to data collection. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 161 published by scholink inc. 3. results 3.1 reliability analysis cronbach’s alpha gave a reliability index of 0.78 for science achievement test and 0.77 for self-efficacy questionnaire. thus, both tools were reliable because their reliability exceeded the threshold of 0.70. 3.2 students’ performance in science across gender table 1 contains mean scores in the science achievement test sub-scales as well as the overall mean score across gender. the overall mean score for boys (mean=39.21) was higher than for girls (mean=30.80). boys consistently outperformed girls in all the four science subjects. the best done subject mathematics followed by biology and then physics. the worst performance was in chemistry. table 1. level of performance in science across gender mean score by gender boys girls physics 9.90 7.02 chemistry 7.39 5.78 mathematics 11.25 9.08 biology 10.66 8.92 overall mean 39.21 30.80 valid n (listwise) 200 127 the highest gender disparity was recorded in physics followed by mathematics. biology had the third highest gender disparity in performance while chemistry had the lowest gender disparity t. in order to establish if the mean difference in science performance between the mean for boys and that for girls is statistically significant or not, the independent samples t-test was used at α=.05 (two-tailed). table 3 shows the outcome of the analysis which indicates that the fundamental assumption for t-test regarding the equality of variances was satisfied at α=.05 (f=.83, p=.37). with equal variances, the difference in science performance between boys and girls was statistically significant at α=.05 (t=3.89, p=.000). therefore, the mean difference in science performance between boys and girls was a true difference in the population from which the sample was drawn and not a result of chance or sampling error. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 162 published by scholink inc. table 2. test of significance for gender difference in science performance levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2-tailed) performance in science equal variances assumed .83 .37 3.89 173 .000 equal variances not assumed 4.08 100.60 .000 when asked whether there was a gender disparity in science performance, the heads of science department all agreed that girls have been performing poorer than boys in sciences. as an example, one teacher who had served as head of science department for 12 years observed that: “generally, for the time i have served as a head of science department, i have seen a consistent gender gap in science performance. the girls show a weaker performance in sciences that the science field appears as a preserve of the males. although there is a slight improvement in girl performance in science, that doesn’t mean that girls are now performing any better than boys in sciences, actually there still exists a significant gap in the performance and i think something should be done to improve the female student’s performance in science.” this observation further confirms that girls tend to perform at a lower level than boys in science. during focus group discussion, students were asked which science subject has the highest disparity in performance in terms of gender. all the students who took part in the discussion were in agreement that physics was better performed by boys than girls unlike other science subjects where participants gave conflicting opinions. for example, one student responded as follows: “the answer is definitely physics. boys by far perform better than the girls in physics and the subject is actually considered a male subject. even the number of girls who select physics is so low in comparison with the boys. but above all, all the science subjects show a remarkable difference in science performance with boys topping the girls in these subjects.” 3.3 level of self-efficacy across gender table 3 presents mean scores for science self-efficacy across gender. the overall mean score for boys is 2.89 and the overall mean for girls is 2.81. this implies that the level of self-efficacy for boys was higher than that for girls. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 163 published by scholink inc. table 3. mean scores for self-efficacy across gender mean boys girls explain scientific terms 2.74 2.62 choose an appropriate formula to solve a scientific problem 2.86 2.66 carry out experimental procedures in the laboratory 2.87 2.76 describe scientific processes 2.60 2.54 correctly write scientific formulas and terms 2.78 2.56 interpret findings during laboratory practical 2.72 2.56 solve mathematical problems using a log table 3.14 3.08 interpret various equations 2.70 2.76 explain the particulate nature of matter 3.22 3.08 solve mathematical problems 3.14 3.18 correctly answer various questions in science subjects 2.92 2.68 correctly observe results of laboratory experiments 2.99 3.22 overall mean 2.89 2.81 valid n (listwise) 200 127 in order to establish if the mean difference in self-efficacy between the mean for boys and that for girls is statistically significant or not, the independent samples t-test was used at α=.05 (two-tailed). table 5 shows the outcome of the analysis which indicates that the fundamental assumption for t-test regarding the equality of variances was violated at α < .05 (f=11.724, p=.001). this notwithstanding, and assuming equal variances, the difference in self-efficacy between boys and girls was not statistically significant at α < .05 (t (173)=1.564, p=.120). table 4. test of significance for gender difference in self-efficacy levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2-tailed) self-efficacy equal variances assumed 11.724 .001 1.564 173 .120 equal variances not assumed 1.862 136.37 .065 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 164 published by scholink inc. 3.4 relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science the overall correlation between self-efficacy and performance in science was found to be statistically significant at α=.05 with r=.236 (p=.002, n=327). thus, an increase in self-efficacy is associated with an increase in science performance. when data were disaggregated by gender, the correlation between self-efficacy and performance in science for boys was statistically significant at α=.05 with r=.250 (p=.005, n=200). the correlation between self-efficacy and performance in science for girls on the other hand was not statistically significant at α=.05 with r=.085 (p=.558, n=127). thus, self-efficacy explained 6.25% of the variance in science performance for boys and a meagre 0.72% for girls. put differently, the correlation between the two variables was positive, significant and stronger for boys but positive, weaker and non-significant for girls. this outcome suggests that it is accurate to predict performance in science from self-efficacy for boys. however, predicting performance in science using self-efficacy as the predictor is inaccurate for girls. considering that the correlation between science self-efficacy and performance in science was statistically significant for boys, table 5 is a linear regression output for predicting performance in science from self-efficacy for boys. table 5. prediction of performance in science from self-efficacy for boys unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. b std. error beta (constant) 16.598 7.966 2.084 .039 self-efficacy 7.823 2.727 . 250 2.869 .005 a. dependent variable: performance in science the table indicates that the regression coefficient is b=7.823 (p=.005). therefore, the slope of the regression line for predicting boys’ performance in science from their self-efficacy scores is significantly different from zero at α=.05. this means that a change of 7.823 units in science performance by boys is associated with a corresponding change of one unit in science self-efficacy. this finding affirms the fgd responses where participants were of the opinion that the level of confidence one has in science determines their level of performance in science. one male participant reported that: “you see, there is no way one can do what he or she feels is difficult. i do well in sciences since i am quite confident about my ability. at times i come across very challenging tasks but the fact that i believe in my capabilities, makes me go out of my way and succeed. and therefore self-efficacy is key in science performance and that is why those who doubt their abilities in science always fail in very simple tasks that don’t require much effort.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 165 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion the fact that boys did better than girls is consistent with the findings of eriba and sesugh (2006) and knec (2019). eriba and sesugh (2006) found that boys outperformed girls in integrated science and mathematics achievement. knec (2019) also found that boys scored better than girls in all sciences in the 2017 kcse examination. similarly, the finding corresponds with that of ochwa-echel (2011) in uganda in a project, dubbed female education in mathematics and science in africa. the study found that girls’ performance in science subjects (which is the gateway to computer science studies) in the uganda certificate examinations is very low compared to that of boys. likewise, the finding is a true reflection of the situation in kenya as recent literature shows that there has been poor performance in stem subjects as a whole with girls performing even worse compared to boys (forum for african women educationalists, 2008). the same position is held by wambua (2007) who found that boys performed better than girls in stem subjects. with the science achievement test being developed from science questions in the kcse examination, the study finding mirrors the true performance scenario on the ground as recent national kcse examination results of 2017, 2018 and 2019 have shown that boys continue to perform better than girls in all the science subjects. for instance, in the 2017 kcse results, of all the examinable subjects, boys scored better than girls in 23 subjects, defeating girls in all sciences, whereas girls only defeated boys in 6 subjects; english, kiswahili, cre, home science, art, and design and electricity (knec report, 2018). similarly, in the 2018 kcse examination, girls lagged behind the boys in all the science and technology-related courses, including biology, chemistry, computer studies, electricity, general science, mathematics, physics, power mechanics, agriculture, and aviation. the current finding also corroborates other studies done in the local environment. according to the records at the migori county office, boys have continued to perform better than girls in the sciences. for instance, in the 2018 kcse results, migori county had girls scoring an average of 22.63% in all the sciences against the boys’ 26.65%, giving a gender disparity of 4.02% (migori county education office records, 2019). these outcomes are congruent with other reports that have found that among the other science subjects, physics is normally the worst performed subject by girls. as observed by carlone (2003), the gender gaps in physics are among the most pronounced. the above notwithstanding, the current findings contradict that of omoniyi (2006) who found that males are becoming the disadvantaged gender in schools, and that fewer males are interested in science. however, the result of his study was based on qualitative reports from respondents and not on actual performance of students. therefore it is difficult to authenticate omoniyi’s findings because students tend to exalt themselves before an interviewer thereby masking their true ability. the present study found that male students had higher levels of self-efficacy in science than their female counterparts. this is consistent with that of ochieng (2015) who sought to establish the gender www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 166 published by scholink inc. differences in mathematics self-efficacy. in his study, ochieng (2015) found that male students had higher levels of self–efficacy than female students. the relationship between self-efficacy and performance in science was found to be statistically significant in the present study. this is in agreement with simpkins, davis-kean and eccles (2006), britner (2002, 2008); britner and pajare (2001, 2006); zeldin and pajares (2000), hu,and garcia (2001) and silver, smith and greene (2001) who also found a significant relationship between the two variables. the studies have established that science self-efficacy has the ability to influence performance in science. in particular, they have argued that self-efficacy predicts intellectual performance better than skills alone, and it directly influences academic performance through cognition. further, they suggest that although past achievement raises self-efficacy, it is student interpretation of past successes and failures that may be responsible for subsequent success, and self-efficacy predicts future achievement better than past performance. similar to the findings of the current study, diane (2003), yazachew (2013), aurah (2017), farkota (2003) and mustafa, esma and ertan (2012) found that self-efficacy is an important factor influencing students’ performance in science, and it affects their achievement positively. it is imperative that students with high science self-efficacy are likely to perform well in academic tasks. it may be argued that this happens because their high level of self-efficacy makes them approach challenging tasks with confidence and are therefore able to learn by practice. as a result, they are able to register high scores on tests. noteworthy is that the finding in the current study is inconsistent with that of titilayo, oloyede and adekunie (2016) who found that there was no significant relationship between self-efficacy and academic achievement of students in chemistry in nigeria. the nigerian study however focused on chemistry alone and left out other science subjects which may have led to the inconsistent results. the failure to have a relationship between the two variables could therefore be explained by the fact that chemistry alone does not represent the entire science domain. thus, lack of a significant relationship in the nigerian study could have occurred due to focus on just one segment of science. 5. conclusion in light of the findings of the study, it is concluded that male students perform better than female students in science subjects in migori county, kenya. in addition, science self-efficacy influences performance in science, and an increase in the level of self-efficacy translates to a corresponding increase in the level of performance. however, there was more variance shared in common between the two variables for boys than for girls. it is recommended that teachers and counselors should work towards building the students’ level of science self-efficacy by providing extrinsic motivation. this should apply more particularly to the female students. it is through such an approach that gender disparity in science performance may be minimized. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 167 published by scholink inc. references akbaryboorang, m., & aminyazdi, s. a. 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(2008). where the girls are. the facts about gender equity in education. washington: american association of university women. cotton, c., mcintyre, f., & price, j. (2013). gender differences in repeated competition: evidence from school math contests. journal of economic behavior & organization, 86(1), 52-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2012.12.029 creswell, j. w. (2012). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). upper saddle river, nj: merrill. creswell, j. w. (2013). qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 168 published by scholink inc. creswell, j. w., & plano clark, v. l. (2011). designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. diane, l. w. 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(2000). against the odds: self-efficacy beliefs of women in mathematical, scientific, and technological careers. american educational research journal, 37(1), 215-246. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312037001215 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper improving instructional pedagogy: what are the issues? michael f. shaughnessy1* 1 educational studies department, eastern new mexico university, portales, new mexico 88130, united states of america * michael f. shaughnessy, educational studies department, eastern new mexico university, portales, new mexico 88130, united states of america received: april 3, 2020 accepted: april 14, 2020 online published: april 17, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p1 abstract this brief review paper examines some of the issues and concerns relative to the improvement of teacher instruction and discusses some of the inter-personal as well as the intrapersonal concerns and reviews some of the most salient constructs. keywords teacher improvement, teacher efficacy, supervision 1. introduction there has been continual concern about the quality of instruction and an examination and exploration of the main issues in teacher supervision and feedback. this paper will explore the most salient, relevant issues and provide a context for future examination of this realm. 2. method this paper cursorily reviews some of the main concerns involving the improvement of teacher instruction and pedagogy 3. result the issue of taking a good teacherand making those good teachers into great teachers is a real challenge to principals and superintendents across the united states. however, we certainly need to discuss and talk about a number of key issues and concerns. many of these things are problematic and present inter-personal challenges and concerns. let me list about 20 areas that may need to be looked at: 1) observation—in order to make a good teacher great—one has to consent to being observed—not all teachers like this. by observation, a certain amount of time has to be set aside for a principal or master www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. teacher to observe the teacher conducting a lesson not showing a movie but actually providing some direct instruction. 2) supervision—in order to make a good teacher great—one has to accept being supervised-and this is a realm that many teachers feel uncomfortable about. in supervision, one has to consent to receiving feedback-for the good the bad and the deficiencies that one has. for some, this is a bitter pill to swallow and the teacher may have had an extensive background wherein they were continually praised and given a lot of reinforcement or even praised inordinately and excessively. 3) feedback—in order to make a good teacher great—one has to accept feedback from the supervisor. feedback can take many forms, it can be a written summation, it can be a discussion over coffee, it can be a very formal checklist or it can be a quite informal discussion. sadly, the art of conversation and discussion has somewhat fallen by the wayside and we have to learn the knack of conversing about a common topic. there are evaluative checklists to help individuals improve their teaching and the various sub-aspects of teaching (such as beginning a lesson, dealing with disruptions, preparing students for follow up, and ending, concluding and summarizing the lesson). 4) reorientation—in order to make a good teacher great, they may have to slightly reorient themselves to a new approach—(i taught face to face for years, then had to adjust to instructional t.v. and now online—and while i was truly great face to face, now perhaps i am just mediocre online.) 5) acceptance, in order to make a good teacher great, they have to accept criticism and feedback as well as positive comments and statements. many individuals have difficulty with accepting constructive criticism. 6) readjustment, in order to make a good teacher great, they may have to readjust to the changing population and newer approaches (such as formative and summative evaluation). they may have to adjust to a more heterogeneous population and greater diversity. 7) technology—in order to make a good teacher great, they may need to incorporate newer technologies to enhance their communication skills and abilities. they may have to utilize newer technology, different learning platforms, and often the latest technology. there are also different realms of education such as reading education, gifted education, bilingual education, career and technical education, early childhood education and many other realms investigated by shaughnessy (2004). 8) observation—in order to make a good teacher great, they may also need to observe other great teachers, this is a time-consuming process, but you learn by watching good teachers at the top of their game practicing their craft. there is minimal literature about this, but often individuals learn by observing. they learn by observing other individuals deliver a lecture or a lesson, they learn how they engage students, how they use eye contact, how they utilize body language. 9) preparationgood teachers take the time to prepare. they take the time to prepare their lessons, they take the time to review their text, and they take the time to review the various students that they may encounter (those that have an iep for example or a section 504). teachers nowadays must also be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. prepared for students that may have specific health needs or emotional outbursts and they need to be aware of accommodations and modifications that must be delivered within the context of their lesson plan. part of this preparation contributes to what is termed “teacher efficacy” (shaughnessy, 2004) 10) passion—good teachers are passionate about their craft and see it as a lifelong endeavor of improving many facets of their profession. this may include improving their charisma and stage presence, their relationships, their testing as well as their teaching skills and their abilities to reach all students. this is not easy. not all teachers can reach all students with the wide variety of student needs, and heterogeneity out there in the world today. this passion should be about their subject matter, about the process of learning, and about the importance of ongoing assessment and grading and the teaching of skills to enable students to be successful. 11) enthusiasm and emotions—good teachers are enthusiastic when they teach, when they are asked to teach out of their field and when confronted with less than enthusiastic students. 12) motivation—motivating students, particularly students who may not be keen about the subject matter (for example math) is particularly challenging. making a mediocre teacher into a master teacher may involve the idea of enhancing one’s abilities to motivate others to instill a love of learning and for the subject matter. 13) interventions—a good teacher must learn what to say, how to say it and when to say it. this may involve a teacher responding to questionsbut also commenting on a student’s questions, responses and ascertaining if their response is a simple response or reflects higher order thinking skills or critical thinking skills or both. a good teacher's interventions may praise, enhance, elaborate on a remark or simply instill a concern for rational, reasonable, logic. 14) the environment—a teacher’s classroom is in effect a type of treatment variable. a teacher’s classroom should be warm, welcoming and assist in the process of learning. a good classroom has graphs, charts, pictures, maps, perhaps a globe, computer internet capacity, and comfortable chairs to help with the learning process. the room must not be too hot or too cold and a superior teacher is keen to think of these items of interest as of importance. 15) paperwork and people—often a good deal of paperwork is involved in making a good teacher even better! this may involve requests for ancillaries or requests for models or additional materials. 16) executive functioning and time managementteachers have a limited amount of time to teach and review an enormous amount of material. teachers have to do mini management in terms of their allotted time in a period and they have to plan to cover a much larger amount of material during the school year while at the same time plan for unforeseen emergencies and disruptions to instructionmuch like covid-19. all this while attending iep and 504 meetings and dealing with discipline problems and abrasive parents after school. further teachers are often having to do response to intervention for some students who should have been retained the previous year. 17) diversity—while not directly involved with pedagogical delivery, a sensitivity to student diversity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. may contribute to a more welcoming relaxed student environment and student receptivity. this is difficult to make generalizations about but many teachers, while good instructors, do not always take the time to be sensitive to the various subtle nuances of different cultures. surely there are differences between urban and rural cultures and african american, chinese, hispanic and other cultures and one needs to be careful about over-generalizations in these realms. 18) exceptionalities—in terms of section 504—instructors here also need to be sensitive to those students who may need additional time for exams, tests, and quizzes and those who have medical or health issues or needs. this adds another layer of duties, obligations and responsibilities to teachers and their preoccupations on a daily basis. 19) discrepancies, priorities and conflict—during the supervisory process or the mentoring process there may be extreme disconnect between what the supervisor feels is important, and what the teacher feels is imperative. some teachers spend a good deal of time with their lesson plans, bulletin boards and arranging the classroom, while the supervisor or principal may feel that body language, voice projection and other aspects of instruction are important. 20) sensitivity—some teachers are more receptive to constructive criticism-whereas other teachers see every comment as criticism. i doubt if anyone has done research on thisbut these are issues to be exploredmale to male supervision and criticism, may be quite different than female to female supervision, and male to female and female to male supervision may all be conducted and see quite differently. further, years of experience teaching may be a factora teacher who has been in the classroom for ten years may not take kindly to supervision from a supervisor or principal who may have taught kindergarten for one year—then gotten a master's and administrative license, and is now running a school. 21) history—some individuals have a long history of responding to comments and criticism or correction from authority figures. athletes often hear about their performance from their coaches. some athletes fume, other respond quietly and take comments to heartand other quit the team. in the realm of musicmusicians have to quietly accept feedback from their teachers—regarding their performance. some musicians thank their instructors copiously for their feedback—while others smash their stradivarius violins in frustration and exasperation. the same hold true for teachers—they may have had a long history of being complemented or on the other hand criticized. in some instances, the feedback was verbal, in others a scathing vitriolic, acerbic denunciation of their ability to communicate and impact young minds. summary and conclusions this paper has attempted to summarize some of the main issues in terms of enhancing instructional skills. there are invariably others—but it is often important to be aware of most, if not all of these issues in order to assist good teachers in becoming better teachers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion this paper has provided a cursory overview of some of the main areas of concern relative to teacher improvement and supervision. references shaughnessy, m. f. (ed.). (2004). education in the new millennium: not like your grandmother’s school house. university press of america lanham, md. shaughnessy, m. f. (2004). an interview with anita woolfolk. the educational psychology of teacher efficacy. educational psychology review, 16(2), 153-176. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:edpr.0000026711.15152.1f education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper elementary school students approach the pontian greek as a refugee within the drawing activity konstantinidou zoe1*, fotiadis konstantinos2 & konstantinidou parthena 1 international hellenic university, thessaloniki, greece 2 university of western macedonia, florina, greece * konstantinidou zoe, international hellenic university, thessaloniki, greece received: november 15, 2020 accepted: november 24, 2020 online published: december 9, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n1p1 abstract children tend to express themselves in detail through the design activity since they greatly lack linguistic and verbal competence. in the present study, we gathered and analyzed the drawings of elementary school students, aged 8-12, (total num = 110) to explore their views and thoughts for the pontian greeks as refugees. the drawings were collected during their visit to a multi-themed exhibition regarding the culture of the black sea and they were analyzed based on their content. the results show that children approach the pontian greek refugees with sensitivity and empathy, while gender and origin influence the presence of cultural elements and symbols that refer to the pontian greek genocide and the exile that followed. keywords refugee, design activity, education 1. introduction the design activity as a free means of expression and communication constitutes rich educational material with cognitive content (fineberg, 1998) and is a remarkable way to explore children’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, knowledge and experiences (gika, athanasopoulou, & damianaki, 2015). it is one of the many “languages” through which children can narrate stories that would otherwise remain unknown or fragmentary (kress, 1997; pahl, 1999). children’s drawings are said to be a “window” for their thoughts and feelings, mainly because they reflect an image of their mind (thomas & silk, 1990), giving them, at the same time, the opportunity of visualization (brechet & jolley, 2014). they give children the opportunity to think, organize and express issues that concern them. children’s depictions in their designs can have both conscious and unconscious content; they can reveal many aspects of themselves www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. while they are purely personal creations of great importance (golomb, 2002). various surveys suggested that students’ drawings could be used as great diagnostic tools to check students’ understanding of an issue (glynn & duit, 1995; dove, everett, & preece, 1999). for this reason, special attention should be paid to the way we evaluate and interpret drawings as it is one of the main ways of expressing children’s concerns and even their inner perceptions (rollins, 2005). according to matthews (2003), children’s drawings are often the result of a combination of different types of knowledge that are encoded in various systems. it is therefore important to observe how children compose, decompose and transform information and how they structure and verify mental representations (karamolegkou, 2017). through the design activity, children capture what they see in their own way of perception (wright, 2001). according to goudnow (1977), children’s drawings is a means of communication, a message itself, a code, a way of getting in contact. teachers, therefore, are asked to decode all this information in order to receive the message (cox, 2005) and, then, use it properly in the educational activity. in the present study, children’s drawings sought to be used as a tool for understanding and approaching their views and ideas for pontian greeks as refugees. 2. method 2.1 sample this paper presents information collected by elementary school students who attended an educational program of a multi-themed exhibition titled “pontus: we have the right to remember, we have the obligation to remember”. the program aimed at children aged 8-12 and included a tour in various theme collections (maps, objects, sculptures, works of art, audiovisual material) and some experiential actions and follow-up discussions. after two weeks, students were asked to capture their thoughts about pontian greeks as refugees through the design activity. 110 out of 1200 students’ works were randomly selected for the present study (table 1). table 1. demographic characteristics of the sample gender ν % accommodation area ν % boys 46 41.8 no pontian 25 22.7 girls 64 58.2 pontian 85 77.3 total 110 100.0 total 110 100.0 class ν % origin ν % c primary (8-9 years old) 14 12.7 pontian 45 40.9 d primary (8-9 years old ) 28 25.5 asia minor 8 7.3 e primary (10-11 years old ) 24 21.8 no pontian 57 51.8 st primary (11-12 years old ) 44 40.0 total 110 100.0 total 110 100.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. 2.2 research tool students’ drawings were collected and analyzed according to kress’ and leeuwen’s (2010) model. it is about the visual semiotics which incorporates visual representation within a theoretical framework of social semiotics, emphasizing the creation of points. point makers use the appropriate forms to express what they want, depending on the context in which a point is produced (kress & van leeuwen, 2010, p. 51). this tool is considered the most suitable one for collecting data as it allows the participation of all students, regardless of their verbal and graphic difficulties (kapoulitsa & troulou, 2007, pp. 152-153). it is considered a deliberate process of creating meaning as it helps children to represent their thoughts more directly (vamvakidou, kyridis & bessas, 2005, p. 54; trouli et al., 2015, pp.4-5). 2.3 codification content analysis followed. according to berelson (1971), content analysis is used to study the views and perceptions of an individual or a group of individuals. using this type of analysis, we try to have an objective, systematic and quantitative description of the obvious content of communication, written or oral speech, with ultimate goal the right interpretation (de sola pool, 1959). then, thematic analysis followed, with the aim to identify, analyze and report the various issues that arise through data (braun & clarke, 2006). this tool was employed to combine quantitative and qualitative data, so as to detect and record specific forms of social interaction, historical and cultural elements and social ideologies (bardin, 1977; grawitz, 1981; moscovici, 1970; mucchieli, 1988; veron, 1981). 3. result according to students’ drawings, they expressed their inner thoughts that were closely related to the history of greeks in pontus using scenarios. evidence and information from the historical period of the pontian greek genocide and the exile of these people were more often observed, while the use of elements-symbols was also evident, emphasizing cultural, social and religious information (table 2). table 2. descriptive characteristics of children’s drawings category subcategory data/information cultural elements local costumes, musical instruments category genocide images from the genocide history immigration refugees, people who are forced to move (on foot, by train, by ship) and leave their homeland cultural elements flags, laurel plant, olive trees special gender women, men www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. elements/symbols refugee misery, hardships, forced/reluctant movement of people, uprooting religion the cross, the church, religious icons social class contradictory images of people in power and people under submission tribe through local costumes boy, 11 years old. in his drawing, he depicts the forced and reluctant movement of pontian hellenism. the use of cultural elements (flag) is characteristic. girl, 9 years old. in her drawing, she depicts a mother with her child who are forced to leave their homeplace. emotional data (tears) and cultural elements (black clothes, headscarves) are used. figure 1. student’s drawings concerning refugee girl, 12 years old. she divides her work into individual sections where in each of them she depicts moments and images from the history of the genocide in combination with representative symbols (flags, a map, the cross, laurel wreaths). figure 2. students’ drawings referring to the pontian greek genocide www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. boy, 9 years old. his drawing depicts dancers dressed in traditional pontian costumes and dance to the sound of the lyra, a traditional musical instrument of pontus. girl. 10 years old. she emphasizes cultural elements such as the pontian women’s costumes and pontian musical instruments (lyra, daouli) which she chooses to encircle with flames, emphasizing the destruction that the greek culture from pontus has suffered. figure 3. students’ drawings referring to cultural features content analysis of children’s drawings revealed three main categories, namely the existence of a scenario in children’s drawings, the existence of elements-symbols and the presence of cultural elements. the existence of a scenario was overwhelming (n = 89.1%) and was analyzed in three sub-categories which concerned the reference to the genocide (n = 38.2%), the reference to refugee (n = 42.7%) and the reference to cultural elements (n = 19.1%). rather important was also the existence of elements-symbols (n = 73.6%) which was analyzed in five subcategories, the elements-symbols a) of race (n = 80%), b) of gender (n = 56.4%), c) of refugee (n = 35.5%), d) of social class (n = 20%) and e) of religion (n = 10.9%) (table 3). table 3. descriptive characteristics of children’s drawings scenario ν % objects-symbols ν % with scenario 98 89.1 with scenario 81 73.6 without scenario 12 10.9 without scenario 29 26.4 total 110 100.0 total 110 100.0 gender elements/-symbols ν % race elements/symbols ν % present 62 56.4 present 88 80.0 absent 48 43.6 absent 22 20.0 total 110 100.0 total 110 100.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. investigating the possible impact of different variables statistically, we observe significant differences in gender and origin in relation with the existence (sig = .023, sig = .033 p <.05), the number of data-symbols (sig = .011, p <.05), the gender symbols (sig = .002, p <.05) and the refugee symbols (sig = .001, p <.05) (table 4). table 4. statistically significant differences per factor factor gender df f sig. category between groups 1 11.450 .001 within groups 108 total 109 elementssymbols between groups 1 4.681 .033 within groups 108 total 109 numerous elementssymbols between groups 1 6.779 .011 within groups 108 immigration images-symbols ν % social class images-symbols ν % present 39 35.5 present 22 20.0 absent 71 64.5 absent 88 80.0 total 110 100.0 total 110 100.0 religion objects-symbols ν % cultural elements ν % present 12 10.9 present 51 46.4 absent 98 89.1 absent 57 51.8 total 110 100.0 total 110 100.0 category ν % total number of elements/symbols ν % genocide 42 38.2 0 30 27.3 cultural elements 21 19.1 1 34 30.9 immigration 47 42.7 2 24 21.8 total 110 100.0 3 16 14.5 4 4 3.6 5 + 2 1.8 total 110 100.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. total 109 gender elements-symbols between groups 1 10.264 .002 within groups 108 total 109 immigration elements-symbols between groups 1 12.331 .001 within groups 108 total 109 factor origin df f sig. elements-symbols between groups 1 5.341 .023 within groups 108 total 109 analyzing correlations between factors and variables, we observe that gender influences the presence of elements-symbols in children’s drawings. most drawings contain one up to three elements-symbols (n = 67.2%), few contain more than three elements-symbols (n = 5.4%), while many do not contain any symbols at all (n = 27.3%). more girls use at least one element-symbol in their drawings (n = 46.4%) compared to boys (n = 26.3%), while boys do not seem to use symbolic elements (n = 15.5%) compared to girls (n = 11.8%) (table 5). table 5. correlations between factors and variables (gender-number of elements/symbols) category subcategory gender total boys girls 0 17 13 30 15.5% 11.8% 27.3% 1 18 16 34 16.4% 14.5% 30.9% 2 5 19 24 different stereotypes 4.5% 29.7% 21.8% 3 4 12 16 3.6% 10.9% 14.5% 4 1 3 4 0.9% 2.7% 3.6% 5+ 1 1 2 0.9% 0.9% 1.8% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. total 46 64 110 41.8% 58.2% 100.0% more specifically, it seems that more girls than boys include elements-symbols in their drawings (n = 47.3%), concerning both gender (n = 40%) and refugee (n = 28.2%). on the other hand, boys tend to avoid including refugee symbols (34.5%) (table 6). table 6. correlations between factors and variables (gender-type of data/symbols) category subcategory gender total male female elements-symbols present 29 52 81 26,4% 47,3% 73,6% absent 17 12 29 15,5% 10,9% 26,4% gender elements-symbols present 18 44 62 16,4% 40,0% 56,4% absent 28 20 48 25,5% 18,2% 43,6% immigration elements-symbols present 8 31 39 7,3% 28,2% 35,5% absent 38 33 71 34,5% 30,0% 64,5% total 46 64 110 41,8% 58,2% 100,0% analyzing the categories and subcategories of drawings’ content, we observe that students refer mainly to the genocide (n=38.2%) and the refugee of greeks of the black sea (n=42.7%) and less to the cultural elements (n=19.1%). boys include more information of the genocide in their drawings (n = 22.7%), compared to girls (n = 15.5%), who mainly focus on the refugee/immigration section (n = 31.8%) (table 7). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. table 7. correlations between factors and variables (gender-category) category subcategory gender total male female category genocide 25 17 42 22,7% 15,5% 38,2% immigration 12 35 47 10,9% 31,8% 42,7% cultural elements 9 12 21 8,2% 10,9% 19,1% total 46 64 110 41,8% 58,2% 100,0% finally, with regard to the “origin” factor, we observe that more elements-symbols are used by students of pontian origin (n = 60.9%), while students of non-pontian origin share between integration (n = 12.7%) and non-integration at all (n = 10%) concerning some elements-symbols in their drawings (table 8). table 8. correlations between factors and variables (origin-symbols/elements) category subcategory origin total pontian no pontian symbols/elements existence 67 14 81 60.9% 12.7% 79.6% no existence 18 11 29 16.4% 10.0% 16.4% total 85 25 110 77.3% 22.7% 100.0% 4. discussion from the above examples we clearly notice that the design activity maintains a language of communication for children, through which they easily share thoughts and ideas that they may not have expressed otherwise (kress, 1997; pahl, 1999; konstantinidou et al., 2019). images constitute a means of non-verbal communication, allowing us to interpret it in various, different ways (kiridis, vamvakidou, & daskalaki, 2009). kirova (2006) suggests that indirect activities, such as drawings, are particularly useful for young children, as they help them express their thoughts on issues that they know little or they just have some www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. abstract perceptions about. drawing is a tool through which children can visualize their mood, emotions and thoughts (brechet & jolley, 2014; jolley, 2010). all art expressions are uniquely personal statements that carry both conscious and unconscious meanings (golomb, 2002). for children, drawing is a personal, enjoyable and unique experience (malchiodi, 1998) through which they express their thoughts, ideas and feelings (brooks, 2005; cox, 2005). through the present study, we saw children, aged 8-12 years old, expressing their thoughts about greeks from pontus as refugees using a variety of elements and symbols. scenarios were important, as they helped children depict in paper what had influenced them the most. according to fineberg (1998), the production of drawings by young children constitutes very rich material with cognitive content through which they can tell a story with images-symbols. that is why we are highly interested in drawings, since apart from being a system of depicting images, it is also a means of revealing information for the child itself. a drawing by hopperstand (2008) is always representative of the child that has created it because it reflects his interests and intentions, while at the same time, s/he can convey his own message in his personal, unique way. in the present study, it was observed that girls were more associated with drawings concerning the refugee part, expressing, at the same time, feelings of empathy, while, on the other hand, boys were more concerned about the genocide connotations, therefore, creating images of action. both sexes used iconic images in their efforts to convey their thoughts. these symbols were related both to cultural elements (flags, clothing, church, the cross, olive trees, etc.) and to historical events (exchange, population movement, etc.). the use of symbols to construct meanings that we usually want to convey or communicate is described by van oers (1997) and reflects children’s efforts to understand the world around them (papandreou, siambani, & douma, 2011). it is noteworthy that children of pontian origin used more symbols in their drawings, expressing this way, elements of their own culture. this emotional identification may be due to the fact that children’s drawings have always been influenced by their socio-cultural environment and background. similar findings were observed in relevant research in secondary school students, as well (konstantinidou, fotiadis, & kyridis, 2019). according to previous studies, children tend to use the design activity quite instinctively in their need to observe the surroundings and feel at ease in a given environment (kouvou, 2016). this result, as a cultural product, is greatly influenced by the environment in which they live and grow (eco, 1989). it is an act of representing their way of thinking (whight, 2010) as they capture what they see in their own way of perceiving. through the images they draw, we have the opportunity to observe not only children’s current living conditions but also how this reality is interpreted according to the cultural community standards they belong to (vallier, 1998). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion this paper highlighted the thoughts of elementary school students (aged 8-12) about greeks from pontus as refugees within the design activity framework. it became quite clear that students are aware of the historical issues of humanity in which ill-treatment and the forced movement of populations are projected. students’ sociocultural environment affects the way they think and, therefore, helps them enrich their drawings with emotions and signs of sensitivity towards the pontian greek refugees. the design activity is an important tool for detecting children’s thoughts and ideas, enabling them to externalize important information that they might not otherwise be able to externalize. for this reason, it is proposed to employ it both as a research tool and in the educational process with the aim of approaching corresponding topics. references brechet, c., & jolley, r. p. (2014). the roles of emotional comprehension and representational drawing skill in children’s expressive drawing. infant and child development, 23(5), 457-470. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.1842 brooks, m. (2005). drawing as a unique mental development tool for young children: interpersonal and intrapersonal dialogues. https://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2005.6.1.11 chang, n. (2005). children’s drawings science inquiry and beyond. contemporary issues in eraly childhood, 6(1), 104-106. https://doi.org/10.2304/ciec.2005.6.1.3 coates, e., & coates, a. (2006). young children talking and drawing. international journal of early years education, 14(3), 133-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760600879961 cox, s. (2005). intention and meaning in young children’s drawing. international journal of art and design education, 24(2), 115-125. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2005.00432.x dijk, e. f., van oers, b., & terwel, j. (2004). schematising in early childhood mathematics education: why, when and how? european early childhood education research journal, 12(1), 71-82. https://doi.org/10.1080/13502930485209321 eco, u. (1989). θεωρία σημειωτικής. αθήνα: γνώση. fineberg, j. (επιμ.). (1998). child art, essays on childhood, primitivism and modernism. princeton: princeton university press. glynn, s., & duit, r. (1995). learning science meaningfully: constructing conceptual models. in s. m. glynn, & r. duit (eds.), learning science in the schools: research reforming practice (pp. 3-33). mahwah, nj: erlbaum. golomb, c. (2002). child art in context: a cultural and comparative perspective. washington, dc: american psychological association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10452-000 hooperstad, h. m. (2008). relationship between children’s drawing and accompanying oeer interaction in teacher-initiated drawing sessions. international journal of early years education, 16(2), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. 133-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760802044844 karamolegkou, i. (2017). children’s drawing and mind. at the panhellenic conference of educational sciences (in greek). konstantinidou, ζ., kyridis, a., & fotiadis, k. (2016). attitudes of students towards pontius as immigrants—foreigners. journal of educational and social research mcser publishing, 6(1), 102-108. https://doi.org/10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n1p102 kouvou, o. (2016). children’s drawing. the cognitive approach. athens: gutenberg (in greek). kress, g. (1977). before writing: rethinking the paths to literacy. new york: roytledge. kyridis, a., vamvakidou, i., & daskalaki, n. (2009). children’s paintings for social and political classes. second south european and mediterranean conference citizenship, identity and culture: the challenge for education, university of patras, april, 2009. konstantinidou, z., fotiadis, k., & kyridis, a. (2019). the refugee and the immigrant in the then and the now through art. in: doriman (ed.) a. andreou & k. kasvikis. athens: epicenter (in greek). fineberg, j. (1998). child art, essays on childhood, primitivism and modernism. princeton: princeton university press. fotiadis, k. (1995). the greeks of the former soviet union. the genesis of the diaspora. in k. fotiadis (ed.), the greeks of the former soviet union (history-education) (pp. 11-39). thessaloniki: kyriakydis brothers (in greek). jolley, r. p. (2010). children and pictures: drawing and understanding. oxford: blackwell. pahl, k. (1999). transformations: children’s meaning making in a nursery. staffordshire: trentham books. matthews, j. (2003). drawing and painting. children and visual representation. london: sage publishing. papandreou, m. (2014). communicating and thinking through drawing activity in early childhood. journal of research in childhood education, 28, 85-100. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2013.851131 papandreou, m., ciambani, e., & doumou, s. (2011). the importance of design activity in kindergarten. modern kindergarten, 83, 118-126. rollins, j. (2005). tell me about it: drawing as a communication tool for children with cancer. journal of pediatric oncology nursing, 22, 203-221 (in greek). https://doi.org/10.1177/1043454205277103 vallier, d. (1998). miro and children’s drawings. στο john fineberg (επιμ.). discovering child art. new jersey: princeton university press, σ. 202. van oers, b. (1997). the narrative nature of young children’s mathematical reasoning through pictures. in j. notova, h. moraova, m. kratka, & n. stelikkova (eds), proc. 30th conf. of the int. group for the phycology of mathematics education (5, pp. 57-64). prague: pme. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. wright, s. (2001). drawing and storytelling as a means for understanding children’s concepts of the future. journal of future studies, 6. wright, s. (2010). understanding creativity in early years. meaning making and children’s drawing. london: sage publishing. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper research into english translation of chinese tourism materials from the perspective of cross-culture communication yi an-yin1* 1 institute of pre-college education school for ethnic minorities, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china * yi an-yin, institute of pre-college education school for ethnic minorities, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china received: june 6, 2022 accepted: june 19, 2021 online published: june 28, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n3p1 abstract from the perspective of cross-culture communication, the characteristics in the titles and materials of chinese tourist sports are analyzed and paid attention to the intercultural communication strategy and consciousness while changing them into english is put forward, which can improve the quality of english translation from chinese tourism materials and finally enhance the communication and development between international cultures. keywords cross-culture communication, chinese tourism materials, english translation 1. introduction with the deepening of globalization, cross-cultural communication is becoming a new subject, and people pay more and more attention to it. different language structures and cultural backgrounds lead to communication barriers to some extent. translation is to promote exchanges between china and foreign countries, so that foreign tourists can better understand domestic tourist attractions. therefore, at present, many domestic tourist attractions have english names, and many domestic famous tourist attractions have english introductions. however, there is no standard in the english translation of chinese tourist materials for domestic tourist attractions. as a result, the quality of translated materials is uneven. it is difficult for foreign tourists to understand the meaning of these materials. in addition, cultural differences may even lead to cultural misunderstanding, which is very detrimental to the communication with foreign tourists. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. 2. characteristics of names and materials of domestic tourist attractions nowadays, the tourism industry at home and abroad is also developing rapidly. as an important means of cross-cultural communication, tourism can promote people from different regions and cultural backgrounds to communicate and understand. translation is a very important means to promote domestic tourism resources to the international market, so special attention should be paid to the characteristics of the names of tourist attractions and their materials when translating, so as to ensure the quality of translated materials. 2.1 characteristics of names of tourist attractions many tourist attractions in china are named on the basis of china’s cultural background. their names are named according to geographical location, historical figures, myths and legends, historical allusions, religion and other aspects closely related to history and culture, such as the broken bridge of hangzhou west lake, which witnessed the legendary romantic love story between bai suzhen and xu xian, and the bridge at the northeast starting point of the ming great wall in qinhuangdao shanhaiguan, known as the first pass in the world, and yangzhou slender west lake, known as “penglai on the lake”. these names are very concise, full of aesthetic feeling and rich in connotation. therefore, when translating the names of tourist attractions, the translator should fully analyze and study the naming characteristics of the names of tourist attractions, try his best not to lose their own cultural level, accurately translate, and transmit accurate information to tourists, so as to attract tourists’ sightseeing and tourism, and finally achieve the purpose of promoting cross-cultural communication. 2.2 characteristics of tourist attractions 2.2.1 in terms of purpose tourism information is an inductive text that gives tourists a better understanding of tourist attractions. as the core structure of information, tourists’ understanding of tourism information determines the quality of tourism information. therefore, when translating chinese tourism materials, it is necessary to consider the cultural background of foreign countries. starting from their reading habits and appreciation methods, and on the basis of ensuring the connotation of the original materials to the greatest extent the chinese materials are translated, and finally the english information is formed and conveyed to foreign tourists. finally, the expected effect of the translation of chinese tourism materials is achieved, so that tourists can have a sense of cultural identity and more easily understand the scenic spots, stimulate tourists’ interest in tourism and attract them to visit again next time. 2.2.2 in terms of content in content, tourism activities include a wide range of disciplines, from astronomy and geography to local customs, from natural science to social science, and even culture, entertainment, food, clothing, housing. for different types of tourist attractions, the focus of translating into english tourism materials is also different. for example, the translation of historical scenic spots focuses on the introduction of historical events. when translating cultural scenic spots, they focus on the introduction of customs and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. culture. the translation of natural scenic spots focuses on the description of landscapes and landforms. some tourist attractions integrate all the above features, so attention should be paid to integrating these features when translating, so as to systematically and completely translate chinese tourist materials, and finally ensure their translation quality. for example, the chinese brief introduction to the famous natural scenic spot zhangjiajie national forest park is: “...it is located in the south of wulingyuan scenic spot, with a total area of 481000 square meters... within the park, more than 8000 strange peaks and rocks have sprung up, overlapping in succession, in a variety of forms, and with great momentum...” 2.2.3 in terms of language in terms of language, most of the tourist attractions in china have the following main characteristics. first, chinese uses a lot of language modification techniques and modifiers, and the words are gorgeous. in terms of language, it pays more attention to abstract expression, which is easier to stimulate people’s imagination and create a beautiful image. second, when writing prose, the chinese people have a unique language phenomenon, that is, they like to use the four character lattice. the four character lattice pigeon language form can make the sentences full of momentum, easier to speak, more fluent in form, and loud and magnificent to read. for example, the description of zhangjiajie national forest park, a famous tourist attraction, described under the title 2.2.2 above, uses the four character form to highlight the uniqueness of zhangjiajie. third, the chinese materials are good at using various rhetorical devices such as metaphor, personification, parallelism, etc. to make the scenery more vivid and vivid in front of the readers, so as to achieve the goal of getting twice the result with half the effort, and make the tourists have a very strong interest. fourth, poems are often used in chinese materials because many famous poems have been left in many places of interest in china. for example, there are nearly 30 ancient poems describing the scenery of lushan mountain. for example, the great poet li bai wrote in “looking at lushan waterfall” that “the incense stove in the sunshine produces purple smoke, and the waterfall hangs in front of the river. the river flows down 3000 feet, which is suspected to be the milky way falling nine days”. another example is the famous poem “the difficulty of the shu road is difficult to reach the sky” written in the difficulty of the shu road, which is a true portrayal of the famous scenic spot jianmen pass. these poems were left by the ancient literati when they visited these scenic spots. they not only have beautiful words and accurately describe the beauty of the scenery, but also carry the flavor of history and inherit the culture of thousands of years. therefore, many tourist attractions use these poems to render the beauty of the scenery, which is more attractive to tourists. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. 3. the application of cross-cultural translation strategies in the translation of tourist attractions tourism is an important way of communication between human society, and language is the carrier of this means of communication. the process of translation is not only the conversion of words between two languages, but also the exchange of two cultures and the transmission of information. a good translation material can introduce scenic spots to tourists and use chinese culture to attract foreign tourists. therefore, for tourist attractions to attract customers, translation material is a very important carrier. therefore, when translating tourism materials, the following points should be paid attention to in the process of translating chinese tourism materials into english in order to make the tourism materials accurate and thorough so that readers of different levels can understand them and ensure the quality of their translation. 3.1 pay attention to the purpose of tourism translation when translating chinese tourism materials into english, it’s necessary to correctly understand the purpose of tourism translation and rely on its main purpose. translation is a very important means in tourism. although many tourism scenes provide foreign tourists with some english materials, and the dissemination of tourism information and tourism methods also show the characteristics of diversification, the quality of tourism materials in different tourism scenes is uneven, which leads to tourists’ inability to well understand the meaning of the translation, so as to achieve the desired purpose. for example, when introducing the famous tourist city “guiyang”, someone once translated it as “the expensive sun”, which can only make jokes and make people misunderstand. 3.2 considering the customs of tourists, retain the original flavor when translating chinese tourist materials into english, the translator should fully consider the readers’ receptive ability, language habits and aesthetic views. he should not just convert words between languages, nor mechanically copy the original culture that the readers do not understand, so that the readers can get cultural resonance from the translated materials, so as to better promote tourist attractions. when translating chinese tourism materials into english, the cultural information of the original chinese materials should be retained to the greatest extent, and the cultural background should be fully considered in the process of english translation, so as to attract tourists and achieve the purpose of tourism culture exchange. for example, the most famous scenic spot in hangzhou, su di chunxiao, is the first of the ten scenic spots in the west lake. as far as the name of the scenic spot is concerned, its correct english translation is “spring dawn on the su causeway”. however, foreign tourists do not know who “su” is. therefore, when describing the scenic spot in detail, it is necessary to add an introduction to su dongpo, specifically, “su causeway became a tourist attraction as early as 1090. that year, su dongpo, a fame pocket in song dynasty and the governor of hangzhou, had the lake dredged. the sit and debris were piloted up and formed into a causeway”. after such translation, foreign tourists will naturally understand the origin of the causeway of this scenic spot, deepen their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. understanding of chinese traditional culture, and further promote the exchange of chinese and western cultures. 3.3 pay attention to translation methods when translating, special attention should be paid to cross-cultural translation strategies, such as transliteration, transliteration annotation, addition, deletion, literal translation, free translation and domestication. these methods can not only retain chinese cultural characteristics, help foreign tourists understand chinese culture, conform to western aesthetic characteristics, but also eliminate tourists’ sense of strangeness. only in this way can tourists enjoy the fun of cultural exchange, carry forward china’s tourism culture. for example, the place name “leshan” in the scenic spot of “leshan giant buddha” should be translated into english and translated into “leshan”. when translating the famous scenic spot “bamboo sea”, if it is translated into “bamboo sea”, foreign tourists will not be able to understand the relationship between “bamboo and sea”. therefore, the scenic spot is translated into “bamboo forest” with the help of domestication, which is in line with the cultural habits of target language tourists. 4. the importance of cross-cultural awareness in the translation of tourist attractions the successful implementation of cross-cultural translation strategies is an effective means to ensure the quality of english translation of chinese tourism materials. only by making translators form and cultivate the awareness of cross-cultural communication can the quality of english translation materials be improved. language is an external embodiment of culture, and it is not the right way to deal with language that is not based on cultural background. therefore, when translating chinese tourism materials into english, it’s also necessary to balance the cultural effects. on this basis, we should translate the historical origins and cultural traditions. this is not only for the purpose of attracting tourists to tourist attractions, but also for the purpose of disseminating cultural information. before translating chinese tourism materials, translators should first improve their awareness of cross-cultural communication, master the strategies of cross-cultural communication, and understand that tourism is an important way of cross-cultural communication; at the same time, it’s very important to strengthen our own cultural cultivation and connotation, understand the language habits and ways of thinking of foreign tourists, and to be able to integrate different cultures, so that foreign tourists can understand chinese culture, understand chinese culture, and finally be attracted by it. secondly, the translator should improve his cultural sensitivity and be able to understand foreign cultural history and current facts, so as to ensure the translator’s creative inspiration and the accuracy of translation. finally, the translator must have the ability to distinguish the differences between the two cultures, and be able to find out the respective characteristics of the two cultures, so as to analyze and find the differences and intersections between the two cultures. when translating chinese materials, we should fully consider cultural factors and use cross-cultural translation strategies from the perspective of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. cross-cultural communication, so as to better ensure the quality of translated materials. for example, when we introduce famous red tourist attractions in china, such as jinggangshan revolutionary base, luding bridge and deng xiaoping’s former residence, special attention should be paid to the understanding of the word “red” in both chinese and english. because the word “red” is a commendatory word in chinese, which has revolutionary traditional meaning. the word “red” in english is often associated with “violence, blood and evil”. therefore, when translating the tourist material “deng xiaoping’s former residence is a famous red tourist attraction”, the translator must pay attention to the differences between chinese and english color cultures. if it is literally translated as “deng xiaoping old house is a famous red tourist attraction”, it will make native english speakers feel creepy and afraid of it, therefore, an additional translation method should be adopted, followed by “with revolutionary trade significance”, so that the translation will conform to the readers’ cultural and aesthetic habits and attract more and more foreign tourists; of course, there is also a wonderful way to do the same with it, which is to directly use the free translation method to translate it into “deng xiaoping old house is a famous revolutionary tourism”. 5. conclusion in a word, with the rapid development of china’s economy, the tourism industry is also developing rapidly. as an important means of cross-cultural communication, tourism can promote people from different regions and cultural backgrounds to communicate and understand. tourism materials are one of the most important means of communication. because of their strong functionality, rich cultural connotation and large amount of information, tourism materials play a very important role in the play of foreign tourism customers. therefore, when translating chinese tourism materials, the translator must, from a cross-cultural perspective, cultivate awareness of cross-cultural communication and strategies of cross-cultural communication, analyze and find out the cultural differences at home and abroad, and find out the factors that cause problems. only in this way can the translator improve the quality of tourism materials translation, make foreign tourists get a good tourism environment, and finally make the culture at home and abroad exchange. references dai, f. (2009). untranslatability in the context of cultural differences and its countermeasures. journal of taiyuan city polytechnic, 11, 162-164. li, h. t. (2010). on cultural untranslatability and its countermeasures. journal of higher correspondence education (philosophy and social sciences), 8, 3-9. ma, c. (2010). the enlightenment of communicative translation strategies on chinese-english tourism translation. journal of zhengzhou institute of aeronautical industry management (social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. science edition), 6, 119-121. qiao, r. (2012). cultural significance and translation strategies in cross-cultural translation. college english (academic edition), 1, 199-202. yu, j. (2008). on the influence of tourism culture on tourism translation. journal of heilongjiang institute of education, 8, 118-119. author: yi an-yin (1979-), male, han people, born in mian yang, sichuan province,china; a vice professor of english, and a teacher of institute of pre-college education for ethnic minorities of sichuan minzu college. research orientation: applied linguistics and translation. address: institute of pre-college education for ethnic minorities, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china, 626001. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 33 original paper cultural diversity: primary trainee teachers‟ understandings and views about their preparedness eleni zotou 1* 1 department of education and social justice, university of york, uk * eleni zotou, department of education and social justice, university of york, uk received: july 25, 2024 accepted: august 5, 2024 online published: august 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n3p33 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n3p33 abstract the aim of this research was to explore primary trainee teachers’ views about cultural diversity and their sense of preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, through their teacher training programme. the contribution to knowledge of this study is that still today, trainee teachers continue to be underprepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. moreover, they have limited understandings about cultural diversity, intercultural education and equality in education, which have been mostly developed based on the colourblind approach. trainee teachers were not satisfied with the preparation they had received and they wished to receive more training in certain areas. however, their willingness and desire to get appropriately prepared were not taken into consideration by the faculty and by their tutors. the type of the course attended does not make a difference to trainee teachers’ views and understandings. the prior experience on the other hand seems to influence both factors. keywords cultural diversity, equality, equity, intercultural education, trainee teachers, critical race theory, mixed methods 1. introduction appropriately preparing trainee teachers towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms might be a big challenge (lim & able-boone, 2005; sobel, gutierrez, zion, & blanchett, 2011), however, the rapid changes in demographics worldwide, have made trainee teachers preparation for today‟s increasing diverse classrooms a necessity. for more than 30 years now, many authors have highlighted the need to appropriately prepare trainee teachers towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms (allard & santoro, 2006; burstein & cabello, 1989; lim & able-boone, 2005; lim, maxwell, able-boone, & zimmer, 2008; miller & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. fuller, 2006; mills & ballantyne, 2009; smith, 2009; zeichner, 1992). in the past many schools were found unfamiliar with cultural diversity and the teaching practices that teachers adopted, failed to address the needs of students from minority backgrounds (burstein & cabello, 1989). more recent studies have revealed that teaching practices have not significantly improved and educators still struggle to teach in culturally diverse classrooms (goodwin, 2017). the lack of skills and knowledge teachers have towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, might have negative effects on the learning outcomes of students from minority backgrounds (cartledge, gardner, & ford, 2009 as cited in sobel et al., 2011). for example, it has been revealed that due to the lack of knowledge regarding intercultural education teachers had, they made students from minority backgrounds abandon their own cultural habits and adopt the cultural habits of the mainstream culture (zotou, 2017). the need to prepare trainee teachers for culturally diverse classrooms has been widely highlighted in the literature (goodwin, 2017; smith, 2009; stephenson, anderson, rio, & millward, 2009) and is an important step as teachers‟ preparation is one of the key issues for the education of minority students (miller & fuller, 2006; mills & ballantyne, 2009; smith, 2009; sobel et al., 2011). however, it is still not clear whether universities appropriately prepare trainee teachers for culturally diverse classrooms. after researching the literature around trainee teachers‟ understandings about terms relevant to cultural diversity and their preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, it is not clear if trainee teachers feel prepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms, if they anticipate working in culturally diverse classrooms and, therefore, if they wish and are willing to receive training and knowledge about it. moreover, it is not clear whether trainee teachers have developed an understanding about terms relevant to diversity, equality and equity, and whether the course trainee teachers attend (undergraduate course in primary education with qualified teacher status (qts) or postgraduate certificate in education (pgce) course in primary education) influences their understandings about terms relevant to cultural diversity as well as their sense of preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. this research aims to provide additional evidence and data towards these points. the term cultural diversity will be used to focus on minority students including any form of minority (ethnic minorities, linguistic minorities, cultural minorities, people of colour etc.). however, students from the dominant and the minority backgrounds will be both taken into consideration when looking on trainee teachers‟ preparation to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. 2. theoretical framework and research methodology for this research the critical race theory (crt) was adopted for data analysis. crt is a useful tool in the field of education to understand education inequity, and it is a framework that centres students from minority backgrounds by challenging superficial treatments and manifestations of diversity and by criticising the different approaches to education (ladson-billings & tate, 1995). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. moreover, a case study-mixed methods (cs-mm) approach was adopted. specifically, a case study was carried out and by using a mixed methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative data from different sources were collected to critically examine trainee teachers‟ preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. specifically, a questionnaire and interviews with trainee teachers from both primary pgce and primary undergraduate courses and interviews with trainee teachers‟ educators from both courses were carried out. in order to develop the questionnaire, the cultural diversity awareness inventory (cdai) was taken as a basis, which was developed to explore trainee teachers‟ attitudes regarding multiculturalism and diversity (henry, 1986) and it has been used in other studies which were seeking to address the preservice teachers‟ awareness of cultural diversity (barry & lechner, 1995; brown 2004a, 2004b; castro, 2010). also, other questionnaires that were used in several studies which were also looking on trainee teachers‟ attitudes, views, perceptions and awareness about diversity as well as, about teaching in culturally diverse classrooms were taken into consideration. therefore, on the basis of the literature of the cdai (brown 2004a, 2004b; hagan & mcglynn, 2004; lander, 2011; wasonga, 2005), and on questions previously used for similar researches (barry & lechner, 1995; taylor & sobel, 2001; tsigilis, tsioumis & gregoriadis, 2006), a 16-item closed questionnaire was developed. for this research, semi-structured interviews were carried out, which means that there were some sample questions and then more questions were developed during the interview with each participant. research indicates that the location of the university is an important factor for trainee teachers‟ preparation to teach in culturally diverse classrooms in terms of the course content that they are offered (e.g., lander, 2011). therefore, in order to find out whether the findings of this research confirm (or not) existing findings regarding trainee teachers‟ understandings of terms relevant to cultural diversity and their views about their preparation to teach in culturally diverse classrooms, a british university that is located in a geographical area with relatively low diversity was selected, however, the diversity has been rapidly increasing for the last 20 years. 3. participants a total of 101 trainee teachers attending either an undergraduate course in primary education with qts (n=45) or a pgce course in primary education (n=56), completed the questionnaire. four teacher educators and three trainee teachers who were attending the undergraduate course participated in the face to face interview, while one more trainee teacher from the same course and seven trainee teachers from the pgce course participated in the interviews through an online platform due to their limited time to participate in the face to face interviews. randomly selected pseudonyms were selected for all participants (table 1). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. table 1. the participants name position course tony teacher educator pgce simon teacher educator pgce miranda teacher educator pgce margaret teacher educator undergraduate peter trainee teacher undergraduate jessica trainee teacher undergraduate bill trainee teacher undergraduate oscar trainee teacher undergraduate rachel trainee teacher pgce eleanor trainee teacher pgce jenny trainee teacher pgce laura trainee teacher pgce lisa trainee teacher pgce nicky trainee teacher pgce susan trainee teacher pgce 4. results the crt framework was adopted to guide this research. therefore, the comments being made in this article were made based on crt. 4.1 cultural diversity, intercultural education, equality and equity education: trainee teachers’ understandings and programme preparation 4.1.1 cultural diversity in contrast to other researchers who have found that trainee teachers were fully aware of terms relevant to diversity (bhopal & rhamie, 2014), in this research, it is disputable whether trainee teachers had developed an understanding about cultural diversity. as shown in figure 1 the responses of trainee teachers of whether they felt they had a clear understanding about cultural diversity (q1) varied. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. figure 1. trainee teachers’ responses to q1 (i feel i have a clear understanding about cultural diversity) the one-way anova, revealed that prior experience had an impact on trainee teachers‟ understanding about cultural diversity (q1), and those with enough and high prior experience in diverse contexts felt that they had a clear understanding about cultural diversity contrary to trainee teachers with no or low prior experience in diverse contexts (p=0.001) (figure 2). in this research, prior experience in diverse contexts involves trainee teachers as students going to diverse schools or living in diverse neighbourhoods, having friends from culturally diverse backgrounds, having working experience as teachers in diverse classrooms or having working experience in a diverse environment in any profession. figure 2. one-way anova for statistically significant question q1 (i feel i have a clear understanding about cultural diversity) (p ≤0.05) per prior experience in diverse contexts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 38 published by scholink inc. in the interviews, when asked about opportunities and modules available for trainee teachers to develop their understanding about terms relevant to diversity, cultural diversity and equality in education, and about teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, all pgce trainee teachers referred to only one module about eal students. all undergraduate trainee teachers mentioned that there was nothing offered. in contrast, in the same question, teacher educators, like miranda said that they “run a module called reflections on teaching and learning and this is linked to sen and those sorts of subjects”. quite similarly, tony said that they “do a fair amount of work around working with children with sen” and he also mentioned they “do some work around eal there are fair number of children in the schools that our students going to who will have eal and we do have some outside speakers who come in, who work with children with eal as well”. the fact that both tony and miranda referred to modules for students with special educational needs (sen) when they were asked about trainee teachers‟ opportunities to develop their understanding about cultural diversity might indicate a tendency to associate students from minority backgrounds with students with sen. this is in line with previous research, where participants were found to associate ethnic minorities with students with “sensory or physical handicaps” (moliner garcia & garcia lopez, 2005, p. 436). hence, it seems that both tutors had a deficit understanding of diversity. another tutor, margaret, in the same question said that “cultures are woven into all the things that we are teaching, so they will have awareness of that. they’ll have their music module, they’ll have you know presumably an awareness of different cultural influences on the music”. quite often in the literature, people were found to produce an “exotism” by referring to “different food”, “different music”, “different customs” to refer to diversity and to people from minority backgrounds, which has been found to be a form of “othering”. similarly, here the fact that margaret referred to music modules and awareness of different cultural influences on music, when asked if trainee teachers had the chance to learn about cultural diversity, indicates the usage of the “othering” language. 4.1.2 intercultural education trainee teachers felt that they did not have a clear understanding of intercultural education. in the questionnaire trainee teachers felt uncertain of whether they feel they have a clear understanding of intercultural education (q2) (figure 3). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 39 published by scholink inc. figure 3. trainee teachers’ responses to q2 (i feel i have a clear understanding about intercultural education) the one-way anova test, demonstrated that trainee teachers with high prior experience in diverse contexts felt that they had a clear understanding about intercultural education (p=0.036) (figure 4). figure 4. one-way anova for statistically significant question q2 (i feel i have a clear understanding about intercultural education) (p ≤0.05), per prior experience in diverse contexts the limited understandings of intercultural education became evident through the open question in the questionnaire asking trainee teachers about the key issues of intercultural education, where their responses were quite vague. specifically, 45 trainee teachers did not provide an answer at all, while 13 indicated that they did not know what intercultural education entails. it is noteworthy to mention one response that some trainee teachers provided as the key issues of intercultural education: “maintaining the identity of the uk, whilst catering for other children’s needs”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. this finding seems to be in line with the research of elton-chalcraft, lander, revell, warner and whitworth (2017), in which trainee teachers referred to the importance of retaining the british identity and were worried about britain losing its identity on the grounds that “it became more ethnically diverse” (p. 39). similarly, some trainee teachers in the current research referred to the importance of retaining the british identity as one of the key issues of intercultural education, which might indicate that some trainee teachers held an assimilationist approach in their teaching, according to which, minority students are obliged to abandon their own cultures and languages and become identical with the majority of students (tomlinson, 2008; zotou, 2017). thus, by adopting the assimilationist approach, minority students have to be absorbed in the „dominant‟ culture (borooah & mangan, 2009) by ignoring not only the needs of students from minority backgrounds but also the students per se (watt, 2006). this does not indicate that trainee teachers had negative attitudes or views towards intercultural education and cultural diversity, but it indicates that they probably did not receive appropriate training through their course to appropriately teach in culturally diverse classrooms, and to adopt the most appropriate approach in their teaching. hence, it is disputable which approach (assimilation, colourblind, integration etc.) trainee teachers were encouraged to adopt in their training programmes. 4.1.3 equality and equity in education in contrast to q1 and q2, the majority of trainee teachers felt that they had a clear understanding of equality (q3) and equity in education (q4) (figure 5). figure 5. trainee teachers’ responses to q3 (i feel i have a clear understanding about equality in education) and q4 (i feel i have a clear understanding about equity in education) while 94 out of 101 trainee teachers felt that they had an understanding about equality in education, in the open question that was included in the questionnaire, when asked to provide their key issues about equality in education, 30 out of 101 trainee teachers did not provide an answer, and 8 mentioned that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. they did not know what the term equality entails. other trainee teachers defined the term as equal opportunities and inclusion, while other trainee teachers defined it as “giving all children the same” and some others as “disadvantaged children are not making as much progress”. the fact that some trainee teachers cited “all children the same” as the key issue of equality in education, alongside the fact that some trainee teachers were either unsure or felt that they did not have an understanding about equity in education indicates that they may tended to adopt a colourblind approach in their teaching, by seeing no differences between children. when adopting a colourblind approach, the ways the inequalities enact are ignored too (winant, 2006). specifically, the colourblind approach maintains that all students, regardless of their background, should be treated and educated equally, and all differences between children should be ignored, encouraging teachers to “see only children”. however, when teachers have such an attitude of seeing only children, and treating all children similarly, in reality such an attitude conceals a “dysconscious racism” (ladson-billings, 2009). moreover, by ignoring the differences between children, the different needs children have are also ignored and, therefore, the concept of equity does not exist in the colourblind approach. in order for trainee teachers to be prepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms, they should be able not only to acknowledge and understand but also to address the different needs that all students have, because if trainee teachers are not prepared to provide the support each student from minority backgrounds needs, can lead to systematic discrimination (hachfeld, hahn, schroeder, anders, & kunter, 2015). moreover, the fact that some trainee teachers defined the term as “disadvantaged children are not making as much progress”, indicates that some trainee teachers tended to have lower expectations of minority students, which could be partially explained by the cultural deficit model, according to which, students from minority backgrounds are viewed as disadvantaged and their cultures are perceived as deficient, as their cultural backgrounds are different to the dominant majority students‟ culture (banks, 2014; song & mary pyon, 2008). 4.1.4 importance of teaching about issues of diversity and equality in education tony, a teacher educator, when he was asked about the importance of modules relevant to cultural diversity, amongst everything else, said that “the sort of ideal module we put forward to students, is that you treat all children as children and that you need to be effectively colourblind, race-blind, gender-blind, disability-blind, but also recognising that there is a naivety inside of that and that it’s not as simple as just saying we treat all children the same, it must be ideally giving all children the same opportunities to succeed”. previously, concerns were raised regarding which approach trainee teachers were encouraged to adopt through their training programmes, as some trainee teachers were found to have assimilationist and colourblind attitudes, and the majority were found to have a limited understanding of intercultural education. however, through the interview with tony it became clear that trainee teachers were encouraged to adopt a colourblind approach in their teaching, seeing “only children” and seeing all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. children as being the same. tony said that they tried to make trainee teachers colourblind, and he also referred to equity in education. however, the concept of equity almost does not exist when adopting the colourblind approach, as this approach ignores the differences between students and therefore it ignores the different needs they might have. although he said that he did not mean treating all children the same but giving all children the same opportunities, this is still a sign of ignoring the different needs of students. providing the same opportunities to all students while the needs and difficulties they have, and the support they require, would be different, means that opportunities would not be appropriately deployed so that all students achieve their full learning potential. another teacher educator, margaret, when asked what she thought about trainee teachers‟ preparation towards cultural diversity, replied: “i don’t know, i don’t know what you do in a multicultural classroom, that’s much different from teaching in a classroom that’s good instruction”. when asked whether the educational standards are lower in schools where there is high cultural diversity (q5), trainee teachers‟ responses were not very clear (figure 6). this result is in contrast with barry and lechner‟s (1995) study, where the results were clearer and the majority of the trainee teachers in that research (71.3%) disagreed, with a similar statement of whether “too much diversity lowers the educational standards” (barry & lechner, 1995, p. 159). figure 6. trainee teachers’ responses to q5 (in schools where there is high cultural diversity the educational standards are lower for all students) 4.2 modules and programme preparation towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms and developing an understanding about cultural diversity: trainee teachers’ views as shown in figure 7, it is not quite clear whether trainee teachers felt well prepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms (q6) as their views varied. similarly, it is not quite clear whether trainee teachers felt confident addressing a racist incident in their classroom (q7) (figure 7). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. figure 7. trainee teachers’ responses to q6 (i feel well prepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms) and q7 (i feel confident to address a racist incident in my classroom) q6 had a correlation (p=0.023) with trainee teachers‟ prior experience in diverse contexts. specifically, trainee teachers with high prior experience felt well prepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms, while trainee teachers with enough and little prior experience were found to be mostly unsure. trainee teachers with low prior experience in diverse contexts were either unsure or disagreed with the statement (figure 8). figure 8. one-way anova for statistically significant question q6 (i feel well prepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms) trainee teachers and teacher educators teaching on teacher training programmes were asked in the interviews how their training programmes had prepared trainee teachers to deal with racist incidents. teacher educators believed that trainee teachers got sufficient training towards addressing racism in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 44 published by scholink inc. their classrooms through training about bullying or child protection. in contrast, all trainee teachers said that their training programmes had not prepared them to deal with racism in their classroom. as shown in figure 9, 38 trainee teachers either disagreed (n= 31) or strongly disagreed (n=7) when asked whether they felt that their teacher training programmes had equipped them with techniques for effectively teaching children whose cultural backgrounds are different from theirs (q8), 30 trainee teachers either agreed (n=25) or strongly agreed (n=5) with the same statement, while 33 trainee teachers were unsure. this result is quite similar to barry and lechner‟s (1995), in which trainee teachers‟ responses varied and specifically, 39.7% of the trainee teachers in their research disagreed with the statement, 30.1% were undecided and 30.2% agreed that their training programme had equipped them with techniques for effectively teaching children whose cultural backgrounds are different to theirs. in q9 of whether trainee teachers felt that their training programmes had taught them different communication styles which will help them to communicate with students from minority backgrounds, 41 trainee teachers either agreed (n=37) or strongly agreed (n=4), 38 trainee teachers either disagreed (n=32) or strongly disagreed (n=6) and 22 trainee teachers were unsure (figure 9). this finding is again similar to barry and lechner‟s (1995), where 35.4% of the trainee teachers felt that their training programme did not help them to communicate with students from minority backgrounds, 24.7% were undecided and 39,7% felt that their training programme had prepared them for communicating with students from minority backgrounds. in q10, which asked whether trainee teachers felt that their teacher training programmes had taught them different communication styles which will help them to communicate with the families of students from minority backgrounds, 45 trainee teachers either disagreed (n=38) or strongly disagreed (n=7), while 36 trainee teachers neither agreed nor disagreed, and only 20 out of 101 either agreed (n=18) or strongly agreed (n=2) (figure 9). while the statement in q10 was quite similar to the statement in q9, there was a difference in trainee teachers‟ responses who were found to feel more unprepared or undecided when asked about their preparation regarding communication styles in order to communicate with the families of students from minority backgrounds. once again, this result is consistent with barry and lechner (1995) and interestingly in this research there were also differences in these two questions. specifically, in this research, 60.3% of the trainee teachers did not feel that their training programme prepared them towards communicating with families of students from minority backgrounds. 24.7% were undecided and 15.1% felt that they were trained for that through their training programme. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 45 published by scholink inc. figure 9. trainee teachers’ responses to q8 (my teacher training programme has equipped me with techniques for effectively teaching children whose cultural backgrounds are different from my own), q9 (my teacher training programme has taught me different communication styles which will help me to communicate with students from minority backgrounds) and q10 (my teacher training programme has taught me different communication styles which will help me to communicate with the families of students from minority backgrounds) trainee teachers‟ views about whether they felt that after completing their training programmes they would be sufficiently prepared to meet the educational needs of students from minority backgrounds (q11) varied. moreover, they were found to feel that lectures in their training programmes were not sufficient to prepare them for teaching in culturally diverse classrooms (q12) (figure 10). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. figure 10. trainee teachers’ responses to q11 (when i complete my training programme, i will be sufficiently prepared to meet the educational needs of students from diverse cultural backgrounds) and q12 (lectures on my training programme are sufficient in order to prepare me for teaching in culturally diverse classrooms) 4.3 areas for improvement/additional training the majority of trainee teachers felt that they would like to receive more training in ways of creating effective learning environments for every student (q13) (figure 11). figure 11. trainee teachers’ responses to q13 (i would like to receive more training in ways of creating an effective learning environment for every student) trainee teachers were also asked if they wished to receive more training in all of those areas mentioned in q8-q10 (q14), where the vast majority of trainee teaches agreed. moreover, the majority of trainee www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. teachers felt that their training programmes needed to be reformed in order to better prepare them to teach in culturally diverse classrooms (q15) (figure 12). these findings indicate, apart from the lack of available modules, that the few modules offered to trainee teachers might lack conceptual depth. this is in line with previous research where it was found that while trainee teachers were offered modules relevant to diversity, the modules were either lacking conceptual depth (bhopal & rhamie, 2014) or they defined diversity very broadly (garmon, 2004). figure 12. trainee teachers’ responses to q14 (i would like to receive more training in all the aforementioned issues (q8q10) and q15 (the current program needs to be reformed in order to equip me with the appropriate knowledge and skills to teach in culturally diverse classrooms) in the interviews, all trainee teachers from both courses mentioned certain areas that they felt that needed to be improved in their training programmes and many areas in which they wished to receive additional training, which would enhance their preparation towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, such as: parental involvement; school selection; teaching strategies; addressing bullying and racist incidents. in contrast, teacher educators were mostly satisfied with the teacher training programmes towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms saying that they “can always do more”, while margaret said that she did not know “what the answer is for that”. all participants were asked whether trainee teachers had the opportunity to express their thoughts about receiving additional training towards working in culturally diverse classrooms. some trainee teachers said that they had this chance through the evaluation of every module in the end of every module. some of teacher educators said that trainee teachers did not expresses their thoughts to them while others like miranda said that “when they answered the questions at the end of the programme and we asked them about how they felt equipped to work with children to whom english is an additional language, how they felt about you know working within that diverse societies, often they would put www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. quite low score”. similarly, tony said: “if we look back at our nqt feedback data although that is quite sketchy data, we do our own active surveys, certainly our students talk about they wanted to have more opportunities to work with eal students during their training i certainly know they picked up on”. previously, when asked about the opportunities trainee teachers have to develop their understandings about cultural diversity, amongst everything else tony said that they made efforts and he was certain that trainee teachers received appropriate preparation to teach eal students. however, here, he said that trainee teachers claimed that they wanted to have more opportunities to work with eal students. both trainee teachers from the pgce course and teacher educators in the interviews said that they had a module about teaching eal students when they were asked about the modules available to trainee teachers. however, here, miranda said that trainee teachers scored low in the question of how far they felt prepared to teach eal students and tony said that trainee teachers felt that they needed more opportunities to teach eal students. this is further evidence for what was argued earlier, that trainee teachers might be offered some modules about teaching in diverse classrooms, but these modules are very few, broad and seem to lack conceptual depth. further evidence for this is the fact that teacher educators said that they covered the area of addressing racism in their classrooms through modules about bullying but trainee teachers mentioned that they wished to receive additional training in order to address racist incidents and bullying in their classrooms. 4.4 placements/location the majority of trainee teachers agreed that conducting placements in a wide range of schools would enhance their preparedness to teach in culturally diverse classrooms (q16) (figure 13). this result is consistent with hagan and mcglynn (2004) who found the majority of trainee teachers in their study (85%) felt that their preparation would be enhanced if their placements were conducted in a wide range of schools. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. figure 13. trainee teachers’ responses to q19 (conducting teaching practice in a wide range of schools, would enhance my preparedness to teach in culturally diverse classrooms) in the interviews, both trainee teachers and teacher educators were asked about trainee teachers‟ placements. specifically, they were asked how important they considered conducting placements in a range of schools to be for their preparation, and whether all trainee teachers had the opportunity to conduct placements in culturally diverse classrooms. while both trainee teachers and teacher educators agreed that it is very important to conduct placements in a range of schools, their views contradicted each other in terms of the opportunities trainee teachers had to conduct their placements in a range of schools. specifically, all pgce trainee teachers mentioned that they did not have the chance to conduct placements in diverse classrooms, and that they did not have any experience towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. jessica, an undergraduate trainee teacher, said that she did have some experience in one of her placements. bill and peter from the undergraduate course said that they did not have the chance to conduct placements in diverse classrooms. oscar also said that he did not have the chance to conduct placements in diverse schools but gained that experience, while working in the country that he was born in. contrary to what trainee teachers said, simon said that they made efforts to make a balance so that all trainee teachers were getting some experience and so that there were no trainee teachers whose placements were only in non-diverse classrooms. however, he said that it was very difficult to make sure that all trainee teachers had such an experience. tony, who also was a teacher educator said that they tried to place trainee teachers in a range of schools, but not because of diversity, but mainly due to differences in socioeconomic status. specifically, he said: “so they might have one school in east end of the city where is more socially deprived, there are children with lower socioeconomics.... now those schools will have different kinds of populations and certainly not want to overgeneralise but generally are more diverse populations are lower www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 50 published by scholink inc. socioeconomic areas”. the fact that tony assumed that students from minority backgrounds would belong to low socioeconomic groups seems to be consistent with what was argued in the literature, where middle-class people were assumed to have a white background, while black people where assumed to be working class (rollock et al., 2015 as cited in gillborn, 2015). 5. discussion and conclusions the aim of this research was to explore primary trainee teachers‟ views about cultural diversity and their sense of preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms and to provide additional evidence and data towards certain points that were found ambiguous in the literature (if trainee teachers feel prepared to teach and if they anticipate working in culturally diverse classrooms; if they wish and are willing to receive training and knowledge about it; if they have developed an understanding about terms relevant to diversity, equality and equity; whether the course trainee teachers attend influences their understandings about terms relevant to cultural diversity as well as on their sense of preparedness towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms). the findings of this research indicate that the type of course (pgce or ba with qts) that trainee teachers attend does not make a difference to trainee teachers‟ feeling of preparedness or their understandings of key terms, including cultural diversity, equality and equity in education and intercultural education. in contrast, it seems that the trainee teachers‟ prior experience in diverse contexts had an impact on their understanding about issues relevant to cultural diversity and on their sense of preparedness towards teaching in diverse classrooms. contrary to previous researches (acquah & commins, 2013; bodur, 2012), in this research it was revealed that the stage of the programme or the year trainee teachers were in, did not influence their views about cultural diversity. hence, despite the fact that the research took place near the end of the academic year, so that trainee teachers would have already completed most of their training programme, and undergraduate trainee teachers were all in their last year, so that they would have more experience and potentially had attended more modules about cultural diversity, it was found that the majority of trainee teachers in this research did not develop a clear understanding through their training programmes, and they had quite broad and vague understandings about cultural diversity. the findings of this research, seem to be consistent or to contradict with quite old researches in many cases which raises concerns about the improvements that have been made in teacher training programmes towards teaching in diverse classrooms. such examples are: the fact that majority of trainee teachers had a limited understanding of intercultural education which is in line with vassilchenko and traberg (2000), where trainee teachers were also found to have a limited understanding of intercultural education; the research findings in q8, q9 and q10 which are consistent with barry and lechner (1995); the fact that the research findings in q5 of whether the educational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. standards are lower in schools where there is high cultural diversity are in contrast with barry and lechner‟s (1995) study, where the results were clearer. regardless of the course they were attending and their prior experience in diverse contexts, the vast majority of trainee teachers felt they needed to be better prepared in many areas through their training programmes. moreover, the fact that the majority of trainee teachers felt that they needed more training through their course in order to teach in culturally diverse classrooms, indicates that they felt that they needed to learn more about diversity, and that they anticipated teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. this is a positive outcome as in the literature, trainee teachers were found to view learning about diversity not important as they were going to work in “monocultural” schools (hagan & mcglynn, 2004). similarly, the fact that trainee teachers recognised that there were areas in which they needed to be better prepared is a positive outcome, as in other researches, while trainee teachers realised that they were not offered enough modules and appropriate preparation towards teaching in diverse classroom, they did not wish to receive further training about it (goodwin, 1994). participants found to have deficit notions about diversity, which might operate in a manner that suggests that the “other” culture is weak and deficient, while the “target” culture is strong (holliday, 2011). these notions create the binary perspective of othering, of “us” and “them”, which was also noticeable through the “othering” language that was used from some of the participants. this usage of othering language which is a result of the deficit notions, could be explained by the colourblind approach that trainee teachers were encouraged to adopt, which apart from ignoring different forms of racism, also fails to consider the construction of minority students as “other” (decuir & dixson, 2004). both the othering language and the deficit model that quite often happen unconsciously, consist forms of microaggression which are also enacted unconsciously as they are transmitted to people through society and are perceived to be “normal” to most people (gillborn, 2009). however, they are hidden forms of racism which can cause harm to people (kohli & solórzano, 2012). through these comments it is not implied that participants in this research were being racist, but these are examples of how societies create hierarchies and produce them in hidden forms, which are perceived and reproduced by people unconsciously. these comments also indicate that trainee teachers probably did not receive appropriate training in their course to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. teachers should believe that all children can succeed, and they should provide the appropriate support to each child in order to achieve this (ladson-billings, 2009). they should also be able to acknowledge, recognise and challenge both the obvious but also the hidden forms of racism (gillborn, 2006; ladson-billings, 2004). certain contradictions were revealed between trainee teachers‟ and teacher educators‟ perceptions about many aspects of trainee teachers‟ preparation towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms. specifically, contradictions were found about the modules offered to trainee teachers that would help them to develop their understandings about cultural diversity; trainee teachers‟ preparation to address www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. racist incidents in their classrooms; trainee teachers‟ opportunities to conduct placements in diverse classrooms and their satisfaction regarding the overall preparation towards teaching in diverse classrooms. hence, while trainee teachers were found to be unsatisfied with all of the aforementioned areas, teacher educators were found to be satisfied. these contradictions might indicate that the few modules available to trainee teachers lack conceptual depth (bhopal & rhamie, 2014). alternatively, these contradictions might also indicate that teacher educators themselves may not be knowledgeable enough about cultural diversity and teaching in culturally diverse classrooms to confidently support trainee teachers or evaluate the effectiveness of the course, which is consistent with previous findings (hicks, smigiel, wilson, & luzekyj, 2010; lucas, 2011). the latter is also evident through a number of examples. firstly, tony‟s reference to both the importance of being colourblind and the importance of equity; secondly margaret‟s comment that she did not know what to do in a multicultural classroom; thirdly, the fact that some teacher educators did not indicate any areas for improvement, simply saying that they could always do more; finally, margaret‟s answer in the same question that she did not know what the answer was for that. this suspected lack of knowledge among teacher educators might be partially explained by reference to the training they themselves were offered when studying at the university. issues of teaching in diverse classrooms apparently were not crucial at that time and so were excluded from their curriculum. however, as lucas (2011) has argued, before teaching trainee teachers, teacher educators need to develop their own knowledge and skills about teaching in diverse classrooms so that they can appropriately modify the curriculum. trainee teachers in this research anticipated to work in diverse classrooms, were positive about receiving additional support and training to be able to teach in culturally diverse classrooms and had the opportunity to express their thoughts that they felt that they were not being appropriately prepared to teach in culturally diverse classrooms. however, it seems that trainee teachers‟ willingness and desire to get appropriately prepared towards teaching in culturally diverse classrooms were not taken into consideration by the tutors and by the faculty. therefore, it seems that both the courses need to be reformed to equip trainee teachers with the appropriate skills, techniques, strategies to effectively teach in culturally diverse classrooms. in order to achieve this, issues of diversity, equality and equity in education, should be central to the whole curriculum of teacher training programmes, rather than offering single courses or courses as “add-on” (bhopal, 2015; goodwin, 2017; kumar & lauermann, 2018; ladson-billings, 2009). while it might be difficult for teacher educators to reform the trainee teachers‟ curriculum, it is not impossible to make amendments in order to involve aspects of preparing teachers for culturally diverse classrooms. instead of reforming the whole curriculum, the faculty could extend the depth of the modules offered and make sure that issues of teaching in culturally diverse classrooms are integrated in the whole training programme. teacher training programmes should appropriately prepare trainee teachers in order to develop an understanding and show respect for minority students‟ culture, while trying to implement the historical, cultural and scientific contributions of minority students‟ ancestors in the classroom www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 53 published by scholink inc. (ladson-billings, 2009). moreover, trainee teachers should be prepared to create classroom environments in which students‟ needs will be met, students from minority backgrounds will feel welcomed (achinstein & athanases, 2005), cultural beliefs will be shared, and the relationship between teachers and students will be humane and equitable (ladson-billings, 2009). trainee teachers should also be prepared to include students from minority backgrounds in the curriculum, and they should be able to create curricula that are meaningful for the children (morrison, robbins, & rose, 2008) and use students‟ personal experiences and issues that have a meaning for them (padron, waxman, & rivera, 2002). in addition, trainee teachers should have knowledge about the different communication styles of minority students in order to effectively communicate with them and with their families (gay, 2002). the fact that trainee teachers‟ programmes need to improve continuously so as to meet the demands of today‟s changing world, has been widely acknowledged. the fact that trainee teachers in this research recognised the need to be prepared to teach in diverse classrooms, indicate that this is a crucial time for radical changes in the trainee teachers‟ curriculum, where issues of teaching in diverse classrooms would be central rather than peripheral and woven throughout teacher preparation programmes. references achinstein, b., & athanases, s. z. 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(2017). early childhood teachers‟ perceptions of intercultural education in state schools of thessaloniki and surrounding areas. journal of language and cultural education, 5(3), 127-143. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 57 published by scholink inc. appendix www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 74 original paper observational study on passenger behavior in the beijing subway bingjie li 1 , xiaojie li 1 & xiaoming liu * 1 special education college of beijing union university, beijing 100075, china * xiaoming liu, special education college of beijing union university, beijing 100075, china received: september 22, 2024 accepted: october 9, 2024 online published: october 21, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n3p74 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n3p74 abstract to understand the primary behaviors of contemporary passengers during subway travel, a traditional observational research method was employed to observe and record the behaviors of individuals in the last car of beijing subway line 5. the observed behaviors were then analyzed and explained using relevant theories. the results indicated that: a. the main behaviors of subway passengers included activities such as using mobile phones, sleeping, daydreaming, reading, and interacting with others. b. the predominant use of mobile phones was closely related to the development of the internet era and the widespread adoption of smartphones. c. the limited communication and interaction among subway passengers were linked to the phenomenon of interpersonal apathy prevalent in modern society. keywords observational method, event sampling, subway passengers 1. introduction observation refers to the process by which individuals acquire an understanding of phenomena and processes occurring in their surroundings. its primary characteristic lies in emphasizing the recognition of the subject under naturally occurring conditions, without any interference or control over the object of observation (chen et al., 2014). in contrast, the observational method refers to scientific observation, which is a research technique involving the purposeful and systematic perception of an objective subject through sensory organs or with the aid of scientific instruments, aiming to obtain scientific facts (wang & wang, 1992). by employing the observational method to study human behavior in specific daily life settings, one can gain insights into aspects of interpersonal interactions. in recent years, public transportation options have become increasingly diverse, and subway transportation in large cities has emerged as a significant choice for travel due to its convenience and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 75 published by scholink inc. speed. based on this, to understand the primary behaviors of contemporary individuals while traveling on the subway, this study predominantly employs the observational method. the research focuses on observing the passengers in the last carriage of beijing subway line 5 (from tiantongyuan north station to songjiazhuang station), supplemented by the event sampling method to systematically record the observed phenomena. 2. method this study primarily employs natural observation to collect data on the main behaviors of individuals on the subway, followed by a combined qualitative and quantitative analysis. finally, typical behavioral variables are summarized to analyze the related causes. the observation was conducted on december 1, 2023, from 7:00 to 7:30 am, in the sixth carriage of the beijing subway line 5 traveling toward songjiazhuang, covering the segment from huixinxijie beikou station to puhuangyu station. the event sampling method, which is based on the occurrence of specific behaviors or events, serves as the sampling criterion. it refers to observing and recording aspects such as the background, cause, process, result, and duration of a particular behavior or phenomenon that is relevant to the research objectives and has been predetermined as representative (chen et al., 2014). using the event sampling method to categorize and summarize the observed content, the study identified that the primary behaviors of individuals on the subway mainly include using mobile phones, sleeping with eyes closed, staring blankly with eyes open, reading books, and engaging in communication involving multiple people (two or more individuals). 3. result 3.1 mobile phone usage in this observational study, the operational definition of mobile phone usage was established as follows, a. continuous phone use for more than 1 minute. b. using the phone to take a call for over 1 minute, even if not continuously viewing the screen. c. the phone screen remaining lit for more than 1 minute. based on these criteria, the total number of observed instances of mobile phone usage is summarized in table 1. additionally, it was observed that there was no significant gender difference in mobile phone usage, with a nearly 1:1 male-to-female ratio. moreover, the age distribution of individuals using mobile phones was quite diverse, spanning an estimated range of 20 to 60 years old. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 76 published by scholink inc. table 1. descriptive statistics of mobile phone users on the subway travel interval number of mobile phone users total number of passengers in the carriage percentage of the current travel interval and carriage population huixinxijiebeikou station→huixinxijienankou station 6 28 21% huixinxijienankou station→hepingxiqiao station 10 26 26% hepingxiqiao station→hepingbeijie station 11 28 39% station→yonghegong lama temple station 11 27 41% yonghegong lama temple station→beixinqiao station 9 24 38% beixinqiao station→zhangzizhonglu station 9 23 39% zhangzizhonglu station→dongsi station 9 23 39% dongsi station→dengshikou station 10 20 50% dengshikou station→dongdan station 8 16 50% dongdan station→chongwenmen station 7 15 47% chongwenmen station→ciqikou station 9 14 57% ciqikou station→temple of heaven east gate station 8 12 67% temple of heaven east gate station→puhuangyu station 7 11 64% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 77 published by scholink inc. in modern society, where mobile phones are ubiquitous, the initial hypothesis of this study was that the number of people using mobile phones on the subway would overwhelmingly surpass those engaged in other activities. however, the actual observations did not fully support this assumption. during the course of this observation, the absolute number of mobile phone users on the subway did not exhibit a dominant advantage. the proportion of mobile phone users increased gradually from around 20% to approximately 60%. however, this rise in the percentage of mobile phone users was not due to an absolute increase in their numbers, but rather a reduction in the total number of passengers in the subway car. this suggests that the number of mobile phone users remained relatively stable. 3.2 sleeping in this observational study, sleeping was operationally defined as having one’s eyes closed, with no continuous activities such as reading a book or using a mobile phone, and without engaging in any verbal behavior. based on this definition, the total number of individuals observed sleeping is summarized in table 2. table 2. descriptive statistics of people sleeping on the subway travel interval number of people sleeping total number of passengers in the carriage percentage of the current travel interval and carriage population huixinxijiebeikou station→huixinxijienankou station 15 28 54% huixinxijienankou station→hepingxiqiao station 13 26 50% hepingxiqiao station→hepingbeijie station 13 28 46% station→yonghegong lama temple station 9 27 33% yonghegong lama temple station→beixinqiao station 8 24 33% beixinqiao station→zhangzizhonglu station 8 23 35% zhangzizhonglu station→dongsi station 8 23 35% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 78 published by scholink inc. dongsi station→dengshikou station 7 20 35% dengshikou station→dongdan station 5 16 31% dongdan station→chongwenmen station 5 15 33% chongwenmen station→ciqikou station 2 14 15% ciqikou station→temple of heaven east gate station 2 12 17% temple of heaven east gate station→puhuangyu station 1 11 9% unlike the distribution of mobile phone users, the absolute number of individuals sleeping showed a continuous decreasing trend throughout the entire observation period, leading to a corresponding decline in their proportion of the total population. it is noteworthy, however, that during the first three observation intervals, the total number of people sleeping was significantly higher than those using mobile phones, accounting for approximately half of the population. 3.3 daydreaming in this observational study, daydreaming was operationally defined as having one’s eyes open, with no continuous activities such as reading a book or using a mobile phone, and without engaging in any verbal behavior. based on this definition, the total number of individuals observed daydreaming is summarized in table 3. table 3. descriptive statistics of people daydreaming on the subway travel interval number of people daydreaming total number of passengers in the carriage percentage of the current travel interval and carriage population huixinxijiebeikou station→huixinxijienankou station 6 28 21% huixinxijienankou station→hepingxiqiao station 2 26 8% hepingxiqiao 3 28 11% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 79 published by scholink inc. station→hepingbeijie station station→yonghegong lama temple station 4 27 15% yonghegong lama temple station→beixinqiao station 4 24 17% beixinqiao station→zhangzizhonglu station 5 23 22% zhangzizhonglu station→dongsi station 5 23 22% dongsi station→dengshikou station 3 20 15% dengshikou station→dongdan station 3 16 19% dongdan station→chongwenmen station 3 15 20% chongwenmen station→ciqikou station 3 14 21% ciqikou station→temple of heaven east gate station 2 12 25% temple of heaven east gate station→puhuangyu station 3 11 27% based on the above statistical results, the proportion of individuals exhibiting daydreaming behavior is not insignificant. one notable observation during the study was a man sitting next to the observer, estimated to be between 40 and 50 years old. in the first half of the journey, his behavior fell into the category of mobile phone usage, while in the latter half, it transitioned into daydreaming. additionally, certain external characteristics of this individual were observed: he had a rough complexion, dark skin, and hands with noticeable calluses, resembling a weathered elderly person. however, an analysis of his wrinkles and physical condition suggested that he was not an elderly individual, leading to the tentative conclusion that his age did not correspond to his appearance. 3.4 reading in this observational study, reading was operationally defined as maintaining direct eye contact with the book’s content, displaying full concentration, and engaging in page-turning actions, while not using a mobile phone or engaging in conversation. based on this definition, the total number of individuals observed reading is summarized in table 4. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 80 published by scholink inc. table 4. descriptive statistics of people reading on the subway travel interval number of people reading total number of passengers in the carriage percentage of the current travel interval and carriage population huixinxijiebeikou station→huixinxijienankou station 1 28 4% huixinxijienankou station→hepingxiqiao station 1 26 4% hepingxiqiao station→hepingbeijie station 1 28 4% station→yonghegong lama temple station 1 27 4% yonghegong lama temple station→beixinqiao station 1 24 4% beixinqiao station→zhangzizhonglu station 1 23 4% zhangzizhonglu station→dongsi station 1 23 4% dongsi station→dengshikou station 0 20 0% dengshikou station→dongdan station 0 16 0% dongdan station→chongwenmen station 0 15 0% chongwenmen station→ciqikou station 0 14 0% ciqikou station→temple of heaven east gate station 0 12 0% temple of heaven east gate station→puhuangyu station 0 11 0% according to the statistical results, the number of people reading on the subway was extremely low, with only a few isolated instances. based on the actual observation, all the individuals recorded as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 81 published by scholink inc. reading in the table were, in fact, the same person (a female, approximately 40 years old). compared to the previously mentioned groups—those using mobile phones, sleeping, and daydreaming—the number of people reading was notably scarce. 3.5 interaction in this observational study, interaction was operationally defined as verbal communication involving two or more individuals, without any simultaneous use of mobile phones, reading, or similar activities. based on this definition, the total number of interactions observed is summarized in table 5. the number of interacting individuals is recorded in pairs, with each pair indicating that the interaction involved at least two people, and the exact number of participants is specified in the table. table 5. descriptive statistics of people engaged in interaction on the subway travel interval number of people engaged in interaction total number of passengers in the carriage percentage of the current travel interval and carriage population huixinxijiebeikou station→huixinxijienankou station 0 28 0% huixinxijienankou station→hepingxiqiao station 0 26 0% hepingxiqiao station→hepingbeijie station 0 28 0% station→yonghegong lama temple station 2 27 7% yonghegong lama temple station→beixinqiao station 2 24 8% beixinqiao station→zhangzizhonglu station 0 23 0% zhangzizhonglu station→dongsi station 0 23 0% dongsi station→dengshikou station 0 20 0% dengshikou station→dongdan station 0 16 0% dongdan station→chongwenmen station 0 15 0% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 82 published by scholink inc. chongwenmen station→ciqikou station 0 14 0% ciqikou station→temple of heaven east gate station 0 12 0% temple of heaven east gate station→puhuangyu station 0 11 0% 4. discussion 4.1 utilization of fragmented time with the rise and development of the internet era, time has become an increasingly scarce and valuable resource, and the influx of information continuously fragments our time. fragmented time refers to the scattered and idle periods outside of daily work and life, such as waiting, queuing, commuting, playing games, browsing social media, and engaging in mobile phone reading. this type of time is characterized by its variability, individuality, randomness, fragmentation, and spontaneity (zhang, 2013). in this observation, riding the subway itself represents a form of fragmented time. when we discuss the concept of time, we are essentially examining how time is perceived in relation to human existence and how individuals manage its rhythm, which involves lifestyle choices and self-exploration (yuan, 2021). the primary behaviors of subway passengers fundamentally reflect how individuals handle their fragmented time. due to the impact of network technology, contemporary work content and styles have changed, making the desire for substantial personal leisure time increasingly unattainable. this also explains the disparity in the statistics between mobile phone use and reading. 4.2 prevalence of mobile phones with continuous technological advancement, mobile phone usage has become exceedingly common. according to research data, as of april 2022, the number of mobile phone users worldwide reached 5.32 billion, accounting for approximately 67% of the global population. the 50th “statistical report on internet development in china” also indicated that as of june 2022, more than 1 billion people in china were using mobile phones, with 99.7% of internet users accessing the internet via mobile devices (lu, 2023), marking the arrival of a fully networked era. the number of mobile phone users in china is already vast, and today, the various applications available on smartphones can meet a wide range of user needs. as a result, using mobile phones has become an essential and frequent activity in daily life. in enclosed spaces such as subways, mobile phone usage remains the primary choice for many individuals. 4.3 emergence of interpersonal apathy in modern society, the term stranger society has become a relatively common academic concept (peng, 2023), signifying the substantial changes in human interaction in the internet age. however, due to the global, distanced, and virtual nature of online communication networks, people increasingly prefer to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 83 published by scholink inc. interact using virtual identities. although this mode of communication significantly reduces the sense of spatial and temporal distance between individuals, it also diminishes the depth of interpersonal connections. people are more inclined to engage through virtual identities rather than face-to-face interactions, leading to increased interpersonal apathy in the real world. moreover, since individuals spend much of their time communicating in virtual spaces, they have less time for real-life social interactions (yao, 2016). in contemporary society, many people commonly experience interpersonal indifference, and the profound underlying cause of this interpersonal apathy is the negative effect of shifts in social ethics and morality during the process of societal transformation (huang, 2013). the disenchantment or deterioration of morality in modern society places individuals in a state of isolation and loneliness. this isolation is not only superficial but also signifies a disconnection from the moral sources necessary for a fulfilling existence (liu, 2012). 5. conclusion this study, using beijing subway line 5 as a case, employed an observational research method combined with data analysis to examine the primary behaviors of subway passengers and the influencing factors. the study of passenger behaviors on beijing subway line 5 revealed that in the internet era, a large number of people use their mobile phones while on the subway. the various applications available on smartphones cater to diverse user needs, providing richer entertainment options during fragmented travel time. in this context, the findings support the earlier assertion that mobile phone usage has become an important and frequent activity in daily life. this also validates the concept that digital life is an indispensable component of the lives of digital natives, who remain in a state of continuous digital connectivity and are increasingly dependent on digital products such as mobile phones (wang et al., 2023). the rapid development of the digital age has not necessarily enhanced real-world interpersonal communication. people’s social interactions have become entangled with the vast amount of information in virtual spaces, affecting the depth of human interactions in the real world. communication between individuals tends to occur more through virtual identities, while genuine, face-to-face interactions in real spaces have become increasingly rare. there were several limitations in this observational study that could be addressed in future research. the observation was conducted in the last car of beijing subway line 5, heading toward songjiazhuang. objectively, this car’s location at the rear means that it is narrower compared to other central cars, which resulted in a limited total sample size for this study. subjectively, the observer’s limited energy and attention might have led to some oversight or omissions, potentially affecting the accuracy of the observations. additionally, the observation was conducted on a friday morning from 7:00 to 7:30 a.m., a peak weekday commuting time. as such, the findings may not be fully www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 84 published by scholink inc. representative. these limitations highlight areas for improvement in future observational studies and offer insights for other researchers conducting similar studies. references chen, x. z., wang, y. j., & zhang, d. x. (2014). educational research methods. shandong people’s publishing house. huang, y. (2013). the ethical dilemma of interpersonal indifference—the modernity dilemma and response of moral identity. morality and civilization, (6), 17-21. liu, g. y. (2012). moral disenchantment: the issue of interpersonal indifference from an ethical perspective. frontiers of thought, (1), 52-56. lu, x. r. (2023). exploring the relationship between solitary behavior and mobile media use (master’s thesis, tianjin normal university). peng, j. (2023). moral indifference in the “stranger society” and the educational response path. educational science research, (2), 47-51. wang, h. s., & wang, x. g. (1992). dictionary of scientific methods. zhejiang education publishing house. wang, j. l., gao, c. h., & yu, b. (2023). research on user profile clustering based on mobile phone user behavior observation. art and design (theory), (7), 104-106. yao, l. y. (2016). a brief analysis of the negative impact of new media on interpersonal communication. modern communication, (1), 74-76. yuan, l. (2021). the transformation of organizational time perspective in the network era. chinese social science digest, (12), 140-141. zhang, l. (2013). a brief analysis of standardized training and assessment of “three basics and three stricts” for young nurses. general nursing, 11(24), 2288-2289. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 17 original paper characteristics of the brain in asd and effective ways of teaching julia koifman, a ph.d. candidate1* 1 beit ekshtein high school, rupin, israel * julia koifman, efl teacher, beit ekshtein high school, rupin, israel received: december 28, 2022 accepted: january 8, 2021 online published: january 16, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n1p17 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n1p17 abstract autism spectrum disorder (asd) is a sort of neurodiversity that is characterized by repetitive behavior, limited interests, struggling in social interaction, expressing feelings, and many more. it is an innate disorder and combines several previously used definitions of mental syndromes and diseases into one diagnostic unit. its signs can be noticed in infancy or early childhood, at two years old, or a little later. for instance, the child practices non-verbal communication speaks very little, and repeatedly makes the same movement with his fingers, arms, or legs. such a person may have intact intelligence and the ability to live in society, but asd is often associated with cognitive impairments of varying severity. a single cause of the appearance of asd has not yet been found. scientists identify only factors that can affect the likelihood of its occurrence, for instance, mutations, problems with pregnancy, or difficult ecological situations. keywords asd, special education, socialization, communication, motor skills, cognitive abilities 1. introduction the research claims that the reduced asymmetry was mainly related to the thickness of the cortex in different regions of the brain surface. in a healthy brain, this thickness differs between the left and right hemispheres. the cerebral cortex is a thin layer of gray matter covering them. it is the cortex that determines the functioning of the higher nervous activity of a person. “results of structural magnetic resonance imaging (mri) studies dealing with total brain volume, regional brain structure, and cortical area are summarized. using task-based functional mri (fmri), many studies have shown dysfunctional activation in critical areas of social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviors” (yonsei university college of medicine, seoul 03722, korea., 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. asd people are less likely to have the typical asymmetry that determines, for example, the dominant hand when writing. however, the conclusions of these works are pretty contradictory; therefore, the anatomical data obtained by the authors on such a large sample are of interest. some studies have found that the brain with asd is too strongly connected, while others are too weak. however, scientists believe patterns emerge from this confusion, such as fewer connections between distant brain parts (and those connections are more fragile) and more ones over short distances (katznelson, 2019). the level of cognitive functions in autism ranges from disability to superintelligence. while it is no longer fashionable to associate autism with low iq, recent studies show that almost half of children with asd have average or slightly above-average intelligence. scientists are beginning to acknowledge that this may be because standard iq tests do not reflect the cognitive abilities of autistic children. in contrast to the rise in iq, the overall trajectory of autism symptoms reported by parents, while highly variable among individuals, remained unchanged over this period. 2. method 2.1 language areas of the brain and asd the human brain is anatomically and physiologically prepared from birth to perceive speech. thus, in one-week-old infants’ brains, human speech sounds are recorded in the left hemisphere, while non-speech sounds are recorded in the right hemisphere. morphological studies have shown that the dimensions of wernicke’s area (the acoustic-gnostic sensory center of speech located in the posterior sections of the superior temporal gyrus on the left) are more significant in the left hemisphere. moreover, this asymmetry is revealed already in embryogenesis (katznelson, 2019). for this, wernicke’s area serves as the area of the auditory cortex, a part of the superior temporal gyrus. broca’s area is in the inferior frontal gyrus and is part of the motor cortex. both areas are located in the left hemisphere, while structures in the other hemisphere are less associated with speech. considering that most speech centers are located in the left hemisphere, he began to be considered the leader in the organization of speech. but one cannot speak of the complete dominance of the left hemisphere in the function of speech. studies of split-brain patients have shown that the right hemisphere can understand spoken and written language, nouns, and straightforward sentences. clinical observations also show that if a child who has learned to speak has damage to the speech areas of the left hemisphere, then he develops aphasia or an inability to express speech. “the language segmentation task stimulates a connection between broca’s area in the left frontal lobe of the brain and wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe of the brain’s dominant side (the left hemisphere in most). broca’s area is involved in language production and wernicke’s in comprehension” (deweerdt, 2012). broca’s center is a kinetic-motor verbal analyzer in which primarily proprioceptive information is processed. with the defeat of this center, the so-called broca’s aphasia occurs, characterized by the impossibility of combining individual speech movements into a single speech act. wernicke’s area is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. part of the cerebral cortex, which, like broca’s area, is associated with speech. it is involved in the assimilation and understanding of written and oral speech. aphasia occurs when wernicke’s area is affected, receptive, or fluent. it distinguishes it from motor aphasia, or broca’s aphasia, in which the patient uses meaningful words but cannot connect them and speaks in a “telegraphic” manner. a patient with aphasia can easily connect words, but his phrases are meaningless (brennan, 2021). the group of nerve fibers through which information is transmitted from the auditory cortex to the motor cortex and vice versa allows the coordination of the work of broca’s and wernicke’s areas in humans. if it is damaged, the person cannot repeat the words he has heard. therefore, the research claims that “connections between broca’s area and wernicke’s area, brain regions involved in producing and understanding language, respectively, are impaired in people with autism” (geggel, 2013). 2.2 enhanced rationality and brain function in asd asd is “a wide range of developmental disabilities, have been presumed to be associated with a problem in cortical and sub-cortical dynamics of coordinated activity, often involving enhanced local but decreased long-range coordination over areas of integration” (luis garcía domínguez, 2013). asd is not only a disorder of social abilities and communication but also of the sensory and motor systems. the brain structure in autism leads to a wide range of sensory and motor impairments. the connection between the department responsible for perception and movement and the cerebral cortex is weakened. some studies have found that the brain with asd is too strongly connected, while others are too weak. these discoveries form the basis of the “intense world” theory. “the proposed neuropathology is hyper-functioning of local neural microcircuits, best characterized by hyper-reactivity and hyper-plasticity. such hyper-functional microcircuits are speculated to become autonomous and memory trapped, leading to the core cognitive consequences of hyper-perception, hyper-attention, hyper-memory, and hyper-emotionality” (markram, 2010). the local hyperconnectivity in some brain areas leads to over-functioning, leading to hyper-receptivity to information and extreme work of attention and sensory processing. it doesn’t sound too bad and may explain the geniuses’ abilities. still, the weak connection of distant sites makes it difficult to understand all this incoming information and the ability to prioritize the source of information because the information needs to be adequately integrated. it quickly overloads the mind, so people with asd try to cope with sensory overload by withdrawing from society or immersing themselves in repetitive activities, which help create a sense of stability and keep an overly bright world within limits. and although this is an interesting theory, it should be treated with caution until it is adequately studied. the severity of the disorder “depends on the severity of the molecular syndrome expressed in different brain regions, which could uniquely shape the repertoire of symptoms of an autistic child (markram, 2010). “empirical evidence strongly suggests that individuals with asd display enhanced rationality: judgments that are more objective and decision-making that is less biased than that of neurotypical individuals” (liron rozenkrantz, 2021). people with autism-related disorders are much less likely to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. make irrational decisions and are less likely to be influenced by their suspicions. decision-making is a very complex process that involves both intuition and analysis. intuition allows them to make decisions faster but less accurately, relying on heuristics or “hunches”. this analysis requires calculation and “rational” thinking, but this process is slow. the study claims that a significant difference in decision-making among people on the autism spectrum may be in the amygdala. this brain region plays an essential role in the emotional realm. the study showed that the decision-making process depends on the work of the amygdala. in people with autism spectrum disorder, the amygdala tends to differ from most people—not in size but the density of nerve cells. “while altered structure and activation in limbic and reward brain regions may contribute to difficulties in emotion and reward processing in asd, they may also confer advantages in decision-making by reducing the influence of reward and emotion on cognition. on the other hand, another study found that when controlling for difficulty identifying emotions, asd individuals are still less influenced by the framing of loss versus gain” (liron rozenkrantz, 2021) 2.3 asd people and their emotional life anyone with experience working and interacting with children and adults with autism will tell you the same thing. studies have shown that people with autism may express their emotions. their emotional expression is much less likely to involve eye contact, and sometimes their emotional responses are not typical. however, without any doubt, they experience emotions. “asd individuals display more rational and less intuitive choice selection (e.g., in the attraction effect or conjunction fallacy) when emotions and reward do not seem to be involved” (liron rozenkrantz, 2021). nevertheless, people with autism are not “emotionally distant”. they direct their emotions to others less frequently with eye contact and sometimes get emotional about different things, but they certainly have emotion” (nuske, 2014). in autism, perceiving other people’s emotions requires much more effort and time. recent research has uncovered patterns suggesting that children with autism take longer to sense and respond to facial expressions of emotion such as happiness, anger, fear, and so on. it is consistent with data from earlier studies, which means that in everyday social situations, which are very dynamic and changeable, people with autism have difficulty, as they often emotionally “fall out” or “lack up” with social interaction partners. some forms of emotional expression are easier for people with autism to perceive than others. in general, people with autism have a more challenging time perceiving emotions expressed in the face, voice, or body movements than those described in other ways, such as through writing or music. however, who exactly expresses the emotion, whether a stranger or someone you know, plays a significant role. recent studies have shown that children with autism respond more typically to emotions expressed by people they know than people they don’t know (nuske, 2014). working with asd children requires speech and language therapy and occupational therapy. however, they often cannot understand other people’s feelings due to a lack of empathy (houston, 2019). educators www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. or parents who want to support the emotional development of a child with autism can use a variety of exercises and games to practice emotion-related skills. it is strongly recommended to start with five basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, disgust, and surprise. psychologists and photographers agree that these are the only emotions people can identify by the face. other emotional states require consideration of body language and situation. so, children with autism can start with the five emotions, as this will allow them to generalize this knowledge with different people and photographs. however, be prepared to teach your child more complex emotions. for these skills, israeli therapists use card games with photos of different emotions and write the corresponding feeling on the back. in the beginning, two opposite emotions are enough. for example, “happy” and “sad”. the adult puts down the photo and asks the child to name the emotion on the card. after that, the child turns the card over and checks whether he is right or wrong. if the child guessed correctly, he or she received a reward. for example, an adult can portray an exaggerated emotion to make the prize natural. after that, you can ask the child to show his version of this emotion. an adult and a child or several children can guess feelings, taking a card for themselves in case of a correct answer. whoever has more cards, as a result, is considered the winner and can receive a prize—usually a cookie or a candy. 3. discussion asd and learning languages asd children often have perseveration—they often “get stuck” on the same topic or subject. in this case, they seem obsessed or cannot switch from them (morin, 2022). thus, students who study efl can recite the same verse, retell the same story or explain the difference between present simple and present progressive tenses even if nobody asked them to do it. they might realize some grammar tenses very well and ignore others. the same happens when they catch specific words from the topic, pay attention to some episodes in the story for reading comprehension and skip the others. asd people often cannot realize other people’s feelings and emotions. as a result, they misunderstand the story or lose the plot thread. moreover, they don’t notice that other people get tired and don’t want to listen to them anymore. “when it comes to foreign languages, neurodivergent students may experience cognitive processing delays even when their intellect is intact. some foreign language learning activities such as listening and speaking require a quick reaction, and the described delays may lead to a failure to conduct them successfully” (papers, 2022). to enhance the process of studying efl, teachers should use such activities as role-playing in various social situations, for instance, in a store, in the airport, in a hotel, or at the doctor’s. moreover, it’s a fun and age-appropriate way to work on social and communication skills in a foreign culture. it also provides an opportunity to discuss the features of these skills in their native language. furthermore, the technique of small talk is helpful for asd kids in real life because it enables them to make social contacts. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. studying a foreign language has a very significant potential for developing children with asd. it enables children to learn speaking skills through role-play activities, making exciting dialogues with peers, and observation. they also help train language skills such as regulating volume, speed, and intonation of oral speech. learning the grammar of a foreign language helps improve understanding of aspects of the language, such as sentence structure. memorizing phrases and colloquial clichés will provide an opportunity to expand the existing vocabulary of both a foreign and a native language. discussing cultural differences and different social situations will also be incredibly beneficial. the language for such children will become much more straightforward, transparent, and logical. learning english provides many opportunities to develop language and communication skills while providing children with a more balanced and varied education. in addition, it helps train the brain to multitask. if people need to speak two languages to different people simultaneously, they must be able to shift without effort from one structure to the other. it might be difficult even for neurotypical people, but asd ones need to develop the skill of moving from one place, activity, or language to another. therefore, improving this skill could help them learn to transition less challenging. that is why many remedial efl teachers offer kids with asd to play a game of translator or interpreter, improving their vocabulary, transition, and communication skills. 4. conclusion asd does not have a single known cause. it is believed that genetics plays an essential role in it (autism occurs in relatives, the likelihood of its occurrence in both identical twins is higher than in fraternal twins etc.). however, it is not clear what is happening: there is no one “autism gene” but only a complex set of interactions. however, some genes are responsible for abnormal brain development in asd. “specific core regions have been suggested to mediate clinical phenotypes of asd such as the frontotemporal lobe, frontoparietal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, basal ganglia, and anterior cingulate cortex” (yonsei university college of medicine, seoul 03722, korea, 2015). most people with autism have uneven cognitive abilities. many autistic people have skills in some very high areas of cognition, while other areas of cognitive functioning are below what is expected for their age. this “uneven cognitive profile” often leads to problems during schooling. on the other hand, some cognitive features in autism may be strengths of autistic people. cognitive style is primarily determined by central coherence—the ability to combine parts into a coherent picture. neurotypical people with strong central coherence are good at seeing the big picture. they integrate different information to determine the underlying meaning or central coherence. autistic people are more focused on details, and it is called weak central coherence, but we can also call this feature as a heightened attention to the point. “differences in brain anatomy examined in asd are relevant to specific clinical symptoms and features of asd. asd is likely a ‘neural systems’ condition mediated by abnormalities in regionally distributed cortical networks rather than separated brain regions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. therefore, asd has also been referred to as a ‘developmental disconnection syndrome” (yonsei university college of medicine, seoul 03722, korea, 2015). difficulties in understanding and using figurative language, such as metaphor and irony, which are common among people on the autism spectrum, may also be related to weak central coherence. in some countries, studying a foreign language is often reduced to the rote memorization of grammar, and learning to read has nothing to do with speech and communication. and not only in ordinary schools but also in correctional ones. there is an over-emphasis on preparation for standardized exams in the classroom. but if you pay attention to the characteristics of students with asd and creatively approach the organization of education, this subject can become exciting, practical, and educational for such children. it is worth trying and looking for suitable “keys” to teach ads kids efl because it can significantly contribute to their general development. once it becomes a child’s hobby, it can help them to choose their future profession. many asd people make good translators and computer programmers. the main goal is not to pass the exam but to improve communication skills and understanding of social situations. acknowledgments many thanks to the following people: 1) my family and friends. 2) my colleagues from beit ekshtein high school. 3) my tutors and advisors from the atlantic international university. biography julia koifman was born in ukraine and graduated from simferopol state university in 1995. she moved to israel in 1999, and she still lives there. she teaches english in a special education school. she is a regular conference presenter and has published numerous articles about special education needs and learning disabilities. currently, she is a ph.d. candidate at atlantic university, usa. the topic of her research is “special needs and inclusive education”. references brennan, d. (2021, may 17). the difference between broca’s and wenicke’s aphasia. retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/:https://www.webmd.com/brain/what-to-know-about-brocas-vs-wenicke s-aphasia deweerdt, s. (2012, november 17). connections between language areas impaired in autism. retrieved from https://www.spectrumnews.org/:https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/connections-between-langua ge-areas-impaired-in-autism/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. geggel, l. (2013, november 12). language areas of the brain activate differently in autism. retrieved from https://www.spectrumnews.org/:https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/language-areas-of-the-brainactivate-differently-in-autism/ houston, j. (2019). autism spectrum disorder (asd) and emotions: are we missing something? retrieved from https://www.acamh.org/:https://www.acamh.org/blog/asd-and-emotions-are-we-missing-somethin g/ katznelson, a. (2019, april 4). autism brains show connectivity differences that vary by region. retrieved from https://www.spectrumnews.org/:https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/autism-brains-show-connect ivity-differences-vary-region/ liron rozenkrantz, a. m. (2021, july 2). enhanced rationality in autism spectrum disorder. retrieved from https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/s1364-6613(21)00125-x?_returnurl=htt ps%3a%2f%2flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2fretrieve%2fpii%2fs136466132100125x%3fshowa ll%3dtrue luis garcía domínguez, j. s. (2013, october 1). the imaginary part of coherency in autism: differences in cortical functional connectivity in preschool children. retrieved from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075941 markram, k. m. (2010, december 21). the intense world theory—a unifying theory of the neurobiology of autism. retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2010.00224/full morin, a. (2022). what is perservation? retrieved from https://www.understood.org/en/articles/perseveration-adhd-and-learning-differences nuske, h. (2014, june 26). the emotional life of people with autism. retrieved from http://otarc.blogs.latrobe.edu.au/the-emotional-life-of-people-with-autism/ papers, c. (2022, july 21). teaching foreign languages to autistic students. retrieved from https://chalkypapers.com/: https://chalkypapers.com/teaching-foreign-languages-to-autistic-students/ yonsei university college of medicine, seoul 03722, korea. (2015, december 24). characteristics of brains in autism spectrum disorder: structure, function and connectivity across the lifespan. retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc4688328/ education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 15 original paper the bible, in-laws and family in africa asamoah, emmanuel foster1*, joseph williams acheampong1 & jones dwomoh amankwah2 1 department of religious studies, kwame nkrumah university of science and technology, kumasi, ghana 2 department of theology, mission and leadership, pentecost university, accra, ghana * asamoah emmanuel foster, department of religious studies, kwame nkrumah university of science and technology, kumasi, ghana received: november 7, 2022 accepted: november 20, 2021 online published: november 28, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n4p15 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n4p15 abstract the rolelessness of in-laws in the family structure makes in-law and family relationships a difficult problem in africa. this article investigated the bible, in-laws and the family in africa, as well as how scriptures address in-laws and families in connection to african culture. the research is supported by existing literature by researchers in the research field. it examines relevant bible material, investigates how the bible treats the problematic topic of in-laws and situates it in the african setting. the focus of the research is to determine if the bible’s stance on in-laws conforms to family structure in the african environment by analysing the interaction between them. it establishes that the bible instructs us to respect and care for our in-laws. the couples consequently must pursue the well-being of their in-laws, as there is a connection between the bible, in-laws and the family in africa. keywords bible, in-law and family, relationship, africa 1. introduction in-law and family relationship has been a thorny issue in the family system due to the associated challenges and pressures it brings. according to prentice (2005), existing studies on the subject reveal that in-laws are complex and therefore, often problematic. he adds that in-law and family relationships are full of difficult dynamics simply because of the nature of the relationships, which is due to a variety of reasons (prentice, 2005). duvall (1954, in prentice, 2005) reveals that mothers-in-law are the most problematic of in-laws, followed by daughters-in-law because they are both seen as intruding in the affairs of married couples. prentice (2005) quoting duvall (1954) theorises that these challenging dynamics exist because of the three families married couples belong to—their two families of origin www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. and the family they make together, and the pursuit for the couple to feel the strongest tie to their own new family rather than their families-of-origin. in other words, couples experience problems with in-laws as they struggle to find the balance between independence and dependence (duvall, 1954, in prentice, 2005). in explaining further, in-laws try to interfere with the independence of their children’s (note 1) marriage which brings about challenges. why there seem to be these challenges in such relationships comprises of power struggles, loyalty issues, independence issues, and nerve-wracking life events (prentice, 2005). these matters of concern, according to prentice (2005) create complex tensions in families; in-laws enter into non-voluntary relationships that require a process of assimilation into the family. each of the family members may have different expectations for in-law relationships, both positive and negative, which affect their willingness to adjust their routines. moreover, couples experience the pull of the dialectical tensions of allegiance and emotional connection to both families and their spouses, as well as the need for autonomy and distance. lopata (1999) believes that in-law relationships are worth studying today because our heterogeneous society leads to marital matches of diverse couples, mixed in background, socio-economic status, religion, education etc., who may have divergent expectations for in-law relationships. notwithstanding, the bible discusses several themes on various issues which enable married couples to live right with all manner of persons, including their in-laws. what is scripture’s view on in-laws’ relationship to family structure? what are some of the thorny issues in in-law and family relationships? how the bible does address the thorny issues of in-laws, and situate it in the african context? how should in-laws and family relationships in the light of the bible help married couples to live in peace and harmony with their in-laws? 2. methodology this work employs inductive, biographical study, and phenomenological approaches to study. the inductive approach, also known as inductive reasoning seeks to look for patterns in observing in-law relationships in the bible and develop ideas to explain those patterns through a sequence of hypotheses. the biographical research technique investigates the lives and relationships of in-laws in the bible to highlight behaviours for emulation and flaws to avoid. the phenomenological approach looks into the human experiences of in-laws and family relationships through the descriptions provided by the africans. the research has the underpinning of existing literature by scholars in the research area. 3. the bible according to aigbekaen (2021), the english word “bible” comes from the greek word “biblion” which meant “roll” or “book”. the bible was usually a roll of papyrus or reed-like plant that grew along the nile river in egypt around the eleventh century b.c. (dickson, 2013). this was dried and fashioned www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. into writing material, which later was used for production. to aigbekaen (2021), “biblion” occurs in the septuagint (lxx) copy of daniel 9:2, and revelation 10:2. but today the word “bible” means much more than just a book. it carries a sense of majesty as being the ultimate book par excellence. the bible is always referred to as “holy scripture”, “holy writings”, “oracle of god”, “sacred writings”, “book of the lord”, “word of god” etc. it is divided into two parts: the old and the new testaments. the word “testament” means “covenant”, “agreement” or “pact”. the bible was originally written in three languages. the old testament was written in hebrew, with some parts of the book of daniel written in aramaic, while the new testament was written in greek. the bible is a compilation of more than sixty separate works that were created by several writers over a long period. it took several centuries to compile the numerous works into one book, and there was much debate and thinking that went into choosing which books would make up the bible. but in the end, it was the twenty-seven books of the new testament and the thirty-nine books of the protestant old testament that the faith communities recognised as authoritative sources for their lives and beliefs. through these works, the faith communities were able to hear the voice of god in a particular way. arguably, the bible has been and continues to be one of the most significant resources in our world today; it describes god’s work in the world and his unwavering commitment to all creation (asamoah, 2020). this aids in understanding who god is, how the universe and humans came into being, and how god’s people should spend their lives on earth to reap more blessings in the future. it also tells how the country of israel was created, how they were selected by god to proclaim his character and intentions to the world, and how jesus christ—the messiah—came from the descendants of king david to fulfil the israelites’ aspirations and establish the christian church. different topics in the bible strive to address certain issues. the central concept of the bible is “redemption through christ’s blood” (jn 3:16; rom 3:24; eph 1:7; gal 4:4-5). the old testament describes god’s relationship with our fallen human race via israel. israel’s sacrifices, feasts, and offerings all foreshadowed, in some manner, christ the saviour to come. he arrived at the appropriate moment (gal 4:4). the new testament provides a chronicle of his appearance. it describes the events that occurred after his arrival as well as those that will occur in the future. creation, discipleship, divorce, fasting, money, leadership, marriage, in-laws and family etc. are all themes in the bible. 3.1 the meaning of in-law relationship according to prentice (2005), the term “in-law” mirrors the bilateral family system in which both the husband and wife maintain ties with their families of origin. thus, in-law relationship talks about married couples who are still having relations with their parents and siblings. prentice (2005), quoting lopata (1999) explains that an in-law relationship is not biological but a legal relationship through the institution of marriage. according to him, the definition of an in-law relationship originally included what we now call step-relationships, which are also created through marriage (lopata, 1999). but this is no more regarded as part because step-relationships involve no blood ties across generations. in-laws www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. can be acquired at almost any stage in one’s life when parents, siblings, or children forge new marriage bonds (lopata, 1999). this helps in forming a family. the family of a couple including the in-laws is made up of the children (or married couple, or son-in-law & daughter-in-law), mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law. 3.2 biblical basis for in-laws and family the bible is replete with in-law teachings. stories about judah and his daughter-in-law (gen 38:11, 16), moses and his father-in-law (exo 3:1; 4:18; 18:1-2, 5, 12), ruth and her mother-in-law (ruth 1:1-22), eli and his daughter-in-law (1 sam 4:19), and peter and his mother-in-law (mk 1:29-31; lk 4:38-40) are examples of in-laws mentioned in the bible. others are caiaphas and his father-in-law (jn 18:13), and david and his father-in-law (1 sam 18:17-27). the bible talks about how children should live with their in-laws. it begins by saying, a man should leave his parents (father and mother) and cleave to his wife (gen 2:24). the father and mother described above become the in-laws of the woman with whom the man marries. the scripture above clearly shows that in-laws are on god’s agenda for every marriage and should not be overlooked because god values the unity of the spouses, in-laws, and their relationship. god created humans to be in a relationship with him (1 jn 1:3). he (god) has so established humans in a family through marriage for us to live in harmony. god delights in healthy relationships and togetherness because this is his will (psa 133:1). this is seen by the relationships of naomi and ruth (ruth 1:1-22), moses and jethro (exo 3:1; 4:18; 18:1-2, 5, 12), peter and the mother-in-law (mk 1:29-31; lk 4:38-40). the instruction to married couples to “leave and cleave” is to leave their biological families and start a new family. this demonstrates that a distinction has been made between the married couples’ new family and their biological family. as a result, there is a noticeable distinction between married couples and their in-laws. it does not, however, imply that the man and woman must cut ties with their in-laws to the point of abandonment. rather, they should honour their in-laws (exodus 20:12; deut. 5:16) and treat them well, because they are members of the family of faith (gal 6:10). this is because in-laws are related to married couples by marriage and are part of god’s family. 3.3 biblical outlook for in-law and family in the bible, the ideal relationship that may exist between married spouses and their in-laws is one of friendship. regardless, some in-law relationships in the bible were quite stressful. one example is david’s relationship with his father-in-law, king saul (1 sam 18:17-27). their connection was not amicable, but animosity. “saul was even more terrified of him, and he remained david’s adversary for the rest of his life” (1 sam 18:29, nlt). the hatred grew to the point that he wanted to murder his son-in-law, leaving his daughter a widow. david and his family were burdened by saul. such an attitude of in-laws makes it difficult for married couples to live at peace with their in-laws; they seek their downfall and death. but no matter how difficult in-laws would become, the bible expects married couples to live at peace and in cordial relationships with them for a better family set-up. “if it is possible, as far as it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (rom 12:18, niv, emphasis mine). the greek word translated as “everyone” or “all people” (nasb) refers to every kind of male and female, including in-laws. hence, in-laws must be respected, loved, and cared for no matter who they are and how they behave. 3.4 in-law and family: the case of naomi and ruth the bible recounts some cordial in-law relationships. naomi and ruth are one of them (note 2). the book of ruth, credited to samuel and published during the era of israel’s judges (ruth 1:1; 4:7), tells the narrative of two judean couples named elimelech and naomi who migrated to moab to escape a famine in judah, and two moabite women named ruth and orpah married two of their sons—mahlon and chilion. all three women’s husbands die, and naomi plans to return to bethlehem while begging her daughters-in-law to see their family. orpah does so, but ruth abandons her own culture out of love for her widowed mother-in-law, stating, “wherever you go, i will go; wherever you live, i will live. your people will be my people, and your god will be my god. wherever you die, i will die, and there i will be buried. may the lord punish me severely if i allow anything but death to separate us!” (ruth 1:16-17, nlt). ruth journeys to bethlehem with naomi and marries boaz, a distant relative of her deceased father-in-law. she represents steadfast loyalty and dedication. naomi was very kind to ruth. ruth also returned the favour by treating her as she would have treated her real mother (ruth 1:6-22). in addition to her devotion, she displayed respect, love, friendship, and humility. both were so intimate that they shared thoughts (ruth 2:2-3, 19-22). scripture never tells that ruth struggled to assimilate naomi into their family—mahlon and ruth; they may have understood themselves, and ruth accepted naomi as her mother (ruth 3:18). even when ruth could not give birth to her husband before he passed on, scripture did not tell us naomi complained. the daughter felt safe since both had a good relationship, and she allowed her mother-in-law to take on the position of “roleless leader” in the family; she was not confined to a specific duty. ruth’s life revolved around naomi. this greatly aided naomi in providing support to ruth, allowing them to eat. naomi had a beneficial impact on ruth because of her obedience and humility, which led to her marriage with boaz; she also provided her wise advice (ruth 3:3-4). in the same vein, the bible exhorts married couples to respect their in-laws as if they were blood relatives and to live in harmony with them. 4. in-laws and family in africa 4.1 african family system among african cultures, the family is the most significant institution. this is affirmed by patterson, who believes that in all societies it is the basic social structure within which the individual establishes identity, develops a sense of belonging, and learns their responsibilities to themselves and the group to which they belong (patterson, 1978). in return, the family provides the individual with security, protection, sustenance, and love. these, among other reasons, make africans proud of their family to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. the extent of tracing their relations from their parents to aunties and their children’s children and referring to them as family. and it explains why marriage—the structure by which family is extended and preserved—in africa is contracted not just between two individuals but their respective families. the african family is a network of relatives who are related by blood and acquired from both (father and mother) sides. it is largely because their membership is open-ended to include all persons believed to belong to the lineage of a particular family or clan. in effect, the african family system consists of a husband, wife, and children, and other relations such as grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters who may have their children and other immediate relatives in its complex and most common form. this travels to include the unborn ones. this is corroborated by asamoah (2020) who submits that family in an african setup is “a descendant from a common ancestor and not the make-up of parents and their biological children.” the african family extends to include in-laws when marriages are contracted, for in africa “failure to get married often means that the individual has rejected the family, and the family, in turn, will reject the individual” (patterson, 1978). africans in general ascribe to the importance of family as a support base for every couple and to some extent provide the needed support for the young couple. since every couple once lived with their parents, it is natural for that attraction to remain even after one is married. thus, married couples maintain a good relationship with their relatives—father, mother, siblings, and others; the “closer the kinship bond, the greater the commitment and the higher the degree of reciprocity it is expected to be” (awedoba, 2016). these relatives become in-laws to the married couples. 4.2 in-laws and family relationships in africa affram and osei tutu (2021) opine that in-law relationships have been described as delicate and complex, especially in africa. this is because in-law relationships are involuntary relationships created through formal/legal or cultural ties between two parties—parents-in-law and children-in-law—which are linked by a linchpin (the spouse/child) through marriage. this, according to them, creates a triadic relationship that leads to relational uncertainties. the relationship one has with their in-laws influences how joyful and peaceful their marriage may be, and the opposite is also true. as a result, in-laws have a voice in african marriages. however, the extent of this intrusion has always been a source of worry for most couples. some parents believe that once their son marries, their daughter-in-law must kowtow to their whims and caprices. others still are of the view that god was clear when he said “a man shall leave his mother and father…” finding a clear balance has always been a challenge. while the former breeds relational challenges, the latter promotes cordiality with in-law and family relationships. 4.3 thorny issues with in-laws and family relationships in africa parents-in-law play vital responsibilities in the family’s development. these duties include advising their children-in-law on how to be successful in marriage. some also provide physical assistance, such as bathing and caring for their grandkids. children that are obedient and courteous might reap the benefits of their in-laws. others, on the other hand, face the penalties of disrespecting their in-laws. this essay www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. focuses on a few thorny issues that arise in the african family structure between parents-in-law and children-in-law. 4.3.1 lack of intimacy affram and osei tutu (2021) reveal insecure intimacy as one of the reasons why relationships between some parents-in-law and children-in-law are not cordial in africa. this, according to them, is influenced by the belief that only biological parents could love their children without reservations at the detriment of their in-laws’ children. with this, parents try to maintain the security and stability of the kin relationship, especially between a mother and a child, as a standard of true intimacy, forgetting that the child-in-law is also a member of the family. this makes it difficult for a good in-law relationship to be established. some parents also demonstrate their love and care to their children explicitly in the presence of their children-in-law, while they fail to show their in-laws love. these among others make it difficult for a good in-law relationship to be established. on the other hand, where there is intimacy, married couples can relate very well with their in-laws. 4.3.2 failing to assimilate in-laws into the family as a communal group, africans would always want to know how each family member is faring. this makes in-laws travel to find out how their children and grandchildren are doing, for their kids will forever be their babies no matter how grown up they are now when even no official information has been sent for their coming. the rift between parents-in-law and children-in-law surfaces when parents are prevented by their in-laws from visiting their children. this causes relational challenges. when they manage to get access to their children, in-laws would want their children-in-law to receive them hospitably, and not to be identified as strangers in their children’s homes. mothers-in-law especially would want to have the best of services from daughters-in-law, for they have toiled much on their son. 4.3.3 defining a specific position for in-laws in the family in-law’s position in the family has been described as roleless (affram & osei-tutu, 2021). this makes it difficult for children to define specific roles for their in-laws, for any attempt will lead to family crises. because of their roleless positions, in-laws tend to intrude in the affairs of their children, holding that everything belongs to their son. some even assume the role of leadership in the family at the expense of their children. this makes it difficult to have a peaceful home, especially when the children are not at peace; there would always be challenges. as a “roleless leader”, some mothers-in-law would want to dictate to their children-in-law what they must do, even in their husband’s homes. this has become a tag of war between wives and mothers-in-law. 4.3.4 problem of insecurity some children feel insecure and inadequate in marriage especially when they get to know their in-laws dislike them. the child develops the feeling of competition to fight back, especially if she cannot handle the feeling to impress her in-laws. another situation where insecurity happens is when the child is unable to give birth. some mothers-in-law use derogatory names for their children, calling them www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. witches and barren women, for not being able to conceive. they even go ahead to push their daughter-in-law from the marriage with the hope of finding someone who can give birth to her son. such attitudes from the in-laws at times make the children suspect them as part of their problems. 4.3.5 exerting of strong influence on the family in africa, some in-laws exert a very strong influence on their children’s marriages so high that the influences has on many occasions had a bad effect on the marriages, resulting in either sadness, regret, or even a total disintegration of the marriage. in some instances, adult children are cautioned against forming close bonds with their spouses. this happens when children prioritize maintaining solidarity with their family of birth over other relationships, including in-law relationships (affram & osei-tutu, 2021). despite these thorny issues in the family system of the africans, is there any relationship between the bible, in-laws and the family in africa? 5. the bible, in-laws and family in africa: a relationship from the discussions so far, it has been identified that in-laws play significant roles in marriages, and the best relationship that should exist between themselves and their children must be a cordial one. both the bible and the african family system recognise in-laws. whereas the bible see them as part of god’s agenda for every marriage and should not be neglected (gen. 2:24), for god appreciates the union between the couples, in-laws and their relationship (ps 133:1-3), africans also recognize the importance of in-laws in their family setup. in both the bible and the family system in africa, in-laws are seen as parents who support their children in so many ways, including giving advice and seeking the welfare of their children. in-laws such as naomi and jethro were seen as mother and father to ruth and moses respectively, hence, offered them physical assistance and godly advice. in both the bible and african setup, in-laws must be respected and supported, for they are seen as fathers and mothers to their children, and they form part of the larger family. it is identified that one’s relationship with their in-laws to some extent can determine how joyous and peaceful their marriage can be, in both the bible and the family system in africa, and the opposite is also true. from the bible, it is seen that the determination of ruth to succeed was paramount to naomi to the extent that she arranged and supported her to marry boaz. even before that when ruth could not give birth to her former husband, naomi never complained. like naomi, in-laws in african family setup wish their children’s marriage to become joyous. but when there are relational challenges, the other side suffices like king saul against david. as there are bad nuts in every society, both the bible and african society identify some in-laws whose activities have serious repercussions on their children-in-laws. for example, king saul sought to kill his in-law in the bible. and in the african system, some in-laws do not seek the welfare of their children. all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. these stem from thorny issues that exist among children and in-laws. how these issues should be addressed so that in-laws will relate cordially with their children as bible teaches children to take proper care of their in-laws. 6. addressing the thorny issues of in-laws and family in africa: the bible way the bible is explicit in matters of in-law and family issues. since the thorny issues involve two parties—the children (the new family) and in-laws (the family of origin), this paper addresses the challenges in two fronds. the first part relates to children (spouse/children-in-law) and the other part relates to parents-in-law; what both must do to promote a cordial relationship. the following are some ways of addressing the thorny issues about in-laws and family in african setup. 6.1 the role of children 6.1.1 children must assimilate newcomers into the family newcomers must be assimilated into the family for peaceful co-existence. in this context, newcomers refer to in-laws (father-in-law and mother-in-law). parents-in-law should be accepted by their children as part of the newly founded family of the children. children have to relate with them with an open mind without prejudices (rom. 12:10, 16; 1 pet. 3:8, 1 cor. 13:1-6). this avoids in-laws acting like strangers to their children’s home or family (prov. 18:24; jn. 15:15). the children must not set rules that can destroy the relationship with their in-laws (1 tim. 5:1-2). rather, must be wise in all their decisions relating to them, especially in speech (ps. 34:13; col. 4:6). children must also remain humble and encourage mutual submission with their in-laws (1 pet. 5:5; eph. 5:21), as well as to seek and pursue peace at all times with them (ps. 34:14; rom. 12:18). 6.1.2 children should help in-laws to operate freely in the book of ruth, we see ruth and orpah helping their mother-in-law to feel comfortable at moab, even after her children and husband had passed on (ruth 1:5). the bible does not tell us, naomi, immediately decided to live when she lost her family but left moab when she heard the food was abundant in jerusalem (ruth 1:6). this presupposes that ruth and orpah supported their in-law to operate fully in their home country. in like manner, the mother also related very well with the two daughters-in-law. this cordial relationship that existed between them called for the daughters-in-law (orpah and ruth) to vacate their home country for bethlehem in judah for naomi’s sake (ruth 1:6-14). children must work at supporting their in-laws to operate freely in their homes when they come for visit. 6.1.3 children must exhibit a godly attitude towards in-laws children must display a godly attitude towards their in-laws, and not speak evil of them. ruth remained a faithful and obedient daughter to her mother-in-law. she always did what naomi told her to do which was an acceptable practice. children must obey their parents (in-laws) in the lord (eph 6:1). they must not look down on them, nor dishonour them. rather, must honour them for this is the first www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. commandment with a promise (eph 6:2). in so doing, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth” (eph 6:3, nlt). 6.1.4 children must recognize in-laws as parents ruth recognised the efforts naomi has made in her life and so decided to follow her to jerusalem. ruth’s relationship with her in-law went beyond a child/in-law relationship to a daughter-mother one; she went the extra mile to even change her religion for naomi’s sake (ruth 1:16-18). for her selflessness and determination to follow naomi to judah as well as to change her religion, god recognised her effort and rewarded her. she is one of the five women mentioned in the genealogy of jesus (matt 1:5). naomi, possibly prayed for ruth to be successful in how she related with her. peter also supported her mother-in-law to be healed (mk 1: 29-31; lk 4:38-40). peter never abandoned her in-law to perish; he gave all that he had for her healing. this testifies that he acknowledged her as a parent. children must recognise their in-laws as parents, for the africans “honour anyone eligible to be a father and mother irrespective of whether the individual is known or not” (asamoah, 2020). 6.2 the role of in-laws 6.2.1 in-laws must avoid being “busybodies” a meddling in-law (mother, father, brother, or sister) who is demanding, controlling, and intrudes into the lives of her son/daughter’s marriage is what the bible calls a “busybody” (1 tim 5:13). the meaning of the greek word that is translated “busybody” in the 1 timothy passage means “a self-appointed overseer in other men’s matters” or “about meddling in someone else’s business”. it also means witchcraft or magic. overseeing or behaving like using a spell/magic is what some in-laws are engaged in, or at least accused of. this kind of behaviour is annoying, very frustrating, and contrary to god’s plan for the family. it creates tension in a family which makes married couples hostile to their in-laws; thereby making it difficult for them to live together as a family. in-laws must desist from this behaviour to live in peace with their children. 6.2.2 in-laws must allow children to make their choice naomi allowed both ruth and orpah to decide by themselves to either follow her or go back home. naomi never forced it on them. she did so out of love. while orpah turned back to her home country, ruth continued with the journey to judah. naomi never interfered in their choices but allowed them to decide for themselves, possibly trusting that god is leading them. jethro, a father-in-law to moses also advised moses on leadership issues and did not force it on him, but gave him the freedom to operate (exo. 18:14-26). in as much as in-laws are allowed to operate, they should do so in a dignified manner. in like manner, in-laws in africa should not interfere in their children’s choices. rather, must support them to make their choices become reality. 6.2.3 in-laws must support children in times of difficulties naomi was there with ruth and orpah as they both suffered a childless marriage, lost their husband, and then had to decide whether to leave moab with naomi. through it all, naomi walked with them. it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. was never recorded that naomi ever insulted her daughters-in-law for not conceiving or calling them names as “childless people”. rather, she lived well with them till she decided to return to her home country. naomi probably assured them the struggles they are going through have been faced by each generation before them, and that god is faithful, and will see them through. this possibly led to ruth’s decision to follow her, for naomi had supported them in times of difficulties, and there was no way to turn her back on her. in-laws in africa should make it a practice to support their children in prayers and other godly practices to succeed in times of difficulties, especially when they are unable to conceive. in-laws should not call their children names for not being able to give birth and should not force them to leave their marriage for another person. 6.2.4 in-laws must wish the best for their children one remarkable thing naomi did to help her daughter-in-law (ruth) was to help her marry again. naomi initiated and supported her wholeheartedly for a husband because that was best for her in that culture. this was the highest form of blessing a mother could give to her daughter-in-law. naomi never rained insults on her daughter-in-law nor did she call her names, but rather blessed her with a husband. naomi helped ruth find a nobleman who was the kinsman redeemer (ruth 4:1-10). in-laws in africa should emulate this godly practice by wishing their children successes in their endeavours. they must bless their children and not curse them. 7. conclusion the issue of in-laws in the bible relates to that of the africans; in-laws to some extent can determine how joyous and peaceful their marriage can be, and the opposite is also true. as a manual, the bible addresses all issues in the world. the thorny issues of in-laws and family are not excluded. as a guide, the bible clarifies how children-in-law should live in peace and harmony with their parents-in-laws no matter how difficult they may be in every context. in the african family system, children are to relate well with their in-laws in love and as light/salt of the world (matt. 5:13-14). they must live at peace and remain humble at all times (heb. 12:14). children must take good care of their in-laws, for they form part of their family which is biblical and upheld by the african family system. this will make parents bless their children by offering love, wisdom, and encouragement. in-laws will go all out to ensure that these blessings are fulfilled in the lives of their children. as fathers and mothers to couples, in-laws must be respected and cared for as the bible admonishes. it is the responsibility, therefore, of the couples to seek the welfare of their in-laws, for there is a relationship between the bible, in-laws and the family in africa. in like manner, in-laws must also do the needful for their children to ensure both live well for peaceful co-existence, for are vital in determining the success and stability of ghanaian in particular, and african in general, marriages (affram & osei-tutu, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. references affram, a. a., & osei-tutu, a. (2021). intimacy and self-disclosure in ghanaian in-law relationships. journal of family studies, 1-18. doi: 10.1080/13229400.2021.2006751 aigbekaen, p. o. (2021). introduction to the bible. oyo: federal college of education. asamoah, e. f. (2020). the bible and akan traditional religious values: a search for dialogue. journal of mother-tongue biblical hermeneutics and theology (motbit), 2(2), 78-86. awedoba, a. k. (2016). culture, and development: introduction to african studies–—lesson notes. legon, accra: university of ghana. retrieved october 21, 2022, from https://www.coursehero.com/file/53740252/lecture-1-introductionpdf/ dickson, r. e. (2013). dickson biblical research library. south africa: africa international missions. duvall, e. (1955). in-laws: pros and cons. new york: association press. everett, g. h. (2022). study notes on the holy scriptures using a theme-based approach to identify literary structures: the book of ruth. lopata, h. z. (1999). in-laws and the concept of family. marriage and family review, 28(3/4), 161-172. patterson, r. p. (1978). african studies curriculum unit: the cycle of life in the african family. usa: illinois univ. retrieved october 23, 2022, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed189006.pdf prentice, c. m. (2005). the assimilation of in-laws: the impact of newcomers on the structuration of families, unpublished phd thesis. columbia: university of missouri-columbia. notes note 1. children in this paper refers to married couples—a man and wife. married couples are still identified as children by their parents, no matter the age they have attained. note 2. this is chosen because, bible directs to follow only what is good (3 jn 1:11). education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 12 original paper translation of metaphor from the perspective of cognitive linguistics li chunying1* 1 the college of post and telecommunication of wit, wuhan, hubei 430073, china * li chunying, the college of post and telecommunication of wit, wuhan, hubei 430073, china received: april 19, 2020 accepted: april 25, 2020 online published: april 30, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p12 abstract metaphor not only contains the characteristic connotation of the language itself, but also the words that cannot be expressed in a straightforward manner. the traditional metaphor view holds that metaphor is only used to beautify and modify language, but cognitive linguistics regards metaphor as a mapping of thinking, mainly through people’s existing experience and knowledge to understand new things, that is to say, from a known concept domain to understand another unknown concept domain. therefore, metaphor can be regarded as a medium for establishing connection between the source domain and the target domain, and it also plays an important role in our study and daily life. this paper analyzes the translation of metaphor from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. through the translation of various metaphors, we find that in the process of metaphor translation, we need to distinguish the source schema from the image schema metaphor; also it is necessary to distinguish the type of text; as well as the cultural meaning behind the text and the value to be conveyed. the translation strategy of direct translation or free translation, naturalization or alienation is used to translate the target domain. keywords cognitive metaphor, metaphor methods, metaphor practice 1. introduction metaphor exists in every aspect of daily life, whether in the use of language or in people’s thoughts and behaviors. metaphorical language is more infectious than plain language, and it can exert people’s imagination. whether in chinese or english, metaphor has become the main expression, main medium of expressing emotion and writer’s style. therefore whether a translator can successfully handle the translation of metaphor becomes whether a translator can truly handle the connotation of the source www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. language. the traditional view of metaphor holds that metaphor is only a rhetorical device, while the cognitive view of metaphor holds that metaphor is a thinking phenomenon. this article mainly based on the book cognitive metaphor and translation practical tutorial, and has a comprehensive understanding of the concept and classification of metaphor from the perspective of cognitive linguistics then using the intentional schema theory to analyze the translation strategies of metaphors, so as to analyze the translation practice of metaphor in various texts. 1.1 overview of metaphor metaphor is a kind of analogy, different from simile and metonymy. the simile is usually marked by figurative words, such as “like”, “as”, “as if”, for example, friendship like a flower blooming (friendship is likened to the flower). and metaphor usually adopts hidden words, such as “is”, “become”, and “change”. its characteristic is to compare something to another thing with which it has a similar relationship. the key point is “similarity”. for example, “youth is the flower of the motherland”, while metonymy is usually when two things are not similar, but closely related, the two things can replace each other, the focus is on “association”, metonymy can sometimes replace the whole with part. for example: he has a good ear for music. metaphor usually implies allegorical meaning, that is, they convey the underlying meaning. in more general terms, metaphor is like having an outer packing, which hides the meaning of the language and the hidden feelings of the author and conveys the real intention in more euphemistic words. in chinese, metaphor is usually said to be a code word, ontology and metaphor appear at the same time, and they are formally consistent. the structure is: a (ontology) is b (metaphor). the basis of metaphor formation is human perception of the external world, which is generally hidden in people’s subconscious and thinking. when people need to express a specific abstract concept, it will interact with the concept to be expressed, and then express the metaphor. 1.2 the differences between traditional metaphor and cognitive metaphor 1.2.1 traditional metaphor the earliest metaphor appeared in aristotle’s poetics. he thought that metaphor was to use the name belonging to one thing can be used by another, and there was a similar point between the two. the scope of its application ranges from subordination to species, from species to genus, or by analogy. for example, “a silver plate is rising up in the sky”. in this sentence, because there is a similarity between plate and moon, we can use plate to refer to moon. based on aristotle’s point of view, most people also think metaphor is abnormal phenomenon in language. its role is only to beautify language. therefore, it is more often seen in literary works and less studied in non-literary works. there are also rules for those who use metaphors. not all people can use metaphors, and they are usually used by literati and scholars. so, its research is only at the rhetorical level. the cognitive metaphor view is very different from the traditional metaphor view. the cognitive linguist lakeoff once described the traditional metaphor view: “metaphor is for most people a device www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. of poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish—a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary languages”. “metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action” (lakeoff & johnson, 2003). according to these descriptions, we can know that the traditional view of metaphor holds that metaphor is only a rhetorical device, belonging to the category of language, and has nothing to do with thinking. there are certain limitations on the scope of use of metaphors and the identity of people. 1.2.2 cognitive metaphor in the 1970s, with the development of semiotics and cognitive psychology, many scholars began to pay attention to metaphor in linguistics. in 1980, lakeoff and johnson pointed out in their book “metaphor we live by”, “metaphor is not only a rhetorical device, but also a specific thinking mapping, which has an important impact on people’s thinking, reasoning and association in daily life”. the essence of metaphor is to experience and understand one thing by borrowing its relevance to another. in simple terms, the idea of cognitive metaphor is that metaphor is usually based not only on such similarity, but also on the subjective experience of others. metaphor is not only a rhetorical meaning, but also a reflection of thinking. at the same time, there is no clear definition of the scope of metaphor and people’s identity. in daily life, metaphor can be seen everywhere and most of them appear in advertisements, such as: “toyota moves forward as your partner”. lackoff used the following sentence to describe the nature of cognitive metaphor: “metaphor is so ordinary that we use it unconsciously and automatically; as a result metaphor does not belong to the category of literature only. in fact, metaphors in literature also rely heavily on every day one”. “metaphor is not only a matter of language, but more importantly a matter of thought” (lakeoff & johnson, 2003). according to the descriptions, it can be known that metaphor exists in any language and is not the exclusive property of scholars. people are born with the ability to use metaphor. it represents the normality of language and is quite common in daily language use. and it is manufactured systematically through the long-term accumulation of human experience. 2. classification of cognitive metaphor as we know, the previous research on metaphor has been limited to its rhetorical function, and it is considered that metaphor has little research value. however, since the study of lakoff and others, this traditional concept has been broken, and it is proposed that metaphor should be understood from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. he and his collaborator johnson divided metaphor into three types: first, structural metaphor, which refers to the concept that will belong to two different cognitive domains. through some regular correspondence between them, one concept can be used to construct the other. for example: time is money. followed by the metaphor of orientation, refers to the concept of spatial orientation, such as: up and down, left and right, before and after the organization of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. metaphor. in other words, to give a concept a spatial orientation, we can use this spatial orientation concept to understand the metaphor of this concept. for example: happy is up, sad is down. up and down is a spatial concept, which can be used to express the concept of emotion. finally, ontological metaphor refers to the entity and material metaphor, which is a metaphor to construct experience with the concepts of entity and material. to put it simply is to make abstract experiences concrete. for example, i can’t accept your love. love is originally just a feeling, an abstract concept, but people use the actual existence of the entity or material in real life to metaphor it, giving it a tangible concrete concept. 2.1 image schema metaphor and image metaphor the so-called image schema metaphor can be divided. the first image refers to an artistic image created by the objective object through the unique emotional activities of the creative subject. to put it simply, image is an objective object used to pinpoint subjective emotions. then there is the schema, which refers to the existing knowledge and experience in human brain. therefore, the image schema is a cognitive structure based on the cognition of a certain connection between two things. it is an organizational structure in which humans use their own experience and understanding to understand abstract relationships and concrete images, to understand the foundation of the intentional schema metaphor. in addition, the image schema is also a model for constructing metaphors. the common schemas are: up and down, inner and outer, whole-part and other basic schema. taking the “up and down” as an example, the basis for the formation of this pattern is that when a person is born, he knows that the head is on the top and the feet are on the bottom. normal people complete most of the daily life in a standing and sitting position, only when they are sick, and they will lie in bed, or will fall after someone dies. because of this experience and feelings, we will project similar experiences and feelings into other target domains, and thus form an “up-down” schema metaphor. for example: i am feeling up today. he came down with flu. with the accumulation of knowledge and experience, new knowledge combined with existing experience will form an intentional schema in the human brain. because this schema is usually a common phenomenon and experience in life, people of different cultural backgrounds can create a same schema, the intentional schema metaphor does not make a big difference in the daily translation process. image metaphor refers to the temporary mapping of a specific image to another concrete image. these objects used as metaphors will be different for different cultural backgrounds, and this kind of temporality, the long-term schema has not been established in the human brain, so the possibility that the metaphor of the image deviates from the conventional one is great, and it is not universal in the use of any language. in daily life, imagery metaphor is usually a special image. this particularity shows that the theme and artistic effect it wants to express will be great, and it is worthy of our study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. 2.2 the difference between image schema metaphor and image metaphor firstly, image schema metaphor is a long-term feature due to the long-term memory and experience of the human brain. the imagery metaphor is just a specific image, and the temporary nature will be great. secondly, the image schema is a recurring organizational form of knowledge. it is the basis for understanding and understanding the broader concepts, it is continuous and systematic. therefore, for some image schema metaphors that can be perceived in daily life, it is easier to understand and to have the same opinion. because the image metaphor does not establish the same schema in the human brain, we will understand this metaphor according to its own cultural background and context. finally, relative to the image schema metaphor, because of the particularity of intentional metaphor, there will be more research value. 3. cognitive metaphor and translation 3.1 the relationship between cognitive metaphor and translation the understanding of metaphor is actually to map the concept of the source domain to the target domain, so as to achieve the purpose of re-recognizing the target domain. therefore, we need to have a full understanding of the background of the source domain before translating a work. at the same time, we need to pay attention to the fact that people in different cultural backgrounds may have different understandings and expressions of the same metaphor, but the basic concepts will still have great similarities. therefore, when translating metaphors, it is necessary to use the classification of cognitive metaphors, that is, on the basis of image schema metaphors and image metaphors; it can first have a basic judgment on the readability of the subject and target domains to be expressed in the source domain and then use a variety of translation methods. 3.2 translation strategies to cognitive metaphor 3.2.1 literal translation and free translation the biggest similarity between literal translation and free translation is to accurately express the thought, style and content of the source language. but literal translation emphasizes the structural form and is faithful to the original text, both to preserve the content of the original text, but also to retain the original form. on the basis of maintaining readability, the original thoughts and styles can be completely preserved, usually appearing in informational texts. when the metaphorical cognition and representative content of the two languages are the same, literal translation can achieve the equivalences between image and style. it should be noted that for the image emphasized by the author, literal translation must be used in the process of translation to express the role of this image. free translation is based on meaning. it does not need to pursue formal equivalence like literal translation. it does not need to pay too much attention to detail. it only needs to convey the original meaning of the original text. sometimes different ethnic groups have different cultural characteristics. therefore, the meaning of an image used in metaphor may be completely different between the source www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. domain and the target domain. at this time, the meaning of the author can be conveyed by means of free translation. 3.2.2 domestication and foreignization the theory of domestication and foreignization was first proposed by american scholar venuti. he believes: “the method of naturalization is to use ethnocentrism to force foreign texts to conform to the cultural value of the target language and send the author home. the method of alienation is to use non-ethnic centralism to impose the language and cultural characteristics of foreign texts on the culture of the target language. value, send readers out of the country” (venuti, p. 20). simply put, naturalization is to conform to the cultural conventions of the source language, and alienation is to conform to the cultural conventions of the target language. different national languages and cultures have different language expressions. when translating metaphors, we need to use the foreignization method to translate the original image, which can reflect the cultural characteristics of the source language and be accepted by a wide range of readers. when there is a big difference between the source language and the target language, when translate the metaphor, we can choose the domestication method, because at this time, the translator needs to be reader-centered and establish the same schema with the reader, and the naturalization is just right, it can reflect the characteristics and culture of the target language. 4. translation practice of cognitive metaphor 4.1 the translation of metaphor for words the translation of lexical metaphor requires not only a rich knowledge base, but also an understanding of the cultural meaning behind the word. sometimes, it is necessary to analyze the original text according to the context and understand the image represented by the metaphor. when translating words, we should have a comprehensive penetration of the concept in advance. when we encounter a metaphor, we can quickly establish a certain connection with the schema in our mind, so as to judge the translation of metaphor. for example, when we see red, in the traditional culture of china, red represents auspiciousness, and when we see sun, we think of light. these frequently used more extensive words in many people’s minds have established the same schema, the general translation will not appear too big deviation. in english, metaphors usually take the form of nouns and verbs. here are some examples: (1) lots of tropical rain forests are disappearing alarmingly. the destroyers are actually destroying the lungs of our planets. (2) on wall street, if you are out to lunch, you are lunch. (3) when the economic bubble mercifully bursts, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. in addition to the noun metaphor do not necessarily appear directly, but the verbs are mapped through association and connection. here are a few examples: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. (4) the thick carpet killed the sound of my footsteps. (5) the bird wolfed it. (6) he wormed through the snow and peered over a snow—covered rock beside the roadway. 4.2 translation of metaphor for phrases the translation of metaphorical phrases is mainly applied literary works, news reports and daily life. (1) the use of literary works it is doubtless a venture more demented than coupling with the pig, but it is our venture, our white whale, and by it or with it shall we be seduced. (2) use in newspapers or magazines how should the world get out of this bind? even as mr. trump puts up with astonishing irresponsibility, others must keep their heads. (3) use in daily life before so many audiences, i’m afraid i might lay an egg. 4.3 translation of metaphor for sentences the translation practice of metaphor in sentences, the two examples here use literal translation and free translation. (1) whole fashions in film are born, thrive, and die in twenty-four months. (2) talk of the devil, and he will appear. 4.4 translation of metaphor for paragraph the application of metaphor in the text mainly chooses the opening paragraph in austin’s pride and prejudice: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. analysis: the metaphor of this text belongs to the theme metaphor: marriage is a market. according to the law at the time, women cannot inherit property, only through marriage to obtain property and status. therefore, a single male and female constitute a marriage market. the use of metaphor here fully reflects the important position of the property at the time in the marriage market. 5. conclusion 5.1 major findings this thesis mainly discusses the study of metaphor from cognitive linguistics. through the classification of cognitive metaphors and some basic translation strategies, when encountering a metaphor, we can first judge the metaphor according to the context. it is an image schema metaphor or an image metaphor, and then according to the value of the metaphor and the cultural background behind the metaphor, then uses literal translation and free translation, foreignization and domestication to translate the metaphor. the main research value of this paper is to study and translate metaphor by applying the translation strategies mentioned in the previous article through the translation practice of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. words, phrases, sentences and texts. studying metaphors can enrich the cultural characteristics behind the words, and using metaphors in daily life can also enhance their own understanding and produce stronger artistic effects. 5.2 deficiencies of the research the deficiencies of this paper are that the materials selected for translation practice are limited, and it is impossible to fully analyze and study the translation of metaphors. at the same time, although this article introduces some basic translation strategies of metaphor, it is inevitable that errors will occur in the process of practical application. finally, due to the author’s inadequate ability limited time, the examples in this paper are inadequate and inappropriate to analyze metaphor translation with various translation strategies. and there are not many examples to prove the translation strategies mentioned in this paper, so it deserves putting into practice. in the future, the author will continue to collect some examples of metaphors and carry out some translation practices to enrich the understanding of metaphor. references goatlya, a. (1997). the language of metaphors. london: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203210000 lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (2003). metaphors we live by. chicago, il: the university of chicago press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001 littlemore, j. (2003). the effect of cultural background on metaphor interpretation. metaphor and symbol. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327868ms1804_4 newmark, p. (2001). approaches to translation. shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. ungerer, f., & hans-jrg, s. (2006). an introduction to cognitive linguistics(2nd ed.). london: pearson education limited. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 14 original paper exploration and research on the training mode of professional degree graduates-taking civil engineering and water conservancy as an example yu wu 1 , jun xu 1 , jie zhou 1 , & xiaofei wang 1 1 school of civil and architecture engineering, nanyang normal university, nanyang, 473061, henan, china received: april 7, 2024 accepted: april 21, 2024 online published: may 7, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n2p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n2p14 abstract with the rapid development of the social economy, the demand for talents is increasing. it is necessary to have a solid theoretical foundation and good hands-on and creative abilities. how to cultivate graduate students majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy is the most important issue for people. the exploration of the training mode for master’s students majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy mainly includes: establishing training objectives in the planning stage, formulating training plans, and developing evaluation indicators; the implementation phase includes teaching, research guidance, internships, and other stages; the assessment stage is to evaluate the academic level and teaching quality of graduate students majoring in wood water conservancy; in the improvement stage, based on the assessment results, adjust the training plan, improve the teaching methods for graduate students in the field of wood and water conservancy, and enhance the discipline construction; on this basis, through continuous pdca(plan-do-check-act) cycles, the overall quality and professional ability of talents have been further improved to meet the needs of social and industrial development. group 1 (experimental group) scored 85 points in time management, 90 points in resource allocation, and 88 points in risk control. four groups (control group) scored 75 points in time management, 78 points in resource allocation, and 72 points in risk control. this article aims to assist students in quickly integrating into the workplace and serving socio-economic development. keywords professional degree, postgraduate training mode, civil water conservancy, time management www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 15 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the graduate training model for civil engineering and water conservancy majors is aimed at providing students with systematic and in-depth professional knowledge and skills training for a certain major. the emergence of this talent cultivation model is due to the changing and increasing requirements for talents in chinese higher education, especially the urgent need for high-quality applied talents in various professional fields. the exploration and research on the professional degree graduate training model, taking civil engineering and water conservancy as an example, is a supplement and improvement to traditional undergraduate education. it is in line with the needs of social and economic development after china’s higher education has reached a certain stage of development. this article first provides the background of exploring the training mode for graduate students majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy, and points out the necessity of the current training mode for graduate students in civil engineering and water conservancy. secondly, it explores the training mode for graduate students. graduate education also has the characteristics of highlighting the guidance of mentors and guiding teachers to determine the learning content and main tasks of students. this has certain constraints on the independent choice of civil engineering and water conservancy graduate students, but is beneficial for improving their research abilities. at the same time, it also demonstrates characteristics such as equal emphasis on scientific research and teaching, standardization, and specialization. finally, explore the project-based training model, by conducting theoretical teaching in the classroom and combining it with specific engineering examples, so that students can have a deeper understanding of the theories they have learned and be able to apply them to solve practical problems. 2. related work postgraduate education mode is a complicated and diversified system, which should be constantly adjusted and optimized according to the development of the times and the requirements of reality, so as to better provide high-quality talents for social development. han shengli explored the reform and innovation of the training mode of professional degree postgraduates in the new era (han, sun, & bai, 2023). hao zhouhua studied the training mode of professional postgraduate students in cardiac surgery (hao, zhong, meng et al., 2020). chen wenxing explored the training mode of professional degree graduate students with deep integration of production and education (chen, 2023). zhang hongyan explored the “one core and three dimensions” postgraduate training mode and practiced and explored it (zhang, yang, & he, 2023). wen xiaoxia takes the graduate students in the direction of rail transit vehicles as an example to study the interdisciplinary vehicle engineering graduate training model (wen, cui, & du, 2021). xu w. x. discusses the current full-time postgraduate training mode (xu, 2022). mccarthy c. studied the influence of novel coronavirus epidemic on medical postgraduate education in china (mccarthy, 2020). erumeda n. j. analyzed the current situation of family medicine postgraduate training resources in china universities (erumeda, jenkins, & george, 2022). mccallum m studied the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. relationship between the socio-economic status of general practitioners and the certification of postgraduate training practice (mccallum, hanlon, mair et al., 2020). ray s. explores the research progress of master’s degree education in pharmacy in colleges and universities from the perspective of postgraduate training. but their research is not good for the cultivation of graduate students (ray, johnson, lokken et al., 2023). in today’s rapidly developing science, technology, and economy, the requirements for professional talents in various industries have also changed accordingly. traditional undergraduate education has become difficult to meet the industry’s requirements for professional talents, leading to the emergence of a professional degree training model centered on professional knowledge and technology. the rapid development of technology has constantly updated people’s knowledge, while traditional teaching has fallen far behind the development of industries. with the continuous development of information technology, the cultivation of graduate students majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy is increasingly emphasizing the cultivation of their hands-on ability, innovation ability, and problem-solving ability, so that they can adapt to the ever-changing knowledge structure. the development of many industries has become increasingly interdisciplinary, requiring versatile talents with knowledge and skills in multiple fields. graduate education in civil engineering and water conservancy usually focuses more on interdisciplinary integration, cultivating students with the ability to solve problems across fields. 3. method 3.1 postgraduate training mode the graduate training mode of civil engineering and water conservancy refers to a series of educational measures taken in the implementation process of civil engineering and water conservancy graduate education to achieve the training objectives and corresponding standardized quality. it includes postgraduate admission, course teaching, scientific research, social practice, thesis writing and other educational stages, as well as the specific methods of thesis defense. it consists of many factors, such as training purpose, training process and training method, and is influenced by many factors, such as social needs, economic development level and students’ characteristics. at the same time, graduate student in civil engineering and water conservancy also has the characteristics of highlighting the guidance of tutors and guiding teachers to determine students’ learning content and main tasks, which restricts graduate students’ independent choice to some extent, but is beneficial to improving students’ scientific research ability. at the same time, it also shows the characteristics of equal emphasis on scientific research and teaching, standardization and specialization. compared with foreign countries, china’s postgraduate training mode has certain advantages in the field of training and theoretical connection, but there are still some disadvantages, such as focusing on theoretical study, less practical links and tutorial system. however, drawing lessons from the experience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. of the united states, foreign graduate education models put more emphasis on the improvement of students’ independent thinking, scientific research, practical ability and employment competitiveness. it is assumed that the quality of graduate student in civil engineering and water conservancy education q is determined by many factors, which may include the quality of tutor’s guidance m, the quality of curriculum c, the quality of scientific research practice r and students’ own ability s. these factors can be regarded as variables with different weights, which jointly affect the quality of culture. therefore, we can establish a weighted linear model to evaluate the quality of postgraduate education: (1) among them, w1, w2, w3, w4, are the weights of various factors, which can be adjusted according to the actual situation. this formula expresses a basic view that the quality of postgraduate education is the result of multiple factors. in the process of cultivating graduate students majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy, there is a certain relationship between the input cost tb and the output benefit b. costs may include teaching expenses, investment in scientific research equipment, tutor’s salary etc., while benefits may be reflected in graduate students’ scientific research achievements, employment competitiveness and social contributions. in order to analyze the cost-effectiveness of postgraduate education, we can establish a simple proportional model: (2) xz is a benefit index. this formula is used to measure the benefits per unit cost in the process of postgraduate training. the higher the benefit index, the better the cost-effectiveness of the cultivation process. 3.2 explore the project-oriented training mode project design and implementation: first of all, according to the actual needs of civil engineering, water conservancy and other industries, design a challenging topic that includes many important links such as scheme design and construction management. secondly, guide students to carry out research, and cultivate students’ practical ability and problem-solving ability in hands-on operation. practical guidance and feedback: establish a full-time teaching team to provide targeted internship guidance for graduate students majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy, to ensure that students can receive effective guidance during the internship period. at the same time, timely feedback and evaluation should be provided on the actual operation of the trainees, identifying existing problems and providing improvement suggestions, so that they can continuously improve their abilities. integration of theory and practice: in the implementation process of the project, attention should be paid to the combination of theory and practical application. by conducting theoretical teaching in the classroom and combining specific engineering examples, students can have a deeper understanding of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. the theories they have learned and be able to apply them to solve practical problems. team collaboration and communication: in engineering teaching, emphasis should be placed on cultivating the team collaboration and communication skills of graduate students majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy. through methods such as group discussions and communication, students have improved their collaborative abilities in group activities. 3.3 combining pdca research to cultivate pdca (plan do check act) is a continuous improvement management method that can be applied to the design and implementation of graduate training models for civil engineering and water conservancy majors. the following are the specific steps for combining the pdca method: step 1. plan: clear training objectives: to define the professional knowledge, skills, and cultural literacy of the talents to be trained. develop training plan: based on the teaching objectives, determine the curriculum, internship stage arrangement, and graduation thesis requirements. develop evaluation index: to provide evaluation indicators for evaluating students’ academic performance, research ability, practical experience etc. step 2. do (implementation): course implementation: according to the training plan, carry out teaching activities such as classroom lectures, experiments, and internships. responsible for scientific research of graduate students majoring in wood water conservancy, guiding their research plans, improving their scientific research level, and enhancing their innovation awareness. provide internship opportunities: arrange internship, internship and other internship stages to enable graduate students majoring in wood water conservancy to apply the knowledge and skills they have learned to practical engineering projects. step 3. check: academic evaluation of graduate students majoring in wood water conservancy: regular evaluation of the academic performance and progress of graduate students majoring in wood water conservancy, including tests and paper progress. teaching quality evaluation: collect feedback and teaching effectiveness from graduate students majoring in wood water conservancy, evaluate teaching quality, and identify existing problems and shortcomings. step 4. act (improvement): adjust the training plan based on the assessment results: adjust and optimize the training plan according to the problems and defects found during the assessment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. improving educational methods: based on the evaluation of teaching quality, improve educational methods, teaching methods, and educational outcomes. strengthen professional construction: based on the needs of graduate students majoring in wood water conservancy and the development dynamics of the industry, adjust the professional structure and research direction, and continuously improve the competitiveness of the profession. 4. results and discussion 4.1 evaluation scores and comprehensive scores of different groups of civil and water conservancy graduate students from different perspectives in team collaboration ability assessment the evaluation scores and comprehensive scores of different groups of civil engineering and water conservancy graduate students from different perspectives in team collaboration ability assessment are shown in figure 1. diversity of evaluation angles: it is evaluated from three perspectives: classmates, tutors and students’ self-evaluation, which can provide a relatively comprehensive and multi-dimensional evaluation perspective. each angle may capture different aspects of students’ teamwork ability, thus reflecting students’ actual situation more accurately. score: judging from the scores, the scores of 1, 2 and 3 (experimental group) are generally high, and both peer evaluation, tutor evaluation and self-evaluation show relatively high teamwork ability. the scores of 4, 5 and 6 (control group) are relatively low, which implies that the students in the experimental group may perform better in teamwork ability. comprehensive score analysis: the comprehensive score is calculated through the evaluation scores from different angles, which helps to reduce the deviation of single-angle evaluation. judging from the comprehensive score, the average comprehensive score of the students in the experimental group is higher than that of the students in the control group, which further proves the advantages of the students in the experimental group in teamwork ability. intra-group differences: within the experimental group, there are some differences in scores among students, but they are at a high level as a whole. similarly, there are differences in scores within the control group, but the overall score is low. this shows that even in the same group, students’ teamwork ability will be different. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. figure 1. evaluation scores and comprehensive scores of different groups of civil and water conservancy graduate students from different perspectives in team collaboration ability assessment 4.2 employment competitiveness survey by tracking the employment situation of graduates majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy, including indicators such as employment rate, starting salary, and job level, a comparative analysis is conducted on the employment competitiveness of students in the experimental group and the control group. in addition, through enterprise follow-up and questionnaire surveys, comprehensive evaluations of graduates by employers are collected to further evaluate the impact of project-based training mode on the employment competitiveness of civil engineering and water conservancy students. groups 1, 2 and 3 are experimental groups, and groups 4, 5 and 6 are control groups, with a full score of 100. group 1 scored 85 points for time management, 90 points for resource allocation and 88 points for risk control. the time management score of the two groups is 82, the resource allocation score is 85 and the risk control score is 92. the three groups scored 90 points for time management, 88 points for resource allocation and 85 points for risk control. the four groups scored 75 points for time management, 78 points for resource allocation and 72 points for risk control. the time management score, resource allocation score and risk control score of different groups are shown in figure 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. figure 2. time management score, resource allocation score and risk control score of different groups 4.3 employment situation and enterprise evaluation of graduates majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy the employment situation and enterprise evaluation of graduates majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy are shown in table 1. table 1 is used to demonstrate the comparative analysis of the employment competitiveness of the experimental group and the control group students by tracking the employment situation of graduates and enterprise evaluation. table 1. employment situation and enterprise evaluation of graduates majoring in civil engineering and water conservancy group employment rate average starting salary (yuan/month) job level distribution employer comprehensive evaluation score (out of 100) experiment group 95% 8000 junior position: 30% 85 intermediate position: 50% senior positions: 20% control group 85% 7000 junior position: 50% 75 intermediate position: 40% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. senior position: 10% the employment rate represents the proportion of students in the experimental group and the control group who successfully find employment after graduation; the average starting salary represents the average salary level of students at the time of their first employment; the distribution of job levels lists the proportion of positions at different levels to reflect the job positions of civil engineering and water conservancy students in the job market; the comprehensive evaluation score of employers is a comprehensive evaluation of civil engineering and water conservancy graduates collected through enterprise follow-up and questionnaire surveys, with a maximum score of 100 points. it is possible to evaluate the impact of project-based training mode on the employment competitiveness of students. for example, the employment rate and average starting salary of students majoring in civil and water conservancy in the experimental group are higher, and the proportion of senior positions is higher. this may indicate that the project-based training model has certain advantages in enhancing the employment competitiveness of students. meanwhile, the employer’s comprehensive evaluation score can also serve as a reference indicator for evaluating the comprehensive quality and adaptability of students. in practical research, the accuracy and reliability of data can be improved by expanding the sample size and increasing tracking time. in addition, other employment competitiveness evaluation indicators such as graduate employment satisfaction and career development can be combined to comprehensively evaluate the impact of project-based training mode on student employment competitiveness. 5. conclusion against the backdrop of optimizing the structure of higher education and improving the quality of talent cultivation in china, the country and academia have paid high attention to professional degree graduate education and introduced multiple policies to promote the development of this model. this article believes that in engineering teaching, emphasis should be placed on cultivating students’ teamwork and communication skills. through group discussions and communication methods, students have improved their collaboration and collaboration abilities in group activities. the employment rate of students in the experimental group is higher, the average starting salary is higher, and the proportion of senior positions is higher. this may indicate that the project-based training model has certain advantages in improving the competitiveness of students in employment. in the future, innovative models of graduate training can be explored to promote the employment and further development of graduate students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. the 2023 graduate education reform and quality improvement project of nanyang normal university: “research on the professional degree graduate training model based on pdca” (2023zlgc12); the 2023 graduate education reform and quality improvement project of nanyang normal university (2023zlgc11); ministry of education industry-university-research collaborative education project (202102600012); research teaching demonstration course of nanyang normal university (2023-yjkc-010). 2024 higher education teaching reform research and practice project of henan province (major)-taking water as the soul: exploration and practice of application-oriented talents training in local colleges and universities facing national strategy. references chen, w. x. 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(2021). research on the training mode of vehicle engineering postgraduate based on interdisciplinary—taking rail transit vehicle direction postgra duate. journal of chongqing jiaotong university(social sciences edition), 21(5), 115-120. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 24 published by scholink inc. xu, w. x. (2022). discussion on the current training mode of full-time postgraduate. frontiers of educational research: chinese and english edition, 12(3), 84-89. zhang, h. y., yang, g. y., & he, w. (2023). practice and exploration of “one core and three dimensions” postgraduate training mode. journal of higher education, 9(12), 1-5. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper a qualitative course-based inquiry into the use of strengths-based language in child and youth care residential field practicums gerard bellefeuille1*, lerynne biton2, yulieth chinchilla2, francesca doniego2, hiba iqbal2, vivian lin2, anett parokkaran2, & angelo sison2 1 professor, child and youth care, macewan university, edmonton, alberta, canada 2 bcyc, child and youth care, macewan university, edmonton, alberta, canada * gerard bellefeuille, professor, child and youth care, macewan university, edmonton, alberta, canada received: june 26, 2021 accepted: july 9, 2021 online published: july 21, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n3p1 abstract the strengths-based approach is a cornerstone of relational-centered child and youth care (cyc) practice. however, few studies have investigated the use of the strengths-based approach in a cyc residential setting for youth and children. hence, this qualitative course-based study explores the use of strengths-based language as observed by cyc students in residential field practicums. data were collected through an online semi-structured interview (using the google meet platform) with a purposive sample of thirdand fourth-year cyc students at macewan university, canada. four main themes were extracted from the data analysis: “not in plain sight”, “a product of feeling stressed”, “lacking the confidence to speak out”, and “reframing”. keywords child and youth care, course-based research, strength-based, qualitative 1. introduction acquiring the skills and approaches to practice using a strengths-based approach is an important part of relational-centered cyc education (bellefeuille & jamieson, 2008; garfat, freeman, gharabaghi, & fulcher, 2018). the core principles of strengths-based practice are that all people have strengths and capacities and can change given the right conditions and resources (mccasken, 2005). as such, the strengths-based approach avoids the use of deficits-based labels and instead draws upon a different www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. language that stresses the positive attributes of a person, which allows them to see opportunities, hope, and potential solutions (laursen, 2003). importantly, the strengths-based approach does not attempt to ignore problems and difficulties but rather to identify a person’s resources and strengths as a way to encourage growth and change. for example, the strengths-based approach employs the following strategies: (a) normalizing (i.e., helping a person to understand that their reaction to a problem is a normal and understandable response to life’s difficulties); (b) reframing (i.e., redefining a problem and considering it in a different way, especially in a way that makes it manageable, concrete and specific, which opens the way for change); (c) noticing and externalizing (i.e., the problem is the problem; the person is not the problem); and (d) identifying exceptions (i.e., finding exceptions to the problem; brendtro & ness, 1995). all of these strengths-based strategies emphasize cooperating and facilitating rather than fixing and focus on potential rather than dysfunction. 1.1 the field practicum context of cyc education field practicums are an integral part of cyc education curriculums. students undertake their practicums in a variety of settings (e.g., schools, family support programs, residential care facilities, and community-based programs). the purpose of field practicums is to enable students to integrate the academic curriculums (i.e., theories and applied practice skills) of the cyc profession with the practical day-to-day fieldwork of cyc (cyceab, 2021). these practicums provide an opportunity for students to take what they have learned about strengths-based practice and various theoretical frameworks and practice them in real life. practicums also allow students to explore what type of cyc work they wish to pursue upon graduation. 1.2 the practice context of the cyc profession there is little debate that cyc, like other helping disciplines, is a stressful profession (krueger, 2002; savicki, 1993, 2002). according to bellefeuille and berikoff (2020), cyc work has not only been historically a very challenging and emotionally exhausting profession, but it is practiced today “in communities that are radically more diverse, much less certain or predictable, and considerably more complex” (p. 14). in addition, cyc students who engage in residential care practicums (e.g., group homes and residential treatment facilities) experience higher levels of stress than students in other practicum placements such as school, family support, and community-based placements because of the “high-risk” behaviors of children and youth placed in residential care. these children and youth often have significant psychological, behavioral, and emotional problems and cyc workers aim to avoid reactive responses (e.g., negative labels and coercive behavior controlling responses) and practice using a strengths-based approach. hence, this qualitative course-based research project explores the use of strengths-based language as observed by cyc students in residential field practicums as evidence of a strengths-based approach to residential care settings. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. 2. undergraduate course-based research: a pedagogical tool to foster criticality, reflectivity, and praxis this section begins with a word about course-based research. the bachelor of child and youth care program at macewan university is continuously searching for new pedagogical approaches to foster critical thinking, reflection, and praxis as integral components of the overall student educational experience. as such, a course-based research approach, in contrast to the traditional didactic approach to research-methods instruction, offers fourth-year undergraduate students the opportunity to master introductory research skills by conceptualizing, designing, administering, and showcasing small low-risk research projects under the guidance and supervision of the course instructor—commonly, a professor with an extensive background in research and teaching. the use of course-based research in higher education has increased substantially in recent years (allyn, 2013; bellefeuille, ekdahl, kent, & kluczny, 2014; harrison, dunbar, ratmansky, boyd, & lopatto, 2010). the benefits derived from a course-based approach to teaching research methods are significant for cyc students. first, there is value in providing students with authentic learning experiences that enhance the transfer of knowledge learned in traditional education practice. for example, former students have reported that their engagement in course-based research enabled them to deepen their scientific knowledge by adopting new methods of creative inquiry. second, course-based research offers students the opportunity to work with instructors in a mentoring relationship; one result is that a greater number of student’s express interest in advancing to graduate studies. third, results generated through course-based research can sometimes be published in peer-reviewed journals and online open-access portals and thereby contribute to the discipline’s knowledge base. the ethical approval required to permit students to conduct course-based research projects is granted to the course instructor by the university’s research ethics board (reb). student research groups are then required to complete an reb application form for each course-based research project undertaken in the class; each application is reviewed by the course instructor and an reb committee to ensure that the project is completed in compliance with the ethics review requirements of the university. 3. research paradigms research paradigms inherently reflect the views researchers hold about (a) the nature of reality and what they can know about it (i.e., ontology); (b) the process by which knowledge is acquired and validated (i.e., epistemology); and (c) appropriate strategies for collecting and analyzing data, such as questionnaires and open-ended interviews (i.e., methodology; creswell, 2013; denzin & linclon, 2011). according to grix (2004), “ontology and epistemology are to research what ‘footings’ are to a house: they form the foundations of the whole edifice” (p. 59). both the interpretivist and critical paradigms shaped the methodological design of this course-based study. the central aim of the interpretivist paradigm is to understand the subjective world of human www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. experience (glesne, 1999). emphasis is, therefore, placed on understanding how humans make meaning of their worlds (bhattacherjee, 2012). interpretivist research is aptly attuned to the ontological and epistemological foundations of cyc relational-centered practice, in which knowledge and meaning-making are regarded as a product of social relationships embedded in cultural, socio-economic, and socio-political contexts (bellefeuille & ricks, 2010). as bellefeuille and jamieson (2008) stated in bellefeuille et al. (2017), “the basic contention of relational theory is the notion that the self is a process of relatedness” in which “the self is not so much a personal possession but a reflection of one’s relational experiences” (p. 47). this course-based research study is also informed by the critical research paradigm. the critical research paradigm goes further than the interpretive paradigm to not only aim to increase understanding but to address the political, social, and economic injustice in society by promoting critical awareness (kivunja & kuyini, 2017). relational-centered cyc education incorporates critical pedagogy throughout the curriculum to prepare students to act with moral courage as they face ethical challenges in the field and to serve as cultural stewards of their profession (bellefeuille & berikoff, 2020). 4. research design a research design is a framework or blueprint for answering a research question (creswell, 2013). since the overarching purpose of this course-based study is to explore cyc students’ experiences in field placements regarding their observations of the use of strengths-based language, a qualitative, descriptive approach was deemed to be the most appropriate. thorne, reimer-kirkham, and macdonald-emes (1997) defined a qualitative descriptive research design as that which seeks to describe and interpret a phenomenon through the lens of those who live it. creswell (2013) further explained that the strength of qualitative descriptive research is in its focus on gaining greater insight into how people interpret their experiences and construct their worldviews. 5. statement of research question how do cyc students in residential care field practicums experience the use of strengths-based language? 6. sampling strategy a nonprobability convenience sampling strategy was used to recruit participants for this course-based study. nonprobability sampling involves a non-random selection of participants (battaglia, 2008). it is a commonly used sampling strategy in qualitative research to identify and select “information-rich” participants from whom the most can be learned (patton, 2002). the inclusion criteria for this study were that participants were thirdor fourth-year cyc students on a residential care practicum. six third-year and 19 fourth-year students participated in the study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. 7. data collection strategy due to the covid-19 outbreak, a semi-structured online interview (using the google meet platform) was used as the primary data collection strategy. the literature contains a wealth of information on the benefits of remote data collection methods (chen & neo, 2019; ferrante et al., 2016; tuttas, 2015). the reported benefits of remote data collection strategies include flexibility in time and location, as well as convenience, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness for both the researcher and participants (cater, 2011; deakin & wakefield, 2014; fielding, lee, & blank, 2016). 8. data analysis thematic analysis was used to identify themes. as braun and clark (2006) explain, thematic analysis is not only the process of identifying themes within qualitative data; the researcher also becomes an instrument for analysis. as such, each qualitative method or approach to thematic analysis has specific techniques for conducting, documenting, and evaluating data analysis processes (starks & trinidad, 2007), but it is the individual researcher’s responsibility to assure rigor and trustworthiness. although numerous examples exist of methods for conducting qualitative data analysis, for the purpose of this course-based research study, we used the six steps described by braun and clarke (2006): (1) familiarizing oneself with the data, (2) generating initial codes, (3) searching for themes, (4) reviewing and refining, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) producing the report. 9. findings four main themes were extracted from the data analysis: (1) “not in plain sight”, (2) “a product of feeling stressed”, (3) “lacking the confidence to speak out”, and (4) “reframing”. 9.1 not in plain sight several of the participants talked about hearing the use of deficits-based language but not in the presence of the youth. for example, one participant stated that “deficits-based language happens more often when clients are absent from the setting”. another participant noted that deficits-based language mostly takes place during staff meetings and or during shift exchanges. other participants made comments such as “i hear it used between staff”, “i feel like it is usually when all the staff are together”, and “[the staff] use it as a vent thing during staff-to-staff conversations”. 9.2 a product of feeling stressed the next common theme that emerged was how feeling stressed played a role in the use of deficits-based language. for example, many of the participants commented that staff used deficits-based language “most often in a situation where they felt frustrated over not knowing what to do with a child”. other participants reported that staff were more prone to using deficits-based language when they were tired and so projected their frustrations onto the children in their care. the participants commonly stated that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. deficits-based language was used as a reaction to feeling frustrated, uncertain, and tired, all of which are related to stress. 9.3 lacking the confidence to speak out a third theme that surfaced was the participants’ feeling of being helpless to correct the language of other staff members. the participants referred to the power imbalance of being students and feeling that they could not voice their concerns over the use of deficits-based language by some of the staff. as one participant noted, “[the fact that] i am just a student came up multiple times during the data collection interview process”. several participants talked about how uncomfortable they were when staff used deficits-based language, because they knew that this language use was improper but were reluctant to verbally correct it for fear of jeopardizing their practicum placement. the participants shared that they often felt frustrated and upset about how professionals used deficits-based language toward the children and youth with whom they worked. during one interview, a participant shared that they felt “overwhelmed, because [they] do not know how to address such actions knowing that [they are] just a student”. 9.4 reframing while the majority of the participants did not feel sufficiently confident to speak out when deficits-based language was used, a minority made an effort to reframe the deficits-based language they encountered into strengths-based terms. this group of participants talked about how they chose to model strengths-based language by (as one participant phrased it) utilizing their “reframing skills to encourage positive reinforcing language”. this group of participants also offered other perspectives “through posing questions that possibly create an active and less provoking meaning into the behaviors that the children and youth displayed”. one of these participants stated that “debriefing with my supervisor at the end of the shift gave [them] the opportunity to voice [their] perspective concerning the labels”. participants expressed that they felt uncomfortable confronting other workers who were labeling negatively. 10. conclusion despite the emphasis that is placed on strengths-based practice in cyc education, there is a lack of research on how and whether it is applied in cyc practice settings. this course-based research study provided insight into the culture of residential settings concerning the use of strengths-based language. an important finding was that although cyc students are taught the importance of strengths-based language in the classroom, what is happening in the field is unknown. the findings have implications for cyc education and practice. cyc instructors can make use of these findings to promote further discussion and use of strengths-based practice and methods for challenging the use of deficits-based language in field practicums. finally, given the need to conduct more research in this area, further investigation should take place at the faculty level or in future student-led course-based research projects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. references allyn, d. a. 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(2015). lessons learned using web conference technology for online focus group interviews. qualitative health research, 25(1), 122-133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732314549602 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 55 original paper qualitative study models in understanding of aggression, bullying, and violence c. girija navaneedhan1* & t. j. kamalanabhan1 1 department of management studies, indian institute of technology, madras * c. girija navaneedhan, department of management studies, indian institute of technology, madras received: april 30, 2020 accepted: may 11, 2020 online published: may 18, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p55 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p55 abstract aggression in humans is characterised under two categories a) physical and b) mental aggression. physical aggression is the psychological as well as social behaviour in which an individual literally causes physical harm leading to pain on another individual, whereas mental aggression is the one in which an individual causes emotional pain verbally on another individual. both the types of aggression damages social well-being of the individuals involved in it. this scenario is similar to the outbreak of tsunami followed by an earth quake. in both the situation the consequence is damage. bullying is a psychological act of provocation as the result of destress by the individuals exhibiting their power on others. though bullying is very common in school environment, it also occurs in office environment etc. bullying causes emotional damage to a greater extent compared to physical damage. violence is the product of aggression and bullying resulting in physical injury as well as emotional break down. the present chapter discusses in detail a qualitative model in understanding of the acts of aggression and bullying resulting in violence as well as suggestions controlling the act of aggression and bullying. keywords aggression, bullying, psychological act, provocation and damage 1. introduction aggression is a negative feeling that occurs when an individual experiences rejection from whom they are closely associated with (downey, irwin, ramsay, & ayduk, 2004). it is also seen in individuals having a false feeling of threat from others (crick & dodge, 1994). people who tend to be aggressive in nature believe in adopting violence as a strategy to solve interpersonal conflicts (anderson, 1997; dill, anderson, & deuser, 1997). in general youth take shelter in adopting violence to solve social situations (baumeister, smart, & boden, 1996). research studies have proven that people with low self-esteem www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 56 published by scholink inc. are more aggressive than people with high self-esteem. individuals with low self-esteem have a feel of insecurity and prone to anger as their self -image is threatened (kernis, brockner, & frankel, 1989; baumeister et al., 1996). for example, students who tend to bully others are those who always want to be the centre of attention, selfish, and who cannot take criticism (salmivalli & nieminen, 2002). it appears that these people are highly motivated to protect their inflated self-concepts and react with anger and aggression when it is threatened. in a study conducted by salmivalli, ojanen, haanpaa, and peets (2005), on a group of fifth and sixth grade children asking them to fill a series of questions regarding describing themselves, their relationship with others, children whose concern about themselves are rated as aggressive and those who care for others are rated as altruistic. several studies have shown that gender plays an important role in aggression (archer & coyne, 2005; crick & nelson, 2002). men are found to be more aggressive in comparison to women. aggressive women and girls indulge in shouting, insulting, spreading rumours, abstaining others from activities. whereas, men indulge in physical violence such as hitting, pushing, tripping and kicking (österman et al., 1998). world-wide the data shows that 99% of rapes are committed by men, as are about 90% of robberies, assaults, and murders (graham & wells, 2001). among children, boys show higher rates of physical aggression than girls do (loeber & hay, 1997), and even infants differ, such that infant boys tend to show more anger and poorer emotional regulation in comparison to infant girls. the reason probably is men desire to grab more attention among peers compared to women. this does not mean that women are not aggressive, both men and women become provocative as well as aggressive as they encounter insults. this gender difference in aggressiveness among men and women can also be related to their individual hormone levels. testosterone, which exists at higher levels in boys and men, plays a significant role in aggression, and this is in part responsible for these differences. another contributing factor to gender differences is evolutionary pattern. in olden days women used to do cooking and take care of children on contrary men do hunting, fighting etc which symbolically represented them to be more aggressive. in addition to this, men are generally competitive to each other in gaining status in turn is related to attract women (buss & shackelford, 1997). according to eagly (1987) and her colleagues, social norms and expectations contribute to gender differences. according eagly (1987) in many nations women are expected to be humble, friendly and emotionally balanced. when they express anger and destress, they are considered aggressive. on the other hand, men show independence, assertiveness, aggressiveness if it is related to their social or material rewards. the following model depicts the link between aggression, bullying, violence and victimization. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 57 published by scholink inc. figure 1. aggression model: the model explains aggressive behaviour arises due to the above five factors leading to bullying, victimization and violence 2. aggression and violence there is strong evidence that aggression leads to violence. research studies have shown that one of reasons for aggression is the socioeconomic status. children with low socioeconomic status are found to be more aggressive compared to their peers with moderate and high socio-economic status, the reason being children with low socioeconomic status are vulnerable child abuse affecting their psychological well-being (caspi et al., 2002). though aggression mainly depends on biological factors, low socio-economic status acts as a trigger, zigler, taussig and black (1992) suggested that aggressive behaviour leading to violence can be changed with improving cognition and emotion. therefore, children in their formative years to be targeted to bring in effective change in behaviour having a check of their thoughts and feelings. many attempts world-wide to check aggressive behaviour leading to violence through “boot camps,” individual and group therapy, and “scared straight” programs in rehabilitation centre proved to be unsuccessful unless it is addressed at grass root level by personal interventions by teachers and parents at a tender age. in order to prevent aggressive behaviour among children is to prevent them from exposure to violence in day to day life as well as discouraging them watching violent films, playing violent video games, having a close monitor on children’s activities. children behaving aggressively are to be diverted with laughter which drastically brings change in their behaviour rather than encountering with aggression. it is necessary to have a check on emotions, otherwise leads to negative behaviour of arousal. therefore, children are to be trained to think about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 58 published by scholink inc. their feelings, learn the ways to respond negative emotions depending on the situations to find most effective solution to overcome frustration or anger (berkowitz, 1993). in most of the cultures world-wide parents send their children to schools at a very tender age thinking that the school is the best place for their children safety. whereas, a few children aggressive in nature, have shown violent behaviour indulging themselves in shooting incidents due to the free availability of hand guns and other violent materials. therefore, school systems must strictly enforce laws to prevent the students from teasing, threatening or any kind of mistreat on fellow students. countries like canada, new zealand and united states have recently passed a legislation to stop cyberbullying. the following are a few suggestions to overcome aggressive behaviour leading to bullying among children and adolescents.  by reducing the gap in the socioeconomic status between rich and poor sections of the society which in turn reduce upward comparison by the poverty-stricken society leading to frustration, aggression eventually to violence.  by educating children and adolescents the causes of violence might result in less aggressiveness.  by giving support and rehabilitation of young adults under the influence of drugs and alcohol as well as making them understand that substance abuse lead to aggressive behaviour.  by counselling the children to reduce violence who grow up in abusive homes having the opinion aggressiveness is considered as normal behaviour.  by encouraging the children to think positively and develop concern about other from young age, might result in increase in positive feeling about themselves as well as with others helping them to communicate better, reducing violence and aggression. 3. some of the qualitative methods on bullying, aggression and violence several research studies have been published about bullying, aggression and violence for the past three decades in international journals (bjorqvist, 1994; hawker & boulton 2000; rigby, 2003; salmon et al., 2000; smith, 2004; smith & brain, 2000). world-wide out of 75 research studies conducted so far 7 are found to be based on qualitative methods and the rest are either quantitative or mixed research. according to torrance (2000), qualitative research on bullying gives implicit understanding as the participants victimized by bullying narrates their personal experiences. this is also supported by stewin and mah (2001). according to yauch and steudel (2003) quantitative and qualitative methods differ in their approach based on the fact that the quantitative research method involves the collection of the data by survey or other measurement techniques. whereas the qualitative research involves the collection of the data through interviews, focus groups and participants observation. smircich (1980) suggested that the researcher has to decide to choose the appropriate method based on the assumptions and nature of the social phenomenon under investigation. therefore, it is suggested that a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods is recommended to understand the assumptions thoroughly. however, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 59 published by scholink inc. greene, caracelli and graham (1989) confirmed that there are three main reasons for combining the quantitative and qualitative methods. 1) triangulation for supporting data and obtaining the convergent validity. 2) complementarity for fully explaining the results of data analysis. 3) guiding for further data collection, sampling or analysis. yauch and steudel (2003) mentioned that on overall basis, mixed methods have the potential to enhance the understanding of the problem. nearly 25 mixed research studies published in academic journals on bullying, aggression, violence as the main area of focus revealed new insights, complimentary and divergent findings. delara (2000) findings based on a research study involving high school students on sense of safety and the variables contributing to bullying. the research study involved mixed methods that is exploratory case study, quantitatively examining the student’s perception about safety of their school through survey and qualitatively through focus groups as well as individual interviews with students, teachers and school administrators regarding methodologies adopted to prevent bullying. the findings of her study from qualitative data revealed that the girls believe in seeking conflict resolution among their peers compared to boys. the findings from the focus groups and interviews revealed that the students expressed the need for adult supervision and intervention in bullying incidents. though delara (2000) findings are contradicting to earlier research findings on bullying where students hesitate to report the incidents of bullying to adults. the qualitative research findings are found to be in agreement with the survey findings. the findings of the study added much depth in understanding the student’s perception about the school environment. another research study based on mixed methods was conducted by kulig, hall and kalischunk (2008) on student’s perceptions and experiences in bullying, victimization, the study involved a self rep-report questionnaire administered to a total of 180 students and in-depth interviews with 52students. the results of both the qualitative and quantitate were complimentary revealing the validity of the research report. similarly, researches conducted by journal entries, participatory field observations which are qualitative in nature are fond to increase the validity of the study as the results were trustworthy with survey. another study conducted by pelligirini, long (2002) and varjas et al. (2006) on students transiting from elementary to middle school on bullying. in this study the researchers used multi-informant mixed methods to provide acceptable definition on bullying behaviour of both accused as well as victims. the study involved 421 participants moving from fifth grade to seventh grade. the participants are instructed to make dairy entries regarding experiences and observation on bullying recollecting the incidents within 24 hours once in a month through the academic year followed by peer nominations and self-reports. the results revealed increase in the validity of the constructs of bullying using mixed methods reducing the type i error. vajras et al. (2006) studied the bullying victimization on urban students to evaluate an intervention strategy using mixed methods approach by means of group interviews, curriculum worksheets, acceptability measures namely: evaluation of participant’s feeling about the session by listening to audiotapes. quantitative measurement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 60 published by scholink inc. involved assessment of a questionnaire from behaviour assessment system for children and revised child self-report post traumatic stress reaction index. findings from qualitative data revealed that the some of the indicators of bullying are racial minority status based on skin colour, physical differences, perceived sexual differences that is labelled as gay or lesbian by peers and a new student in the school. the qualitative research findings were complementary to quantitative analyses. therefore, both quantitative and qualitative research methods to understand in depth about aggression, bullying and violence are proved to be effective in data collection, analysis and interpretation. they are several research studies carried out by mixed methods reported divergent findings posing certain limitations, linkroums (2006) examined the coping mechanism of coping bullying among 213 african american middle school students who were randomly selected by administering a questionnaire to find out their experiences in bullying, semi structured interviews were conducted on 80 students qualitatively to know about their coping strategies. the findings showed 15 coping strategies, 13 strategies out of 15 were found to form a social cluster. however, the regression model derived from quantitative data was found to be not in agreement with the responses obtained from interview qualitatively. divergence in findings reported from self-report and interview considered as the limitations of the mixed methods. another research study by cowie and olafsson (2000) reported divergence in qualitative and quantitative data findings. they examined the impact peer support services program adopted by a high school with high rate of bullying to reduce the aggressive behaviour. the program consisted of students serving as peer supporters meeting the other students during lunch and instructing them to be vigilant on incidences of bullying and to intervene appropriately. the researchers conducted evaluation administering the questionnaire quantitatively twice to collect pre-test and post-test data. the result of the analysis showed insignificant differences between pre-test and post-test showing that the peer support service program did not reduce bullying. whereas, qualitative research conducted by taking interviews with peer supporters, students and the students who received interventions (victims). the results showed that the incidents of bullying reduced by adopting peer support services and the students who are victims felt that peer supporters were helpful with timely intervention. therefore, the rich qualitative data proved the strength of peer student support service program in reducing the incidents of bullying, otherwise merely going by the results of quantitative data one would infer that peer student support service program as ineffective in reducing bullying. pool et al. (2010) suggested that mixed methods often lead to inconsistency involving both quantitative and qualitative analysis, no attempt has been made to find out the reasons for such inconsistencies in research findings. though there is lots of scope for research on bullying the methods adopted, mixed methods are widely used in the research on bullying. another study by swearer and esplelage (2011) focused to find how technology is used in bullying and violence by students used mixed methods. this type of bullying is referred as cyber bullying, digital harassment. therefore, more mixed method research is necessary to find the loop holes in networking sites, blogging communities, virtual communities. there is strong evidence to show why mixed methods are recommended in the studies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 61 published by scholink inc. involving aggression , bullying, violence considering the inconsistent results shown by 16 quantitative studies involving meta-analysis on 15,000 students (from kindergarten to twelfth grades) in europe, canada, and united states revealed positive effects in bullying for about 1/3rd of the studies, while no changes were found in rest of the studies. swedish council for crime prevention evaluated 44 research studies on effectiveness preventing bullying by adopting olweus program in schools were found to effective in europe compared to usa when the same was adopted. therefore, the inconsistency in the findings could had been refined had the studies involved the collection of the data by interviews, observations and focus groups. it can be concluded that mixed methods of research on bullying provides new insights to researchers to re-conceptualize the research questions as well as hypothesis based on the problem to investigate. the lives of children and adolescents are influenced by the updated technologies which are changing to new dimensions. henceforth, a researcher involved in studies on bullying to understand it root causes, prevention has to use mixed methods of research. lesson plan: aggression, bullying, violence and victimization learning objectives  to understand the explicit meaning of aggression, bullying, violence and victimization.  to reason out the causes of aggression.  to interpret why people involve themselves bullying others.  to analyse the consequences of bullying.  to list out different types of violence noticed as the result of bullying.  to find out the strategies to reform aggressive behaviour.  to feel the pain of victimization. table 1. to explain what is meant by aggression, bullying leading to violence and victimization objectives content learning experiences evaluation understand the definition of aggression, bullying violence and victimization is aggression an animal behaviour? how do you compare the aggressive behaviour animals and humans? is bullying present a case study on each of the following: aggression, bullying, violence, victimization. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 62 published by scholink inc. wright or wrong? can you give one example of bullying leading to disaster? what are the consequences of violence due to bullying? can you measure the pain of victimization? reasoning biological, social, economic, parenting reasons of aggression how to control aggression at family level, school level and societal level. is there a link between physiology of human body with the exhibition of aggression? is the aggressive behaviour is the parent of bullying, violence and victimization? list out the facts showing the biological link between human physiology and aggression. list out a few incidents of aggressive behaviour leading to bullying, violence and victimization. analysis carrying out research studies focusing on main objective either understanding what are the factors responsible for exhibiting aggression? what is the finding the root causes for showing aggressive behaviour and its relationship www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 63 published by scholink inc. the root causes of aggression and to propose strategies to identify the incidents as well as prevention of bullying, violence and victimization as the result of aggression. drafting a research design based on the objective of the study. relationship between aggression with bullying and violence? does gender play a role in exhibiting aggression? does age, socio economic status play a role in exhibition of aggressive behaviour? gender, age, socio economic status etc. interpretation collecting data from various resources by suitable protocol to understand thoroughly about aggression, bullying, violence and victimization. applying suitable methods for analysing the data collected from various resources. discussing as well as validating the research findings. interpretation of the research findings with suitable examples. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 64 published by scholink inc. references anderson, c. a. 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(2011). expanding the social-ecological framework of bullying among youth: lessons learned from the past and directions for the future. in d. l. espelage, & s. m. swearer (eds.), bullying in north american schools (pp. 3-10). new york: routledge. varjas, k. j., meyers, c. c., henrich, e. c., graybill, b. j., dew, m. l., marshall, z., … avant, m. (2006). using a participatory culture-specific intervention model to develop a peer victimization intervention. journal of applied school psychology, 22, 35-57. https://doi.org/10.1300/j370v22n02_03 yauch, c. a., & steudel, h. j. (2003). complementary use of qualitative and quantitative cultural assessment methods. organizational research methods, 6, 465-81. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428103257362 zigler, e., taussig, c., & black, k. (1992). early childhood intervention: a promising preventative for juvenile delinquency. american psychologist, 47(8), 997-1006. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.47.8.997 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 14 original paper air pollution burden and three population health indicators in 58 counties comprising the state of california, usa oscar wambuguh1* & sofia lin2 1 department of public health, california state university east bay, 25800 carlos bee blvd., hayward, ca 94542, usa 2 pre-professional health academic program, california state university east bay, 25800 carlos bee blvd., hayward, ca 94542, usa * oscar wambuguh, department of public health, california state university east bay, 25800 carlos bee blvd., hayward, ca 94542, usa received: august 10, 2023 accepted: august 20, 2023 online published: august 28, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n2p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n2p14 abstract air pollution is a major risk factor in human health causing premature death disease and ranks fifth among the top five leading causes of death worldwide. in california, air pollution attracts significant attention due to increased pollution from fossil fuel burning, industry, transportation, and the state’s drought record and fire-proneness. data used in this analysis was obtained from the calenviroscreen pollution monitoring tool. there is significant variation in air pollution across counties and racial groups. hispanic populations, followed by caucasians, predominantly occupy areas with the highest pollution levels above 40%. most counties had low average scores in population parameters that determine population health. pollution burden predicted asthma and cvd prevalence but not low-birth-weight babies. asthma was closely associated with traffic density, pm2.5, cleanup sites, and ozone levels; low-birth-weight babies were associated with traffic density and release of toxic substances; and cvd was associated with pm2.5, toxic release, and cleanup sites. low hpi scores (<40%) were associated with incidences of asthma and cvd but not low-birth-weight babies. the increased population health compromises in california caused by the effects of air pollution call for a paradigm shift in the way population health is evaluated and effects of air pollution mitigated. keywords air pollution, ces, pollution burden, hpi, population characteristics, asthma, cvd, low-birth-weight babies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction outdoor and indoor air pollution is an established risk factor to human health worldwide and ranks fifth among the five leading risk factors for death globally after diet, hypertension, smoking and elevated fasting blood glucose levels (gbd, 2017). the air pollutome is a complex mixture of gases (nox, o3, so2, nh3 and co), volatile droplets (quinones and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and primary and secondary particulate matter (pier et al., 2019). in 2017, it was estimated to cause more than 5 million deaths worldwide with a reported 2.9 years loss to life expectancy in 2015 (lelieveld et al., 2020; santos et al., 2021). early concerns about air pollution focused on industrialization and the use of coal and the resulting emission of gases and particles. after world war ii, the accelerated development of industries and expansion highway systems increased traffic to urban and industrial centers from expanding suburbia adding a new dimension to air pollution, one that was less sooty but more chemically reactive driven by photochemical transformation of auto exhaust, yielding secondary oxidants that caused eye and throat irritation (stanek et al., 2011). air pollution increases morbidity and mortality in the general population, and studies report that adverse fetal, infant, and childhood growth and development are associated with increased risk for disease development in adulthood (swanson et al., 2009). ambient and air traffic-related air pollution and exposure to different levels of particulate matter (fine [pm2.5], coarse [pm2.5-10], and large [pm>10]) in young children leads to lower health outcomes with increased cardiovascular morbidity, asthma development, wheezing, respiratory infections, allergies, and adverse neurodevelopmental effects (gheissari et al., 2022). globally, who reports that 93% of children under the age of 15 years live in environments with higher than the recommended levels of environmental air pollutants (who, 2018). dondi et al. noted that even low levels of air pollution can affect children’s lung function and growth and increase the frequency and incidence of respiratory diseases such as asthma, bronchiolitis, respiratory infections, and bronchitis (2023). air pollutants have been implicated in cancer etiology, premature mortality, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease; aggravate existing chronic conditions like type-2 diabetes; and raise risks of alzheimer’s disease and dementia (apte et al., 2015; erickson & jennings, 2017; erickson, 2017; liu et al. 2021). unfortunately, the ambient air pollution disease burden is not equitably distributed across individuals, communities, countries, regions, or demographic groups. past studies indicate higher-than-average air pollution exposures for racial/ethnic minority populations and lower-income populations in the united states leading to disparities in attributable health impacts (liu et al. 2021). historically, the immigrant status, race and ethnicity have been closely associated with economic opportunity, education access, affordable housing, food security, transportation, and healthy, safe environments (mir et al., 2013; matsui et al., 2020). race and ethnicity have been found to influence health through the harmful effects of discrimination, racism, exclusionary policies, and segregation (morello-frosch et al. 2001; balazs et al., 2011). in california, air pollution is a big public health concern as there are various types of pollutants coming from the burning of fossil fuels, and industrial and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. transportation activities. air monitoring shows that over 90 percent of californians breathe unhealthy levels of one or more air pollutants during some part of the year. these pollutants chiefly include ozone, pm2.5 and pm10, oxides of nitrogen (nox), carbon monoxide, oxides of sulfur (sox), lead, and hydrogen sulfide (arb, 2023). in the united states, air pollution was associated with ~100,000 annual premature deaths in 2017 (stanaway et al., 2018). the emission inventory improvement program (eiip) was established in 1993 by the united states environmental protection agency (epa) to promote the development and use of standard procedures for collecting, calculating, storing, reporting, and sharing air emissions data. it was designed to promote the development of emission inventories that have targeted quality objectives, are cost-effective, and contain reliable and accessible data for end users (epa, 2023). the eiip inventory and materials are available to states and local agencies, the regulated community, the public, and other stakeholders. although california outdoor air quality has made tremendous improvements in the last 2-3 decades, the pollution reduction and resulting health and environmental benefits are not uniformly distributed across the state, within a region, or among all population segments (calenviroscreen, 2023). in the state of california, a pollution monitoring tool (calenviroscreen) was developed to analyze air pollution levels and human health effects in 58 counties in the state of california. the california communities environmental health screening tool (calenviroscreen 4.0) released in october 2021, is the latest iteration of the california communities environmental health screening tool. it was developed following consultation with government, academic, business, and nongovernmental organizations and 12 public workshops in 7 regions of the state that resulted in more than 1000 oral and written comments on 2 preliminary drafts (alexeeff & mataka, 2014). the calenviroscreen tool purposefully relies on publicly available data sets for transparency and relatively simple methods so that it can be understood by a general audience (cushing et al., 2015). the calenviroscreen original and subsequent versions were developed by ca’s environmental protection agency’s (calepa) office of environmental health hazard assessment to evaluate the cumulative existence of multiple pollutants and stressors in communities (oehha, 2023). the health places index (hpi) is a project of the public health alliance of southern california, a coalition of the executive leadership of 10 local health departments in southern california, representing more than 60% of the state’s population. the hpi maps data on social conditions that drive population health (e.g., education, employment, clean air/water, neighborhood conditions, social resources, and health care access) composed of 25 indicators organized into eight policy domains. the overall hpi score is a sum of weighted domain scores, with the economy and education taking the lion’s share (50% of total weights). such social determinants of health indicators are often used by research institutions, policy makers and other stakeholders to evaluate health and well-being of communities, identify health inequities and quantify factors that influence health (healthyplacesindex.org, 2023). the hpi is a tool that ranks communities at the census-tract level based on factors known to shape health outcomes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. (maizlish et al., 2019). the hpi was designed to help prioritize marginalized and disadvantaged communities in public policy and investments. it is composed of various social determinants of health indicators with weighted community-level attributes, and gives economic factors the most weight while housing, healthcare access, and environmental exposures are given less weighted (cleveland et al., 2023). many communities in california experience a disproportionate burden of pollution from local sources like traffic and industry, but also from dispersed pollution in multiple media including air, water, soil, and farm produce. most of these communities experience the additional socioeconomic stressors and health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the impacts of pollution (calenvironscreen, 2023). to address the cumulative effects of both pollution burden and these additional factors, and to identify which communities might need policy, financial, educational, or programmatic interventions, oehha developed and maintains and updates the calenviroscreen tool on behalf of calepa. ferguson et al. use the term triple jeopardy to refer to the three-tiered conundrum facing low-socioeconomic status (ses) communities. they include exposure to greater environmental hazards, increased susceptibility to poor health outcomes due to pre-existing health burdens (e.g., chronic stress, poorer health status, less opportunity to choose health-promoting behaviors), and resultant health disparities across ses groups (2021). the current study sought to explore and analyze both the calenviroscreen 4.0 and hpi data to explore how pollution levels in the state: a) varied across the 58 california counties; b) varied across the state’s racial groups and age categories; c) how pollution burden was associated by three indicators of health (asthma, low-birth-weight babies and cardiovascular prevalence); d) how individual pollutants were associated with people’s health; and lastly, e) how the hpi was associated with three population health indicators (prevalence of asthma, low-birth-weight babies, and cardiovascular conditions). 2. method 2.1 calenviroscreen 4.0 model the calenviroscreen model evaluates the cumulative pollution burden and vulnerabilities in california on a geographical basis. the model considers 21 indicator variables in its assessment for each of california’s approximately 8000 census tracts. these indicators are divided into two main categories (pollution burden and population characteristics) and four subcategories (exposures, environmental effects, sensitive populations, and socioeconomic factors) as shown in table 1. each of the indicators was quantitatively measured for each census tract and was converted to a percentile rank relative to all other california census tracts. for each census tract, the score of each subcategory was determined by taking a mean average of the percentile values of its indicators. pollution burden was calculated by taking a 2:1 weighted average of exposures and environmental effects, respectively. population characteristics was calculated by taking a 1:1 average of sensitive populations and socioeconomic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. factors. lastly, the ces 4.0 score for each county was calculated by applying min-max normalization on a scale of 0 to 10 for pollution burden and population characteristics separately and then multiplying them for a total ces score out of 100. 2.2 data transformation the data used in this study comes from three publicly available data sources: calenviroscreen 4.0 tool, the calenviroscreen race analysis tool, and the california health places index 3.0 tool. statistical analysis was performed on these datasets using r (version 4.2.2) and using the native analysis packages that belong to base r. for each of the three sources, all census tracts were grouped by county that they belong to. for each of the 58 california counties, a mean average was taken for all reported metrics. this analysis done in the current study is performed on this county-level overview of the data. table 1. components of calenviroscreen 4.0 model pollution burden population characteristics exposures environmental effects sensitive populations socioeconomic factors ozone concentrations cleanup sites asthma emergencies housing-burdened low-income pm2.5 concentrations groundwater threats (er visits) households diesel pm emissions hazardous waste cardiovascular disease linguistic isolation drinking h2o contaminants impaired water bodies (er visits for heart attacks) poverty lead risk from housing solid waste sites low-birth-weight infants unemployment pesticide use educational attainment toxic releases from facilities traffic impacts 2.3 statistical analysis using the three main metrics of the calenviroscreen model (pollution burden, population characteristics, and combined ces 4.0 score), we define counties to be high risk in that category if the county has a score greater than the 40th percentile. using demographic breakdown for each county provided by the race analysis report, age group and race/ethnicity profiles were generated independently for the group of counties above and below the 40th percentile threshold for each of the three metrics. race was reported by the calenviroscreen tool as seven categories: caucasian, asian american, native american, african american, hispanic, and other/multiple. age groups were defined as under 10 years old, 10-64 years old, and over 64 years old. to determine how hpi is associated with the three indicators of community health (asthma, low-birth-weight-babies, and cardiovascular disease prevalence), a simple linear regression t-test was performed. likewise, the association of each of the three health indicators with hpi and with population characteristics were independently investigated in the same manner. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. to further study these associations and how individual factors were associated with people’s health, multiple regression analysis was also performed on the group of indicator variables that make up the pollution burden and population characteristic scores. for pollution burden, the three health indicators were tested against eight pollutants (traffic volume, pm2.5, ozone, toxic releases, pesticides, diesel particulate matter, hazardous waste, and hazardous cleanup sites). for population characteristics, the three health indicators were tested against five socioeconomic factor indicators (education, housing burden, linguistic isolation, poverty, and unemployment). to investigate possible associations between individual indicator variables, we performed a series of spearman correlation tests. the correlation of poverty with each of the other four socioeconomic factor indicators was studied as well as the correlations of unemployment with either linguistic isolation or education level. lastly, individual correlation tests were performed on ces 4.0 score with each of the six reported race/ethnic groups. 3. results and discussion the distribution of ces scores for all counties in the state are shown below (fig. 1). most of the counties (24) had ces percentile scores over 40%, 19 had scores between 31-40%, and 15 had ces scores less than 30%. excluding population characteristics (health conditions, education, language barriers, employment, poverty level and housing), the pollution burden percentile rankings had 18 counties over 40%, 18 between 31-40%, and 22 below 30% (fig. 2). as noted by cushing et al. (2015), there is an uneven geographic distribution of the ces percentile scores across the state. california population distribution is skewed and concentrated in a few major urban regions: sacramento, fresno, bakersfield, san francisco, san diego, and los angeles. only 35.7% of california cities met the world health organization (who) target for annual pm2.5 exposure of 10 μg/m3, as compared to the national average of 81.7% (iqair, 2023). consequently, the top five cities with reported worst pm2.5 and ozone levels in the country are in california and include los angeles-long beach, visalia, bakersfield, fresno-madera-hanford, san francisco-san jose. in 2019, 11 of the 15 most polluted us cities were located within 50 miles of los angeles, while best air quality was found in the state’s more sparsely populated interior cities, where vehicular and industrial emissions are relatively sparse, and wildfires are infrequent (iqair, 2023). information analyzed in this study also indicates that the 24 ces highest percentile scores greater than 40% are in those primarily urban counties that comprise of los angeles (67%), alameda (12%), and fresno (fig. 1). those with scores less than 40% were topped by san diego (21%); solano/sonoma (17%) and both santa barbara and santa clara (12.5% each). although some of those lower than 40% areas have major cities like san diego and san jose, it appears that a significant number of census tracts included in the database are away from the urban centers, and therefore have relatively cleaner and better-quality air. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. fig. 1. distribution of ces percentiles rankings in california fig. 2. distribution of pollution burden percentiles rankings in california combined race profiles for the state shows that ces percentile scores greater than 40% were predominantly highest in counties occupied by hispanic populations (44.2%), followed by caucasian www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. (32%), asian american 13.9% and african american 6.6%. areas occupied by other races (native americans, multiple, and others) had low ces percentile scores of 3% or below. ces percentile scores less than 40% were highest in areas occupied by caucasian populations (47.9%, followed by hispanic (28.4%), asian american 16.1% and african american 3.4% (fig. 3a, 3b). although racial and ethnic diversity in california is high, it often is associated with distinct socioeconomic disparities, health disparities and disproportionate burdens of environmental pollution (conroy et al., 2018). mathiarasan and huls noted that the intersection of both outdoor and indoor air pollution with socioeconomic conditions can result in many adverse health outcomes including respiratory (asthma, bronchitis, infections, and sleep disordered breathing), neuropsychological (developmental delays, structural alterations in the brain, slower working memory, and mental health issues), and a myriad of other health outcomes (2021). as stated by bell et al., public health professionals, policy makers and healthcare practitioners consider racial health inequities to be crucial in understanding health outcomes in people of color (2020). in california, about 44% of the people in the state speak a language other than english at home (versus national: 21.6%) with 28% of people speaking spanish, and 9.8% asian and pacific islander languages. in 2020, approximately 39% of the population living in california were hispanic, 35% caucasian, 15% asian or pacific islander, and 4% african american (ppic, 2023). california has the largest population of hispanics and the third largest percent hispanic population nationwide. comprising a total of 45% of california’s population of 39 million residents, southern california has a higher percentage of hispanics with approximately 10.6 million hispanic residents, (us census bureau, 2023). california has a 12.3% poverty rate (versus national: 12.8%) with a median household income of about $84,907 (versus national: $69,717). regarding educational attainment, only about 36.2% of the population have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and around 21% have a high school diploma (data.census.gov, 2020). the results in this study that people of hispanic origin dominate in areas with a higher pollution burden (44.2%) than caucasians and other traces (fig. 3). these findings seem consistent with previous studies indicating that communities of color across the united states often live in places with worst air quality, more environmental hazards, and fewer health promoting environmental amenities like parks, trails, and open space (cushing et al., 2015; huang et al., 2018). in california, people of color experience more adverse health conditions (like asthma, cancer, bronchitis, preterm births, and cardiovascular disease) due toxic air contaminants from industry, live closer to hazardous waste sites and traffic, and in areas with significant water pollution (balazs et al., 2011; morello-frosch et al., 2001). studies from the northeastern united states report that the annual particulate matter (both pm10 and pm2.5) was consistently higher in lower socioeconomic areas compared to areas of high socioeconomic areas; and that pm2.5 concentrations were associated racial composition and were higher in areas with racial minorities (brochu et al., 2011). race and socioeconomic status are reported to be closely associated with a disproportionate level of disease in populations of color and many of the disparities in access to healthcare (mathiarasan & huls, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. a) ces >40% b) ces <40% fig. 3. combined race profiles of ces percentiles rankings in california combined age profiles for ces percentile scores greater or less than 40% are very similar. most people living in those areas were respectively between 10-64 years of age (73.9% and 72.8%), seniors 64 years (13.2% and 15.6%), and children 10 years and under (13% and 11.6%) (fig. 4a, 4b). the population of children in this study (11.6-13%) is small but significant because children are still in their early body and organ developmental stages making them more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution. both intrinsic and extrinsic factors increase the vulnerability and/or susceptibility of individuals to the adverse effects of air pollutants. past panel studies of children with and without asthma have noted that child lung function is a subclinical marker of acute pollution health effects, with short-term decrements in lung function observed with short-term increases in ambient air pollution. short-term increases in air pollution are related to increases in adverse clinical events including ed or urgent care visits and hospitalization for respiratory illnesses (spektor et al., 1988; raizenne et al., 1989). long-term childhood air pollution exposures have been demonstrated to likely shift the entire population distribution of childhood lung function and lung function growth downward (garcia et al., 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. a) ces >40% b) ces <40% fig. 4. combined age profiles of ces percentiles rankings in california studies on older adults report that this age-group is especially vulnerable to hazards in their immediate environment; and traffic-related pollution exposure has been shown to result in worse cognitive function among those living in more polluted areas (ailshire & clarke, 2015). of particular concern to population health is when fine particulate matter (pm2.5) is inhaled, the small particles are reported to cause damage to organs such as the brain (peters et al., 2006). in a study of its kind, demonstrating an association between air pollution and cognitive function in a racially diverse sample of older u.s. men and women, living in areas with higher levels of pm2.5, weuve et al. showed that there was more rapid cognitive decline in the adults 55+ years over a 2-year period (2012). markers of neuroinflammation and neuropathology associated with neurodegenerative conditions such as alzheimer’s disease have been linked to living in areas with high levels of air pollution especially of pm2.5 (peters et al., 2006). in this study, older adults were a significant proportion of the state’s population making 13-15.6% of the total (fig. 4a, 4b). with advancing age, pre-existing chronic disease in older adults (like asthma, copd, pulmonary fibrosis, arrhythmias, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and obesity) makes them more vulnerable to the combined health effects of air pollution. older adults are also likely to experience immune-senescence, progressive decline in lung function, and greater incidences of hospitalizations due to air pollution exposure (santos et al., 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. fig. 5. distribution of population characteristics percentiles rankings in california the distribution of population characteristics (health conditions, education, language barriers, employment, poverty level, and housing) in california show that a slight majority of the counties (57%) had lower population percentile averages than the rest (fig. 5). the relationship between asthma, low-birth-weight babies and cvd levels and population characteristics (poverty, race, housing, linguistic isolation, and unemployment) was also investigated. multiple regression indicates that only poverty and linguistic isolation were significant for asthma; none of the characteristics were significant for low-birth-weight babies; and cvd was predicted by housing conditions, unemployment, and linguistic isolation, but only marginally associated with poverty levels (table 2). table 2. probability values between population characteristic percentiles and three health indicators population characteristic asthma low-birth-weight babies cvd poverty 0.038* 0.09 0.051 linguistic isolation 0.033* 0.77 0.02* unemployment 0.28 0.33 0.01* housing burden 0.41 0.82 0.02* *indicates significance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. life course characteristics like socioeconomic status, level of education, existing health conditions, and employment contribute to differential air pollution exposure levels/risk and increases the susceptibility of people living in those conditions. such susceptibility can be brought about by poor health status, addictions, other pollutant exposure, family history, psychological stress, and poor nutrition. cushing et al. found that in california, there was significant evidence that cleanup and solid waste sites, concentrations of ozone and diesel particulate matter, and pesticide use are disproportionately located in communities with higher levels of poverty (2015). several studies in china found that people with lower socioeconomic status normally experienced a higher health risk from air pollution, while people in middle or high socioeconomic levels had lower risks presumably because they had more ways and means to mitigate air pollution (jiao et al., 2018). however, research on how life course characteristics influence the health effects of air pollution produced mixed results (jiao et al., 2018 provides a good review). as part of the socioeconomic status of an individual, a study of 20 cities in the united states reported that individual education significantly modified the relationship between coarse particulate matter (pm10) and mortality—specifically, the higher education level of the individual, the lower the effect of pm10 on mortality in (zeka et al., 2006). people of low socioeconomic status usually lack a good education, and therefore lack the knowledge regarding health and environmental pollution in addition to the health effects caused by air pollution. as a result, they are more likely to have a lower level of awareness and means of self-protection (jiao et al., 2018). laurent et al. (2007) provided an alternative argument that the modification effect of socioeconomic status on air pollution health effects depended on the regional level at which socioeconomic characteristics were measured. when socioeconomic characteristics were measured at coarser geographical resolutions (like city, regional or statewide), there was no modification effect. when measured at community level, the results were mixed, but when individually measured socioeconomic characteristics were used, the result indicated disadvantaged people tend to be more affected by the effects of air pollution. several reasons make people of low socioeconomic status more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution: most are in relatively poor health due to lack of resources, have poor diet, live in overcrowded households, have poor access to health services, are employed in jobs that expose them to more outdoor and indoor air pollution, and live in areas with less opportunities for physical activity and exercise. a simple regression analysis of: a) pollution burden and asthma prevalence indicates a significant relationship [f (1,56) =4.71, p=0.034, fig. 6a]; b) pollution burden and low-birth-weight babies prevalence (fig. 6b) indicates no significant relationship [f (1,56) =2.57, p=0.115], and c) pollution burden and cardiovascular disease (cvd) prevalence (fig. 6c) indicates a significant relationship [f (1,56) =5.67, p=0.021]. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. fig. 6a. relationship between pollution burden and aasthma prevalence (p=0.034) fig. 6b. relationship between pollution burden and low-birth-weight babies prevalence (p=0.115) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. fig. 6c. relationship between pollution burden and cardiovascular disease (cvd) prevalence (p=0.021) among the eight pollution level percentile indicators reported on the calenviroscreen database (ozone, pm2.5, diesel pm, pesticides, toxic release, traffic, clean-up sites and hazardous waste) we were interested in finding out which pollutants were mostly associated with the prevalence of asthma, low-birth-weight babies, and cvd. multiple regression analysis suggests that asthma was closely associated with traffic density, pm2.5, cleanup sites, and ozone levels. there was no association between asthma and diesel pm, toxic release, hazardous waste, and pesticide levels. for low-birth-weight babies, only two indicators were associated: traffic density and toxic release. cvd was only associated with three indicators: pm2.5, toxic release and cleanup sites (table 3). table 3. pollution level percentile indicators versus asthma, low-birth-weight-babies, and cvd prevalence pollution factor p-values asthma low-birth-weight-babies cvd traffic density 0.02* 0.018* 0.07 pm2.5 0.002* 0.58 0.001* cleanup sites 0.007* 0.33 0.04* diesel pm 0.19 0.128 0.49 hazardous waste 0.09 0.56 0.48 ozone 0.04* 0.41 0.47 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. toxic release 0.28 0.033* 0.05* pesticides 0.94 0.25 0.52 *indicates significance with reference to particulate matter levels reported in this study, mcconnell et al., more than twenty years ago studying 3,676 children from 12 locations in the state of california, showed that children with asthma who were exposed to air pollution from three pollutants (no2, pm10, and pm2.5) had a higher prevalence of respiratory symptoms and a greater need for medication than did children without asthma (1999). current research indicates that there is a consistent relationship between exposures to ambient air pollution or traffic-related air pollution and childhood asthma (or wheeze) in early-childhood (zhu et al., 2017). the development of eczema and allergic symptoms in children has been closely associated with postnatal exposure to ambient pm10, no2, and o3 (liu et al., 2020). several studies demonstrated that the risk of respiratory infections (e.g., pneumonia, rhinitis, or bronchitis) in infants and children was associated with increased short-term exposure to ambient pm10, o3, nox, and so2 (gheissari et al., 2022). particulate matter, especially fine (pm2.5), can penetrate deep into the lower respiratory tract, escapes host defense and alveolar clearing mechanisms, and may reach the bloodstream and organs (including the placenta and the brain) through translocation across biological membranes (mannucci et al., 2019). the effects of air pollution appear to be more marked during the first years of life, including during the intrauterine period when mothers inhale air pollutants. although no significant relation was found in this study between pollution burden and low-birth-weight babies, specific single factors like the levels of traffic pollution and toxic substances released in the air were associated with asthma prevalence. research on prenatal exposure to ambient air pollution (especially pm2.5, o3, nox, and so2) has consistently been associated with reduced or low-birth-weight babies across various populations and geographic locations (ebisu et al., 2012; vinikoor-imler et al., 2014). gheissari et al. report that birth weight is inversely correlated with prenatal exposures to certain chemical constituents present as pollutants in air (like zinc, sulfur, elemental carbon, silicon, titanium, and aluminum) (2022). in areas in california with significant wildfire smoke, its exposure has been associated with preterm birth and low-birth-weight babies. expectant women who lived in wildfire-prone areas were at a greater risk of preterm birth or low newborn birth weight than those living in non-wildfire zones (abdo et al., 2019). epidemiological studies indicate that increased pollution from wildfire smoke is linked to increased cardiovascular events (hypertension, angina, and cardiac arrest) particularly among the elderly. proximity to wildfire has strongly been associated with increased respiratory symptoms, medication use, or hospital visits in adults (martin et al., 2013). most regions in california suffer from significant air pollution from wildfires especially north of sacramento, central valley, and southern regions (los angeles/san bernardino mountains) are frequent wildfire zones. studies in ambient and traffic-related www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. air pollution have linked air pollution exposures in neonates and children with increased cardiovascular morbidity (ghessari et al., 2022). experimental studies have demonstrated that increased morbidity through inflammation, oxidative stress, and transcription regulation can result from early-life air pollutant exposure. during pregnancy maternal inflammatory cytokines induced by air pollutants have been found to cross the placenta and induce fetal inflammation and oxidative stress that can last through childhood (tillett, 2012; gheissari et al., 2022). abnormal immune profiles in newborns and children exposed to air pollution in utero have been reported in recent studies (black et al. 2017). early postnatal exposure to air pollutants like pm2.5 can generate reactive oxygen species (ros) and inflammatory stress in addition to inducing developmental dysfunction and epigenetic alterations (møller et al., 2014). in this study cardiovascular disease was also associated with three specific pollution indicators (pm2.5, cleanups, and toxic release). several studies have explored the relationship between air pollution and cardiorespiratory diseases, but from a global perspective less appears to be known about the health risks across regions and populations. the air pollution—health relationship is greatly complicated by “effect modifiers” such socioeconomic status, level of education amongst individuals, energy use, sources of pollution, distances from polluting sources, and prevailing weather conditions during peak pollution times of day among others (requia et al., 2018). long-term air pollution studies have projected mixed opinions in the relationship between particulate matter (pm2.5) and increased risk of all-cause mortality, and significant risks in both cardiopulmonary and cardiovascular disease (lipsett et al., 2011). atkinson et al. also showed that associations for respiratory causes of death were larger than for cardiovascular causes. for example, one study reported that for pm10, each increment of 10 micrograms per cubic meter was associated with an increase in obstructive pulmonary disease mortality in china, united states, and the european union (song et al., 2014). a relationship was also reported between heart failure and increases in co, so2, no2, pm10, pm2.5 (shah et al., 2013). another study stated that a 10 microgram per cubic meter increment in pm2.5 was associated with a small increase in the risk of death for cardiorespiratory diseases (atkinson et al., 2014). lastly, requia et al. reported a small increase in hospital admissions and mortality attributed to cardiorespiratory diseases per 10 microgram per cubic meter increment in pm2.5 (2018). although the actual microgram levels of particulate matter in this study were not available, nevertheless, the study found that incidences of asthma and cardiovascular disease could be predicted from the ces or pollution burden percentile scores. this observation provides excellent opportunities for the implementation of pollution reduction intervention strategies by policy makers, industry, educators, research agencies, non-profit organizations, community activists, and local citizens in improving environmental quality in areas with high ces percentile scores. considering that communities living in such areas are not likely (or are unable) to relocate, interventions might include educating populations on ways to reduce individual exposure to pollutants, especially for children and older individuals. this can be achieved using social media, cell phone text alerts when air quality is poor, distribution of fliers, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. billboards and posters, community activism, and community education sessions. as noted by gheissari et al., determining and identifying detrimental air pollutants from the pollution exposure mixture and finding out the detrimental chemical components within those pollutants (in situations where specific drivers of toxicity are identifiable), will help formulate community intervention targets and pollution exposure reduction strategies in high ces score areas (2022). most counties in california (about 30) had a hpi higher than 40%, and the rest (26) had a hpi lower than 40% (fig. 9). by race category, almost equal numbers of caucasian (38%) and hispanic (35.5%) populations live in areas with higher hpis (40-100%), and so do 17.1% of asian americans. in areas with lower hpis (10-39%) about half of the people are of hispanic origin (49.8%), about 34.8% are of caucasian heritage, and 7.1% asian americans (fig. 10 a, b). the relationship between healthy places index (hpi) and prevalence of asthma, low-birth-weight babies, and cvd was tested and was found to be predictive. in areas where the hpi falls below 40%, asthma and cvd prevalence were significantly higher [f (1,54) =19.29, p<0.001; f (1,54) = 55.39, p<0.01 respectively] but it was not the case for low-birth-weight babies [f (1,52) =1.54, p=0.22] (fig. 11a,b,c). figure 9. distribution of healthy places index percentiles in california counties www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. a) hpi >40% b) hpi <40%. figure 10. combined hpi percentile profile for california by race www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. fig. 11. relationship between healthy places index (hpi) scores and three health indicators a) asthma b) low-birth-weight babies c) cvd a) p<0.001 b) p=0.22 c) p<0.01 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. consistent with what was found in this study where half of hispanics in california live in regions with low hpis, cleveland et al. observed a similar pattern for 10 counties in southern california—counties with higher proportions of hispanics were associated with lower hpis (2023). the study also found that cities with a higher proportion of hispanic residents had higher rates of adult and childhood obesity and adult diabetes cases and lower hpi percentile scores. the hpi score was found to explain the highest proportion of the variability in the percentile of adult obesity, adult diabetes, and childhood obesity, which underlines the fact that social determinants of health are strongly associated with poor metabolic health. cleveland et al. also found that a lower hpi score was strongly associated with poor physical and mental health, lower life expectancy, and a greater prevalence of smoking, asthma, and heart attacks (2023). it is therefore no coincidence in this study that areas where the hpi scores fell below 40% were predictive of the prevalence of asthma and cvd in those communities. in california, communities of color are likely to live near areas with significant traffic and diesel particulate matter, toxic releasing industries that use fossil fuels, hazardous waste generating and processing sites, less open space lacking developed areas for physical activities like walking, bicycling, and other park activities. such communities are also likely to be less educated, have little or no health insurance, their children walk or use public transport to get to school, and may have coexisting health conditions that increase their vulnerability to air pollution-related detrimental health effects. living conditions in low socioeconomic areas cause social and psychological stress, which makes the body more susceptible to infections and diseases; stress also increases the risk of developing negative health outcomes with exposure to air pollution (mathiasaran & huls, 2021). williams reported that socioeconomic status and race are closely tied together, and they can be attributed to disproportionate levels of disease in populations of color and many of the disparities in access to healthcare due to racism (1999). the state of california currently focuses on reducing pollutant emissions to meet policy mandates in the face of climate change. there is a glaring lack of risk management policies related to air pollution resulting in people of lower socioeconomic (for example, children, seniors >65 years of age, and people with existing health conditions) failing to receive the related public services. the formulation of public policy to mitigate the negative impact of air pollution exposure becomes critical for the regions with more serious air pollution. public policy makers must advocate and lobby the government to rev up financial investment that will provide protective and air purification equipment, and information consulting services for marginalized populations. the government must also continue improving existing health care policies, enhance access to essential and appropriate medical services to the disadvantaged populations, and minimize the health effects arising from air pollution. 4. conclusion with the climate change predictions projected this century, disadvantaged and minority residents in many parts of california will continue to face escalating levels of both outdoor and indoor air pollution that will www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. continue to affect their health and well-being. climate change will intensify dry conditions in fire-prone california causing more intense fires, toxic release, and smoke inhalations. it will also increase the risk of disease due to changing and extreme weather patterns, which are also associated with the increase in allergens as well as disease vectors. these conditions will greatly raise the prevalence of respiratory conditions and diseases, such as asthma. disadvantaged communities will be hit hardest with fewer available resources, are less educated, lack healthcare access, subsist on poor nutrition, face aggravated stress levels due to poor living conditions, and have less ability to evacuate from affected areas. since so many people’s health is compromised by the effects of air pollution in california, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way population health is evaluated and effects of air pollution mitigated. we need more interdisciplinary research to understand the complexity of the in-built environments where marginalized people live, and the synergistic interactions in many environmental phenomena and how they affect people’s health. more information is also needed to identify specific ways that cumulative impact assessment can be most effectively used to reduce environmental inequalities. we need viable and actionable solutions like increased investment in education, infrastructure, and in the physical spaces where people live. we need policies and practices that promote urban revitalization, modifying the built environment in ways that create enterprising zones, shifting of available resources (like job creation and food outlets), assessing the impacts of the social determinants of health, expanding urban housing, and capacity building through deliberate community engagement. the lives of marginalized communities will need better focused approaches from national, regional, and local governments, private corporations, private entrepreneurs, educational institutions, and the community at large to deconstruct the socioeconomic dilemmas facing them, characterizing issues of racism and discrimination, leveling of environmental injustices experienced, and addressing rampant health disparities and inequities. acknowledgement data used in this study is publicly available at the california’s environmental protection agency’s (calepa) office of environmental health hazard assessment website. california communities environmental health screening tool: calenviroscreen 4.0, released in october 2021. accessed on may 17, 2023, at https://oehha.ca.gov/ calenviroscreen/report/ calenviroscreen-40. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. references abdo, m., ward, i., o’dell, k., ford, b., pierce, j. r., fischer, e. v., & crooks, j. l. 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(2017). short-term effects of ambient air pollution and childhood lower respiratory diseases. scientific reports, 7(1), 4414. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-04310-7 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper psychological rehabilitation on a patient with breast and arm amputation: a case report isabela castelli1* 1 researcher of universidade de brasília; psyhologist on hospital de base do distrito federal (igesdf), brasília, brazil * isabela castelli, researcher of universidade de brasília; psyhologist on hospital de base do distrito federal (igesdf), brasília, brazil received: november 6, 2021 accepted: november 12, 2021 online published: november 16, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n4p1 abstract we define amputation as a removal of totally or partial part of an organ. amputations can be caused by chronic diseases as cancer, infection and diabetes, or by a traumatic accident. where, we discuss the differences between the two types of amputation. this paper is a case report on an amputee patient, the consequences in short e long term. we suggest possible interventions for psychological professionals and multidisciplinary healthcare team. also, we discuss the lack of academic production about traumatic amputations. keywords traumatic amputation, healthcare team, psychological intervention 1. introduction 1.1 amputation: an overview amputee surgeries refer to the removal of totally or partial part of an organ. currently, this type of surgery is considered reconstructive surgery because the final objective is to restore the organ (gabarra, 2010; seren & tilio, 2014). there are few illnesses that can lead to an amputation: cancer, diabetes, infections and traumas. about this last type of amputation, it’s necessary to highlight the sudden break with the “normal” life before the trauma and the need to quickly adapt to a completely new form of living (paiva & goellner, 2008). in other words, the patients usually distinct their lives on “before and after” the traumatic amputation (paiva & goellner, 2008). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 4, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. we should stand out about the traumatic amputees’ patient’s profile: young, on working age and with no previously known disease (perkins et al., 2012; shankar et al., 2020). in the united states of america, are estimated 185.000 amputations per year which 45% are provoked for traumatic accidents (kratz et al., 2010; mckechnie & john, 2014). it’s estimated that by the year of 2050 the total number of amputees will reach about 3.6 million people (ramos, 2012). that makes the attendance and follow-up of amputees a public health issue. 1.2 psychological reaction in amputation the experience of amputation brings physical and psychological changes (melo et al., 2020). it’s important to highlight that these changes are called “adjustment reactions” and they are not considered pathological reactions. this adjustment reactions involve feelings like anger, fear of the future, sadness, self-esteem change and anxiety. therefore, it’s important that the patient receive psychological treatment as soon as possible (srivastava et al., 2011; tenner et al., 2018; melo et al., 2020). despite the vast report of these symptoms the number of studies publications is still very low (boccolini, 2000; kratz et al., 2010; shankar et al., 2020). it’s possible to didactically divide two moments post amputation: (a) acute phase, immediately after the surgery, when the principal mission of the patient is to survive with the necessary adaptations; (b) chronic phase, the moment when the patient must lead with the characteristic of its new physical limitation, the pain, the meaning of loss, quality of life and, eventually, the fitting on a prosthetic. in both phases—acute or chronic—the limitation imposed by the absence of a member result in serious daily life changes; impacting social, work and sexual life (galván & amiralian, 2009; milioli et al., 2012; sahu et al., 2016). psychological interventions are recommended in both phases in order to avoid aggravation os psychological changes (gabarra & crepaldi, 2009; srivastava et al., 2011; vicent et al., 2015; melo et al., 2020). authors defend that follow-up of psychological intervention in medium and long term (to six months to a year) it’s important to follow the evolution of the adaptation of the adjustment reaction (kratz et al, 2010; perkins et al., 2012). according to these authors, the first year after an amputation brings emotional symptoms, being the most frequent depressive and anxiety symptoms’. this important to discuss that negative symptoms are not necessarily negative reactions—they can be the adjustment reaction. these reactions can lead the patient to treatment motivation. some patients understand the amputation as a chance to “live a new, health life” (melo et al., 2020, p. 326). given the above, it is essential that an amputee patient be evaluated and monitored by a psychological professional (boccolini, 2020). just to explain to the reader, a systematic literature review was carried out by this author to screen the number of studies that address psychological aspects of amputees. descriptors used were “traumatic amputation” and “psychological trauma”. were found a total of 143 articles. of these, 14 were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 4, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. duplicated. 30 articles did not approach amputation issues. another three articles were excluded because approach only technical questions about amputation’s surgery (two of them discuss what the medication were to be used on the immediately post operatory and the other one discusses exclusively the surgical techniques for an amputation). eight articles were excluded because treat about pediatric context (the reader can suppose that pediatric and adult context of amputation are different). 21 articles were excluded for treating revascularization surgeries (where, we can understand, that the patient was not amputated). 25 articles were excluded because they discuss penile amputations (which, for this review would bring low contribution). seven articles were excluded for treat about complications of non-traumatic amputation. three articles were excluded because they did not mention psychological aspects. on this survey, 110 articles were excluded; being considered only 31 articles. based on the survey above descript, we can note that studies about traumatic amputation are rare. just in front of that fact, we need to develop studies with traumatic amputees. 2. method 2.1 the case report the patient, here named as p. for maintenance of confidentiality, was a 19-year-old girl with a normal life. at the time of the accident, p. worked on a restaurant, was engaged to her boyfriend, had a good circle of friends and no major conflict with her family. one night, on the end of her work shift, p. was sought by her fiancé to go home. on the highway, a drunk driver ran over p. and her fiancé who were on a motorcycle. after running over, the drunk driver dragged p. for 2.5 miles. during all this period, p. was conscient, trying to get loose from the car hood. unfortunately, p. couldn’t get out from the car hood and this episode end with her left arm—that was stuck on the car hood—dropping for her body. long story short: by this time, p. was amputee. p. was rescued by a team of firemen and was directed to a trauma reference hospital. once in the hospital, p. stayed on very serious health condition. she remained on the icu for more than a month. after the medical care and with the stabilization of the health chart of p., the psychologist started the sessions to work on post traumatic stress symptoms, self-image change and depressions/anxiety symptoms. the first sessions happened yet on the “acuate” phase, when p. was hospitalized in the icu. at this moment, the main objective of the psychological intervention was to help the patient to elaborate the accident and to develop strategies to face the traumatic situation. after hospital discharge, p. remained accompanied by the psychology service of the hospital. when p. returned to home, the phase where we expect better adjustment reactions, p. had a lot of family disagreements, including jokes about her amputation. adds to this fact, the engagement was over, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 4, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. according to p. because the fiancé did not was interested in helping her on the health care treatment. p, lost her job and, until now, is not entered into the labor market. on more than one situation, p). though and tried suicide. on her words “because i could not support more of this situation”. it’s important to say that on the moment when i write this case, more than one year is passed over the accident and p. is still in psychological follow-up to handle the symptoms above describe. by now, the suicide thoughts are not present and our (mine and p.`s) goal is to adjust the social, work and affective life of p; even if it means resignification and great adjustment on her reaction in face of unfavorable events of life. also, at this moment, the medical team is starting to work on the reconstruction of both breast with silicone implants. this treatment is costed by the brazilian healthcare system—also known as sistema único de saúde (sus). however, the arm prothesis cost about u$ 28.000,00; this is not a treatment offer by the sus and is way out of family conditions to acquire. probably, p. should fit her new life without the arm. the absence of her arm is a very important thematic on the psychological sessions and it’s one of the most traumatic impacts that this accident brought to p. as psychological professional, is my duty to work on developing functional coping strategies. also, interdisciplinary work is developed with a physiotherapist for possible physical adjustment for p. daily life. the communication with the multidisciplinary team is essential for the better health care for p. 3. discussion 3.1 what psychologist could do in those situation the first conclusion this case report bring to discussion is the lack of studies and publication on the traumatic amputee area. this reinforces the importance of offering conditions for researchers to develop innovate studies. another conclusion on this case report is the importance of psychological intervention on both phases: acute and chronic phases; therefore, which one has their specificities. more than “patients” the psychological professional should stare to the amputee as a person who need all the effort on the healthcare team. an amputee will need help to relearn the simplest things and activities in their live and, this, should motivate the healthcare team. in p. case, she will be accompanied as long as she need. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 4, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. references boccolini, f. (2000). reabilitação—amputações—próteses. são paulo: robe. gabarra, l. m., & crepaldi, m. a. (2009). aspectos psicológicos da cirurgia de amputação. aletheia, 30, 59-72. gabarra, l. m. (2010). estados emocionais, formas de enfrentamento, rede de apoio e adaptação psicossocial em pacientes amputados. tese de doutorado (ufsc). florianópolis, santa catarina, brasil. galván g. b., & amiralian, m. l. t. m. (2009). corpo e identidade: reflexões acerca da vivência de amputação. estudos de psicologia, 26(3), 391-398. kratz, a. l., williams, r. m., turner, a. p., raichle k. a., smith, d. g., & ehde, d. (2010). to lump or to split? comparing individuals with traumatic and nontraumatic limb loss in the first year after amputation. rehabilitation psychology, 55(2), 126-138. mckechnie, p. s., & john, a. (2012). anxiety and depression following traumatic limb amputation: a systematic review. injury. melo, k. c., gonçalves, f. t. d., soares, a. n., cruz, m. c. n. l., rodrigues, r. p. d., silva, b. m.,..., almeida, a. t. s., d. (2020). alteração na autoimagem: a percepção do paciente amputado diante da mudança na imagem corporal. teoria e prática de enfermagem: da atenção básica à alta complexidade, 93(31), 320-333. milioli, r., vargas, m. a. o., leal, s. m. c., & montiel, a. a. (2012). qualidade de vida em pacientes submetidos à amputação. revista de enfermagem usfm, 2(2), 311-319. paiva, l. l. & goellner, s. v. (2008). reiventando a vida: um estudo qualitativo sobre os significados culturais atribuídos à reconstrução corporal de amputados mediante a protetização. comunicação-saúde-educação, 12(6), 485-497. perkins, z. b., deàth, h. d., sharp, g., & tai, n. r. m. (2012). factors affecting outcome after traumatic limb amputation. british journal of surgery, 99(1), 75-86. ramos, c. s. m. (2012). dependência funcional, morbilidade psicológica, sintomatologia traumática, coping e satisfação com a vida de amputado do membro inferior. dissertação de mestrado, universidade do minho. portugal. sahu, a. sagar, r., sarkar, s., & sagar, s. (2016). psychological effects of amputation: a review of studies form india. industrial psychiatry journal, 25(1), 4-10. seren, r., & tilio, r. (2014). as vivências do luto e seus estágios em pessoas amputadas. revista da sociedade de psicoterapia analíticas grupais do estado de são paulo, 15(1), 64-78. shankar, p., grewal, v. s., agrawal, s., & nair, s. v. (2020). a study on quality of life: among lower limb amputees at a tertiary prosthetic rehabilitation center. medical journal armed forces india, 76, 89-94. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 4, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. srivastava, k., saldanha, d., chaudhury, s., rvali, v. s. s. r., goyal, s., bhattacharyya, d., & basannar, d. (2011). a study of psychological correlates after amputation. medical journal armed forces india, 66(4), 367-373. tennet, d. j., polfer, e. m., sgromolo, n. m., krueger, c. a., & potter, b. k. (2018). characterization of disability following traumatic through knee and transfemoral amputations. injury. vicent, h. m., horodyski, m., vicent, k. r., brisbane, s. t., & sadasivan, k. k. (2015). psychological distress after orthopedic trauma: prevalence in patients and implications for rehabilitation. american academy of physical medicine and rehabilitation. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 41 original paper developing teachers’ skill to identify high ability students hanna david1* 1 tel aviv university, israel * hanna david, tel aviv university, israel received: august 17, 2023 accepted: august 23, 2023 online published: august 28, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n2p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n2p41 abstract the question: “how to educate teachers in order to help them be more understanding, more suitable, and more motivated when teaching gifted students” has been widely discussed. the question whether it is possible at all certainly needs more research. however, we shall hereby suggest some “signs”, hints, or even explicit utterances that might help teachers to notice students who need extra-supervision, enrichment activities or an accelerated track. these sayings, or doings, are usually either ignored by teachers or quite often wrongly interpreted. had teacher known how to “read” these signs it would have helped them to know if a certain student needs extra-challenging, different, higher-level school curriculum, more creative homework or self-learning assignments. here are the 5 main points a teacher should consider when having to decide whether their student is gifted or talented. 1. boredom: looking bored or complaining about being bored 2. finishing all tasks before everybody else 3. correcting the teacher or/and other students/”takes over” class conversation 4. does not do homework or prepares for exams but gets high grades; 5. shows emotional high level keywords teachers’ skills, high ability, identification 1. introduction the question: “how to educate teachers in order to help them be more understanding, more suitable, and more motivated when teaching gifted students” has been widely discussed. the question whether it is possible at all certainly needs more research. however, we shall hereby suggest some “signs”, hints, or even explicit utterances that might help teachers to notice students who need extra-supervision, enrichment activities or an accelerated track. these sayings, or doings, are usually either ignored by teachers or quite often wrongly interpreted. had teacher known how to “read” these signs it would have helped them to know if a certain student needs extra-challenging, different, higher-level school curriculum, more creative homework or self-learning assignments. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. it is widely agreed that there are many skills needed in order to identify high ability students. these skills can be divided into intellectual-cognitiveand emotional abilities. intellectual-cognitive abilities can be substantially improved by learning, gaining more experiences, in short—growing up. emotional abilities are mainly in-born; in many cases they also improve with experience but unfortunately in many other they do not or their improvement is marginal. these abilities, though connected to what we all call “intelligence”, traditionally measured by iq, can be improved—mainly by education. from a philosophical point of view, it is interesting to know more about “inborn” versus “learned” characteristics, and if intellectual characteristics are more flexible than emotional or vice versa. however, this important issue is not as important as the integration of sensitivity, intensity or high-level energy, dedication, or the ability to devote oneself to an important-enough cause, patience, and motivation, in addition to a certain level of both intelligence and acquired knowledge any teacher needs, in order to identify gifted students. as much as these characteristic are important for the identification of “the typical gifted”, they are much more important in order to identify those who have not been formally diagnosed as gifted, and/or students belonging to all minority groups. here is a list of some main characteristics of gifted children and youths that teachers can learn, explore, read about and discuss with peers at school or—even preferably—at professional meetings, such as preand in-service training sessions, in order to “sharpen” their ability to identify high ability students. is should be emphasized that characteristics considered “typical” to gifted children and youths, such as school success or rich written or oral verbal ability are not to appear in this list. such characteristics are either part of the identification for giftedness process (e.g., school success), or demonstrated in intelligence tests (e.g., high verbal ability). they are also characteristics that—according to some giftedness definitions, rely on present school achievements, such as high-level math achievement of being at the top of the class, top of the school or top of the county in reading, chess, or robot-building. we shall concentrate in this presentation in the following characteristics, perceived as less-typical, that might help teacher of kindergartners, elementary-, junioror high school students further explore the possibility that their student is indeed gifted or talented. 1) boredom: looking bored or complaining about being bored 2) finishing all tasks before everybody else 3) correcting the teacher or/and other students/ “takes over” class conversation 4) does not do homework or prepares for exams but gets high grades; 5) shows emotional high level 2. method here is a discussion of each of the identification for giftedness less-typical behaviors or characteristics of gifted students that can be of help to their teachers. after each discussion a vignette is to be presented. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. 2.1 boredom: looking bored or complaining about being bored 2.1.1. the accepted assumption that boredom contradicts learning it has been widely accepted that students must not feel boredom at school, as boredom has negative effects whether on the student’s well-being or achievements (al-shara, 2015; daniels, gallagher, harradine, & coleman, 1997; kanevsky, & keighle, 2003; mönks, 2014; özerk, 2020; pekrun, ,carper, & schatz, 2012; tze, daniels, klassen, & li, 2013, tze, klassen, & daniels, 2014, tzeא daniels, & klassen, 2016). according to pekrun et al., (2011), it seems that boredom is negatively related to deep learning related criteria, for example: intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and the adoption of flexible learning strategies. 2.1.2. if a child “looks” bored he or she might be bored, but they also might not this is the first rule any teacher must remember. there are many children who need to do something with their hands, or even their whole body, in order to be concentrated of what is heard. a student can yawn simply because of being tired. so please—try not to be determined when suspecting that the child is bored even when you tend to think they are! 2.1.3. pros of boredom: connections among boredom, daydreaming, and creativity let us assume that the student is indeed bored. we have to keep in mind that being bored in not necessarily negative. there are theories about boredom as a contributor to creativity, or at least, as does not interfering with leaning or the student’s well-being. according to belton (2008) there are some potential benefits of being bored. bench and lench (2013) suggest that boredom motivates students to make a change, to move forward by setting more challenging goals. bell (2011) who suggested that boredom may boost creativity; mann and cadman (2014) even suggest that students become more creative after being exposed to boring conditions. to be more particular: they found that boring activities resulted in increased creativity and boring reading activities lead to more creativity in some circumstance, such as convergent tasks, than boring written activities. the role of daydreaming as a mediator between boredom and creativity is discussed and implications are outlined. this assumption goes along with the theory of need time for incubation in order to materialize one’s giftedness and creativity (e.g., csikszentmihalyi, 1996; dijksterhuis & meurs, 2006; easom hines, catalana, & anderson, 2019; ritter, & dijksterhuis, 2014; lee et al., 2021; piechowski, 1992; segal, 2004; snyder et al., 2004; torrance, & safter, 1990; wallas, 1926). according to mann and cadman (2014), daydreaming has been a mediator between boredom and creativity. they explained this finding of their experiment as a result of the situation when it is not possible to physically avoid being at a place when the task required is boring, and thus the focus is turned into inner thoughts, feelings and experiences that seem like “doing nothing” or daydreaming, but in fact, […] this inner focus allows a way of gaining the stimulation that is being craved and that is missing from the boring task. this internal focus could involve a search for new ways to carry www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. out the boring task to make it more engaging (toohey, 2011) or could involve thinking about unrelated problems or ideas the consideration of which is more appealing than the boring task at hand. it is this attention-shifting that is termed daydreaming, and is thus a common by-product of boredom (smallwood & schooler, 2006). […] singer (1975) described daydreaming as shifting attention from the external situation or problem to the internal representation of situations, memories, pictures, unresolved things, scenarios, or future goals. smallwood (2011) more recently explained the process of daydreaming as ‘‘a state of decoupled processing in which attention to ongoing perceptual information is reduced often in favor of the active consideration of internally generated thoughts and feeling’’ (p. 63). schank (1999) proposed that daydreaming is a part of dynamic memory [mann & cadman, 2014, p. 166] 2.1.4. students should not be punished for saying they were bored or “acting” as if they are bored. students should not be reproached and certainly not punished for telling the truth about their deeds or feelings. indeed, it is impolite to tell a friend that she or he is boring, or what they say is boring. but teachers are not their students’ friends, and thus students should under no circumstances have to pretend to be interest when they are not, or lie about the interest the teacher had inspired the class with. thus the explanation teachers give, quite often, for being angry with a student who says she or he is bored or behaves in a way the teacher interprets as “showing boredom” cannot be “i must teach my students how to behave”. teaching to be polite is by being polite; it is not possible to explain “how to be interesting” or “how not be boring”. trying to “teach” how not to show one’s boredom by punishment when being “too clear, open or verbal” implies that “it is good to conceal one’s feelings”. well—if you learn how to be a spy, i guess this knowledge might be useful. but when teacher puts a lot of effort into help students, especially the younger, to use words instead of feasts; to verbally express feelings rather than act-out when unable to “let it out” (david, 2020)—why to teach that it is preferable to suppress one’s feelings? instead of teaching students to pretend they are interested when they are bored, and when there is not possibility to make the students interested in the material taught, as occurs very often with the gifted, a different approach should be adopted. after hearing from a 16-year old that he is unable to stand the boredom of the literature classes, aimed for preparing the class for the matriculation examinations, i made use of one of the means i practice quite rarely: self-exposure. i told him, that over 50 years ago, i had coop with a similar situation as i had already read a substantial part of the matriculation material at 12, and everything else shortly later, and had no need to re-red them and certainly not have them “explained” to me. a vignette from david (2019): […] during it [the summer of 1964] i also took my hebrew reading to next level, and made my first steps towards being a writer. the late mr. rahmani was my reading mentor, to whom i am www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. grateful to this day. mr. rahmani, who moved to our apartment building a week after we did, was an educator who had then retired after a 40-year career, half of it as the headmaster of a tel aviv well-known school. he kindly suggested to my mother, who told him how much i missed my old library, that he would be my librarian. he asked her to tell me to stop by and borrow from his large library any book i chose. i still remember how embarrassed i was when shaking his hand with my sweaty palm. i was very excited, even frightened, having to meet the strict, meticulous headmaster i had heard frightening stories about, a person who seemed to me the oldest man i had ever met, though he was just 65 then… when i was finally courageous enough to knock on his door i was invited to the living room, and to my surprise i was first offered to drink a glass of cold lemonade—as if i walked a long way rather than went down the stairs to the first floor. a delicious slice of home-made pumpkin cake was also there, on the plate next to the yellow drink. the words: “pumpkin cakes are my favorite” just came out of me, without thinking, and he laughed and said: “so you better eat this slice and take another one back home, so you can eat it after dinner”. i tried to eat while mr. rahmani—nobody was ever calling him by his first name—was talking about “the rules of the rahmani library” but i felt my hand was shaking and my stomach was shrinking. i did get the essence of the “rahmani’s rules”: i could borrow just one book each time, and i had to be ready to answer rahmani’s questions about every book i returned before i could take another one. the first book i chose was agnon’s the bridal canopy (1931) [in hebrew: hakhnāsat kallāh] and mr. rahmanin smiled and said: “good taste, good taste”. of course, neither of us could have known that two years later shai agnon would be awarded the nobel prize—i did not even know at that time that there was a nobel prize in literature; since age 8 and for the next 12 years my phantasy was to be the next marie curie, but i was going to be satisfied with “only” one nobel prize, as long as it would be in physics. if you wander what happened to the slice of pumpkin cake—in spite of my efforts i could not eat it then, being too excited, but mr. rahmani understood it without words. he went into the kitchen and asked his wife for another slice, and then wrapped both slices in a nice napkin, and handed the little packing to me. this arrangement worked very well for the whole vacation. to this day i remember the “rahmani examinations”, which helped me a lot a few years later, when i took prof. shaked’s class “introduction to israeli literature” where we had to take a “knowledge exam” as a proof of reading 100 israeli novels. the entire class thought it was too much for a 2-credit course, but i was used to be “examined” about knowledge of details after practicing it carefully almost on a daily basis with mr. rahmani. the only difference between rahmani’s and shaked’s teaching methods was that while rahmani examined both my knowledge and my understanding simultaneously, shaked wanted first, by content checking, to make sure we read the books, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/the_bridal_canopy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. only then allowed us to take the “literary” examination, which included all “traditional” areas, e.g. the characters, meanings, metaphors, parallelisms, references, etc. these were my earliest and pretty much only lessons in literature until my ba studies. when i started high school, two years later, my literature teacher—who was also the home-room teacher, let me skip literature classes. when my peers rehearsed books i had long time before read, i had free time for three enjoyable activities that turned to be essential to my future life. sometimes i took the ~120 stairs from my school to the “monkey’s garden” where i had carefully been observing the apes. even then i would have loved to observe human behavior, especially babies’ and children’s social interactions, but had to do with apes as observing humans was considered impolite or even wired. when my headmaster had free time he invited me to his office for conversations about philosophical issues, a skill i had never had before any opportunity to practice, especially not over a cup of tea. from time to time i just left directly to bialik avenue, the main street of ramat gan, for window-shopping. this expertise served me during my entire life: i still know how to buy any outfit for the lowest price (david, 2019, pp. 7-9). 2.2. finishing all tasks before everybody else giftedness does not necessarily mean doing things quickly or finishing tasks ahead of time (about intelligence and speed see david, 2012c). in fact, a substantial percentage of students “fail” in “giftedness tests” because of being “too slow” (e.g., butnik, 2013; jackson gilman, 2013). slow processing speed is a typical characteristic of double-exceptional children (e.g., adalio et al. 2018; butnik, 2013), as for the less talented, being quick is not expected and thus lack of quickness seems “normal”. but a many gifted children, adolescents and adults, maybe even the majority of them, are quick. they “succeed” in giftedness tests as not only they know the answers—they have enough time to finish all tasks. thus, while in real life it does not matter whether a book was written in one year or 3 years as long as it is excellent, or a mathematical problem might take generations to solve, in the mathematical part of the sat it does matter the student solved all questions or had not enough time. vignette: (from david, 2014c) at the end of grade 11, when the first matriculation examinations became closer, joy had some serious quarrels with her mother. though her grades were always excellent, her mother insisted that she “invested more in her studies”. for long weeks joy would live in lie: she closed her door and asked not to be bothered, because “i must concentrate for the examinations, and i need to listen to music while i study”. needless to mention that joy’s main activity was listening to “her” music through the computer. this “arrangement” worked for joy very well, but then she became a little too careless. being somewhat bored of listening to music by herself for such long time periods, she started making telephone conversations with any friend who was available, especially when her mother was not at home. but after the telephone bill came in she could no www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. longer deny her double crime: spending substantial amount of money without permission, and doing that during the time she was supposedly learning. as a result, the mother suspicions, regarding the computer activities, grew to the level she required her 17-year old daughter to inform her when she wanted to use the computer, and finally, when she realized this condition was unrealistic she took joy’s computer out of her room and placed it in the family living room “until you finish your matriculation examinations” (p. 97). 2.3. correcting the teacher or/and other students/“takes over” the class conversation correcting others does not mean one is gifted; not correcting others does not “prove” that one is not gifted—whether when hearing opinions that are presented as facts, or “truths”, someone who makes any kind of language mistake—whether while having an oral communication or when writing. however, a substantial number of students, especially when still young, tend to “correct” others: teachers, peers, salespeople, neighbors—anybody who comes across them. in many cases this tendency has been developed at home, by family members who constantly praised the young child for noticing mistakes of others. when a gifted child is not emotionally well adjusted, has not learned some of the most elementary social rules, such as “sometimes just shut up for your own good”, the result is the annoying phenomenon of the “correcting child”. one of the most frequent complains i hear from parents of age 3-6 kindergartners is: the child gets along with adults so well, why does her teacher complain about not having friends? is it not obvious that such an intelligent girl has nothing to talk about wit children her age? how can others understand when she talks about mathematics? or astronomy? or biology? “well, speaking about subjects that are not age-appropriate certainly gives a clue about the ability of the child to understand things that are not typical for her age, and such a child certainly does not need any formal giftedness identification. however, making long speeches, endless questions, or trying to contradict others usually are symptoms of being emotionally underdeveloped. a child who does not understand peer rejection that stems from “taking over” the conversation does not need any gifted label, but rather treatment necessary to develop her emotional stage: to make her understand that others matter as well and they might have things which they wish or even need to speak about, that whatever she wants to say might not be interesting for the others, no matter why, that she must be patient and listen, ask question and participate in conversations that others initiate, that if she does not win—it means that another child was better and she must accept this fact rather than complain or quit. what seem to be temporary social “falls” are the bricks building the child’s spine. when there are no falls, as it happens quite often when a gifted child has always been praised, or admired by adults—there is no growth potential. here are two real examples, both from a third grade class, which show the difference between a child who has learnt how to deal with a teacher who is less knowledgeable than himself and another one—who has not. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. 2.3.1. a vignette from the first case study i had published (david, 1999, 2005, 2009) in a science exam the pupils were asked to define a “magnet”. a gifted 8-year old student wrote: “a piece of iron drawn to anything made of iron”. the teacher “corrected’ him, writing: “an ironstone” instead of “a piece of iron”. the pupil knew his answer was right and hers was wrong, but being very developed emotionally, he understood that there was no point telling her that, because she would be very embarrassed and he might have lost her affection, so he got an “a-” in the exam, rather than the straight “a” he deserved, but retained his teacher’s likeness. in a geography class held by the same teacher, the subject learnt was longitudes and latitudes. in order to illustrate the subject, the teacher took an orange, put it on her table, cut is at its “equator” and said that the orange was cut at its longest longitude. a 9-year old gifted boy, who knew she had been wrong, tried to correct her, but instead of admitting making a mistake, she argued with him, saying he had not heard her correctly. it was almost impossible to mishear what had been said regarding longitudes and latitudes in hebrew, as the hebrew term for longitude is “kav orech” and for latitude: “kav ro’chav”. in addition to her mistake, the pupil had to deal with his teacher’s denial, and with her future suspicious attitude toward him, resulting from her fear that her student “is out there, waiting for her to make another mistake” (david, 2011c, p. 77). 2.4. does not do homework or other school-tasks but gets high grades teachers complain, many a time, about “not doing homework”. it should be clear that this presentation is not about pros and cons of homework, either about the educational aims of doing homework even if the student does not need to rehearse what has been learned in class by doing homework (e.g., david, 2012a, 2012b). i suggest here that when a certain student is refusing to do homework on a regular basis, or must be persuaded by her or his parents to do homework time and again and pretty soon their homework become the parents’ tsk, but in spite of this behavior they achieve highly, succeed in the tests given and seems as controlling the material learned, it is very often because the child is gifted. a gifted child who is well equipped with good learning habits, had no disabilities and is blessed with learning motivation either knows already what is taught in class or understands and in control of the subject matter with no need for further rehearsing. it is highly recommended that when such a student has demonstrated more characteristics of giftedness both teachers and parents should offer them high level assignments, high level materials and a possibility to master additional subject matters—not just those learned in school. the tendency to label a student that has been “discovered: as gifted as “one who does not have to learn” is exactly the opposite of what that student needs. in order for a gifted student materialize their gifts, one might take into consideration that using the “gifted” label might prove to be prone to more harm than good (e.g., david, 2014c). as ryan (2013) has shown, labeling students as gifted has positive outcomes on self-concept developing when they receive supportive environment, and negative outcomes when they do not. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. 2.5. shows emotional high level (might even be social leader) studies by matheis, kronborg, schmitt, and preckel (2017) and matheis, keller, kronborg, schmitt, and preckel (2020) have shown that pre-service teachers have a strong belief about “maladjustment of the gifted”. similar results had been found among pre-service teachers (preckel, baudson, krolak-schwerdt, & glock, 2015). indeed, many gifted students, especially those who are disabled and do not get proper treatment, or others with a variety of risk-factors (e.g., david, 2009a, 2009b, 2011b, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2016a, 2016b, 2017a, 2017b). this prejudice has been supported by the media, describing the gifted child or adolescent quite often as a loner, “strange”, socially-rejected individual (e.g., bergold, hastall, & steinmayr, 2021; david, 2021; gross, 2006). bergold, hastall, and steinmayr (2021) discuss the “persistent popular stereotypes about gifted individuals stereotypes depicted in the mass media” (p. 76). according to them: despite the overwhelming evidence in support of the harmony hypothesis, negative stereotypes about gifted individuals are reflected in media representations. mass media such as movies, tv series, and fiction literature mostly present extremely gifted children and adolescents who lack social skills; have few friends; are solitary and whimsical, misunderstood, sensible, unsporting, or have a rather feeble constitution (cox, 2000; friedl & hoyer, 2014; vialle, 2007). according to bergold et al. (2021), “stereotypes held in the population” (p. 77) are also negative; this includes the majority of parents and educators: both teachers and pre-service teachers (baudson, 206; baudson & preckel, 2013, 2016; carrington & bailey, 2000; cramond & martin, 1987; ely, 2010; geake & gross, 2008; lee et al., 2004; matheis et al., 2017, 2020; moon & brighton, 2008). it also includes some research of gifted children and youths; the majority of which did not choose to be leaders (e.g., ogurlu, & sevim, 2017). but all these “testimonies”, beliefs and opinions do not contradict the fact that there is a substantial part of gifted children who are very well emotionally developed and thus popular by their peers, well-accepted in school and some even chose to be social leaders (e.g., sisk, 2008, 2018). indeed, many a time a highly gifted child “does not fit in”, but it does not necessarily mean that she or he lacks characteristics needed in order to be a “social success”. quite often it happens that a gifted child who seems to have social problems, or adjustment problems, once they are offered a more suitable environment, moving to a more challenging class, and getting higher level teachers and instructors “gets rid” of the former social problems. here is an example. one of the main reasons for the belief of “maladjustment of the gifted” and “social/emotional problems of the gifted” is the high occurrence of gifted children, youths and adults with over-excitabilities. carman (2011) suggest adding over-excitabilities to the “personality list” that can help identifying the gifted. ackerman (1997) had suggested the use of personality characteristics, based on dabrowski’s overexcitabilities theory, in order to identify gifted students. more explicitly, she (ibid, 2009) found that in almost 80% of the cases using three of the five “over-excitability components”—psychomotor, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. intellectual and motor was good-enough in order to discriminate between gifted and non-gifted adolescents. while many educators, who are not familiar with dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration (e.g., ackerman, 2009) perceive phases of restlessness—whether physical, such as psychomotor, intellectual, as asking too much, being involved in an intellectual activity to such a level that nothing else seems important or interesting, or being emotionally touched by things that most people might not even be aware of seem problematic, dabrowski (1972) had shown half a century ago that this is not the case. as the title of this first translated-to-english book says: psychoneurosis is not an illness. 2.5.1. a vignette from my clinic a few years ago i met the parents of a ten-year old highly gifted girl, who, in spite of learning in a gifted class, was extremely unhappy both with the learning level and pace and with her peers. by the time i met her she was a grade 4 student who had attended school regularly only in the 3 first month—september—november of the school year, while since december she hardly showed up in school for three months. it did not take me long to understand why she felt so bad in school: she was much more emotionally developed than most high school children i met; she felt that in order to be an integral part of her class she had to speak about subjects that did not interest anybody else; to hide her own abilities, insights, even aesthetic tastes that did not “fit in”, as she had an original way of speaking, dressing, even seeing the world. she was self-observant about all these facts, saying: “i am sick and tired of playing, of putting on a mask; ii is a lose-lose situation. either i keep on pretending to be a part of a crowd i do not belong to or i am to be rejected, laughed at, even banned”. after my second meeting with that girl i told her parents that she must skip a grade in order to have an opportunity to socialize with children who would be a better fit for her. i already thought that skipping two grades would be a better move, but knowing that the israeli ministry of n objects, in general for skipping two grades, and hoping she could still continue her formal education in a gifted class i was hoping that skipping one grade would—at least partially—“do the job”. i referred her to a well-known educational psychologist whose “day job” is at the ministry of education, so that no authority would be able to question his qualities. but soon enough i got a call from the psychologist who, after speaking with the girl just once asked me why i did not recommend that she skipped two grades. i told him that i was sure the ministry of education would object to such a move, and i was not sure whether he was willing to stay firm behind his recommendation when having to face the authorities’ objection. he assured me he did; the girl tool all tests requited and passed with extreme success, and the recommendation of skipping two classes was hand to the headmistress of her school. a few days later the parents got a letter stating that under no circumstances their daughter could skip two classes. as i already knew that in grade-speaking issues the final decision is in the diagnostician’s hands, the parents hired a lawyer who was to represent them if the case needed to be decided in court. but the “chief counselor” in the department of gifted and excellent students at the ministry of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. education—who knew that the department actually had ‘no case” invited the parents for a meeting aimed to “explain’ that skipping two grades was not the child’s best interest. i attended the meeting, as well as the psychologist, in addition to both the girl’s parents. the “chief counselor” was accompanied by the girl’s home-teacher, her headmistress, and another high official from the ministry of education. the 3-hour meeting started by the chief counselor who “told” us all: “you must be aware of the fact that gifted children are less developed emotionally than the non-gifted. i know it, as i am a mother of a gifted son myself. thus, skipping one class would probably not be the best interest of the girl, but we are willing to accept it as a compromise. but there is no way skip two classes; we cannot allow it”. this is not the place to discuss the knowledge level of the decision makers in the field of gifted education, nor are we to make any remarks about people who “know” things by extrapolation from their mother, sister, or son. i have brought this example only to demonstrate the fact that this prejudice, about the lesser emotional abilities of the gifted, not just exists, but is quite common even among those who are in charge not just of the cognitive development of the gifted but of their wellbeing as well. if you wonder how did this saga end: knowing that they had no prospects to win in court the ministry of education could not object to the girls’ skipping two grades, but as the department of gifted and excelling students is in israel is “separate kingdom” when the head of the department has a final say about everything, the girls could not get into a gifted class and thus after not attending school for most of grade 4 she moved to another school where on the next september she started attending a scientific grade 7. 3. discussion the following unconventional discussion is to demonstrate the frequency of ignorance still existing among teachers regarding gifted students, and is to show how by teacher education rather than by explanations, discussions and argumentations and attitudes towards gifted students can be achieved by teachers and thus higher probability of identification giftedness. over a quarter of a century ago, when teaching for the 5th time the course: “the gifted child in the regular classroom” to in-service kindergarten teachers, i started the first class in the year by asking all my students to sit in a large circle so that everybody would be able to see all other students. i assured them the material learned during that class is not going to be included in the final test, so they did not have to worry about writing “everything the teacher said”, and thus got their full attention as well as their cooperation: they were both thankful for “having less material to learn for the test” and being able to feel more at home, as sitting in a large circle is practiced in all israeli kindergartens as a part of the morning ritual intended to enable every child share feelings, thoughts, knowledge she or he find interesting, while the teacher steps in both as an interpreter for the children when needed, and as a person who by sharing her own experiences helps shy, hesitant or indifferent kindergartners to participate as well. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. i approached the woman sitting next to me and asked her: “can you tell us anything you wish about one of the gifted children you have met”? the teacher who was already in her 50ies had probably met dozens of gifted children in her 20+year career said: i never met a gifted child”. ok, i said, let’ go to on, and looked at the student sitting next to her. she thought for a minute, but then said: “i cannot recall meeting any gifted child”. i did not lose my patience and went on, until that student no, 5 said: “can i describe a gifted girl who is a family member”? of course you can, and it turned out that one that teachers’ nieces was identified as gifted by the ministry of education while 8-years old, and thus the teacher could not deny the fact that she “met a gifted child”. after describing some of the girls’ characteristics and ways of behavior, one of the first 4 students asked: “i can now remember a gifted boy who attended my kindergarten a few years ago. can i still speak about him?” “of course you can”, i answered. after that boy was described the other two students who previously “never met a gifted child” suddenly remembered that they had been meeting several gifted children, and all other students had also met gifted children and were eager to speak about them… but the 90-minute class was too short, and as we had a lot to learn in that course too many teachers were disappointed for not getting the opportunity to share their experiences with gifted children in the regular kindergarten with their class-mates. so i told my students that at the end of the course everybody who was to prefer writing a case study about a gifted child was welcome to do it instead of taking the traditional final test. they all chose this option and i had a tremendous amount of interesting materials about gifted children in the periphery. their work intrigues me to write my book: “gifted girls: case-studies” and about ten years later, after teaching the same course at the masters’ programs for educational counselors at the eilat branch of the ben-gurion university of the negev (david, 2011a). references ackerman, c. m. 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(2020). academic boredom: an underestimated challenge in schools. international electronic journal of elementary education, 13(1), 117-125. https://doi.org/10.26822/iejee.2020.177 pekrun, r., goetz, t., daniels, l. m., stupnisky, r. h., & perry, r. p. (2010). boredom in achievement settings: exploring control-value antecedents and performance outcomes of a neglected emotion. journal of educational psychology, 102(3), 531-549. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019243. pekrun, r., goetz, t., frenzel, a. c., barchfeld, p., & perry, r. p. (2011). measuring emotions in students’ learning and performance: the achievement emotions questionnaire (aeq). contemporary educational psychology, 36(1), 36-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2010.10.002 https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866x.2019.1576029 https://doi.org/10.4219/jeg-2008-793 https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/73 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. piechowski, m. m. (1992). emotional development and emotional giftedness. in n. colangelo and g. davis (ed.), handbook of gifted education (pp. 285-305). needham heights, ma: allyn & bacoon. preckel, f., baudson, t. g., krolak-schwerdt, s., & glock, s. (2015). gifted and maladjusted? implicit attitudes and automatic associations related to gifted children. american educational research journal, 52(6), 1160-1184. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831215596413 pfeiffer, s. (2002). identifying gifted and talented students: recurring issues and promising solutions. journal of applied school psychology, 1(1), 31-50. https://doi.org/10.1300/j008v19n01_03 ritter, s. m., & dijksterhuis, a. (2014). creativity—the unconscious foundations of the incubation period. frontiers in human neuroscience, 8(215), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00215 ryan, m. (2013). the gift of giftedness? a closer look at how labeling influences social and academic self-concept in highly capable learners (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of washington, seattle, wa. retrieved from https://digital.lib. washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/23616/ryan_washington_0250o_11876.pd f?sequence=1 schank, r. c. (1999). dynamic memory revisited. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511527920 segal, e. (2004). incubation in insight problem-solving. creativity research journal, 16, 141-148. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1601_13 siemer, e. a. (2009). bored out of their minds: the detrimental effects of no child left behind on gifted children, 30 wash. u. j. l. & pol’y 539. retrieved from https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol30/iss1/16 sisk, d. (2008). engaging the spiritual intelligence of gifted students to build global awareness in the classroom. roeper review, 30(1), 24-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783190701836296 sisk, d. (2018). an exploration of mindfulness practices and leadership. creative education, 9(9), 1302-1311. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2018.99097 snyder, a., mitchell, d., ellwood, s., yates, a., & pallier, g. (2004). nonconscious idea generation. psychological reports, 94 (3), 1325-1330. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.94.3c.1325-1330 smallwood, j. s., & schooler, j. w. (2006). the restless mind. psychological bulletin, 132(6), 946-958. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.946 toohey, p. (2011). boredom: a lively history. new haven, ct: yale university press torrance, e. p., & safter, t. h. (1990). the incubation model of teaching: getting beyond the aha! buffalo, ny: bearly. tucker, b., & haferistein, n. l. (1997). psychological intensities in young gifted children. gifted child quarterly, 41(3), 66-75. https://www.researchgate.net/journal/journal-of-applied-school-psychology-1537-7911 http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/j008v19n01_03 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228482756_engaging_the_spiritual_intelligence_of_gifted_students_to_build_global_awareness_in_the_classroom https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228482756_engaging_the_spiritual_intelligence_of_gifted_students_to_build_global_awareness_in_the_classroom https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.94.3c.1325-1330 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.946 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.946 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 2, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. tze, v. m. c., daniels, l. m., klassen, r. m., & li, j. c.-h. (2013). canadian and chinese university students’ approaches to coping with academic boredom. learning and individual differences, 23(1), 32-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.10.015 tze, v. m. c., klassen, r. m., & daniels, l. m. (2014). patterns of boredom and its relationship with perceived autonomy support and engagement. contemporary of educational psychology, 39(3), 175-187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.05.001 tze, v. m. c., daniels, l. m., & klassen, r. m. (2016). evaluating the relationship between boredom and academic outcome a meta-analysis. educational psychology review, 28(1), 119-144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-015-9301-y vialle, w. j. (2007). pink or paris? giftedness in popular culture. australasian journal of gifted education, 16(1), 5-11. retrieved from https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2222&context=edupape rs vogel-walcutt, j., fiorella, l., carper, t., & schatz, s. (2012). the definition, assessment, and mitigation of state boredom within educational settings: a comprehensive review. educational psychology review, 24(1), 89-111. http://link.springer.comarticle/10.1007/s10648-011-9182-7/fulltext.html wallas, g. (1926). the art of thought. new york, ny: harcourt brace and world. note(s) note 1. while many definitions of giftedness are iq-related, more and more countries are changing their criteria for giftedness identification by adding actual achievements—rather than focusing on future potential that might—or might not—be materialized. note 2. agnon, s. y. (1953 [1931]). hakhnāsat kallāh (in hebrew). schoken: jerusalem. note 3. the home-room teacher is called in hebrew “the educator”. in elementary school this teacher teaches usually a few subjects, including, in most cases, language, mathematics, or both. in high school “the educator” usually teaches less subjects, sometimes only one subjects, but is in charge of all social class issues. https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2222&context=edupapers https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2222&context=edupapers education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper interpretation and reflection on goodness in sakya legshad and bacon essays shen qunying1* 1 pre-college education school, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china * shen qunying, pre-college education school, sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china received: october 14, 2022 accepted: october 24, 2021 online published: november 4, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n4p1 abstract in the 21st century of the in-depth globalization, various problems have emerged such as regional conflicts, epidemics, the environmental deterioration, climate warming, earthquake and other uncertainty. seeking some common and desirable values is not only the basic needs of harmonious society, but also the inevitable result of human civilization evolution. sakya legshad, the 1st collection of chinese aphorisms, and bacon’s essays, the britain prose collection, are the world-wide treasures of wisdom, many chapters of which talk about the concept and practice of goodness. it is of immeasurable importance to reread these classics for interpretations of goodness so that their excellent traditional culture can continue to nourish and enlighten today’s moral education, promote the construction of the common views on the good and the evil, awaken people a moral consciousness, and enlighten them to hold good will and do good deeds for sustainable social harmony and world peace. keywords sakya legshad, bacon essays, goodness, human nature 1. introduction “the existence of human literature and art has its profound humanistic basis, and it is committed to the overall improvement of human’s true, good and beautiful dimensions”. (jiang, 2014, p. 7) the problem of good and evil has always been the moral cultivation explored by chinese and foreign scholars in literary works. sakya legshad written by a chinese scholar saban gonggajianzan (hereinafter referred to as saban) is a treasure of wisdom passed down from generation to generation; bacon essays written by a british literary giant of francis bacon (hereinafter referred to as bacon) is a classic works. many chapters in these works talk about the concept and practice of goodness, which represent a kind of universal and normative value and significance within a certain time and space. this value and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. significance is always a collection of multiple interpretations in cultural inheritance (simon, 2012, p. 75). with the in-depth development of globalization, more often diversified intercultural exchanges and the emergence of various problems on the good and the evil, it is necessary to make the reflections and interpretations of the goodness in the two works so that their excellent traditional culture can continue to nourish and enlighten today’s moral education, guide people to enhance their moral judgment and pass on the values of goodness, and encourage people to accumulate virtue and achieve lofty personality. all under heaven are one family and it is of more immeasurable importance to form a common view and a universal standard of the good and evil to standardize human behavior to effectively promote social harmony and peaceful world. 2. goodness’ theoretical construction 2.1 goodness’ innateness and acquisitions being good is human natural instinct. people are born with goodness and people are sympathetic, thus they can follow their own internal good nature to make self-requirements and self-discipline in thought and behavior. bacon (2018, p. 46) calls goodness the habit of the affecting of the weal of men and goodness of nature the inclination to goodness, and he illustrated the inclination imprinted so deeply in the nature of man that it will take onto other living creatures if it doesn’t issue towards men. he (2018, p. 37) gave a further insight into the inclination, “there is in man’s nature, a secret inclination and motion towards love of others, and if the inclination is not spent upon some one or a few, it does naturally spread itself towards many, and makes men become humane and charitable”. but saban believed that people are good and bad in nature, just as he said: “try as one might to reform bad people, they simply do not become good-natured (2009, p. 94); as long as coarse people remain helpless, they maintain a good disposition (2009, p. 80)”. delightedly saban (1985, pp. 3-12) attached more importance to people’s goodness of nature as follows: even in danger, the sage will not abandon his good nature; just as the real gold will not change its original color no matter how the real gold is smelted; and scholars will not follow the path of the evil no matter what difficulties they are in, just as swallows will not drink dirty water on the ground no matter how thirsty they are; even if the upright man is poor, he is noble in his moral character; just as the torch’s flame is still burning upward although the torch is down. on the one hand, saban and bacon’s observation suggest they believe that people are inherently good and evil, but they cling to goodness of nature since people tend to naturally show sympathy for people or things in danger or difficulties, and even make good behavioral responses by instinct, which is completely based on the most natural consciousness of people as living beings. on the other hand, saban and bacon believe that goodness of nature is acquired and improved, since people know to think independently, to be strict with themselves, to be cautious in words and deeds, to constantly water their own innate good nature, and to realize human value and dignity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. 2.1.1 goodness’ possibility rather than inevitability in abraham maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physiological needs are the most fundamental one of human beings as natural creatures. naturally, human beings are busy with the improvement of their living environment and the pursuit of material source guarantee, as saban (1985, p. 89) pointed out: people driven by survival are always rushing for money and materials. obviously, it is natural and necessary for human beings to have certain desires such as solving cold, thirst and hunger. as long as people have enough material base for survival, they can be good and do good based on their good nature, just as the ancient greek philosopher epicurus once said: “all the good originates from the pleasure of the mouth, and even wisdom and culture must be derived from it (russell, 1963, p. 300)”. as for individuals, they should hold the good nature, abide by the laws of life, nature and society development, act to realize their own real survival closer to nature on the premise of not harming or hindering the realization of others’ survival. goodness of human nature is not inevitable but possible. although people are in nature faithful and sincere, plain and direct, and not crafty (bacon, 2018, p. 82), the desire of a better life in excess causes the angels to degenerate. for instance, some people desire to have extravagant clothes and feasts, which is natural but unnecessary; and some people do their best to pursue fame, power and profit excessively, which is unnatural and unnecessary. if various desires of human beings are constantly growing and even flooding, they may also be evil-doers, just as bacon (2018, p. 15) revealed, “there is no man doth a wrong for the wrong’s sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit or pleasure or honour or the like”. to some extent, desires ruin one’s sense of shame. saban also attacked greed, “although it is believed that desires bring happiness, acting on such impulses brings only misery (2009, p. 141). the man, who are greedy for riches, are ruined by their property as their butcher, just as the fish that are greedy for bait are immediately killed by the fisherman (1985, p. 319)”. if people let their desires overgrow and overflow, they will inevitably cause interference and harm to their own and others’ lives, since “as a rule, people are harmed by others of their own kind (saban, 2009, p. 112)”. bacon (2018, p. 93) pointed out those who love nobody but themselves are many times unfortunate. similarly, saban found that the insatiable greed suffer a lot of pain like spring rain (1985, p. 86); when those who happen to have some wealth fail to use it or give it away, they are either stricken with disease or appearing as pretas (2009, p. 143). bacon and saban reveal that the excessive expansion of people’s desires result in social chaos, people’s pain and misfortune. it can be seen that there is possibility in reality for people to do good and evil though the latter is a curse. 2.1.2 goodness’ cultivation and strengthening how do we make the goodness from the natural possibility to the acquired reality? bacon and saban emphasize that people should be nurtured by learning to keep the good heart and nourish the good nature to serve others. saban said: “even if one is to die the next morning, today one must study, and knowledge is safely deposited for future lives (2009, p. 5); wisdom is what achieves www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. happiness in both this and future lives (2009, p. 10)”. similarly bacon (2018, pp. 154-155) believed that men’s discourse and speeches are much according to their learning and infused opinion, but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed; there is no trusting to the force of nature nor to the bravery of words, except it is corroborated by custom which is called education. although goodness of heart and nature are endowed by heaven, “there is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise, and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men’s minds are taken are most potent (bacon, 2018, p. 43)”. people need educating to make goodness flourish into a towering tree and the tendency of human nature to be good come true from a congenital possibility to an acquired reality. what’s more, being educated has a subtle impact on people’s temperament, character, talent and intelligence, just as saban said: “carefully cultivated by the wise, the fool will become noble (1985, p. 67); whether people have knowledge depends on whether they can distinguish the right from the wrong; whether their knowledge is profound or not, they are capable persons as long as they can be good at choosing what to do and what not to do (1985, p. 2)”. bacon (2018, p. 194) confirmed that studies perfect nature, which is like natural plants that need cutting; since a man’s nature runs either to herbs or weeds, let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other (bacon, 2018, p. 153). it is clear that human nature is like water, which can either carry a boat or overturn a boat. if properly guided, men can reach the supreme good like water and shoulder great responsibilities. all above demonstrates the natural and actual effect of acquired education in recovering and perfecting human original goodness. it is obvious that saban and bacon have similar views in advocating goodness education. moral education of goodness can help people listen to good words carefully, learn from good people and their good deeds, and have complete and accurate knowledge of goodness recognized, remembered, and internalized in their hearts with good will. it can promote goodness knowledge deposited and externalized in their deeds together with conscious behavior and intelligent practice of good deeds. 2.2 goodness’s altruism saban and bacon share goodness’ altruism. bacon defined goodness as the habit of affecting the weal of men (2018, p. 46). and in his opinion, there is a secret inclination and motion towards love of others in man’s nature, if it is not spent upon some one or a few, it does naturally spread itself towards many, and makes men become humane and charitable (2018, p. 37). saban also held the view that “to benefit others is to be good”: noble people, even when living far away, care for their friends by helping from afar (2009, p. 21). bacon (2018, p. 48) enumerated many parts and signs of goodness: a man is thankful for small benefits; a person is gracious and courteous to strangers; a person is compassionate towards the afflictions of others; a person easily pardons and remits offence. similarly saban outlined the good people, who willingly accept contempt from the mean-spirited, who don’t forget even small bestowed favors, who give alms without expecting return (2009, p. 23), who are not displeased by criticism (2009, p. 29), who are able to behave harmoniously with other beings (2009, p. 14), who do www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. not belittle others (2009, p. 57), who gently care for themselves and others as a fruit-laden tree shelters itself and others (2009, p. 60). men are social people with affective sympathy and all are in the same universe with the dependent relationship of mutual achievement and common growth, therefore the altruism of goodness stems from not only the originally good intention in mind and fellow cherish, but also the sense of social responsibility. 2.2.1 rational goodness bacon and saban encourage people to conduct charitably. in saban’s views, the supreme wealth results from generosity, and the supreme happiness comes from a good mind (2009, p. 133); those who delight in always being charitable have reputations that rise like the wind ( 2009, p. 22); if the rich want to increase their wealth, its best guarantee is to give it away (2009, p. 135); even foes gather for charity, but without it, even friends stay away (2009, p. 123). likewise, bacon(2018, p. 110) advocates that riches are for spending and spending is for honour and good actions, just as he claims, “of great riches there is no real use, except it is in the distribution; the rest is but conceit. the purpose of accumulating wealth urgently is not to satisfy greed, but to seek a kind of capital to do good. (2018, pp. 136-137)” it is known that philanthropic actions are the most straightforward good deeds in shouldering social responsibility. as the chinese saying goes, you should first learn to give, then you can come to gain. goodness is seen in offering and acceptance. everyone wants to function the altruism of goodness appropriately, but errors indeed in this virtue of goodness or charity may be committed (bacon, 2018, p. 47). bacon (2018, p. 47) warned people never to give others aesop’s cock a gem, who would be better pleased and happier if they had had a barley-corn, which hints people to supply a timely desideratum to the needy, and do good deeds as peculiar benefits with choices. people ought to follow in good deeds confucius’ advice that they should not do onto others what they would not have others do onto them (jiao, 1987, p. 994). in addition, bacon (2018, p. 47) warned people not to sell what they have and give it to the poor except they have a vocation wherein they may do as much good with little means as with great, for otherwise in feeding the streams they dry the fountain; therefore bacon (2018, p. 40) guided people to measure not their donations by quantity, but frame them by measure. similarly, saban persuaded people to avoid the following incidents: the ignorant are seen to destroy their allies and then take good care of strangers, just as docking a peacock’s head tuft to grace its tail is ludicrous, who but a madman would do such a thing (2009, p. 86); what’s more, some people of little shame use others’ wealth for favors to show off their good virtue; the unscrupulous people demonstrate their respect to the guests by displaying their friend’s clothes as a cushion for visitors to sit on (2009, p. 83). although there is a tendency towards goodness in human nature, there is a habit of goodness directed by right reason (bacon, 2018, p. 48). bacon told people to seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their faces or fancies, for that is but facility or softness, which takes an honest mind prisoner (2018, p. 47), since one can never satisfy evil people even by helping them in a hundred www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. excellent ways (saban, 2009, p. 93), and some recipients, who must always be helped by others someday, will certainly land in trouble (saban, 2009, p. 50). bacon pointed out some people are so good that they are good for nothing (2018, p. 47), just as saban reminded people when love is lavished excessively, that in itself generates hostility (2009, p. 118), and when too good in the wrong situation, one is taken advantage of by all (2009, p. 159). obviously, doing good deeds should be rational to clarify the objects of charity and their specific desires, just as saban (2009, p. 92) said: “until someone has been carefully examined, they should not be trusted nor spoken to candidly. from carelessness arises trouble; conversation often creates enemies”. 2.2.2 perfect goodness since there are attribute of egoism and altruism in human nature, perfect goodness is the mutual benefit of individual and collective ideals. on the one hand, one wants to meet the basic physiological and spiritual needs of his own natural person; on the other hand, he has to play the role of a social person to influence and change the life of others and the society, just as bacon (2018, p. 39) said, “merit and good works is the end of man’s motion, and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man’s rest”, so saban (2009, p. 21) was firmly under the belief that one’s reputation brings pleasure while one is alive, and merit brings happiness in future lives. if taking bacon’s advice to divide with reason between self-love and society (bacon, 2018, p. 92), people have three choices and representations between selfishness and unselfishness in dealing with the same issue. one is always to think much about themselves, never of others and the public. this will inevitably lead to the evil of excessive selfish desires, avarice nature, and benefiting oneself at the expense of others; and it is likely to result in such vices of extreme self-lovers as corruption, bribery, malpractices for selfish ends. saban criticized the self-centered that always ignoring the interests of others is to behave in the same way as cattle, and if they aspire only to a full stomach, they are nothing but hairless pigs (saban, 2009, p. 37), and even those absorbed in talk of food and riches are referred to as two-legged cow(2009, p. 45). another is always to think much about others and the public, seldom or never of themselves such as serving the public and profiting others at the price of their own personal interests, and even their lives to respect and safeguard the interests of others and the public. the third is to give consideration to the interests of themselves, others and the public. it is a perfect goodness either to benefit others without harming oneself or to benefit oneself without harming others and the public. saban (2009, p. 124) illustrated this ideal: the rich give generously, and the profound learned are gentle and elegant, and the great love their subordinates, all of which are beneficial to others and themselves. bacon (2018, p. 92) warned people to be so true to themselves as be not false to others, specially to their king and country, just as saban (2009, pp. 225-226) said, “if one strongly wants to achieve private aims, one must first work for the interests of others; by working solely for personal concerns, it will be impossible to achieve them; those who work mainly for the welfare of others are like clever people furthering their own interests; but those who work only for their own interests are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. like honest people working to help others get ahead”. bacon and saban show benefiting others and benefiting oneself are connected inextricably, and they hope one gives consideration to both public and private interests and achieve win-win results in the relation balance between a person’s life activities and the human community. 3. conclusion sakya legshad and bacon essays tell the meanings and practices of goodness as well as the relative value standards of human goodness in different times, nations and countries. saban and bacon constantly enrich and improve goodness’ theoretical construction goodness as follows: goodness is innate and acquired in human nature, so being good is possible more than inevitable and goodness can result from the enrichment and strengthening of moral education in societies well ordained and disciplined (bacon, 2018, p. 156); although goodness has the characteristic of altruism, practice of goodness needs rationality and appropriateness rather than errors committed in the virtue of goodness. saban and bacon finally attribute goodness to meeting the social public will including self-desires, that is to say, a person’s shaping of his own life conforms to the ideal of individual perfection while promoting the happiness of others (paulsen, 1988, p. 212). the meanings and practices of goodness in these two works will continue to nourish people’s spiritual world to hold goodness concept, enlighten today’s moral education, let people examine and reflect themselves to do good deeds, and promote the perfect goodness of the mutual benefit, mutual achievement, and harmonious coexistence between oneself and others. in the new era of improving people’s well-being and building a community with a shared future for mankind, it has profound significance for many scholars to do multiple interpretations of classics in cultural inheritance to help the shaping of a social mentality with mutual respect, rationality, peace, kindness and fraternity. references bacon, f. (2018). bacon’s essays, notes and guide (shen yiwen, inter.). beijing: china aerospace press. jiang wenzhen. (2014). what is literature for: a comparative study of chinese and western traditional literary values. beijing: people’s publishing house. jiao xun. (1987). mencius’ rectified interpretation. beijing: zhonghua book company. paulsen, f. (1988). ethics system. beijing: china social sciences press. russell, b. (1963). a history of western philosophy (i) (z. w. he, & j. needham, trans.). beijing: the commercial press. saban, g. (1985). sakya aphorism (zidandoji, trans.). lhasa: people’s press. saban, g. (2009). sakya legshad (trilingual version, english translated by j. t. davenport, chinese translated by renzengcairang & caigongtai). lhasa: china press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 4, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. simon, g. ( 2012). history and cultural theory (j. han, trans.). beijing: peking university press. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 22 original paper breast engorgement among women with caesarean section: impact of nursing intervention hanan elzeblawy hassan1*, galal ahmed el-kholy2, aziza ahmed ateya3 & amal ahmed hassan4 1 maternal and newborn health nursing department, faculty of nursing, beni-suef university, egypt 2 professor of obstetrics & gynecology, faculty of medicine, benha university, egypt 3 professor of maternal and newborn health nursing, faculty of nursing, ain shams university, egypt 4 professor of obstetrics and women’s’ health nursing department, benha university, egypt * hanan elzeblawy hassan, maternal and newborn health nursing department, faculty of nursing, beni-suef university, egypt received: may 29, 2020 accepted: june 14, 2020 online published: june 23, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p22 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p22 abstract background: breast engorgement is defined as enlarged & filling of breast with milk. it is one of the most significant problems confronting nursing women, especially primiparous, in the first week of motherhood. the aim of the study was to investigate the impact of nursing intervention on relieve of breast engorgement among women with caesarean section. design and setting an interventional study was conducted in postnatal unit of beni-suef university hospital. sample was simple random sample comprised a total of 90 primiparae’s cesarean section mothers; 45 in the interventional group & 45 in the control group. tools of data collection were interview questionnaire sheet, knowledge assessment sheet and observational & engorgement assessment scale. the study revealed that, the nursing intervention was more effective and contributed rapid recovery from breast engorgement especially among the older, educated, housewives, high social class's women and those who were rural dwellers. the study recommended that prevention is a key element in reducing breast engorgement potentially among nursing mothers. so, primiparous mothers should learn about preventive measures for breast engorgement. teaching mother how to express both breasts simultaneously to yield the most volume and to decrease time spend pumping each consecutively is the responsibility of health care providers. keywords breast engorgement, primiparous, caesarian section, nursing intervention www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the postpartum period “puerperium”, as states by susan a. and wong h., is the interval between the birth of the newborn and the return of the reproductive organs to their normal no pregnant state. this period sometimes referred to 4th trimester of pregnancy. although the puerperium has traditionally been considered to last 6weeks, this time frame varies among women (who, 2001; who & unecif, 1991). it is divided into immediate (the 1st 24 hours), early (up to 7 days) and remote (up to 6 weeks). the birth of infant signals the beginning of a new chapter in the life of the mother & her significant others (bashir, 2008; who, 2002). puerperium is a normal process that result in a series of unwelcome both physiological & psychological changes in women (especially for primiparae) as their bodies recover from pregnancy & labor (who, 1995; who, 2001). the major physiological event of the puerperium is lactation. when the milk comes in, the breasts suddenly become larger, firmer and tenderer. new mothers experience a varying degree of discomfort at this time. breast engorgement is considered among the most significant problems encountered in the 1st week of motherhood. the medical dictionary defines engorgement as local congestion, excessive fullness of any organ, vessel, or tissue due to an accumulation of fluid (blck et al., 2007). breast engorgement is stated by litteton l. and engerbeston j. in 2005 as enlarged and filling of the breasts with milk. lactation literature refers to engorgement as the physiologic condition characterized by the painful swelling of the breasts associated with sudden increase in milk volume, lymphatic and vascular congestion, and interstitial edema during the first two weeks following birth. engorgement is a normal physiologic process with a progression of events, not a result of trauma or injury to tissues (walker, 2010; hassan, 2011). a distinction exists between breast fullness and engorgement. engorgement is a common response of the breast to the sudden change in hormones and the presence of an increased volume of milk. it usually occurs in 3rd to 5th day postpartum when the milk comes in and lasts about 24 hours (wilson & lowdermilk, 2006; hassan et al., 2020a). when milk production increases rapidly, the volume of milk in the breast can exceed the capacity of the alveoli to store it. if the milk is not removed, over distention of the alveoli can cause the milk-secreting cells to become flattened & drawn out, even to rupture. the distinction can partly or completely occlude the capillary blood circulation surround the alveolar cells, further decreasing cellular activity. congested blood vessels leak fluid into the surround tissue space contributing to edema. pressure and congestion obstruct lymphatic drainage of the breasts, stagnate the system that rid the breast of toxins, bacteria, and cast-off cell parts, thereby predisposing the breast to mastitis (both inflammation & infection) (walker, 2010; buckley & kulb, 2003). breast engorgement is one of the most common minor discomforts confronting nursing women after delivery, especially primiparous. as a result of increased blood supply to the breast, it causes swelling of the tissue surrounding the milk ducts. the duct may be pinched shut so that the milk does not flow (wilson & lowdermilk, 2006; riordan & hoover, 2005). the breasts are firm, tinder, swollen and hot www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. and they are throbbing. the skin is taut, shiny, or transparent and low-grade fever. the tenderness and swelling may extend into the axilla. the areola is firm and the nipple may flatten, and the areola is too hard to grasp, making it difficult for a newborn to latch on (wilson & lowdermilk, 2006; mohrbacher, ibclc, & stock, 1997; hassan, 2011). engorgement can be classified as involving only the areola, only the body of the breast, or both. it may occur in one or both breasts. areolar engorgement involves clinical observations of a swollen areola with tight, shiny skin, probably involving over-full lactiferous sinuses. a puffy areola is thought to be tissue edema caused by large amounts of intravenous fluids received by some mothers during labor (walker, 2010; riordan, 2009). some degree of breast engorgement is normal. minimal or no engorgement in the first week postpartum has been associated with insufficient milk, early supplementation, and a higher percentage of breastfeeding decline in the early weeks. women with mild to moderate hypoplastic breasts with a wide intramammary space (>1 inch) and a tubular shape are at particular risk for producing less than 50 % of the milk necessary for the first week (newton & newton, 1951, neifert et al., 1990; huggins et al., 2000). moderate to severe engorgement is of more concern. rates of engorgement between 20% and 85% have been reported in the literature based on numerous definitions and are usually limited to the first few days postpartum. such reports described engorgement as peaking between day 3 and day 6 and declining thereafter. however, data from two unpublished masters theses suggest that mothers experience more than one peak of engorgement and that engorgement may continue for as long as ten days or more (riedel, 1991; csar, 1991). four patterns of engorgement have been described: a single experience of the firm, tender breasts followed by a resolution of symptoms; multiple peaks of engorgement followed by resolution; intense and painful engorgement lasting up to fourteen days; and minimal breast changes. these patterns demonstrate that the experience of engorgement is not the same for all mothers (riedel, 1991; csar, 1991). an individual mother’s risk for and course of engorgement are; (1) failure to prevent or resolve milk stasis is resulting from infrequent or inadequate drainage of the breasts. the higher the cumulative number of minutes of sucking during the early days postpartum, the less pain from engorgement mothers describes (moon & humenick, 1989), (2) small breast size (other than hypoplastic and tubular). mothers with small breasts may need to experience a greater number of breastfeedings over 24 hours than women with a larger milk storage capacity (day & hartmann, 1995), (3) previous breastfeeding experience, but not parity, influences engorgement. second-time breastfeeding mothers experience greater levels of engorgement sooner with faster resolution than first-time breastfeeding mothers. breast engorgement for multiparous mothers’ breastfeeding for the first time was similar to primiparous breastfeeding mothers. robson (1990) found that mothers in a non-engorged group were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. more likely to have never experienced engorgement following previous births than mothers in the engorged group (mc lachlan et al., 1993; robson, 1990). (4) mothers with high rates of milk synthesis (hyper lactation) or large amounts of milk such as mothers of multiples may see milk stasis magnified if infants consume less milk, if less milk is pumped, or whenever milk volume significantly exceeds milk removal (livingstone, 1996), (5) limited mother/infant contact in the early days; shiau (1997) demonstrated significantly less engorgement on day three in mothers who participated in skin-to-skin care of their full-term babies rather than standard nursery care. if breast engorgement is not promptly treated, it may lead to some complications such as; (1) feeding problems or slow weight gain if the baby is unable to latch on the engorged breast (davidson et al., 2008), (2) sore and cracked nipple due to the baby fumbling on/off as he tries to grasp hold of a too firm breast. (morland schultz & hill, 2005), (3) deep breast (fraser et al., 2004), (4) thrush: is a fungal infection can be formed on the nipple or within the breast (especially cracked nipple or congested breast), as they live on milk (agamy, 2011), (5) plugged ducts results from accumulation of milk or dead cells that have not been expelled from the breast. (orshan, 2008), (6) mastitis; also, neglected engorgement may be a forerunner and predisposes to more serious breast problems such as mastitis (acute intramammary) (riordan, 2005a; who, 2000). prevention is still the best medicine for engorged breast and other breast-feeding’s problems. numerous preventive strategies have been seen over the years including restricting fluids, prenatal expression of colostrum, prenatal breast massage, and postnatal breast massage, binding the breasts, or wearing a tight bra. mothers experience less severe forms of engorgement with early frequent feedings, self-demand feedings, unlimited sucking times, and with babies who demonstrate correct suckling techniques (cable & davis, 1997; nikodem, 2006; salhan, 2007; davidson et al., 2008; wilson & lowdermilk, 2006). when breast engorgement is evident, it could be relieved by several pharmacological and nursing measures. the main pharmacological measures are regular analgesia for 24 to 48 hours to reduce pain. the mother can take acetaminophen (tylenol) for breast discomfort (fraser et al., 2004). use of an anti-inflammatory agent (danzen) significantly improved symptoms ibuprofen may help reduce pain and swelling associated with engorgement (litteleton & engebretson, 2005). the use of an oxytocin nasal spray prescribed just before infant feeding to relieve breast engorgement or to promote to flow of milk at the beginning of the period of nursing (snowden et al., 2001). for nursing measures; a plethora of treatment modalities for engorgement have been put forward, both anecdotally and in the literature, such as hot compresses, hot showers, soaking the breasts in a bowl of hot water, cold compresses after feedings, cold packs before feedings, ice packs, frozen bags of vegetables, both hot and cold therapy, binding the breasts, manual expression, mechanical expression, lymphatic breast massage, frequent feedings, alternate massage, chilled cabbage leaves, room temperature cabbage leaves, and cabbage leaf extract (zagloul et al., 2020; jacob, 2005; benson & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. pernall, 2002). 1.1 significant of the study breast engorgement is considered among the most significant problems encountered in the first week of motherhood. moderate to severe engorgement is of more concern. rates of engorgement between 20% and 85% have been reported in the literature based on numerous definitions. it is one of the most common minor discomforts confronting nursing women 2-4 days after delivery, especially primiparae. women may report red, swollen, warm, firm, tender, uncomfortable, overall heaviness, and full and throbbing pain in the breasts that may extend to the axilla, on examination; there may be pyrexia and tachycardia. the main importance lies in the fact that the engorged breast can prevent nursing, leading to decrease in the milk production. in addition, engorgement may be forerunner of acute-non infective mastitis (acute intra mammary) and breast abscess. mastitis is an actual inflammation of breast tissue; if mastitis is not treated properly and promptly it may lead to breast abscess (hanretty et al., 2003). one of the most important aspects of midwifery care is providing accurate and consistent advice on how to prevent breast engorgement and, if problem occurs, how to overcome it, in order to reduce early cessation of breast feeding. therefore, this study was undertaken to: assess women knowledge and practiced regarding breast feeding. assess the prevalence and severity of breast engorgement among a group of breastfeeding women delivered caesarian section. apply and find out the effect of some nursing measures that may relief breast engorgement among a group of breastfeeding women with caesarean section. 1.2 aim of the study investigate the impact of nursing intervention on relieve of breast engorgement among women with caesarean section. the aims of this study achieved through: • apply deferent measures of nursing intervention for women to relieve the engorgement of the breast; these measures are: 1) appling of warm compresses for affected breast for 20 minutes before each feeding. 2) administered cold cabbage leaves which were refrigerated in the freezer for approximately 20-30 minutes. 3) massaging the breast and emptying the breast by manual (or pump) expression of milk. • evaluate the effect of nursing measures on the relief of breast engorgement comparing with routine hospital care. 1.3 research hypothesis breast engorgement among puerperal women delivered caesarian section will be relieved after application of nursing intervention. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. 2. method 2.1 technical design: 2.1.1 study design: this study is an interventional study. 2.1.2 setting: the study was conducted in postnatal unit of beni-suef university hospital. 2.1.3 subjects: 2.1.3.1 samples size: total study subjects of 90 women who suffer from breast engorgement for a period of 6 months were included in the study from the previous mentioned setting with the following criteria: • primiparous women. • women with caesarean section delivery. • free from medical disease which interfere with breastfeeding (infectious disease as active pulmonary tuberculosis). • initiate breast feeding. • her baby is normal. 2.1.3.2 sample type: primiparous women who delivered by caesarean section randomly selected. they were equally allocated into two groups an intervention and a control group: astudy (intervention) group: this group comprised half of the mothers (45 women) who suffer from breast engorgement. they were trained to apply three nursing measures to relief engorgement. bcontrol group: this group were comprised the other half the mothers (45 women) who suffer from breast engorgement and they were left for the routine postnatal hospital care. 2.1.4 tools of data collection: two tools were used to collect the necessary data about the study subjects as the following: tool (1): a specialized designed structured interview schedule was developed based on the review of currently related literature and used by the researcher to collect the necessary data about the study subjects. it included the general characteristics of the study subjects such as: name, age, residence, address, phone number, educational level, type of family, family income, occupation. tool (2): engorgement assessment scale: this tool was especially designed to provide the baseline data of the subjects regarding their signs and symptoms of engorged breast. it was implemented by using an observational check list which illustrated the breast current condition (redness, swollen or edema of the skin and pain) as well as pyrexia. in addition, follow up-checklist to assess the effectiveness of the nursing interventions compared to routine hospital practices used to relieve the breast engorgement among the two groups to identify degree of improvement after applying the three suggested methods of treatment for breast engorgement (warm compresses, frozen cabbage leaves www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. compress and breast milk expression). this tool comprised four main parts: part (a): modified reeda scale (rs) (note 1) the modified reeda scale (rs, 1989) was used to provide the most objective means for evaluating the condition of the engorged breast after delivery in relation to redness (r). mild redness was characterized by presence less than 0.25 cm of redness in the bilateral breasts or less than 0.5 cm of redness in the unilateral breast. moderate redness was characterized by an increase of redness to 0.5 cm in the bilateral breasts or 1 cm in only one breast. severe redness was characterized by an increase of redness to more than 0.5 cm in each breast or more than 1 cm in only one breast. redness was determined through four levels: a0 = no redness. b1 = < 0.25 cm bilateral or < 0.5 cm unilateral (mild redness). c2 = 0.5 cm bilateral or = 1 cm unilateral (moderate redness). d3 = > 0.5cm bilateral or > 1 cm unilateral (severe redness). part (b): visual analog scale (vas) it is a subjective self-reported scale for description mother self-rating of pain. the scale was used to identify the three pain levels according to la foy and geden (1989) as the following: mild pain was characterized by pinking and/or aching, moderate pain was characterized by pressing, sharp cramping, and burning, while sever pain was characterized by no tolerance to pain. pain was determined through four levels: a0 = no pain. b1 = mild pain. c2 = moderate pain. d3 = severe pain. part (c): newton’s scale (1951) this scale entails measuring the chest circumference just above the nipple in the semi-recumbent position during the first 12 hours after delivery (jacob, 2005; snowden et al., 2005). this measurement is considered to baseline measurement to assess breast edema as the following: no edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of less than 1.5 cm. mild edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of 1.5 cm to less than 2.5 cm. moderate edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of 2.5 cm to less than 4 cm. sever edema was characterized by an increase of chest circumference of more than 4 cm. breast edema was determined through four levels: a0 = no edema. b1 = mild edema. c2 = moderate edema. d3 = severe edema. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. part (d): pyrexia chart thermometer is used to measure body temperature (to determine pyrexia). pyrexia was assessed through four levels: a0 = 37 0c (no pyrexia). b1 = 37.50c (mild pyrexia). c2 = 38 0c (moderate pyrexia). d3 = 38.50c (severe pyrexia). breast engorgement total scale the occurrence of breast engorgement was determined according to collection of the total scores in tool (3): total (t) = redness + pain + edema + pyrexia. the degree of breast engorgement was estimated according to the following:  t < 4 considered as no breast engorgement.  t ≥ 4 & < 8 considered as mild breast engorgement.  t ≥ 8 & < 12 considered as moderate breast engorgement.  t ≥ 12 considered as sever breast engorgement. a. 0 = no engorgement. b. 1 = mild engorgement. c. 2 = moderate engorgement. d. 3 = severe engorgement. 2.2 operational design the study to be completed was passed through different phases as follows: preparatory phase then the pilot study and the field work. 2.2.1 preparatory phase tools development:-the tools of data collection were developed by the researcher after extensive review of recent and related literature. 2.2.2 ethical considerations: • the researcher took consent from women included to participate in the study. • the researcher tools didn’t embarrass of modesty and didn't cause any harm or pain for the participant women. • the researcher tools didn’t cause any physical, psychological and social risk. • the participant has right to withdraw at any time. 2.2.3 pilot study a pilot study was carried out on 10% of women (9 cases) who were excluded from the sample to ascertain their clarity, estimated time, efficiency and applicability and the necessary changes were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. undertaken. 2.2.4 field work (procedure): the researcher selects lactating caesarean women who fulfilled the criteria. the researcher explained the purpose of the study to every woman, and then her consent to participate in the study was obtained. each interview was conducted individually and in total privacy to assure that information to be obtained will be confidential and will be used only for research purpose. six days per week specified for data collection until the study sample completed over a period of 6 months starting from the beginning of january till june 2010. women attended to the postnatal ward were interview. the average number of interviewee was 1-3 per day and the time taken for each sheet to complete was 60-75 minutes, depending upon the response of interviewee. the study proceeds as the following: a. the whole primiparous caesarean women were interviewed by the researcher during the first 12 hours after delivery to find out general characteristics of the sample and assess their knowledge about breastfeeding and breast engorgement. in addition, the condition of their breasts was assessed during the initial interview according to the pre-designed check list which is used on the newton's scale. this assessment was considered as the base-line measurement of chest circumference. b. the percent of sample who had breast engorgement among all primiparous women delivered by caesarian section were 55.9% all over the period of the study (6 months). c. the whole sample (90 lactating women) that was actually suffered from breast engorgement. they were interviewed by the researcher in the 3rd postnatal day to identify their current signs, symptoms and complain (base-line data of the participants). group (1): study group this group were comprised half of the women who suffered from breast engorgement and different nursing measures were instituted & instructions, booklet was given for them. the methods of intervention were: 1) appling of warm compresses for affected breast for 20 minutes before each feeding. heat application is used in form of hot compresses, hot shower, or hot soaks. the temperature of hot compresses ranged between 43oc & 46oc. 2) administered cold cabbage leaves which were refrigerated in the freezer for approximately 20-30 minutes prior to the procedure. cold leaves were placed inside the women's brassier for 30 minutes. 3) massaging the breast and emptying the breast by manual (or pump) expression of milk after each feeding was demonstrated at first by the researcher on one breast and re-demonstrated by the mother on the other breast. group (2): control group this group were comprised the other half of the women who suffered from breast engorgement and were left to the routine postnatal hospital care. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. 2.2.5 follow up: reassessment of women's breast condition; using the same tools which were used in the 1st visit; was done for two groups at 3rd, 4th,and 5th day post-partum , and they instructed to come to outpatient clinic for follow-up visits at 7th, and 9th day post-partum. the breast was observed for (redness, edema, and pain) and the mother observed for pyrexia. a comparison was then done between the 1st and successive measurements which were done in the 3rd day and in the 4th, 5th, 7th, and 9th day after delivery. 2.3 administrative design official permission to conduct the study was obtained from responsible authorities after explanation of the purpose of the study. 2.4 statistical design the data collected were computerized, revised, categorized, tabulated, analyzed, and presented in descriptive and associated statistical form using the statistical software spss. the necessary tables were then prepared and statistical formulas were used. the following statistical measures were used: a. descriptive measures included percentages, arithmetic mean (x -), and standard deviation (sd). b. statistical tests included: 1) chi square (x2) test for analysis of qualitative variables. 2) t test for analysis of quantitative variables. 3) r test for analysis of correlation association. c. graphical presentation included column-chart diagrams. d. the level of significance selected for this study was p equal to or less than 0.05. 3. result table 1 illustrates the distribution of the study subjects according to their general characteristics. it was found that, the mean age was 23.9 ± 6.6 and the mean age of marriage was 22.2 ± 6.4 for the study group and 22.6 ± 4.9 and 21.04 ± 6.1, respectively, for the control group. concerning their level of education, it was clear that those who had secondary or equivalent secondary education constituted 48.9% of the study group and 31.1% of the control group. the majority of both the study & control groups (71.1% & 80%) were housewives. the same table shows that (51.1% & 53.4%) of both study & control group, respectively, were from rural areas. considering the type of family, it was observed that similar proportion (51.1%) of both study & control subjects had extended family. in relation to family income, it was observed from the same table that (64.4%) of the study group and (51.1%) of the control group didn’t have enough family income. while a minority of both groups (8.9%) were had more than enough for their need. no significant differences found between two groups which indicated homogeneity of the two groups. figure 1 presents distribution of the samples according to severity degree of breast engorgement before application of nursing measures. it was observed that moderate engorgement scored the highest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 32 published by scholink inc. percentage (48.9% & 42.3%) for the study and control group, respectively. figure 2 portrays distribution of the samples according to severity degree of signs & symptoms breast engorgement before application of nursing measures. table 2 shows that, in the 3rd day (before intervention), 51.1% of the study compared to 6.7% of the control group had severe redness. after intervention, it was found that, the percentage of severe redness declined to 4.4% in the 4th day and completely absents by the 5th day in the study group. while increased to 26.7% in the 4th day and 31.1% by the 5th day in the control group. concerning the complete recovery from redness, the table shows that, it was achieved among the whole study group (100%) by the 7th day, while in control group; only 24.4% of the sample was completely recovered by the 9th day. regarding to severe pain, the table shows that, in the postpartum 3rd day (before intervention), there is 46.6% of the study sample compared to 4.4% of the control group suffer from severe pain, while, in the 4th day this percentage declined to 0.0% in the study group. while increased to 31.1% in the 5th day and completely absents by the 9th day in the control group. when the complete recovery from pain was considered, the entire study group (100%) was recovered by the 7th day postpartum, while only 20% in the control group were recovered completely until the 9th day postpartum. it is observed that, in the 3rd day (before intervention), 40% of the study sample compared to 6.7% of the control group had severe edema. after intervention, it was found that, the percentage of severe edema declined to 2.2% in the 4th day and completely absents by the 5th day in the study group. while increased to 28.9% in the 5th day and completely absents by the 9th day in the control group. concerning the complete recovery from edema , the table shows that , it was achieved among the whole study group (100%) by the 7th day ,while in control group, (55.6%) of the sample were completely recovered by the 9th day postpartum. regarding to severe pyrexia, the table shows that, in the postpartum 3rd day (before intervention), 51.1% of the study sample compared to 4.4% of the control group suffer from severe pyrexia, while, in the 4th day it was found that, complete absence of severe pyrexia in the study group, while remaining the same percentage until the 5th day in the control group. when the complete recovery from pyrexia was considered, the entire study group (100%) was recovered by the 5th day postpartum, while 93.3% of the control group was recovered completely by the 9th day postpartum. figure 3 shows comparison between study and control group regarding their complete recovery from breast engorgement throughout follow up visits. it was observed that all of study group completely recovered (100%) in the fifth day compared to only 40% of the control group. table 3 reveals that the complete recovery from (redness, pain & edema) for the study group throughout follow up visits was at the postpartum seventh day, while for the control group it extended after the ninth day postpartum. however, the complete recovery from pyrexia for the study group was at the postpartum fifth day compared to later than ninth day postpartum for the control group. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. table 4 illustrates a strong significant negative correlation association was found between the degree of breast engorgement and the age & age of marriage for both the study and control sample. the percent of illiterate women in both groups (3.0 ± 0.0 & 1.8 ± 0.8) had got high level of engorgement as compared to university educated women (1.4 ± 0.5 & 1.7± 0.5) in both groups. the same table illustrates that, level of breast engorgement increased in urban areas (2.3 ± 0.6 & 2.28 ± 0.8) compared to rural ones (1.8 ± 0.6 & 1.83 ± 0.7). it was observed a strong significant negative correlation association between the degree of breast engorgement and family income for both the study and control sample, respectively, r = 0.86, 0.88. it was observed in table 5 that, in the control group, 90.6% of women who aged less than 25 years were relieved from breast engorgement on the ninth day. while all of, participated women in, the study group were relived from breast engorgement on the fifth day. the same table illustrates that the majority of the illiterate, read & writing women in the control group (85.7%) relieved from breast engorgement on the ninth day. the table shows that only 8.3% from housewives among the control group were recovered from breast engorgement on the fourth day and 91.7% of them were relieved on ninth day as compared with (90.6%) from housewives of the study group who were recovered on the fourth day and all of them were relieved on fifth day. the table also shows that (88.9%) of the study group who married ≥20 years old was relieved on the fourth day. in comparison, none of the women in the control group recovered on the same day. the table shows that only 12.5% of the rural women among the control group were relieved from breast engorgement on the fourth day and 50% from them were relieved on the fifth day as compared with (87%) of the same dwellers of the study group who were relieved on the fourth day and all of them relieved on the fifth day. table 1. distribution of the samples according to their general characteristics variables sample groups t & x2 test study group (n = 45) control group (n = 45) n % n % age( in years) t= 1. 08 <20 14 31.1 12 26.7 2014 31.1 20 44.4 258 17.8 10 22.2 30-40 9 20 3 6.7 mean x± sd 23.9 ± 6.6 22.6. ± 4.9 education: x2 =3.3 illiteracy 4 8.9 7 15.6 read & write + basic education 10 22.2 14 31.1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. *significant, p < 0.05 secondary equivalent education 22 48.9 14 31.1 university education 9 20 10 22.2 occupation: x2 =1.0 working 13 28.9 9 20 housewife 32 71.1 36 80 age of marriage: t = 0.89 < 20years 27 60 31 68.9 ≥ 20 years 18 40 14 31.1 mean x± sd 22.2 ± 6.4 21.04 ± 6.1 duration of marriage: x2 =0.8 ≤5 years 18 40 14 31.1 >5 years 27 60 31 68.9 mean x± sd 5.8 ± 2.8 2.3 ± 3.3 residence: 0.04 urban 22 48.9 21 46.6 rural 23 51.1 24 53.4 types of family: identical extended family 23 51.1 23 51.1 nuclear family 22 48.9 22 48.9 family size: 0.18 35 21 46.7 23 51.1 > 5 24 53.3 22 48.9 mean x± sd 6.1 ± 2.01 5.95 ± 2.02 family income: 2.0 unsatisfied (not enough) 29 64.4 23 51.1 just enough(enough for living only) 12 26.7 18 40 satisfy (enough & can save from it ) 4 8.9 4 8.9 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. figure 1. distribution of subjects according to degree of breast engorgement and its signs & symptoms throughout follow up visits figure 2. distributions of the samples according to severity degree of signs & symptoms breast engorgement before application of nursing measures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. table 2. distribution of the sample according to scoring of signs & symptoms (redness, pain, pyrexia, and edema) in the breast engorgement throughout follow up visits (by using reeda scale) va ria bl e breast engorgement throughout follow up visits scoring x± sd t test non % mild % moderate % sever % sc or in g of r ed ne ss 3rd day 5.7* study group 0.0 15.6 33.3 51.1 2.4 ± 0.7 control group 0.0 48.9 44.4 6.7 1.6 ± 0.6 4th day 7.1* study group 35.5 48.9 11.2 4.4 0.8 ± 0.8 control group 2.2 20 51.1 26.7 2.0 ± 0.8 5th day 12.9* study group 95.6 4.4 0.0 0.0 0.04 ± 0.2 control group 13.3 35.6 20 31.1 1.8 ± 0.9 7th day 5.0 * study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 control group 33.3 28.9 22.2 15.6 1.2 ± 1.1 9th day 13.3* study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 control group 24.4 75.6 0.0 0.0 0.8 ± 0.4 sc or in g of p ai n 3rd day 5.5* study group 2.2 15.6 35.6 46.6 2.3 ± 0.7 control group 0.0 40.0 55.6 4.4 1.6 ± 0.6 4th day 6.9* study group 53.3 40.0 6.7 0.0 0.7 ± 0.8 control group 2.2 24.4 49.0 24.4 2.0 ± 0.8 5th day 2.4* study group 97.8 2.2 0.0 0.0 1.6 ± 0.8 control group 13.3 40.0 15.6 31.1 2.0 ± 0.8 7th day 20.0* study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ± 0.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 37 published by scholink inc. control group 31.1 33.3 17.8 17.8 1.2 ± 1.1 9th day 13.3* study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ± 0.0 control group 20.0 80.0 0.0 0.0 0.8 ± 0.4 sc or in g of p yr ex ia 3rd day 1.02 study group 0.0 22.2 26.7 51.1 2.3 ± 0.8 control group 24.4 44.4 26.7 4.4 1.1 ± 0.8 4th day 2.2* study group 80.0 15.6 4.4 0.0 1.3 ± 0.5 control group 0.0 51.1 44.5 4.4 1.5 ± 0.6 5th day 9.2* study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ± 0.0 control group 26.7 28.9 40 4.4 1.2 ± 0.9 7th day 9.0* study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ± 0.0 control group 33.3 15.6 51.1 0.0 1.17 ± 0.9 9th day 1.8 study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ± 0.0 control group 93.3 6.7 0.0 0.0 0.07 ± 0.3 sc or in g of e de m a 3rd day 5.7* study group 0.0 15.6 44.4 40.0 2.2 ± 0.7 control group 0.0 62.2 31.1 6.7 1.4 ± 0.6 4th day 0.9 study group 62.2 28.9 6.7 2.2 0.5 ± 0.7 control group 4.4 31.1 51.1 13.3 1.7 ± 0.7 5th day 6.3* study group 71.1 28.9 0.0 0.0 0.3 ± 0.5 control group 20.0 33.3 17.8 28.9 1.5 ± 1.1 7th day 7.5* study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ± 0.0 control group 28.9 57.8 8.9 4.4 0.9 ± 0.8 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. *significant, p < 0.05 figure 3. complete recovery from breast engorgement and its signs & symptoms throughout follow up visits 9th day 5.6* study group 100 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ± 0.0 control group 55.6 42.2 2.2 0.0 0.5 ± 0.6 study group control group 0 20 40 60 80 100 4th day 5th day 7th day 9th day after 9th day study group 77.8 100 100 100 100 0 control group 6.7 40 66.7 93.3 100 0 comparison between study and control groups regarding complete recovery from breast engorgement through follow up . www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. table 3. comparison between study group and control group regarding complete recovery from signs & symptoms of breast engorgement throughout follow up visits *significant, p < 0.05 table 4. relationship between degree of breast engorgement of the studied women in the two groups and their general characteristics s & s sample group complete recovery from signs & symptoms of breast engorgement throughout follow up visits. x2 test 3rd day 4th day 5th day 7th day 9th day n % n % n % n % n % redness study group 0 0 16 35.5 43 95.6 45 100 45 100 64.2* control group 0 0 1 2.2 6 13.3 15 33.3 11 24.4 pain study group 1 2.2 24 53.3 44 97.8 45 100 45 100 60.8* control group 0 0 1 2.2 6 13.3 14 31.1 9 20 edema study group 0 0 28 62.2 32 71.1 45 100 45 100 57.2* control group 0 0 2 4.4 9 20 13 28.9 25 55.6 pyrexia study group 0 0 36 80 45 100 45 100 45 100 29.8* control group 11 24.4 0 0 12 26.7 15 33.3 42 93.3 variables study group control group mean x± sd mean x± sd age / year <20 2.4 ± 0.6 2.3 ± 0.8 202.3 ± 0.6 2.2 ± 0.7 251.9 ± 0.6 1.7 ± 0.7 30-40 1.2 ± 0.3 0.5 ± 0.0 r test 0.8* 0.7* education illiteracy 3.0 ± 0.0 1.8 ± 0.8 read & write + basic education 2.6 ± 0.5 2.4 ± 0.8 secondary equivalent education 1.8 ± 0 .6 1.9 ± 0.7 university education 1.4 ± 0.5 1.7 ± 0.5 r test 0.95* 0.6* www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. * significant association + positive association negative association table 5. relationship between recovery level of breast engorgement of the studied women in the two groups throughout follow up visits and their general characteristics variable general characteristics group follow up visits 4h day 5th day 7th day 9th day >9th day a ge / ye ar < 25 study group (n = 45) 78.6 100.0 control group (n = 45) 0.0 25.0 53.1 90.6 100.0 25 study group (n=45) 75.0 100.0 study group (n = 45) 30.0 80.0 100.0 30-40 control group (n = 45) 77.8 100.0 study group (n = 45) 0.0 66.7 100.0 r test study group + 0.93 * control group + 0.81 * ed uc at io n illiteracy, read & write study group (n = 45) 42.9 100.0 control group (n = 45) 0.0 9.5 28.6 85.7 100.0 occupation working 2.4 ± 0.7 2.2 ± 0.8 housewife 1.9 ± 0.7 2.0 ± 0.8 r test + 0.81* + 0.74* age of marriage <20years 2.4 ± 0.7 2.0 ± 0.7 ≥ 20 years 1.8 ± 0.6 1.9 ± 0.8 r test 0.8* 0.7* residence urban 2.3 ± 0.6 2.28 ± 0.8 rural 1.8 ± 0 .6 1.83 ± 0.7 r test identical family income unsatisfied (not enough) 2.5 ± 0.6 2.7 ± 0.6 just enough (enough for living only) 1.7 ± 0.8 1.9 ± 0.8 satisfy (enough & can save from it ) 1.2 ± 0.5 1.0 ± 0.5 r test 0.86* 0.88* www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. secondary equivalent education study group (n = 45) 90.9 100.0 control group (n = 45) 14.3 64.3 100.0 university education study group (n = 45) 100.0 control group (n = 45) 11.1 77.8 100.0 r test study group + 0.87 * control group + 0.75 * o cc up at io n working study group (n = 45) 38.5 100.0 control group (n = 45) 0.0 33.3 66.7 100.0 housewives study group (n = 45) 90.6 100.0 control group (n = 45) 8.3 41.7 66.7 91.7 100.0 r test study group + 0.93 * control group + 0.69 * a ge o f m ar ria ge < 20 years study group (n = 45) 70.4 100.0 control group (n = 45) 9.7 41.9 64.5 90.3 100.0 ≥ 20 years study group (n = 45) 88.9 100.0 control group (n = 45) 0.0 35.7 71.4 100.0 r test study group + 0.97 * control group + 0.76 * r es id en ce urban study group (n = 45) 77.2 100.0 control group (n = 45) 0.0 28.6 52.4 85.7 100.0 rural study group (n = 45) 87.0 100.0 control group (n = 45) 12.5 50.0 79.2 100.0 r test study group + 0.99 * control group + 0.74 * * significant association + positive association -negative association 4. discussion breast engorgement during the early puerperium is one of the most common causes of morbidity affecting functions and experience of early motherhood (hassan et al., 2020b; jelovesk, 2006). breast engorgement is a physiological condition that is characterized by painful swelling of the breasts as a result of a sudden increase in milk volume, lymphatic and vascular congestion, and interstitial edema www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. during the first two weeks following childbirth. this condition is caused by insufficient breastfeeding and/or obstruction in the milk ducts. breast pain during breastfeeding is a common problem. the occurrence of such condition faced by the mother adds to her apprehension and anxiety may lead to other severe breastfeeding problems for mother with consequent discontinuation of breastfeeding or addition of supplements of animal milk/commercial infant formula. also, negligence of breast engorgement may lead to certain serious complication such as mastitis and breast abscess (fraser et al., 2004; hanretty et al., 2003). intervention toward the goal of alleviating or relieving patient pain and other discomforts related to engorgement and its causes are primarily nursing functions. concerning postpartum pain, some women choose not to use medications at all or to use it infrequently for various reasons, therefore, alternative methods to relieve these discomforts need to be available to such women (pediatric advisor, 2009, hendrson et al., 2004; benson & pernall, 2002). the best treatment for engorged breast is prevention; prevention is still the best medicine for any breastfeeding problem. over the years, numerous strategies for the treatment of this problem have been employed such as kangaroo care, fluid limitation, binding the breasts or wearing a tight brassiere, hot and cold compresses, and application of cabbage leaves (cable & davis, 1997). the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of nursing intervention on relief of breast engorgement among women with cesarean section. the study highlights the need for strengthening mother training as well as pointing out to what extent their knowledge and practices toward breastfeeding. this leads to safe breastfeeding and prevents engorgement. the results of the study reveal that the socio-demographic and general characteristics of the subjects correlate, as expected, with the middle class of the egyptian society. where the mean age of the study and control participants was 23.3 years, and the mean age of marriage was 21.6 years old, the majority were, housewives and more than one half of them were rural dwellers and nearly similar proportion live within extended families as usual for rural communities. considering the relatively high mean age of marriage of the subjects (in upper egypt) may reflect that the age of marriage has been raised in response to our national policy to limit family size. however, the prevalence of housewives, rural and unsatisfied family income among a sizable proportion of the study subjects may explain their reluctance to seek health services within their communities. in other words, working, urban women who have enough income are usually more likely to have better access to community health services which provide proper preparation, education, and care during antenatal and postnatal periods. the present study clearly illustrates that all women suffer signs and symptoms (redness, pain, edema, and pyrexia) of breast engorgement. the results of the present study illustrate the degrees of breast engorgement. studies have shown that 20-85% of breastfeeding women experienced moderate and severe breast engorgement. the degree of engorgement usually lessens with each child. first-time mothers often suffer more from engorgement than women who are nursing their second or third child, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. because the time it takes for the mature milk to "come in" seems to shorten with each child (aniansson, 2009). when the relationship between certain characteristics of puerperal women and the degree of breast engorgement was investigated, it was revealed that older women were less likely to develop high degree breast engorgement than younger ones. furthermore, a strongly negative correlation was observed between women's degree of breast engorgement and their age. this may be because older primiparae are more likely to be concerned about their babies, thus they followed instructions more accurately and breastfed their babies appropriately. lactational failure, however, leads to the absence of suckling and failure of ejection which may lead to engorgement and stasis of milk (moon & humenick, 1989). it was also evident from the results that better-educated women had less breast engorgement degree, while women with limited educational background had more breast engorgement degree. a strongly negative correlation was observed between women's degree of breast engorgement and their education. this was expected since educated women are more likely to have better access to the community health care services and source of information that help in early detection and proper management of minor discomforts during puerperium. these results were in line with hassan (2000). it was also mentioned that women who had been educated were open-minded to new ideas (biennial report, 1996). also, this finding went hand with el-sherbeni (1988), sheha et al., (2018), and hassanine et al., (2017); all of them emphasized on the importance of education in the prevention and control of maternity health problems. moreover, education should be a mean that enables women to gain access to knowledge. the more educated women received a better contribution to their empowerment. education of women could also improve the health of the entire family. women with more education should also be able to control many events in their lives. thereby, access to education had to be a fundamental human right and a prerequisite to social, cultural and economic well-being (rowley, 1992; hassan et al., 2019; sheha et al., 2020). the results of the present study also revealed a strong positive correlation women's degree of breast engorgement and their occupation. it was no wonder to find housewives and rural women are less likely to develop a higher degree of breast engorgement. this was expected since housewives and rural citizens accept their role as lactating mothers and practice it accurately as they are guided. this is opposite to urban working ones who prepare themselves in the wrong way for employment. salhan s. et al. (2007), reported that, to help the mothers to maintain breastfeeding while working, the nurse should emphasized to the mother that she must establish a good milk supply, plan how and where she will pump the breast at work as well as planning baby feeding during the mother's working time. regarding age at marriage of the studied subjects, the results of the present study presented that three-fifths of the study group and more than two-thirds of the control group married at age less than 20 years. furthermore, a strongly negative correlation was noticed between women’s age at marriage and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. women’s degree of breast engorgement. it was not surprising to find that younger women tend to have a higher degree of breast engorgement than older ones. this might be because day by day life enhances women’s experience and improves their knowledge. this result was considered by ghulam (1979) who stated that early marriage could harm the mother’s education, and also her understanding of how to relieve the minor discomforts during pregnancy. this result was supported by the other researches which indicated the fact that early marriage and pregnancy had hindered women to finish their education and to get a good job and had become financially dependent on their family. therefore, teen mothers were more likely to live in poverty than women who were in delayed childbearing age (pbwrc, 2000; smith & maurer, 2000). moreover delaying age at marriage was a key to improving women’s status and maybe a way of increasing their leverages in the decision-making the process (ibrahim, mensch, & el gibaly, 1998). the results of the present study had also revealed a strongly negative correlation between women’s degree of breast engorgement and their family income. degree of breast engorgement was more prevalent among poor women as most women were likely lived in large and extended families. this increased family size might reduce the per capita income and amount of care the mother gained especially during her puerperium. this would affect badly on the mother's health and her health practices. this was in accordance with abrams and gordon (1961) and william (1967). moreover, poverty, type, and size of the family might increase the burden on women caring for many persons and striving hard for a living (who, 1995). these results were supported by the fourth world conference (1995) which denoted that statistics about women and poverty were all too familiar, where women were the majority of 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty. those poor women were more likely to live in crowded houses. it was observed from the results of the present study that, the degree of breast engorgement was higher among women who did not know than those who had correct but incomplete knowledge. a strongly positive correlation was found between the degree of breast engorgement and women’s knowledge regarding breast engorgement. this may be since most women’s knowledge was about the definition, causes and rarely about complications, prevention, and treatment of breast engorgement. this agrees with the fact that women need complete knowledge to perform correctively breast care and breastfeeding which consequently would prevent breast engorgement (auvenshine & enriquez, 1990). breast engorgement is a very frequent problem among postpartum mothers. if the mother gets breast engorgement, she should believe that it will soon heal. the mother should continue breastfeeding. podgurski (1995) indicated that most breastfeeding problems can be solved if it is continued and without the use of expensive medical advice. if the mother stops feeding, the problem may get worse. however, several similar problems common to breastfeeding can be prevented or eased through simple techniques or addressed with common, simple treatment options. the use of comfort measures to relieve breastfeeding discomfort is seen as an area of nursing responsibility. in general, many local www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. comfort measures are being applied to relieve discomforts during breastfeeding (guest, 2005). robson (1990) reported that heat application in the form of hot compresses, hot showers, or hot soaks is poorly researched and has usually been more of a comfort measure to activate the milk ejection reflex, rather than a treatment for edema. some mothers complain that heat exacerbates the engorgement, causes throbbing and an increased feeling of fullness (wilson & lowdermilk, 2006). the application of heat is an effective way to increase circulation to breast, provide comfort and reduce edema (mattson & smith, 2000; montle, haslon, & barton, 2004). a warm shower just before feeding may help to relieve engorgement. mother can also cover her breasts with a warm washcloth and plastic dipper to keep the heat in (pediatric advisor, 2009). moreover, a cold compress may apply to the breast to prevent edema and numbness. the cool promotes pain relief by decreasing the excitability of the nerve ending, decreasing nerve conduction local vasoconstriction with reduces edema, decrease muscle irritability and spasm. in her book, “breastfeeding-a guide for the medical profession”, dr. ruth lawrence (1999) recommends applying cold packs to the breasts after feeding to help reducing swelling, warmth, and pain. robson discusses that application of cold for 20 minute would have a minimal vasoconstriction effect in the deeper breast tissue and that venous and lymphatic drainage would be enhanced in the deeper tissue due to the accelerated circulation to and from the superficial tissues. along with frequent nursing or pumping, many breastfeeding advocates suggest using cabbage leaves to reduce swelling when a mother experiences moderate to severe engorgement. actual research data is spared, but the published studies and anecdotal reports from mothers, who have used it, seem to support its value in reducing breast engorgement (su, 2010). in addition, some breastfeeding experts recommended using cool cabbage leaves to treat uncomfortable breast engorgement. many women who have tried cabbage leaves claim the treatment beings relief from discomfort and improve milk flow. (cabbage has been used for centuries as a folk remedy for a wide variety of ailments) (pediatric advisor, 2009; wilson & lowdermilk, 2006). it’s not entirely clear why cabbage leaves would reduce breast engorgement, but the green cabbage plant contains a high concentration of sulfur, which is known to reduce swelling and inflammation in all tissues (andrews, 2010). cabbage is known to contain sinigrin (allylisothiocyanate) rapine, mustard oil, magnesium, oxalates, and sulfur heterosides. herbalists believe that cabbage has both antibiotic and anti-irritant properties (lawrence, 2010). it is theorized, that this natural mixture of ingredients from mother nature’s kitchen, helps decrease tissue congestion by dilating (opening) local capillaries (small blood vessels), which improves the blood flow in and out of the area, allowing the body to reabsorb the fluid which is trapped in the breasts. cabbage may also have a type of drawing or wicking action that helps to move trapping fluid. in many cases, science is finding cures from mother nature’s kitchen can’t be duplicated in the laboratory. this may be the reason why a gel made from cabbage leaf extract was not effective in treating engorgement as mentioned by ayers (2000), caplan (1999), shifer (1995), and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. roberts (1995). rosier (1998) and fraser d and cooper m. (2009) anecdotally describes the use of chilled cabbage leaves applied to engorged breasts and changed every two hours in a small sample of women as having a rapid effect on reducing edema and increasing flow. nikodem et al. (1993) showed a non-significant trend in reduced engorgement in mothers using cabbage leaves. roberts (1995) compared chilled cabbage leaves and gel packs and found a similar significant reduction in pain with both methods. with two-thirds of the mothers preferred the cabbage due to a stronger, more immediate effect. roberts et al. (1998). studied the use of cabbage extract cream applied to the breasts which had no more effect than the placebo cream. this study is supported by the finding of snowden hm et al. (2001) who reviewed research studies to determine the effect of several interventions to relieve symptoms of breast engorgement among breastfeeding women and found that cabbage leaves were effective in the treatment of this painful condition. cabbage leaves were preferred by mothers. the advantage of using cabbage leaves is its low cost and convenience as compared to other medical regimens. the present study also supported by the finding of arora, vatsa, and dadhwal v. (2008) who reported that cold cabbage leaves as well as alternate hot and cold compresses both can be used in the treatment of breast engorgement. when breasts are severely engorged, the baby often cannot latch on property. pumping or manually expressing some breast milk can help to reduce engorgement, allowing the baby to suckle, which will help to alleviate the swelling and prevent future episodes. massaging the breasts as the babies' nurses can help to get out as much milk as possible. many women are afraid to pump or express milk while they are engorged because they think it will cause them to make even more milk. however, engorgement is a problem of poor milk flow, rather too much milk. if the breasts are so full that it’s hard for the baby to latch on correctly, it may want to pump or hand express some milk before the feeding. express enough to soften the nipple and areola so the baby can better grasp the breast. if the breast is still uncomfortably full after feeding the baby, pump for a few minutes until the breasts are softer and the milk flowing better, reduce the firmness enough to relieve discomfort and reduce obvious softening (pediatric advisor, 2009). fraser and cooper (2004) reported that the occurrence of problems (such as engorgement) would require artificial removal of milk. who/unicef (1993) stresses the importance of teaching all mothers how to express their milk in the first or second day after delivery. breast pumping for a new mother should commence 6 to 24 hours after birth (spicer, 2001). milk removal commence by the third postpartum day to promote the likelihood of successful lactation (labbok, 2001b). expressing milk decreases the mechanical stress on the alveoli, preventing the cell death process, prevents blood circulation damages, alleviates the impedance to lymph and fluid drainage; decrease the risk of mastitis and compromised milk production, and gives relief to the mother (walker, 2000). hand expression and the electronic pump may be most helpful, as this drain the milk ducts better (riordan, 2009; johnson, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 47 published by scholink inc. 2010). in the present study, the nursing measures (study group) were used as a method of treatment for breast engorgement. checking the findings of this study reveals that, symptoms and signs improved significantly by time until complete recovery occurred. maximum recovery from pyrexia was achieved among women in the fourth postpartum day, while maximum recovery from pain, redness, and edema was achieved among the same group by the fifths postpartum day. in egypt among the currently available agents for the treatment such measures as cold, warmth, breast expression or pumping and cool cabbage which are used to alleviate signs & symptoms of breast engorgement (redness, pain, edema, and pyrexia). according to the results yielded by the present study, nursing measures seemed to be very useful in achieving a complete recovery of engorgement earlier and faster than routine hospital care. this coincides with gamal el-deen (1993). similar results reported by ziemer and pigeon (1995) who revealed a significant difference between women’s follow up visits and complete or maximum relief of signs and symptoms among the control group (routine hospital care). maximum relief from edema and pyrexia were achieved by ninth postpartum day, while maximum relief from redness and pain were accomplished among women of the same group later than ninth postpartum day. the relationship between women’s general characteristics and relief of their breast engorgement was also investigated. the results of the present study revealed that nursing intervention was effective in its relief in a shorter time than routine hospital care. as regards age, it was observed that complete recovery from breast engorgement was earlier among older women than younger ones. furthermore, a positive correlation was observed between the recovery level of breast engorgement and their age. this may be explained by lack of experience of younger women, in addition, that those women are less likely to breastfeed than older ones; consequently, they were less liable to be relieved from breast engorgement. a similar finding was reported by gamal el-deen (1993). other studies carried out in this field revealed that young mothers who were given a bucket of glucose water from the hospital were still giving water supplements after every feeding at the second postpartum week, despite full, dripping breasts. the mother and father stated that these feedings were against their better judgment but they had continued because they thought that it was what they were supposed to do. on the other hand, giving the infant a supplement can cause what is termed nipple confusion. the baby discovers that it is easier to suck on a rubber nipple and refuse the breasts. consequently, breast engorgement may be developed and also difficult to be relieved (hill, 1991). from the present study, it was not surprising to find that the recovery level of breast engorgement was better in highly educated women. a highly significant positive correlation was noticed between women’s education and their recovery level from breast engorgement. this result is in accordance with gamal el-deen (1993) who reported that the relief of breast engorgement is faster in highly educated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. and middle social class women. this may be explained by the fact that educated and higher social class women were more likely to breastfeed their infant more frequently and longer than others. this is in line with the report of applebaum (1975), hill (1991) and akin et al. (1981) who stated that the frequency of breastfeeding increased across all educational and income levels. also, women of higher social status breastfeed longer than women of lower status. also, many authors reported that in developing countries, the u.s.a. and sweden, breastfeeding is now more common among highly educated women. all these are reflecting the relief of breast engorgement, but when the women receive both support and information, such support and this information had a positive effect on successful breastfeeding and consequently prevent breast complications (applebaum, 1975). dealing with occupation and residence, the results of the present study revealed that, recovery level of breast engorgement was better among rural dwellers and housewives. furthermore, a significant strong positive correlation was observed between the recovery level of breast engorgement and occupation and residence. this is not amazing as rural dwellers and housewives accept their role as lactating mothers and practice it accurately as they are guided as mentioned before. again, the relief of breast engorgement was faster in women whose age of marriage more than 20 years old. a significant strong positive correlation was observed between the recovery level of breast engorgement and mother's age of marriage. this may be explained by the fact that older women were more able to grasp and implement the instructions than younger ones. however, this might be due to the fact that day by day life enhances women’s experience and improves their knowledge. also, early marriage could hurt the mother’s education as mentioned before (who, 1979). finally, the results of the present study reveal that the three methods used for the treatment of breast engorgement namely (cabbage, hot compresses, and milk expression) have eventually leaded to their recovery and relief of their signs and symptoms. furthermore, the study suggests that cabbage with its properties may be a superiorly effective agent in treating the engorged breast. also, milk expression gives an important role in decreasing the occurrence of subsequent breastfeeding problems such as engorgement, mastitis, and abscess. this is due to the fact that women with low economic status tend to neglect themselves and deal with engorgement is a serious problem. this may consequently lead to other risk breastfeeding problems. such mothers never ask for medical advice because they find it financially costly. one of the most important properties of all mentioned measures as a treatment of engorgement is being economically financial and easy to use. so, the nurse can play an important role in the prevention and resolve of breast problems through proper counseling and education. 5. conclusion based on the findings revealed by the present study, it can be concluded: the degrees of severity of breast engorgement was higher with younger, less educated, working, urban, lower social classes women. the study also accepts the research hypotheses as, the nursing intervention www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. was more effective and contributed rapid recovery from breast engorgement especially among the older, educated, housewives, high social classes women and those who from rural areas than others. 6. recommendations in light of the results of the present study, the following recommendations are suggested:  prevention is a key element in reducing breast engorgement potentially among nursing mothers. so, mothers should learn about preventive measures for breast engorgement.  teaching mother how to express both breasts simultaneously to yield the most volume and to decrease time spend pumping each consecutively is the responsibility of health care providers. additional, local wic programs may provide a breast pump to engorged breast mothers and/or babies born preterm. further studies should be done in this area as follows:  further researches are needed to clarify the magnitude of the breast engorgement problem in egypt as a whole and compare between rural and urban areas to find out the suitable solution for it.  factors affecting the usage of traditional practices should be studied in depth by the health team for better management of these factors. this will affect positively the outcome of pregnancy & women health.  research should be encouraged to find the relation between the use of traditional practices and various socio-demographic and obstetrical factors on a larger sample size. acknowledgement although it is usually easy to write down words to thank others for their help, my words do fail me to express my sincerest appreciation to my highly distinguished professor who helped me a lot to complete my study. my profound thanks gratefulness and appreciation to the soul of my professor prof. dr. galal ahmed el_kholy, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, faculty of medicine, benha university, for his kind supervision, unlimited support, continuous guidance, and assistance. words cannot express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to him; without his sincere advice, prompt assistance and over lasting helpful support my project and thesis would not have been completed. thanks again and i hope that god will have mercy on him, reassures and relaxes his pure soul, and live him in supreme paradise. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. references agamy, h. 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(1995). skin changes and pain to the nipple during the first week of lactation. jognn nurs, 22(3), 223. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1552-6909.1993.tb01806.x note note 1. the reeda scale is a tool used to provide the most effective means for evaluating the condition of the skin in relation to 5 factors (redness, edema, ecchymosis and healing). “to assess the effect of comfort measures on the healing process by hill (1989)”. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper fundraising in the higher education context: a topical and theoretical literature review elena madeo1* 1 department of musicology and cultural heritage, university of pavia, pavia, italy * elena madeo, department of musicology and cultural heritage, university of pavia, pavia, italy received: march 10, 2021 accepted: march 24, 2021 online published: april 14, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n2p1 abstract this paper aims at design a topical and theoretical literature review about fundraising in the higher education context. fundraising is a topic that deserves a multi-disciplinary and holistic approach relating to the focus of the analysis: there are some themes that have been investigated more than others, whereas others have been objects of analysis without any theoretical framework support. hence, literature about fundraising is still lacking and calls for further investigations and analyses. this paper aims at identifying the state of the art about fundraising literature and the gap(s) that further investigation should try to fill. keywords fundraising, universities, literature review, theoretical framework 1. introduction fundraising in higher education context is an issue that has been discussed by several studies since the thirties of the xx century (flack, 1932; stover, 1930). however, these works were lacking relating to the historical perspective and scientific rigor: they were not supported by a theoretical framework, since they were delivered by fundraising practitioners rather than academic scholars. the situation changed in the middle of the 1970s, when several researches about educational fundraising were published, covering a lot of relating topics, like fundraising strategies, donors’ behavior, donations drivers and funding challenges (lasher & cook, 1996). moreover, collecting funds to sustain education institutions is a very ancient activity that has existed since the foundation of the academy of plato (fisher, 1989; brittingam & pezzullo 1990). however, there are a few literature references regarding educational philanthropy at those times. the situation started to change when the first universities were born in the middle age (lasher & cook, 1996). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. within these institutions presidents and deans were in charge for fundraising issues, in order to support the academic activities (schachner, 1962). when the modern age started, this situation did not change, since the role of rectors as fundraisers was reinforced. in fact, in the usa collegiate fundraising started in 1640, with the first president of harvard college. this is not the only fundraising’s best practice, since there were several colonial colleges, in the british north american colonies, that were seeking for financial support by philanthropists, before and after the american revolution (curti & nash, 1965; mcanear, 1952, 1955). the strategic role of presidents has continued throughout the xviii and xix centuries: in those days, they were aided by several professional figures, like the governing board, alumni board and deans. however, the fundraising success was linked with executive leadership, since philanthropic relationships were mainly based on trust and loyalty (stover, 1930). then, it was only in the xx century that universities started to organize and develop fundraising campaigns through professional techniques (lasher & cook, 1996). first of all, in the 1920s a new position was created in the higher education context: the development officer. anyway, fundraising responsibility was still in charge of universities’ presidents and their staff (flack, 1932). the following step was to delegate the fundraising function to a vice president, who had the role of coordinator with other functions, like alumni affairs and public relations (jacobson, 1990). in some universities, after the world war i, a fundraising consultant was in charge for this task (cutlip, 1965). finally, since the 1950s universities started to employ their own professional fundraising staffs, developing the actual organizational structure, according to which presidents are in charge of fundraising strategy, being assisted by delegates in charge of fundraising management and coordination with other relating functions (reck, 1976). from the historical perspective aforementioned, it is clear that fundraising has grown in term of importance within the higher education context. since the middle age, presidents have maintained their role in determining success or failure of fundraising activities, since they are those who formulate the general strategy and vision, who decide which fundraising campaigns have to be run and, eventually, who are crucial in managing relations among different board of trustees, like the governing board and the alumni board (cowley, 1980; panas, 1984; lasher & cook, 1996). furthermore, according to lasher and cook (1996), literature about fundraising issues within the higher education context, especially relating to the presidents’ role, has been lacking till the 1970s and the 1980s. thus, in the 1990s several scholars started to be interested in building a theoretical perspective about this topic (kelly, 1991). besides, since in 2008 a huge economic crisis started, known as “big recession”, the interest of scholars about fundraising issues has grown considerably, considering different contexts, like nonprofit sector and public entities. among the latter, universities are attracting greater attention from academics (mapulanga, 2013). eventually, a new fundraising’s phenomenon was born in the 2000s: crowdfunding (lambert & schwienbacher, 2010). nowadays, crowdfunding has become one of the most effective fundraising tools, even within higher education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. (colasanti et al., 2018). since the big recession has started, governmental financing to higher education and especially to public universities has been reduced severely. hence, these institutions were forced to consider the competitive financing promoted at international, national and local level. obviously, this change led to develop new processes and to organize new organizational units for managing all the relating activities. this study will be focused mainly on philanthropy, but it is worthwhile to consider the role of “competitive fundraising”, especially referring to the context of analysis, which is those of italian public universities. hence, fundraising is an interdisciplinary topic, which covers different fields of studies in different contexts of analysis. literature review shown in this paper will be focused on the public sector and in particular on public higher education context. this paper starts with the methodology used to design the literature review. this section is followed by the literature review about fundraising in the higher education context, providing a general description of the streams of literature individuated. afterwards, the results of the review are discussed as the literature gap(s) and further development of the analysis. finally, some general conclusions are proposed. 2. method the aim of this paper is to deliver a summary of the state of the art in fundraising within higher education context. moreover, this literature review enhances to identify the boundaries of the existing frameworks and, hence, new areas of investigations. eventually, this paper’s results are useful to recognize literature gap(s) and further research questions (rowley & slack, 2004). the on-line database used to search for literature about the topic is scopus (https://www.scopus.com). the reasons why it was chosen are various: first of all it is the largest database of peer-reviewed literature, with grounded theoretical basis and a critical approach to conceptual models. furthermore, the literature includes scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. all them have been considered for the creation of this paper. the search was done considering title, abstract and keywords of the references, using the following keywords and the boalean operators in capital letters: fundraising and universities: 346 results; crowdfunding and universities: 65 results; fundraising and higher education: 69 results; crowdfunding and higher education: 8 results. literature review was drawn together following the process in five steps described by rowley and slack (2004). first of all, the documents were scanned in order to have some insights into the most important topics to be included in the literature review. besides, all abstracts were read in order to understand if each literature resource was suitable to the topic/context and the aim of this study, not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. considering those that were off-topic. hence, the outputs of this first step were a reduction in the number of references (from 488 to 160) and the categorization of the latter within similar research themes. then, the second step consists in making notes of the most important topics delivered by the literature resources, in order to recognize the sources to be cited in the paper. afterwards, literature review has to be structured, identifying the key themes, throughout the review, as categories according to which each source has to be included. hence, the structure of the literature review emerges from the literature itself, without pre-defined building approach. then, the broad structure of the review is defined: all the documents considered are ascribed to the sections shown in the following paragraph. 3. result fundraising is a very multi-faceted topic that can be investigated by several points of view. this is confirmed by the literature considered by this study and summarized in table 1: the first column identifies the number of the group to which each reference belong according to its focus of analysis; the second column shows the number of papers and books contained in each group, whereas the third column specifies the focus of analysis of the references included in each group (some of them are included in more than one group). finally, the fourth column indicates the main theoretical frameworks used by some literature sources in order to support their researches. these studies are shown in the fifth column. the first group of references is focused on factors that can influence fundraising success. most of them are empirical studies that try to develop models to understand which are the key performance drivers of a fundraising campaign, according to different contexts of analysis. moreover, some predictive models for fundraising’s output are delivered by quantitative studies (colombo et al., 2015; vequist, 2017; yang et al., 2017;). however, although results shown by these types of researches are quite interesting in terms of empirical suggestions for fundraising practitioners, general conclusions are quite tautological because they simply link past results to future goals, without considering interaction effects. furthermore, the first group of references provides the factors that can affect fundraising’s process results in terms of output, which is the amount of money gathered by donors. obviously, these factors are not general, but they are linked to the type of the institution, which has begun the fundraising process, and to the context in which it operates. before the beginning of the digital era, berger and smith (1997) indicate the language’s style used in direct mailing as a crucial factor for fundraising success. in detail, they show how suggesting a donation, expressing the frame in a positive or negative way and the inclusion or not of at least two independent types of institutional information, in addition to donors’ segmentation variables, affect fundraising performance. later, different scholars pointed out the crucial role of good writing and communicational abilities required by storytelling (allison, 2015; doan & morris, 2012; zhou & ye, 2018). nowadays, this kind of abilities is really important for those www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. institutions that are active in getting funds through the social networks (vequist, 2015). indeed, on-line fundraising is becoming more and more popular since several people are easily achievable through the internet. hence, all factors like social influence of promoters, interpersonal skills, viral marketing and viral networks affect fundraising process output (doan & morris, 2012; yang et al., 2017; zhou & ye, 2018). beyond the crucial role of on-line fundraising and social networks, providing clear information to donors’ (transparency), as precise fundraising goals, means and outcome (accountability), has an impact on the fundraising performance (ahlers et al., 2015; doan & morris, 2012). hence, all the fundraising tasks aforementioned need a professional staff in charge with fundraising processes output and performance. factors relating to organization and human resources, like leaders’ skills, staffs’ professional capacity, collaboration and relationships’ building are not overlooked by the literature (breeze et al., 2011; doan & morris, 2012). more specifically, breeze et al. (2011) distinguish fundraising performance factors as institutional privilege, internal and external factors. moreover, the former concerns university’s reputation as education and research’s institute, organization’s wealth from financial point of view and networks with other (public and private) institutions. relating to the latter, breeze et al. considers focus and investment on fundraising activities and fundraising’s cultures of universities as “internal success factors”. finally, external factors deal with social, economic and political environments and regards cultural practices towards philanthropy and the existence of tax break for donations. despite the number of works included in the first group of references is quite considerable (30), researches supported by a grounded theoretical framework are only a few (2). in fact, in his historiographical essay, freeman (2010) states that he adopts agency theory as a framework to explore the institutional experiences and documents of northern black colleges in order to explore the philanthropy within african-american higher education in the xix century. this framework is useful to understand why, within african-american higher education context there has been a static view of philanthropy. however, freeman does not contribute to the development of this theory, using it only to support the results of his research. then, allison et al. (2015), in their paper about crowdfunding within a prosocial microlending context, adopt cognitive evaluation theory and self-determination theory in order to explain lenders behaviors: they conclude that lenders are more likely to sustain others when the support is perceived as a chance to help other rather than when it seems a business opportunity. again, these theoretical frameworks are used to explain and support research’s results, but researchers do not add any contribution to them. the second group of references is the most numerous one (52) and it is mainly focused on the organizational changes and institutional challenges introduced by fundraising practices. first of all, the introduction of the latter includes the presence of fundraising professional staff, in order to make fundraising an effective and efficient process (chen et al., 2017; cuillier & stoffle, 2011; sung, 2016). moreover, even the organizational chart can be developed and changed after the introduction of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. fundraising practices and professional staff (scott, 2013), overcoming some organizational barriers (webb farley, 2018). more specifically, these studies are focused on the role of fundraising managers within universities, also relating to their power and influence, and on the relationship between academics and fundraising professional staff (daly, 2013; shaker & nathan, 2017). the second group of references is not only the most numerous one, but it provides also literature that proposes quite several theoretical frameworks to justify and support their results. the first approach is provided by nyman et al. (2016), who propose co-creation of value to explain the role of university fundraisers in their relationships with donors. they define university’s philanthropists as social investors who want to be engaged with the leaders “of the organization in co-creating the philanthropic vision for their gift” (nyman et al., 2016, p. 1235). moreover, this vision is crucial for the university’s fundraisers’ to get long-term donations (social investment) from these philanthropists. hence, the latter do not co-create value only for the university, but also with and for the society within which the organization operates. then, interesting insights are provided by warren et al. (2016), who, starting from the neoliberalism approach, explore the role of professional networks in knowledge exchange dynamics among university fundraisers. they conclude that these networks are important for fundraisers in order to develop their professional abilities, capabilities and competences, overcoming the university’s organizational barriers, both institutional and geographical ones. hence professional networks and groups are a crucial virtual space to establish a relatively new profession as that of “university’s fundraisers”. besides, huynh and patton (2015) and huynh (2016) combine two different theoretical frameworks: resource based view and social network theory. their aim is to explore university’s spin-offs fundraising issues, trying to understand, from one perspective, the role of entrepreneurial capabilities in influencing spin-offs’ fundraising ability, and from another perspective, how social networks affect this ability. besides, another theoretical framework adopted is resource dependence theory (mitchell, 2014). even if this paper regards issues relating to non-governmental organizations, it adopts rdt to analyze the relationship between the dependence of an organization from external resources and its organizational autonomy. therefore, this dynamic is also ascribable to universities that actually depend on the external environment as well (chan, 2016). finally, the last theoretical approach proposed by this stream of literature is public choice theory (cox, 2010). however, this paper states the consideration of this framework, without presenting and explaining it. moreover, the approach is not used to support results, preferring the author another framework (supplanting theory). then, the theoretical contribution to both is quite limited. the third group of references considered by study is focused on issues that are becoming more and more important relating to fundraising, especially within public sector (rooney, 1999). even if contributions are quite scarce (6), this stream of literature cannot be disregarded because it deals with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. fundraising effectiveness and efficiency. actually, these papers are more focused on efficiency rather than effectiveness, providing some indicators of the former, as a ratio of fundraising expenses to total expenditures by an organization (lee & shon, 2018) and return of investments (fundraising revenues/fundraising expenses) in fundraising (rooney, 1999). however, even if this ratio are important indicators for assess fundraising strategy, there other measures that have can enlarge knowledge about the fundraising efficiency concept itself, as per dollar effects of investments in human resources and physical capital (kreisman, 2017). relating to the theoretical framework adopted by this field of study, resource dependence theory is the only one. more specifically, sacristan lopez de los mozos et al. (2016) start from this approach to understand how fundraising efficiency changes according to different level of revenues’ diversification. according to them, increasing the level of revenues diversification has a negative impact on general organizational efficiency, making fundraising outputs harder to be obtained. the fourth stream of literature shown in the table 1, investigates donors’ behaviors and donations’ drivers by mainly testing the validity of some quantitative approaches, as price-information trade-off (wong & ortmann, 2016), finite mixture models (durango-cohen et al., 2013a; durango-cohen & balasubrumanian, 2015) and multiple discrete choice models (durango-cohen et al., 2013b). beyond the validity of the aforementioned quantitative methodologies, what is really interesting among these references is the proposition of some theoretical models, which add some contributions to the relating literature. in fact, wong and ortmann (2016) define the propose a model to test the conditions under which the independent benefit from giving, the charity price (fundraising expenses by organization) and the information cost (cost of information acquisition by donors) provide information for giving decisions. furthermore, the model demonstrates that giving decisions by donors can be influenced by price-information trade-off. under this condition, donors care about charity price because they consider their donations as social investments and want them to maximize charitable output. however, at the same time, they do not want to search for charity price because it is costly. then, finite mixture models and multiple discrete choice models are used to provide segmentations of university donors, such as alumni, in order to have a deeper knowledge of donation likelihood and behavior (durango-cohen et al., 2013a; 2013b; durango-cohen & balasubrumanian, 2015). the aim of these studies is to test the validity of the models, without providing any theoretical contributions, but only some practical implications for fundraisers. the fifth group of studies considered by this research, relates to issues that apparently do not deal with fundraising, especially within higher education context. the number of the references is not so large, but they provide some interesting theoretical contributions that can be studied also within universities context. in fact, external stakeholders’ engagement is often the condition sine qua non to reach fundraising effectiveness. the investigation carried out by iorio et al. (2017) explains how the introduction of fundraising practices amongst academics lead to an increase in knowledge transfer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. activities. this fact can be considered as a fundraising outcome. external stakeholder engagement is clearly linked to civic engagement (carè et al., 2018) and responsibility (mat-jizat & khalid, 2016). the frameworks aforementioned are discussed within investigations about on-line fundraising and its recent development, which is crowdfunding (sixth group of references). this multi and inter-disciplinarity is caused by the fact that crowdfunding regards different contexts, from the entrepreneurial one (equity-based crowdfunding and reward-based crowdfunding) to public and nonprofit sectors (donation-based crowdfunding and social lending). moreover, the references included in this group belong to different fields of study. starting from on-line fundraising challenges faced by universities, the dialogic theory is proposed to understand if their web presence is effective or not. moreover, this framework introduces five principles for universities to use to enhance their on-line presence and establish long lasting relationships with website’s visitors. actually, most universities are characterized by a lacking web presence that is not able to support dialogic exchanges with their donors. furthermore, according to the dialogic theory, universities’ website visitors need consistent messages, updates and, above all, chances to be engaged in the universities’ activities (bucci & waters, 2014). hence, effective website management has a positive effect on on-line fundraising results and universities have to invest more on this type of communication (mcallister, 2013). the natural evolution of on-line fundraising is crowdfunding, which moves from crowdsourcing stream of literature and, then, from open innovation framework (carè et al., 2018). according to the new public governance paradigm, crowdfunding is a fundraising tool that enables co-operation between public sector and the “crowd”, which is non-state actors belonging to civil society (osborne, 2010; pollitt & bouckaert, 2011). moreover, crowdfunding is a means of innovating governmental organizations’ funding by involving citizens (the “crowd”). the seventh group of references regards financial stability and growth: even if this stream of literature is mainly addressed to non-profit organizations’ context, it is worth to consider the link between financial performance and growth capacity, even within public higher education sector. more specifically, chikoto-schultz and neely (2016) state that high financial performance organizations tend to be older and larger (considering unrestricted net assets and total revenues). moreover, they are also more likely to report capital assets and report high levels of compensation. finally, they tend to contain their total spending by exercising efficiency by investing in talented officers, but limiting the share of officer compensation, administrative, and fundraising expenses, as a percentage of total expenses. these results are informative for stakeholders who want to understand the profile of an organization that is successfully able to achieve both capacity growth and financial stability. the theoretical framework adopted is sustainability approach (pati & lee, 2016). then, the eighth group of studies shown in table 1 is one of the most interesting considering the aim of this research. in fact, the focus of the analysis is fundraising’s outcome, and, even if the number of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. references is not large, it is worthwhile to consider this stream of literature also relating to the theoretical framework proposed to analyzed results within public higher education context: resource dependence theory (caton & mistriner, 2016). moreover, insights from these studies support the following considerations for community college leaders: resource dependence theory as a useful framework in identifying resource relationships within the environment; the model of market responsive institutions as a strategy when successfully applying resource dependence theory; and the distributed leadership model as a supported framework in overcoming the challenges presented by the emerging leadership competency of fundraising. these results are useful for academic leaders as examples that may provide guidance in professional development, project management, and directions for innovation in an ever-changing society and public universities system. further investigation within this field of study can provide rich opportunities and contributions to the discussions of thought about leaders and change agents in the field of higher education and leadership. finally, the last group is focused on fundraising regulation, adopting the statutory versus non-statutory framework (breen, 2012). although this stream of literature seems to be not very attractive from social sciences’ point of view, the diffusion of the fundraising practices throughout public universities is calling for a fundraising regulation and policy. according to this framework, first of all success for each regime (statutory versus non-statutory) is defined and analyzed to understand whether broader policy lessons for fundraising regulation may be learnt from these implementation experiences to date. moreover, the key challenges facing each regime are identified and defined. the framework tackles the broader question of how measuring success in regulatory terms and argues for better identification of the constituency to be regulated, thereby enabling prioritization of the salient performance indicators that should be included in any non-statutory framework. all the aforementioned streams of literature and relating theoretical framework are the main source of literature considered for starting this study and to build a “theoretical ground floor” useful to explore and understand the state of the art of the literature. besides those references previously shown and explained, there are other “minor” fields of study and approaches, as entrepreneurial models for universities (williams, 2010); the genesis of fundraising (hufton, 2008); fundraising’s tools and life cycle (hekmat & heischmidt, 1993). entrepreneurial models for universities move from the assumption that even public universities have been affected by the introduction of some market-oriented mechanisms, as for examples performance-based funding (best universities receive more funds from government) and competitive-based funding (best research projects get funded by local, national and international institutions). these mechanisms have obviously contributed to the fundraising practices and tools’ introduction, particularly relating to crowdfunding. however, a precise theoretical framework does not support those studies, probably because the latter is quite new considering the context of analysis (public universities). fundraising’s tools and life cycle is a context driven field of study, which does not allow generalizing results of the analysis. however, higher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. education literature concerning these themes is still lacking. finally, the genesis of fundraising has been investigated through an historical perspective, especially by american researchers than have focused their studies on the quite-widespread fundraising tradition of the american higher education context. therefore, it would be interesting to adopt the same approach in european context of analysis to develop comparisons and build a relating theoretical framework. table 1. a summary of the literature review as previously stated, fundraising is a multi-faceted and inter-disciplinary topic that can be studied taking into consideration several contexts of analysis. however, in order to have results that can be generalized they must be supported by theory. actually, this study moves from the resource dependence theory framework (drees & heugens, 2013; malatesta & smith, 2014, pfeffer & salancik, 1978). first of all, fundraising process is based on social exchanges dynamics, whose impact affects fundraising outcomes. relating to the latters, lasher and cook (1996) individuated the key variables: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. leadership of academics and administrative staffs deals with; the willingness to be involved in the fundraising process; abilities and skills in fundraising, effective management of the institutions; effort and commitment; moral integrity; fiscal vitality of the institution; effective planning; effective stewardship of resources; donors’ confidence, and appropriate gratitude and recognition of donations. financial capability of constituency. a clear and strong institutional mission. personal relationship between donors and institution leaders. donors’ engagement in institution’s activities. institution’s reputation, history and tradition. informed and committed constituency. predisposition of donors to give. society’s confidence in the value created by the institution. economic, political and social situation. tax policy in terms of state laws encouraging or not philanthropy. all the variables aforementioned are crucial for fundraising effectiveness. then, the lack or scarcity of one or some of them reduces the overall impact of the others. figure 1 represents fundraising process within higher education context as a social exchange model. moreover, it is focused on exchange relationships between donors and academic leaders. in fact, the core of social exchange theory is individuals’ and organizations’ interdependence, as “a situation in which another has discretion to take actions which affect the focal organization’s interests (pfeffer & salancik, 1978, p. 145). from figure 1 it is possible to state that university’s fundraising is driven by two forces: a continuous and recurrent financial need due to the public nature of higher education, and the competition from other universities and nonprofit organizations, thus reinforcing a tendency toward reputation maximization. as a result, universities tend to follow a strategy of reputation maximization, although this is less generally true of some institutional types such as universities with low quality and few resources. as shown in figure 1, the central actors (circle b) in academic fund raising are the chief executive officer (president), volunteers (the board of trustees), academic deans, and fundraising staff (including the chief development officer). four types of intervening forces influence all of these positions: environmental, institutional, personal, and role forces (lasher & cook, 1996). all these actors are involved in initial action strategies (circle d) such as strategic planning, leadership recruitment, policy formulation, budget analysis, program development, staff training, internal needs assessment, communication and public relations efforts, stakeholders’ engagement’s special events, cultivation activities, and solicitation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. furthermore, initial strategies normally focus on smaller annual gifts with most donor prospects. these prospects, then, respond in one of several different ways. they may give no response or, if such a call is answered, the response may be postponement or avoidance. besides, some prospects respond negatively to such requests by choosing not to contribute, whereas other prospects make a donation for various reasons. usually, for a short-term response, donors will not be as concerned with institutional prerequisites as they are for a long-term response, since they are not investing as much. however, in some cases, first-time donors will make a major gift, either in cash or capital assets, or through a bequest. the arrow going from circle d to circle h represents this type of response (figure 1). such a gift may originate through the donor’s own initiative or in response to a specific proposal put forth by the institution. other first-time donors may choose to give at the same level and frequency on a repeating basis and may never mature as a donor for a particular institution by advancing to higher giving levels. such donor behavior forms a type of loop represented by the arrow going from circle f to circle d (figure 1). hence, the pattern of behavior, which universities try to encourage, is to move donors from one level to the next, in terms of the gifts’ size and the extent of their involvement in and commitment to the organization. this is represented by the step-wise progression from circle d to circle i, and in order to encourage this donor development a common feature of most fundraising strategies is the existence of giving “clubs” representing specific donation levels. the arrow going from circle i to circle g represents another loop: this is the case of the donor who provides major gifts periodically, either spontaneously or in response to individualized requests. besides, this behavior may culminate in a bequest or testamentary gift that will be the donor's ultimate expression of commitment to the institution. a final type of donor response is not represented in figure 1: it is the rare case where an unknown or unsolicited donor initiates a gift. this donor may schedule an appointment with the development office, to obtain information and/or to discuss his or her interest in making a gift or supporting a certain activity. hence, there are a number of variations for each type of donor response, but the primary aim of figure 1 is to illustrate fundraising from an institutional perspective and to show the systematic and cyclical nature of the fundraising process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. figure 1. the social exchange model of fundraising in higher education source: lasher & cook, 1996. then, figure 2 seeks to provide deeper and more integrated explanation of presidential fundraising than the general context one, shown in circles b and c of figure 1. this model shows that presidential fundraising is a developmental process with different decision and with four types of intervening forces, which have an impact on presidents at each stage in the process. to understand this model, it is necessary to consider each decision separately. first, it is obviously necessary for an individual to be selected as the president of a university. then, in accepting this position, an individual brings with him or her established leadership styles, personality characteristics, administrative and educational experiences, attitudes, values, beliefs, and interpersonal skills. furthermore, this president also carries with him or her some self-created role expectations for the position. besides, others defined as role senders, both inside and outside the organization have some role expectations associated with the presidency as well. from another perspective, the president also inherits established traditions, history, culture, and other aspects of the organizational life, since an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. institution is a complex and dynamic social organism. finally, the president inherits environmental conditions such as capacity of the donor base; philanthropic tradition of the local community, region, and state; economic situation; governmental tax policy; competition from other public institutions and non-profit organizations; and public opinion toward universities. these four forces interact to produce the president's level of participation in fundraising, which is the next step in the model. presidential participation can be viewed as a continuum, with one extreme being no participation in fundraising, and the other extreme being full participation. obviously, very few presidents operate at either extreme. instead, the majority is located somewhere between these polar opposites. moreover, one reason for these different levels of participation is that typically one of the four forces is predominant among the others. in reality, all the four forces exert differing levels of influence on presidents and thus affect presidential decision-making and behavior in varying degrees. hence, presidents must develop an integrated view of these forces in order to use the fundraising potential of their institutions and to maximize the fundraising effectiveness and success. in summary, presidents both bring with them and inherit certain realities that interact to determine how much time and energy they spend on fundraising and on which parts of the fundraising process and programs they focus their efforts and attention. furthermore, these forces also determine how well presidents will perform in fundraising: hence, there is a multiple effect although the strength of each force changes over time and collectively the four forces change presidents over time as well. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. figure 2. four forces model of presidential fundraising in higher education source: lasher & cook, 1996. 4. discussion the rdt approach presents some implications. first of all, although the president of a university is typically the central player on the fundraising team, presidents have a limited number of cards they can play with donor prospects, as the stature of the presidential office or position, the quality and prestige of the university being represented, the importance of higher education to society, interpersonal skills, appeals to donor motives, the strength of relationship between the donor and the university, the stature and prestige of members of the development team. in addition, presidents must have a sense of what is possible and desirable for their institutions, and this can come only through strategic planning activities and process. second, fundraising must be studied more as a team effort than as the responsibility of any one person or position, as a dynamic process rather than as a series of static steps. moreover, the subtlety and complexity inherent to the fundraising process can only be fully appreciated as a dynamic group activity involving a number of interpersonal relationships, role transactions, and social exchanges. third, although basic aspects of fundraising are among different organizations, fundraising is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. situation-specific and can only be fully understood in terms of a particular context. furthermore, there are considerable variations between institutions of the same type, as universities. differences in culture, history, tradition, mission, number of alumni, capacity of the donor base, prestige, academic quality, commitment, effort, leadership style of the president and development officers play a critical role in fundraising outcomes. hence, results relating to one institution are not automatically replicable at another institution. finally, it is perhaps better to speak of fundraising effectiveness rather than fundraising success. however, both are important: success is probably an easier concept to grasp and to quantify and fits more readily within a short-term time period, which is where most fundraisers and presidents have to operate. from another perspective, the long-term stability, growth, and maturity of an organization's development program are dependent upon variables and forces that may have little to do with a particular comprehensive campaign or annual fund drive. hence, effectiveness emphasizes performance relative to fundraising potential given present capabilities and realities, whereas success emphasizes performance relative to a predetermined goal in a predetermined time period. therefore, fundraisers and presidents need to have both short-term and long-term objectives for their institutions. the concept of effectiveness also carries with it a broader perspective on fund raising and encourages more focus on basic prerequisites that must usually be in place before donors will consider making a major or ultimate gift to an institution. the models previously shown imply new ground in enhancing an understanding of university’s fundraising in general and presidential fundraising in particular. these models are useful both for scholars and for practitioners. table 1 provides a comprehensive guideline to decision-makers such as presidents, vice presidents for development, and governing boards regarding the key variables or prerequisites for sustained effectiveness in fundraising. moreover, this list provides administrators with a tool to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of their institutions relating to fundraising potential and capability. then, figure 1 provides an overview of the fundraising process at universities. it is focused on a general context that is dynamic and changing rather than a series of events that are static and predictable. finally, figure 2 focuses on presidential fundraising. in this model, intervening variables include environmental, institutional, role, and personal forces. these forces interact to determine who is selected as a university’s president, the extent and direction of the president’s involvement in fundraising, and the effectiveness of the latter in fundraising process. the same four forces also have an impact on other key players on the fundraising team such as academic leaders and senior members of the fundraising staff. the analysis of the state of the art of the literature shows that fundraising is a topic that deserves a multi-disciplinary and holistic approach relating to the focus of the analysis. moreover, there are some themes that have been investigated more than others. besides some of have been objects of analysis www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. without any theoretical framework support. hence, this could be the starting point for focusing the theoretical analysis on fundraising as a means to support university’s outcome. this means that the investigation does not concern with fundraising’s outcome, but it deals with the impact of fundraising output on university’s outcome and, hence, on university’s mission. the assumption behind this reasoning is the triangular relation among fundraising process’ output, university’s outcome and university’s mission. from this perspective, literature is still lacking and calls for further investigations and analyses. references ahlers, g. k., cumming, d., günther, c., & schweizer, d. (2015). signaling in equity crowdfunding. entrepreneurship theory and practice, 39(4), 955-980. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12157 allison, t. h., davis, b. c., short, j. c., & webb, j. w. (2015). crowdfunding in a prosocial microlending environment: examining the role of intrinsic versus extrinsic cues. entrepreneurship theory and practice, 39(1), 53-73. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12108 breen, o. b. (2012). the perks and perils of non-statutory fundraising regulatory regimes: an anglo-irish perspective. voluntas: international journal of voluntary and nonprofit organizations, 23(3), 763-790. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-011-9220-6 breeze, b., gouwenberg, b., schuyt, t., & wilkinson, i. (2011). what role for public policy in promoting philanthropy? the case of eu universities. public management review, 13(8), 1179-1195. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2011.619069 brittingham, b. e., & pezzullo, t. r. 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(2018). legitimacy, worthiness, and social network: an empirical study of the key factors influencing crowdfunding outcomes for nonprofit projects. voluntas, 29(3), 1-16. figure 2. four forces model of presidential fundraising in higher education education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 25 original paper on syntactic complexity in english language zhang zhiqin 1* 1 foreign languages department of taiyuan normal university, shanxi, china * zhang zhiqin, foreign languages department of taiyuan normal university, shanxi, china received: april 8, 2024 accepted: april 24, 2024 online published: may 9, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n2p25 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n2p25 abstract english is a language of hypotaxis, which means the language depends on syntactic and lexical devices to form one sentence or sentences. the paper discusses the syntactic relations and illustrates the syntactic complexity with examples. the paper focuses on the ambiguities caused by different factors to highlight the syntactic complexity of english. keywords syntax, complexity, ambiguity 1. introduction the term syntax, derived from the greek word syntaxis, is made up of two morphemes: 〔syn〕and 〔tax〕. the former means “together”, and the latter “to arrange”, hence the literal meaning “a setting out together” or “arrangement” (hu, 2001, p. 115). in linguistics, syntax is the way in which words are arranged to show relationships of meaning within and sometimes between sentences. simply put, it studies the rules that govern the formation of sentences. most modern languages resort to word order and function words for the expression of grammatical meanings, so they set great store by syntax. most syntactic studies have been focused on sentence structure, for this is where the most important grammatical relationships are expressed. syntax shows the role of words in a sentence. for example, (1) a. john hit sue. b. sue hit john. here knowing the subject allows us to know what is going on. syntax shows how words are related in a sentence. for example, (2) a. visiting aunts are boring. b. visiting aunts is boring. subject-verb agreement allows us to disambiguate the two sentences. syntax shows how words are related between sentences. for example, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 26 published by scholink inc. (3) a. italy was beating england. germany, too. b. italy was being beaten by england. germany, too. here ellipsis does not allow us to understand the second sentence. but syntax allows us to see what is missing. 2. syntactic relations according to saussure, the words which are combined to form sentences have two relations, syntagmatic and paradigmatic. the former is a relation between one item and others in a sequence, whereas the latter is a relation between elements which are replaceable with each other at particular point in a structure. for example, in the following sentence: (4) a. mom is smiling at the boy. the relation between mom and the others is syntagmatic. in addition, in this sentence, mom can be replaced by such words as dad, sister, brother, i.e., any singular human nouns, which are in a paradigmatic relation. saussure‟s view of language as system of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations operating at various hierarchical levels exerted great influence on modern linguistics. later, firth inherited and developed this view. firth put forward two elements: system and structure. while “structure” is the syntagmatic ordering of elements, “system” is a set of paradigmatic units, each of which can be substituted by others in certain places. thus, structure is horizontal and system is longitudinal. s y s s t r u c t u r e e m firth pointed out that the system prescribes the positions where linguistic elements can occur, this co-occurrence of words and phrases is called collocation. still take the above sentence for example, (4) b. *smiling mom is at boy the. the sentence is wrong in that the arrangement of words violate the syntactic rules. mom, as subject should be at the beginning of the sentence, the linking verb is should proceed the present participle smiling and the definite article the always occurs before the noun. similarly, we cannot replace mom with a house, (4) c. *a house is smiling at the boy. the verb smile requires an animate subject. from the above, it can be concluded that a correct sentence must meet both syntactic and semantic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 27 published by scholink inc. conditions, which are summarized by chomsky as selectional rules in his aspects of the theory of syntax. while in systemic grammar, all the semantically relevant choices in the language are represented as the chain system and the choice system: axis of choice axis of chain the axis of chain represents syntagmatic relations; the axis of choice represents paradigmatic relations. the constraints on word relations in a sentence reflect the syntactic complexity. by syntactic complexity is meant that sentence structures are complicated and the same structures may produce different interpretations. 3. complicated structures in english, sentences can be extended by either conjoining or embedding for as long as possible, moreover, a basic sentence structure does not always follow the normal order: subject+verb+object. all kinds of linguistic phenomena are employed such as omission, inversion and parenthesis, which tend to stand in the way of comprehension. the following are some examples of difficult sentences selected from the texts of lesson eleven and twelve of contemporary college english vol.3. its users are the second year esl college students in a foreign language department in china. the criteria according to which to classify the sentences as difficult here is that one third of 31 students in one class fail to parse the sentence correctly. (5) only in the present century has one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world. (6) and even this, were it by some miracle possible, would be futile, for the new chemicals come from our laboratories in an endless stream; almost five hundred annually find their way into actual use in the united states alone. (7) obviously then, an insect that lives on wheat can build up its population to much higher levels on a farm devoted to wheat than on one in which wheat is intermingled with other crops to which the insect is not adapted. (8) that their teachings have been largely accepted when what they advocate is so obviously self-serving is a tribute to how effective they have been in getting their message across. (9) our needs push us to strive for fulfillment; whether in our attempt to satisfy them we do right or wrong is up to each of us to decide. in (5) the subject is one species, what confuses the students is has is shifted before the subject and man is parenthesized between the subject and main verb. the sentence is inverted according to the rule that an adverbial phrase introduced by only occurs at the head, hence the sentence is complicated. it will be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 28 published by scholink inc. less complex, easier to understand, if we change it in the following way: (5) a. one species—man—has acquired significant power to alter the nature of this world only in this century. in (6), what makes the sentence complicated is, in the first part, the subject is separated from its verb by an unreal conditional clause, which is in an elliptical and inverted form. we can rewrite the sentence as: (6) a. and even this would be futile, if it were possible by some miracle, for the new chemicals come from our laboratories in an endless stream; almost five hundred annually find their way into actual use in the united states alone. the sentence (7) contains one comparative clause as its main structure, three attributive clauses modifying respectively an insect, one and other crops and one post-modifier after farm. all these combine to contribute to its complexity. in (8), its complexity lies in its subject clause, which contains an adverbial clause of time, while the subject of this adverbial clause is a clause itself. in (9), the latter part of the sentence is hard for the students to identify its main structure. normally immediately after the conjunction whether, there should occur the subject of the clause, here instead, is an adverbial made up of prepositional phrase; besides, the subject is a clause. to simplify the sentence, we can readjust its order as: (9) a. our needs push us to strive for fulfillment; whether we do right or wrong in our attempt to satisfy them is up to each of us to decide. the above are only random examples of difficult and complicated sentences for students. to make them easier to understand, the lecturers tend to reword and paraphrase them at the cost of their original styles or the languages‟ beauty or the authors‟ purposes. these sentences show one aspect of syntactic complexity. there are some less complicated sentences in terms of structure, which still cause trouble to students‟ comprehension, and they are ambiguous constructions. 4. syntactic ambiguity stephen levinson (1990) has argued that language is ambiguous by nature. “when we say that language is always ambiguous, what we mean is that we can never fully control the meanings of the things we say and write. the meanings we exchange by speaking and by writing are not given in the words and sentences alone but are also constructed partly out of what our listeners and our readers interpret them to mean. to put this quite another way, meaning in language is jointly constructed by the participants in communication. this is the first general conclusion reached in the research on communication” (scollon & scollon, 2000, p. 6). structural ambiguity occurs when a phrase or sentence has more than one underlying structure, such as the phrases “tibetan history teacher”, “a student of high moral principles” and “short men and women”, and the sentences “the girl hit the boy with a book” and “visiting relatives can be boring”. these ambiguities are said to be structural because each such phrase can be represented in two structurally www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 29 published by scholink inc. different ways. with immediate constituent analysis, such phrases can be got as “((tibetant history) teacher)” or “(tibetan (history teacher))”; “((short men) and women)” and “(short (men and women))”. the existence of such ambiguities provides strong evidence for syntactic complexities. the factors that cause the syntactic ambiguity are various. 4.1 ambiguity caused by attributive modifiers (10) small jacket buttons are available in the shop. (11) i am tired of the man next to the lady wearing casually. (12) my mom likes the flowers in the vase that she bought the other day. (13) that japanese vegetable soup is delicious. in 10, small jacket buttons can mean that either “buttons for small jackets” or “jacket buttons of small size” are available in the shop. the two interpretations of the meaning of the sentence can be illustrated by two tree structures representing two different syntactic structures of the np small jacket buttons. each tree diagram representation of the np corresponds to one of the possible meanings of the np. when the same sequence of words can be associated with more than one tree structure, it is said to be structurally ambiguous. thus, multiple tree structures can explicitly account for structural ambiguity. in 11, present participle phrase wearing casually functions as post-modifier, modifying either the lady or the man. similarly, the attributive clause in sentence 12 can be the modifier of either the vase or the flowers. in 13, that japanese vegetable soup can be interpreted as that soup made with japanese vegetable or that vegetable soup of japanese style. “a phrase or sentence may be understood in different ways according to the possible interpretations of its structure; however, it is the syntactic rules that determine its meaning” (li, 1999, p. 142). 4.2 ambiguity caused by adverbial modifiers (14) the driver is instructed periodically to check the oil level. (15) the driver is instructed to check the oil level periodically. (16) the cook broils steak rarely. the sentence 14 is ambiguous: is the driver instructed periodically, or is it the checking that is to be done periodically? in 15, periodically could conceivably be thought to modify to check rather than instructed. it‟s a weak ambiguity, but readers can be confused. rarely in 16 can be the modifier of the whole sentence, then it indicates time, meaning seldom. if it is thought to modify broils, it functions as the modifier in terms of degree, the whole sentence means that steak is not overcooked. 4.3 ambiguity caused by clauses (17) i like bill more than tom. (18) go and ask the dean who will teach the first year students english literature. (19) as my parents grow old, they will have to retire from work. (20) tell me if you have time. (21) the news that tony had successfully passed the exam finally reached us. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. sentence 17 is a comparative adverbial clause and ambiguous in that it can be understood in two ways: (17) a. i like bill more than i like tom. (17) b. i like bill more than tom likes him. in sentence 18 who will teach the first year students english literature is a clause. if it is assumed to qualify the dean, it is an attributive clause; or assumed to be the object of ask, it is an object clause. in sentence 19, the clause as my parents grow old can be either the clause of time or that of reason. if it is the clause of time, as means when; the clause of reason, it means because depending on its different senses. in 20, if you have time is a clause. it can be taken as a conditional clause, then the sentence means if you have time, tell me (about it). or it is an object clause, the sentence means tell me whether you have time. in 21, the clause that tony had successfully passed the exam has two different grammatical functions: attributive and appositive clause. whichever it is, it makes no difference to the sentence meaning, except that the focus is on news when it is an attributive clause and that the news and the clause have the same reference when it is an appositive clause. 4.4 ambiguity caused by negation (22) mary didn‟t sing as she wished. (23) i didn‟t buy the book because i was interested in poetry. (24) she didn‟t come to see him when he asked. in an english sentence, if the main verb is in negative form and there is an adverbial clause, it tends to cause ambiguity. in 22, two interpretations result: (22) a. mary didn‟t sing, because she had wished not to sing. (22) b. mary didn‟t sing as well as she had wished. in 23, the scope of negation may extend to the adverbial clause, hence the following two interpretations: (23) a. i bought the book, but it wasn‟t because i was interested in poetry. (23) b. i didn‟t buy the book, because it has nothing to do with poetry, and it is poetry that i was interested in. similarly, 24 has two interpretations, moreover, one is whenclause functions as the modifier of the infinitive clause to see him, the other is whenfunctions as the adverbial of the main clause. that is: (24) a. she came to see him, but not at the time he asked her to come to see him. (24) b. when he asked, she didn‟t come to see him. 4.5 ambiguity caused by infinitive phrase (25) the tiger is too small to kill. (26) the old couple were friendly enough to help. (27) it is good for franklin to do that. in english, some verbs can be both transitive or intransitive, their active forms take on passive meaning. this usage can lead to ambiguity. the verbs to kill and to help are a case in point. as a consequence, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. the sentences 25and 26are respectively interpreted as: (25) a. the tiger is too small to kill others. (25) b. the tiger is too small to be killed by others. (26) a. it was friendly enough for the old couple to help others. (26) b. it was friendly enough for others to help the old couple. the sentence 27 is ambiguous for its two interpretations too, (27) a. to do that is good to franklin. (27) b. for franklin to do that is good. 4.6 ambiguity caused by the construction of “transitive verb + object” in english, the construction „transitive verb + object‟ may cause ambiguity. for example: (28) the chairman appointed mr. brown an assistant. (29) tony called himself a repairman. in 28, transitive verb appointed takes two nouns mr. brown and an assistant. the latter can be thought to function as either the object complement or the direct object of the verb, thus (28) a. the chairman appointed mr. brown to be an assistant. (28) b. the chairman appointed an assistant for mr. brown. in 29, after transitive verb called are two words, one is pronoun himself, the other is noun a repairman. the sentence is ambiguously understood. (29) a. tony described himself as a repairman. (29) b. tony called (sent for) a repairman for himself. 4.7 ambiguity caused by coordinate conjunction “and” coordinate conjunction is used to connect two coordinate elements. when there is one modifier before or after one of them, the structure causes ambiguous comprehensions. for example: (30) mr. williams was a professor and a dramatist of great fame. (31) the scholar wrote long thesis and books. in sentence 30, the conjunction and connects two elements a professor and a dramatist with a post-modifier of great fame, which causes ambiguity in that the construction of great fame can modify an dramatist alone or the two coordinated nouns a professor and a dramatist. in sentence 31, there are two coordinated elements thesis, books connected by and, before them is an attributive modifier long, which modifies thesis alone or thesis and books together. to disambiguate the sentences, we can use immediate constituent analysis to parse each sentence as: (31) a. mr. williams was ((a professor) and (a dramatist) of great fame). (31) b. mr. williams was (a professor and (a dramatist of great fame)). (32) a. the scholar wrote (long (thesis) and (books)). (32) b. the scholar wrote ((long thesis) and books). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. 4.8 ambiguity caused by the verb inflections in english, the verbs have three kinds of inflections: past tense -ed, past participle -ed and present participle -ing. some present and past participles are used as adjectives in their original forms. these changes of syntactic functions tend to produce ambiguity. for example: (33) flying planes can be dangerous. (34) the woman is calculating. (35) the miserable man had discarded clothes. in 33, the word flying has two usages: gerund and present participle. in terms of the former usage, flying planes is gerundial phrase, functioning as the subject of the sentence, otherwise it is equivalent to an adjective. the sentence is interpreted respectively as: (33) a. to fly planes can be dangerous. (33) b. the planes that are flying can be dangerous. in 34, the word calculating has two interpretations. as present participle, together with is, it is the progressive aspect; or as adjective, it functions as the complement. we can add something to distinguish the two usages. (34) a. the woman is calculating (quickly). (34) b. the woman is (very) calculating. in 35, discarded can be understood in two ways, one is past participle, functioning as the predicate of the sentence, together with had; the other is adjective, functioning as attributive modifier. the sentence is paraphrased as: (35) a. the man had thrown away clothes. (35) b. the man had clothes that were discarded. 4.9 ambiguity caused by prepositional phrase tag (36) leave the book in the room. (37) the man beat the boy with a stick. (38) it is difficult to breathe in the filthy air. in 36, the book in the room may be understood, on the one hand, as the book which is in the room, and on the other, as referring to a room where some book is to be left. the sentence 37 can be understood in two ways: (37) a. the man used a stick to beat the boy. (37) b. the man beat the boy who has a stick with him. the sentence 38 may have two different structures with different meanings: (38) a. (it is difficult to breathe) in the filthy air. (38) b. (it is difficult to breathe in) the filthy air. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 33 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion the above is a list of ambiguities caused by different factors. the list is not exhaustive, but it is a tribute to the syntactic complexities of english language. it is important to have a good command of english syntactic complexity, especially for chinese students in that english is a language of hypotaxis while chinese is that of parataxis. that is one english sentence or sentences are connected by syntactic devices or lexical devices while the formation of one chinese sentence or sentences depend on the semantic connection. the knowledge of syntactic complexity is conducive to the improvement of one‟s language performance. references firth, j. r. (1957). papers in linguistics 1934-1951. london: oxford university press. hu, z. l. (2001). linguistics. a course book. beijing: beijing university press. hu, z. l., & jiang, w. q. (2002). linguistics: an advanced course book. beijing: beijing university press. richards et al. (2000). longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press. robins, r. h. (2001). a short history of linguistics. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press. scollon, r., & scollon, s. (2000). intercultural communication: a discourse approach. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press. xu, l. j. (1988). generative grammar theory. shanghai: shanghai foreign language & education press. saussure, f. de. (1960). course in general linguistics. philosophical library inc. zhang, z. b. (1989). new english grammar. shanghai: shanghai translation press. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 27 original paper investigating the impact of neuromarketing on consumer purchase intention (case study of sports goods customers in ardabil city) mehrdad moharramzadeh1, abbas naghizadeh baghi2, farzad nobakht2, & akbar mahdavi3* 1 professor of sports management, mohaghegh ardabili university, ardabil, iran 2 associate professor of sports management, mohagheg ardabili university, ardabil, iran 3 master’s degree in sports management, director of physical education, karaj, iran * akbar mahdavi, master’s degree in sports management, director of physical education, karaj, iran received: june 19, 2023 accepted: february 22, 2024 online published: march 3, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p27 abstract the purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of neuromarketing on consumer purchase intention (a case study of sports goods customers in ardabil city). the current research is applied research in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of nature and content. the statistical population of this research includes all private sports clubs and sellers of sports goods in ardabil city, the sample size was 352 people considering that the statistical population is unlimited and the sampling method was clustered. the measurement tools include neuromarketing questionnaire (azeimi et al., 2015) and consumer purchase intention questionnaire (mahdavi, 2015). the content and form validity of the questionnaires were confirmed by the management professors and then cronbach’s alpha reliability (ave) was reported as 0.83 for the neuromarketing questionnaire and 0.88 for the consumer purchase intention questionnaire, respectively. the structural equation method was used for analysis using imus version 23 and spss version 19 software. the findings of the research showed that neuromarketing has an effect on the purchase intention of sports goods consumers. therefore, it can be concluded that the use of neuromarketing can influence the senses and minds of customers and make consumers’ minds ready for repeat purchases. keywords neuromarketing, consumer purchase intention, ardabil www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 28 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction neuromarketing is the application of tools, achievements and tests from the scientific disciplines of psychology and neuroscience and neurology in order to measure and measure biological reactions in the face of marketing stimuli (marketing strategies, communications, advertising, new products and existing products). the concept and term of neuromarketing was first proposed in 1990 by psychologists and researchers at harvard university. this technology discusses a model in which the main part of the intellectual body of human activity (more than 90%) happens in the subconscious of their brain; which is in the lower part of controlled consciousness (jaafari, 2022). neuromarketing offers more depth and accuracy in market research than qualitative research alone. studies have shown that data collected from neural experiments predicts future trends more accurately than traditional market research. assessing physiological proxies for brain activity circumvents deficiencies such as incomplete recall and participant dishonesty. whether due to pressure to please or embarrassment, consumer responses are not necessarily an accurate representation of the brain’s actual response. one of the biggest advantages of neuromarketing is the ability to better understand the decision-making process of consumers with less influence on those decisions due to the talents of the brand, style, product, market, genre etc. (nazadi, 2022). customer purchase intention is defined as the desire and intention of the consumer to purchase a particular product or service from a seller. the intention to purchase the product comes from the customers’ perception of the service providers’ performance. it means that the consumer has confidence in the seller or brand in terms of service. it also shows whether customers are willing to buy more from a particular organization. finally, it is the purchase intention that turns the consumer into a customer. purchase intention refers to the probability that a customer will choose a particular brand when purchasing an item from a category of products (crosno et al., 2006). purchase intention is the probability of buying a certain product by the consumer in the future. purchase intention is also said to the extent that a customer buys a specific product and changes direction to other products at the same time and moment (yu & danso, 2001). purchase intention is defined as a situation in which the consumer is inclined to buy a specific product under specific conditions (shah et al., 2012). marketers should pay more attention to their opinions, needs and desires in order to retain, attract and repurchase customers and provide better services and by examining the problems and dealing with these problems and ultimately increasing their satisfaction, which is related to increasing the perceived quality of them, it leads to the intention of customers to buy sports goods. for this reason, most sports marketers use types of marketing such as neuromarketing, which has a great impact on the brain and nerves of customers, to retain and attract customers and finally repurchase all types of sports goods. the main problem here is the quality perceived by the customers, considering the advancement of technology and technology in the production and manufacturing of all kinds of sports goods, as well as the existence of sports goods manufacturers and having a large variety, which can expand the purchase intention of the customers and cause them to buy again to be. therefore, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 29 published by scholink inc. managers of sports clubs and sellers of sports goods must develop the quality of sports goods in the minds of customers in order to promote and expand the purchase intention of customers using neuromarketing. therefore, according to the previous statements of the researcher, in this research, she seeks to investigate the question of whether neuromarketing has an effect on the purchase intention of sports goods consumers. neuromarketing uses behavioral cognitive science in a market research setting to assess consumer response to marketing stimuli. according to today’s needs, paying attention to this science in marketing and advertising is very effective and important. neuromarketing is a new science in marketing, which is a combination of two marketing sciences and neuroscience, which takes into account the functioning of the brain, and all marketing operations are carried out. neuromarketing efforts can be profitable and effective in attracting customers at a lower cost for smaller businesses. the purpose of neuromarketing is to better convey marketing messages to others and increase the probability of purchase by the audience, which reduces marketing and advertising budgets and it also aims to collect empirical data using neuroscience techniques to better understand consumer behavior and develop more effective marketing campaigns and products. neuromarketing researchers apply biometrics to the traditional focus group through technologies such as electroencephalography, which track participants’ neural responses to elements of a particular brand. a variety of neuromarketing methods are used to obtain and decode brain data to reveal the consumer’s unconscious decision-making processes (najafi, 2021). one of the stages of purchase decision is the purchase intention, which studies the behavioral reason of the consumer to buy a particular brand. researchers have introduced various factors that influence consumers’ purchase decisions (keller & lehman, 2006). the relationship between behavioral intention and behavior shows that people tend to engage in behaviors that they intend to do (yaghoubi & shakeri, 2020). purchase intention expresses the consumer’s desire to buy a product or receive a special service in the future. in other words, increasing purchase intention means increasing the probability of purchase (schiffman & kanuk, 2007). according to cresno, ferling and skinner, 2009, purchase intention refers to the probability that customers will purchase a specific brand of a product class in a given purchasing situation. often, the purchase intention scale is used to identify the possibilities of buying goods during a certain period of time. day states that volitional scales can be more effective than behavioral scales in achieving the customer’s decision, because customers may buy under compulsion (hu, 2010). when a consumer has a desire to buy from a store, this desire is expressed in the form of a commitment that leads her to actual purchase behavior (schiffman & kanuk, 2007). it is necessary to study neuromarketing and customers’ intention to purchase sports goods as an attractive and vital category in marketing, and for the success of these two variables, the quality perceived by the customer should be increased. therefore, it is necessary for sports marketers to pay enough attention to perceived quality as one of the important and essential factors for sales growth and increasing and attracting customers. as a result, it is important to address the issue of purchase www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. intention and perceived quality of sports goods customers as the main pillar of sports goods marketing. therefore, in this research, the researcher seeks to investigate the impact of neuromarketing on the consumer’s purchase intention (a case study of sports goods customers in ardabil city) that with the results and findings of this research, people who are somehow related to sports goods can attract more customers and identify different methods and ways. in 2023, gharbi et al concluded in a research that social media marketing activities have a direct, positive and significant effect on repurchase intention and sustainable social connection and customer satisfaction. in a research, nezadi (2022) concluded that customers and consumers of sports services in taekwondo clubs in tehran are encouraged to repurchase the club’s services with neuromarketing stimuli along with satisfaction and loyalty. davari (2022) concluded in a research that impulse marketing and its dimensions have an effect on the impulse buying behavior of sports brand buyers, and nervous marketing and its dimensions have an indirect effect on the impulse purchase behavior of sports brand buyers through passion for the brand. liu et al. (2018) concluded in a research that social and informational benefits have positive effects on attitude, which in turn significantly affect revisit intention and brand trust, and the moderating effect of community type. online was significant in predicting the relationship between attitude and impulse purchase, but not between attitude and revisit intention. figure 1. research conceptual model 2. methodology the current research is applied research in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of nature and content. also, the current research is of the type of causal modeling or structural equation modeling and the relationship between the variables was tested. also, this research was based on field data collection and questionnaire. regarding the collection of information related to the literature of the subject and the background of the research, library methods were used, and field methods were used to collect information to confirm or reject the research hypotheses. the target population of this research includes all customers of sports stores in ardabil city. the population of the current research includes the customers and sellers of sports goods in ardabil city, which due to the unavailability of the study population, the statistical population was determined as unlimited. the sample of this research includes all athletes, sellers and customers of sports goods in ardabil city, and the sample size was determined to be 384 people based on morgan’s table due to the unlimited statistical population that after collecting the questionnaires, it was found that 32 of the questionnaires could not be used due to incomplete neurological marketing consumer purchase intention www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. answers, and therefore the data of 352 questionnaires were analyzed. in this research, the sampling method was clustered. first, the city of ardabil was divided into six clusters and randomly selected a number of clusters; so that a total of 6 regions are selected and according to the number of stores and clubs in each region, a number of stores and sports clubs were selected randomly. to measure the neuromarketing variable, the questionnaire used by azimi et al. (2015). this questionnaire consists of 17 questions in 4 dimensions, the dimensions of the above questionnaire are 1consumer trust (from questions 1 to 5), 2variety of products (from questions 6 to 9), 3use of the five senses (from questions 10 to 13) and 4emotional experiences caused by consumer purchases (from questions 14 to 17). a questionnaire used by mahdavi in her research in 2016 was used to measure the variable of consumer purchase intention. this questionnaire is made of 6 questions in one dimension, and the scoring method of this questionnaire is based on a 5-point likert scale, which ranges from completely disagree to completely agree. in this research, cronbach’s alpha method, which is the basis of reliability measurement in most researches, has been used. the content and form validity of the questionnaires were confirmed by the management professors and then the cronbach’s alpha reliability of the neuromarketing questionnaire was 0.837 and the cronbach’s alpha reliability of the consumer purchase intention questionnaire was 0.882. in order to analyze the hypotheses of the research, the method of structural equations was used using the software of imus version 23 and spss version 19. 3. analysis of findings the distribution of respondents is according to gender: 149 people, i.e., 42.3% are men, and 203 people, i.e., 57.7% are women. the distribution of the respondents according to their marital status is that 145 people, i.e., 41.2%, are single and 207 people, i.e., 58.8%, are married. the distribution of respondents based on age shows that the lowest age range is less than 30 years old with a frequency of 19 people, i.e., 5.4%, and the highest age range is between 35 and 40 years old with a frequency of 123 people, i.e., 34.9%. the distribution of the respondents according to the level of education shows that a doctorate with a frequency of 8 people, i.e., 2.3%, and a bachelor’s degree with a frequency of 155 people, i.e., 44%, are respectively the lowest and the highest level of education of the respondents. the distribution of respondents based on sports history shows that less than 5 years with a frequency of 43, i.e., 12.2%, between 5 and 10 years with a frequency of 136, i.e., 38.6%, between 10 and 15 years with a frequency of 116, i.e., 33%, and more than 15 years with the frequency is 57, that is, 16.2%. basic measurement equations the primary measurement model of the research, which examines the relationship between latent and manifest variables, was implemented in the imus version 23 software, and it can be seen in the three modes of non-standard estimation, standard estimation and the significance of the coefficients in three figures 1 and 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. figure 2. primary measurement model in the mode of estimation of unstandardized coefficients figure 3. primary measurement model in the mode of estimation of standardized coefficients initial measurement model fit fit means matching the observed model in the research sample with the expected model in the real society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 33 published by scholink inc. table 1. fit indices of the primary measurement model fit indices fit index rate limit amount obtained cmin/df thrifty indicators smaller than 3 1.625 rmsea thrifty indicators smaller than 0.08 0.058 pnfi thrifty indicators greater than 0.5 0.662 gfi absolute indices greater than 0.8 0.889 agfi absolute indices greater than 0.8 0.894 nfi comparative indicators greater than 0.9 0.921 nnfi=tli comparative indicators greater than 0.9 0.930 cfi comparative indicators greater than 0.9 0.987 rfi comparative indicators greater than 0.9 0.917 ifi comparative indicators greater than 0.9 0.903 among the 5 comparative indices mentioned in the table of main sources of structural equations, at least three indices must be greater than 0.9. the structural model has a good status in all three indicators, absolute, absolute and comparative. in order to establish the reliability and validity of the structure, the following 9 conditions must be met. failure to establish even one condition will destroy the construct validity and the results will be discredited because the researcher’s results in a quantitative survey must be reliable and generalizable as well as valid or valid. table 2. checking the reliability and validity of the structure cr ave msv asv neurological marketing 0.709 0.837 0.454 0.316 consumer purchase intention 0.813 0.882 0.166 0.091 table 3. fornell and larcker’s divergent validity analysis new educational technology consumer purchase intention neurological marketing 0.713 consumer purchase intention 0.408 if you pay attention to the fornell and larcker table, fortunately, the square root of the ave of each variable is greater than the correlation of that variable with other variables. considering that it was found in the initial measurement model that it has two necessary conditions for the implementation of the structural model, i.e., the validity and reliability of the structure and the fit, so there is no need for a modified measurement model and we directly carry out the structural model of the research. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. figure 4. analysis model of neuromarketing effect on consumer purchase intention in non-standard estimation mode figure 5. analysis model of neuromarketing effect on consumer purchase intention in standard estimation mode www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. table 4. analysis of the impact of neuromarketing on consumer purchase intention result p t-value direct route hypothesis analysis meaningful 0.002 3.072 0.33 effect of neuromarketing on consumer purchase intention table 4 shows the results of investigating the path coefficient of the impact of neuromarketing on the purchase intention of consumers of sports goods in rasht city. according to the above table, the beta coefficient in this path is 0.33, t-value is 3.072 and p is 0.002. considering that the t-value is outside (1.96 and -1.96), at the confidence level of 0.99, hypothesis h0 is rejected and hypothesis h1 is confirmed. that is, neuromarketing has a significant effect on the purchase intention of consumers of sports goods in ardabil city on the other hand, in table 4, the intensity and impact is determined by beta or the path coefficient, which beta is 0.33, which means that the direction is positive and direct, the intensity of the effect is 0.33. that is, if we change one unit of the exogenous variable of the consumer’s purchase intention, it changes by 0.33 units of the neuromarketing endogenous variable in the same direction. in other words, neuromarketing had a positive and significant effect on the purchase intention of sports goods consumers in ardabil city. 5. conclusion the hypothesis of the research showed that neuromarketing has an effect on the consumer’s intention to buy sports goods in ardabil city. therefore, in the above explanation, it can be said that today companies produce sports goods that have legal ownership and they can influence consumer behavior and buy and sell products and provide security and stability from the future for their income and products and directly and indirectly affect consumers with these benefits that makes consumers want to buy products from their desired brands. therefore, companies producing sports goods should seek to create a special and necessary passion in the minds of consumers. unitel the tell consumers that what they are buying is the best product or service available and that they think it is better than the products of competitors. therefore, the interest and participation in neuromarketing can make customers satisfied with their purchases, and these customers’ purchases cause profits for the benefit of manufacturing companies. according to the findings and discussions, it can be concluded that customers make their decisions on a mental, emotional, and instinctive level. and due to the development and expansion of sports at the global level, the sports goods production industry is considered one of the main pillars of any country’s economy. and customers have a key role in that, in the meantime, the role and importance of neuromarketing due to its direct impact on the growth and survival of manufacturing companies competing in the market has caused the perceived quality to be understood and accepted by customers today. and the direction of their activity should be towards the intention of buying customers and considering that ardabil city is one of the most populated and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. sports-friendly cities and athletes in this city use up-to-date and appropriate sports goods and equipment. therefore, the supply of quality sports goods and providing better services to consumers at a high level permanently makes the companies producing sports goods compete to attract consumers and buy customers. if the customers are satisfied with the quality of the goods and services of the sports goods manufacturing companies, they can make repeated purchases. references davari, m. (2022). the effect of neuromarketing on impulse buying behavior of buyers of sports brands according to the mediating role of passion for the brand and presentation of the model, master’s thesis. faculty of physical education and sports sciences, islamic azad university, shahrood branch. crosno, j. l., freling, t. h., & skinner, s. j. (2009). does brand social power mean market might? exploring the influence of brand social power on brand evaluation. psychology & marketing, 26, 91-121. hu, y. (2010). an investigation on the linkage between purchase intention and service quality in the e-commerce context (pp. 304-307). international conference on innovative computing and communication and 2010 asia-pacific conference on information technology and ocean engineering. jafari, m. r. (2022). an analytical look at neuromarketing as strategy design in modern business. proceedings of the 3rd conference of modern management sciences, golestan province, gorgan. keller, k. l., & lehmann, d. r. (2006). brands and branding: research findings and future priorities. marketing science, 25(6), 740-759. lio, j. (2018). relative and interaction effects of situational and personal factors on impulse buying. proquest. ph.d. university of minnesota. minnesota. nazadi, h. (2022). analyzing the effect of neuromarketing on customers’ satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intention (case study: taekwondo sports clubs in tehran), master’s thesis. faculty of sports and health sciences, shahid beheshti university. najafi, m. (2021). investigating the impact of neuromarketing with the mediating role of perceived brand value on increasing customer trust and loyalty, master’s thesis. faculty of humanities, islamic azad university, zarghan branch. qorbi, s. s., akbari areh kamri, m., & ghasemi namghi, m. (2023). investigating the impact of social media marketing activities on repurchase intention and sustainable social connection (case study: ati saz iranian company in mashhad). marketing management journal, 54, 111-129. schiffman, k. t., & kanuk, m. (2007). does brand management of corporate reputation translate into higher market value? journal of strategic marketing, 18(3), 201-221. shah, s. s. h., aziz, j., jaffari, a., waris, s., ejaz, w., fatima, m., & sherazi, s. k. (2012). the impact www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. of brands on consumer purchase intentions. asian journal of business management, 4(2), 105-110. yaqoubi, n. m., & shakri, r. (2021). analytical comparison of technology acceptance models with an emphasis on internet banking acceptance. iranian journal of management sciences, 11, 21-44. yoo, b., & donthu, n. (2001). developing and validating a multidimensional consumer-based brand equity scale. journal of business research, 52(1), 1-14. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 53 original paper the current situation and improvement research on the dissemination of chinese culture in college english education in china min wang 1 1 chengdu textile college, chengdu 611731, sichuan province, china received: january 2, 2024 accepted: january 31, 2024 online published: march 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p53 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p53 abstract in today’s increasingly globalized world, language education is no longer limited to the imparting of language knowledge; rather, it is more crucial for understanding and disseminating culture through language learning. english, as an internationally common language, holds a significant position in higher education in china. with china’s growing status in the process of globalization, the dissemination of chinese culture becomes particularly important. as an important platform for cultivating international talents, higher education in english bears the significant responsibility of disseminating chinese culture. however, there are some issues in the current dissemination of chinese culture in english education in chinese universities, such as limited cultural content selection, monotonous teaching methods, inadequate teaching staff, and imperfect evaluation systems. these issues affect the effective dissemination of chinese culture in english education. therefore, discussing the current situation and improvement measures of the dissemination of chinese culture in english education in chinese universities is of great significance for enhancing the international influence of chinese culture, promoting cultural diversity, and facilitating mutual learning between civilizations. this article will start with an analysis of the current situation, discuss the existing problems, and propose corresponding improvement suggestions, aiming to provide reference for optimizing the dissemination of chinese culture in college english education in china. keywords higher education in english, chinese culture, dissemination, improvement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction with the accelerated process of globalization, english education holds a significant position in chinese universities. however, there are some issues in the current dissemination of chinese culture in english education in higher institutions, mainly manifested in limited cultural content selection, monotonous teaching methods, inadequate teaching staff, and imperfect evaluation systems. these problems lead to insufficient understanding and appreciation of chinese culture among students, making it difficult to effectively showcase the charm of chinese culture in international exchanges. therefore, it is necessary to improve the dissemination of chinese culture in english education in universities, including enriching cultural teaching content, innovating teaching methods, strengthening teacher training, and improving evaluation systems, in order to enhance the effectiveness of disseminating chinese culture in english teaching and to enhance students’ cultural confidence and international competitiveness. 2. current situation of the dissemination of chinese culture in college english education in china 2.1 limited selection of cultural content in chinese universities’ english education, the dissemination of cultural content is often restricted, primarily in the selection of cultural elements. english teaching mainly focuses on the imparting of language knowledge, such as grammar, vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, with insufficient emphasis on integrating cultural content. even when cultural content is involved in teaching, it often remains superficial, such as traditional chinese festivals, dietary habits, tourist attractions, etc. although these contents can showcase certain characteristics of chinese culture to some extent, they lack the dissemination of deep cultural elements and values. for example, the rich cultural heritage of china’s literature, history, philosophy, and art is often neglected. this limitation results in students’ understanding of chinese culture remaining superficial, unable to deeply comprehend the connotation and essence of chinese culture, and thus, it is difficult to accurately convey the true face of chinese culture in international exchanges. 2.2 monotonous teaching methods currently, the dissemination of chinese culture in higher education english teaching mainly adopts traditional lecturing methods, where teachers explain cultural knowledge in the classroom, and students passively receive it. this teaching method lacks interaction and experience, resulting in students’ insufficient understanding and appreciation of chinese culture. the lack of practical activities and experiential opportunities makes students lack interest and initiative in learning about chinese culture, making it difficult to effectively absorb and understand cultural content. moreover, the monotonous teaching methods also restrict the cultivation of students’ open-mindedness and innovative thinking, which is not conducive to their in-depth understanding and recognition of chinese culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. 2.3 inadequate teaching staff the dissemination of chinese culture requires teachers with certain cultural literacy and teaching capabilities. however, some universities currently lack such teaching staff in english education. on the one hand, some english teachers may not have a deep understanding of chinese culture, making it difficult to accurately and comprehensively impart chinese culture. on the other hand, teachers may lack innovation in teaching methods and means, unable to effectively stimulate students’ interest in chinese culture. these factors collectively affect the effective dissemination of chinese culture in english teaching and limit students’ understanding and recognition of chinese culture. 2.4 imperfect evaluation systems the imperfect evaluation system in chinese universities’ english education is an important issue facing the dissemination of chinese culture. currently, the evaluation system in english teaching mainly focuses on language skills, emphasizing students’ performance in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, with relatively little emphasis on evaluating cultural understanding and cross-cultural communication abilities. this emphasis on language skills overlooks the importance of cultural education, leading students to possibly neglect learning and understanding chinese culture during the learning process. firstly, the imperfect evaluation system leads to insufficient attention to the learning of chinese culture by students. as the evaluation mainly depends on language skills, students may believe that mastering language knowledge and skills is sufficient to obtain good grades, lacking sufficient motivation and interest in learning cultural content. in this situation, the dissemination of chinese culture in english teaching is difficult to advance effectively, and students’ understanding and recognition of chinese culture will also be limited. secondly, the imperfect evaluation system affects the teaching focus of teachers. teachers may focus more on the imparting of language knowledge to meet the requirements of the evaluation system, while neglecting the teaching of chinese cultural content. this situation not only limits the dissemination of chinese culture in english teaching but also affects students’ comprehensive understanding and recognition of chinese culture. furthermore, the lack of evaluation of cultural understanding and cross-cultural communication abilities is also detrimental to the comprehensive development of students’ abilities. in the context of globalization, cross-cultural communication skills are becoming increasingly important for personal development and international exchanges. if the evaluation system cannot reasonably assess these abilities, it is difficult to motivate students to actively learn and improve in this aspect. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. 3. strategies for improving the dissemination of chinese culture in chinese university english education 3.1 enrichment of cultural content to effectively disseminate chinese culture, chinese university english education should incorporate deeper elements of chinese culture into teaching, such as chinese history, philosophy, and art. these contents not only enrich students’ cultural knowledge but also help them understand the essence of chinese culture. for example, by explaining ancient chinese literary works, introducing chinese philosophical thoughts, and showcasing traditional chinese art, students can gain a deeper understanding of the diversity and richness of chinese culture while learning the language. 3.2 innovative teaching methods to better disseminate chinese culture, chinese university english education should adopt innovative teaching methods to enhance students’ participation and experiential learning. here are two specific examples: -example 1: situational simulation method situational simulation is an effective teaching method that allows students to immerse themselves in experiencing chinese culture. for instance, teachers can design scenarios simulating cultural exchanges between china and the west, such as chinese tea art performances or celebrations of traditional chinese festivals. by assigning students different roles, such as tea artists, festival organizers, or foreign guests, and engaging in role-playing and dialogue, students can gain insights into chinese cultural etiquette, traditions, and values. this type of situational simulation not only increases student engagement but also enhances their ability to apply english and cultural knowledge in practical contexts. -example 2: cultural experience activities cultural experience activities represent another innovative teaching method, enabling students to actively participate in chinese cultural activities and enhance their appreciation and understanding of the culture. for example, schools can organize calligraphy workshops, inviting professional calligraphers to teach students basic techniques and explain the cultural significance behind calligraphy. students can experience the charm of chinese calligraphy firsthand by writing chinese characters. additionally, schools can arrange cultural experience activities during the spring festival, allowing students to participate in traditional customs such as making dumplings, hanging lanterns, and writing couplets. through these firsthand experiences, students can deeply appreciate the cultural connotations of chinese festivals. through these innovative teaching methods, students not only acquire knowledge of chinese culture but also deepen their understanding and identification with the culture through practical experience, thus better disseminating chinese culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 57 published by scholink inc. 3.3 strengthening teacher training teachers are crucial carriers of chinese culture dissemination. in chinese university english education, enhancing teacher training is key to improving the effectiveness of chinese culture dissemination. firstly, attention should be paid to improving teachers’ cultural literacy and professional capabilities. this can be achieved by regularly organizing special lectures, workshops, and seminars, enabling teachers to gain in-depth understanding of the essence and characteristics of chinese culture and master effective methods for integrating cultural knowledge into english teaching. secondly, teachers should be encouraged to participate in research and projects related to chinese culture, exploring more innovative teaching methods through practical experiments to enhance the attractiveness and dissemination power of teaching. additionally, establishing platforms for teacher exchange facilitates the sharing of experiences and mutual learning among teachers, fostering a favorable teaching atmosphere. these measures effectively enhance teachers’ teaching level and ability to disseminate chinese culture, providing students with a richer and more in-depth cultural learning experience. 3.4 improving the evaluation system to effectively disseminate chinese culture, chinese university english education needs to establish an evaluation system focusing on cultural understanding and intercultural communication skills. this evaluation system should not only assess students’ language skills but also emphasize their understanding of chinese culture and ability to communicate across cultures. firstly, the evaluation system should include assessments of students’ mastery of cultural knowledge, such as chinese history, literature, and philosophy, through written exams, oral presentations, or project displays. secondly, the evaluation system should emphasize students’ intercultural communication skills, including their ability to communicate effectively, resolve cultural conflicts, and demonstrate cultural sensitivity in different cultural contexts. this can be evaluated through simulated communication activities, group discussions, or actual communication projects. finally, the evaluation system should encourage students to actively participate in chinese cultural dissemination activities, such as cultural exhibitions and international exchanges, with their participation and performance being part of the evaluation. by improving the evaluation system, students can be incentivized to pay more attention to learning and disseminating chinese culture, thereby enhancing their cultural understanding and intercultural communication skills. 3.5 strengthening interdisciplinary integration integrating english teaching with chinese literature, history, philosophy, and other disciplines can create interdisciplinary teaching models, promoting students’ comprehensive understanding of chinese culture. through interdisciplinary integration, students can understand chinese culture from different disciplinary perspectives, forming a more comprehensive and in-depth cultural understanding. furthermore, interdisciplinary integration can stimulate students’ interest in learning, improve learning efficiency, and provide students with a richer and more colorful learning experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. 4. limitations analysis while the aforementioned improvement measures are expected to enhance the dissemination of chinese culture in chinese university english education, there are still some limitations and challenges in the implementation process, mainly manifested in the following aspects: 4.1 resource and facility constraints in some universities, especially in regions with relatively scarce resources, there may be a lack of adequate facilities and funding to support the development of chinese cultural teaching resources and innovative teaching methods. for instance, launching new courses, updating textbooks, and introducing multimedia teaching equipment all require a certain economic investment. furthermore, the development and maintenance of high-quality chinese cultural teaching resources also require sustained investment and the support of professional teams. 4.2 differences in teacher ability and willingness teachers are crucial factors in implementing improvement measures, but there may be differences in their abilities and willingness. on one hand, not all english teachers possess sufficient knowledge of chinese culture and teaching skills; they may need additional training and learning to be competent in cultural teaching. on the other hand, some teachers may lack enthusiasm for changing traditional teaching methods and introducing new content, which could affect the effective implementation of improvement measures. 4.3 student acceptance and learning motivation students are the direct beneficiaries of the dissemination of chinese culture, but their acceptance and motivation for learning also pose uncertainties. some students may lack interest in learning about chinese culture or may consider such content irrelevant to their professional development and career goals, thereby affecting their enthusiasm for learning. additionally, the diversity of students’ cultural backgrounds and values may also influence their identification with and understanding of chinese culture. 4.4 implementation difficulty of evaluation system although proposing the establishment of an evaluation system focusing on cultural understanding and intercultural communication skills, practical challenges may arise. for example, determining how to quantify and assess students’ cultural understanding and intercultural communication skills, as well as designing fair and effective evaluation criteria and methods, are issues that need to be addressed. 4.5 challenges of interdisciplinary integration although interdisciplinary integration can provide comprehensive cultural education, it may encounter challenges during implementation. for instance, coordination and cooperation between different disciplines may be difficult, breaking disciplinary boundaries may require time and effort, and students and teachers may need to adapt to new teaching methods and learning styles. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. overall, although the proposed improvement measures have certain feasibility and potential, overcoming a series of limitations and challenges is still necessary in the practical implementation process to ensure the effective dissemination of chinese culture in university english education. this requires joint efforts from universities, teachers, and students, as well as support from relevant policies and resources. 5. conclusion in summary, in the era of globalization, the dissemination of chinese culture is of great significance for enhancing the country’s cultural soft power and international influence. as an important cultural dissemination channel, chinese university english education needs continuous improvement and innovation to more effectively disseminate chinese culture. measures such as enriching cultural content, innovating teaching methods, strengthening teacher training, improving evaluation systems, and enhancing interdisciplinary integration can increase students’ understanding and dissemination capabilities of chinese culture, promoting its dissemination and influence globally. at the same time, we also need to be aware of the limitations and challenges in the implementation process and take corresponding measures to overcome them, in order to achieve the long-term development of chinese cultural dissemination and deepen international exchanges. references chen, x. h. (2017). the current situation and countermeasures of the dissemination of chinese culture in college english education. education and teaching forum, (33), 127-128. chen, y., & he, c. (2018). cultural teaching in english as a foreign language (efl) in china: a critical literature review. language, culture and curriculum, 31(3), 282-298. guo, l. n. (2020). approaches and strategies for the communication of chinese culture in college english teaching. science and technology information, (12), 147-148. li, m. (2018). the spread and integration of chinese culture in college english education. education and teaching forum, (41), 184-185. li, m., & wang, a. (2018). teaching english as a second language with chinese cultural content in higher education. international education studies, 11(7), 73-80. li, x. f. (2019). research on chinese cultural communication strategies in college english education. foreign language audio-visual teaching, (2), 89-93. liu, s., & feng, l. (2017). integrating chinese cultural elements into college english teaching. english language teaching, 10(12), 95-100. wang, l., & zhu, h. (2019). promoting chinese culture in english language teaching: a case study in a chinese university. journal of language teaching and research, 10(3), 534-541. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. wang, x. l. (2019). research on improving the effectiveness of chinese cultural communication in college english education. overseas english, (14), 122-123. zhang, l. h. (2018). a brief discussion on the spread of chinese culture in college english teaching. educational modernization, (5), 58-59. zhang, x. (2016). the role of cultural learning in english language teaching: a case study in a chinese university. theory and practice in language studies, 6(6), 1238-1244. zhang, y. m. (2017). exploration of the communication channels of chinese culture in college english education. science and education wenhui (late issue), (11), 122-123. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 34 original paper the impact of coronavirus on english word-stock varduhi murazyan1* & anahit hovhannisyan2 1 shirak state university, department of humanities and arts, 3123, gyumri, armenia 2 shirak state university, department of humanities and arts, 3126, gyumri, armenia * varduhi murazyan, shirak state university, department of humanities and arts, 3123, gyumri, armenia received: october 23, 2020 accepted: november 7, 2020 online published: january 5, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n1p34 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n1p34 abstract in december 2019, the news of the coronavirus outbreak spread worldwide for the first time. at present, this historical event has already influenced merely all aspects of life. the language is one of the first that reflected the massive events occurring throughout the world. in the frame of this article, an attempt is made, firstly, to figure out dozens of new words, expressions and new definitions emerged in english due to global changes. secondly, are considered the semantic changes some words have undergone as a result of extralinguistic processes i.e., narrowing of meaning, semantic broadening, etc. thirdly, are emphasized the main word-formation means of coining new words and expressions: suffixation, compounding, abbreviation, etc. keywords covid-19, word-stock changes, semantic changes, word-formation, war metaphors 1. introduction in december 2019, the news of the coronavirus outbreak spread worldwide for the first time. four months later, on march 11, 2020, pandemic was announced. according to the data reported on 01 october 2020 on the website worldometers.info, 213 countries and territories around the world have reported a total of 34,084,376 confirmed cases of covid-19. this historical event has had a serious influence on all aspects of social life, from public health to economy, industry, education and social media. historical challenges found also their reverberation in the language and previously uncommon terms swiftly entered the word-stock to mirror the new changes. dozens of new words, expressions and new definitions emerged in english due to these global changes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. the pandemic has also led to the emergence of new relevance and meaning to words already existing in the lexicon. some of the new words and definitions are already fixed in the dictionaries, while others are too colloquial and haven’t found their manifestation in the literal language yet. as for the word coronavirus, we are faced with an interesting fact. this lexical unit is not a neologism. june almeida and david tyrrell, who first observed and studied human coronaviruses, noticed that the virus had a halo surrounding it and coined the name of the virus. it was first used in print in 1968 by an informal group of virologists in the journal nature to designate the new family of viruses (nature.com). passing on to the architecture of the word coronavirus, it is derived from the words corona (crown-like circle of light appearing around the moon and the sun) + virus. corona, in its turn, is derived from latin word corona (garland, wreath; crown), which itself comes from ancient greek word κορώνη (korṓnē, something curved; end, point, tip) (etymonline.com). the word coronavirus and its first root corona have been used to create lots of neologisms. in the first step of our study we intend to explore the word formation means applied for coining new lexical units relating to this topic: affixation, compounding, conversion, shortening, abbreviation, blending. 1) affixation is considered to be one of the most productive word-formation means (girunyan, 2009). in case of coronavirus vocabulary, however, words formed by affixes are not so numerous. the most well-known word is the adjective anticoronavirus. this word is framed by the prefix anti+coronavirus and implies the meaning acting against coronavirus. according to the data of 14.09.2020, there are more than 31801 posts on instagram containing hashtag anticoronavirus (instagram.com). 2) compounding is also one of the most productive ways of word-formation that worked intensively in the process of enriching the word-stock. neologisms like coronaphobia, coronacoinage, zoombombing, coronababy, coronacut, doomscrolling emerged in the period of coronavirus pandemic. coronaphobia is the constant fear of catching covid-19 (coronavirus), expressed by wearing a face mask in public, or totally avoiding public places, public events, public transport, etc. (urbandictionary.com) this word is the combination of corona+phobia. there is a similar word coronaparanoia (corona+paranoia). more research is needed to understand the relationship between coronaphobia and coronavirus-related xenophobia (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). coronacoinage refers to the new words and expressions that appeared due to the novel coronavirus. the word emerged from the words corona and coin+age. there is an article posted on march 16, 2020 in website fritinancy named “words of the week: coronacoinages” that introduces lots of new words relating to covid-19 vocabulary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corona#english www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 36 published by scholink inc. (nancyfriedman.typepad.com). zoombombing is the combination of words zoom and bombing. originated from the name of the zoom videoconferencing software program, the word means an unwanted, disturbing intervention, generally by internet trolls and hackers, into a video conference call (urbandictionary.com). the firm said zoom 5.0 will include upgraded encryption features to help protect data and fend off so-called “zoombombing” (bbc.com). the term became popular in 2020, when video conferencing became an alternative way of arranging classes, business meetings, etc. the term has also been used in reference to similar incidents on other teleconferencing platforms as a result of generalization of its meaning. coronababy (corona+baby) is the child born in 2020 during the quarantine caused by covid-19. the word also refers to the babies that will be born after the coronavirus quarantine is over. our city’s population doubled in 2021 because of all the coronababies born (urbandictionary.com). doomscrolling (doom+scrolling) is the process of obsessively reading social media posts about coronavirus and sociopolitical situation of the world because of the lockdown (dictionary.com). unfortunately, doomscrolling has worsened during the pandemic because people are hypervigilant for danger and are more likely to seek information in hopes of finding a way to control the problem (healthline.com). coronacut (corona+cut) is the result of cutting one’s own or family members' hair due to the closure of hair salons. for example, virtual channel nbc new york posted a video named “hair stylist explains why you shouldn’t get a #coronacut”, showing some examples of coronacuts and explaining the reasons for not making that decision (nbcnewyork.com). compound words may be prerequisite for their semantic dimensions. in terms of endocentric compounds, the total meaning of the unit is derived from the meaning of its constituents as in the adduced examples coronababy, coronacoinages, whereas in the compounds coronacut, zoombombing, the meaning of the whole is “darkened” as it implies some metaphorical shift. hence, they can be defined as exocentric type of compounding. 3) conversion is highly productive in the formation of verbs, especially from compound nouns (ginzburg, 1979, p. 136). in case of the verb to social distance, adjective social has converted (transformed) into a verb; to social. social distancing or social distance are formerly existing terms but the verb of the expression is new and appeared due to conversion. social distancing used to be an expression showing a fancy way for introverts to seclude themselves. recently it gained its second meaning and is used to describe the practice of keeping away from other people as much as possible, or of keeping a certain distance from other people, in order to stop a disease from spreading to a lot of people (dictionary.cambridge.org). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 37 published by scholink inc. we can illustrate the expression by the example of the article posted on the official website redcross.org i.e., “how to social distance during covid-19” (redcross.org). the verbal expression to shelter in place (derived from the corresponding adjective) means to find a safe location indoors and stay there because of hazards. the first known use of this word was in 1977 as an adjective in the expression shelter in place order, meaning an official order, issued during an emergency, that directs people to stay in the indoor place or building that they already occupy and not to leave unless absolutely necessary (merriam-webster.com). at present, the verb shelter in place has acquired a new shade of meaning and is used for staying at home and not leaving it unnecessarily because of the coronavirus outbreak. san francisco and five other bay area counties in california have ordered all residents to shelter-in-place to curb the spread of coronavirus (theguardian.com). modern english vocabulary is exceedingly rich in conversion pairs. as a way of forming words conversion is extremely productive and new conversion pairs make their appearance in fiction, newspaper articles and in the process of oral communication in all spheres of human activity gradually forcing their way into the existing vocabulary and into the dictionaries as well (ginzburg, 1979, p. 136). 4) shortening is a form of subtraction in which part of the word is taken away. shortened variants of the words are more common in spoken language and are therefore stylistically colored (girunyan, 2009). the shortened variant of coronavirus, i.e., corona is used extensively among people. as it was stated above, the name “coronavirus” itself is derived from latin word corona, meaning “crown” or “wreath”. but the shortened variant of coronavirus indicates neither the crown nor the circle of light that can sometimes be seen around the moon at night, or around the sun during an eclipse. it indicates coronavirus itself and is considered to be the shortened variant of the very word. the word corona is shortened to rona, which is more colloquial (dictionary.com). it’s astoundingly interesting, that coronavirus is personified as miss rona, aunt rona, the rona, to refer to covid-19 ironically, especially when commenting on the challenges of social distancing during the pandemic in more humorous way. a possible explanation to this phenomenon is that the shortened form of the word coronavirus, i.e., rona coincides with the existing female name rona (hebrew female name (meaning: song, joy), celtic-gaelic female name “rough island” in gaelic (behindthename.com)). 5) the term abbreviation may be also used for a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole for economy of space and effort. abbreviation is achieved by omission of letters from one or more parts of the whole (arnold, 1986, p. 144). the actual new abbreviation originated during coronavirus pandemic is ncov which stands for novel coronavirus and is used to indicate a newly recognized coronavirus prior to definitive identification and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/corona#latin www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. classification. the new word is added to merriam webster dictionary only on 26 july 2020 (merriam-webster.com). other abbreviations from coronavirus vocabulary wfh (work from home) and ppe (personal protective equipment) are formerly existing words that are widely used nowadays. 6) blending is a type of word formation in which two or more words are merged into one so that the blended constituents are either clipped, or partially overlap. blends are formed by combining phonemes from different words (girunyan, 2009). the first well-known blend is the word covid-19. covid is the blend of the words coronavirus and disease. covidiot is another blend of the words covid-19 and idiot. covidiot is a slang insult for someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety. some signs of covidiocy are: not washing your hands regularly, hanging out in groups of people, standing within six feet of a stranger, hoarding items like toilet paper and hand sanitizer (dictionary.com). for example, bbc scotland news published an article named “missing coronavirus cases and raving ‘covidiots’ make scotland’s sunday papers” after “the herald” newspaper reported that scotland’s contact tracing system was missing more than 400 patients with confirmed cases of coronavirus (bbc.com). covidivorse is blend of covid-19 and divorce. the word is used to express the divorce that happened because of being in extended isolation during covid-19 quarantine (dictionary.com). couples whose marriages are fraying under the pressures of self-isolation could be heading for a “covidivorce” (nytimes.com). coronapocalypse means the “end of the world” via coronavirus. it is the blend of coronavirus and apocalypse. seemingly there is word coronageddon that is the blend of coronavirus and armageddon. it is defined as the near-certain, end-of-times condition created either by the actual covid-19 virus or the massive social, financial and political devastation (dictionary.com). it won’t be easy to stand coronageddon for our country. a blend of dumping (the act of getting rid of something that is not wanted) and zoom (the popular video service), zumping is when you break up with someone over a video conferencing service (dictionary.com). and of course there’s a catchy name for this phenomenon: zumping (collinsdictionary.com). moronavirus is another term for a covidiot. moron is an informal word describing a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment. calling someone a covidiot or moronavirus is a form of quarantine shaming. that is slang for criticizing someone for not following health and safety guidelines (dictionary.com). quarantini is another slang term for a cocktail people drink at home while under quarantine because of the coronavirus. the term is a blend of quarantine and martini (dictionary.com) quarantini has become https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=public%20health www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 39 published by scholink inc. a more general term and is used for other types of alcoholic beverages consumed at home during the pandemic. the initial thought behind a quarantini was that it’s a martini that you drink alone in your house when under lockdown (thenovicechefblog.com). the new generation of children conceived during covid-19 has been named the coronials, blend of coronavirus and millennials. and when coronials get older, they will become quaranteens, blend of the words quarantine and teenager (dictionary.com). we can now expect a wave of “coronababies” and a new generation of “quaranteens” in 2033 (nytimes.com). quaranteam is the group of people you voluntarily choose to socialize with or even live with during the quarantine (theconversation.com). the word quaranteam is a blend of quarantine and team. there is the corresponding verb quaranteaming as well. quaranteaming is not necessarily a surprising phenomenon, according to some experts (edition.cnn.com). infodemic, blend of information and epidemic, is used to describe misinformation being spread through various media, namely social media (public.oed.com). who has warned against the overabundance of information, including falsehoods, about the pandemic, calling it an “infodemic” (edition.cnn.com). the diagram below shows the effectiveness of word formation means in producing new words during covid-19. affixation 4% compounding 25% conversion 7% shortening 7% abbreviation 11% blending 46% figure 1. the effectiveness of word formation means during covid-19 the most productive one in the range of word-formation means occurs to be blending, making 45% out of 28 analyzed examples. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. coronavirus has led to the birth of new expressions as well that emerged mainly based on formerly existing expressions. novel coronavirus (ncov) is an expression referring to the coronavirus distinct from the known coronaviruses and is not detected or reported before. it is a temporary name assigned to the new type of coronaviruses before its permanent name is decided upon. the word novel designates the new pathogen of a previously identified family of a virus. happy hour is a cocktail hour or longer period at a bar or a pub, usually in the early evening, when drinks are served at reduced prices, sometimes with free snacks especially at the end of the workday. similarly, virtual happy hour is the time when people arrange video chats or video conferencing and drink cocktails and other alcoholic beverages after working from home (dictionary.com). the expression covideo party depicts online parties people arrange during the quarantine and it’s alike virtual happy hour. quarantine and chill is an expression used to describe multiple ways people stay at home for a long time and spend their free time during coronavirus (dictionary.com). besides the growth of new words and expressions, dozens of words have undergone semantic changes and developed new meanings. semantic change (also called semantic shift) is the change in the meanings of words, especially during the long period of time. generalisation and specialisation are changes in the denotative component of meaning (types of semantic change by h. hirt) (studfile.net). in case of generalization, the widening of a word’s meaning and reference takes places over the years. in 2020 video conferences and online classes are mainly done by zoom program. and soon hackers started to intervene online meeting for multiple reasons. this kind of attacks became frequent during the first period of using the application, and people called that kind of attacks zoombombing. the term became so popular, that all kinds of online video conference attacks are called zoombombing nowadays no matter it’s via zoom or other programs. zumping is the blend of zoom and dumping. dumping is the act of getting rid of someone who is not wanted. similarly, zumping is the same action via zoom or similar video conferencing application. it used to describe dumping a romantic partner via zoom, but soon due to generalization of the meaning of the word describes the same action via all kind of similar programs. specialization (narrowing, restriction) is the narrowing (reduction) in a word's range of meaning and often a generic word is limited to a more specialized use (studfile.net). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. table 1. previous and specialized meanings of several expressions during covid-19 pandemic finally, there is an interesting phenomenon of bringing war metaphors into the language of coronavirus. there are several war metaphors that have widely been used to describe the continuous struggle between healthcare workers and patients on one side and coronavirus disease on the other side. word previous meaning specialized meaning wfh (work from home) to do one’s job not in an office building but in one’s house (dictionary.cambridge.org) work at home temporarily because of an epidemic or natural disaster ppe (personal protective equipment) equipment and clothing that protects people from health risks at work (dictionary.cambridge.org) mask, gloves, hand sanitizer or equipment designed to protect people from infection social distancing rejecting social interaction between individuals and particularly those belonging to various social groups (merriam-webster.com) keeping a greater than usual physical distance from other people in public places during the outbreak of an infectious disease to decrease the transmission of infection (dictionary.cambridge.org) self-isolating to isolate or separate oneself from others (merriam-webster.com) staying at home and not leaving it because of symptoms of contagious disease shelter-in-place order the act of trying to find safety within the building one already occupies because of hazards, bombing or shooting incidents, for radiological and chemical defence, etc. (redcross.org) staying at home and not leaving it unnecessarily because of the coronavirus outbreak in order not to get infected or spread the virus blursday the humorous word for describing any day of the week that is not much different from the one before (collinsdictionary.com) an unspecified day because of lockdown’s disorientating impact on the time (theconversation.com) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 42 published by scholink inc. table 2. war metaphors and their meanings during covid-19 pandemic war metaphors general meaning meaning during pandemic battle a fight between armed forces the struggle against the infectious disease front-line a place where opposing armies face each other in war and where fighting happens is used to describe the place where doctors and scientists fight against the infectious disease hero a person admired for bravery, great achievements, or good qualities are expressions that refer to people, especially to doctors and healthcare workers, who risk their own lives to save others from contagious disease during epidemic front-line staff soldier a person who is in an army and wears its uniform, especially someone who fights when there is a war enemy a country or the armed forces or people of a country that is at war with your own country (dictionary.cambridge.org) is used to describe the infectious disease that threatens people health and spreads rapidly and there is an interesting project on twitter named #reframecovid started by ines olza (university of navarra, spain), elena semino and veronika koller (both lancaster university, uk). they have opened an open-access document to assemble alternatives to war metaphors to talk about coronavirus and covid-19 (bbc.com). the research shows, that the use of war metaphors to describe coronavirus has become peculiar not only to english, but also to other languages in the world. to conclude, language is a living organism and changes in social life very quickly find their expression in the word-stock. coronavirus led to the explosion of new words, expressions and new relevances to the old words. merely all productive word formation means served to the process of generating new words. besides, some words have undergone semantic broadening and narrowing resulting in new definitions of formerly existing words. some of the new words and definitions tend to be short-living and will probably disappear because of being too colloquial and specific, while others have already replenished the glossary of literary terms. linguistic phenomena like bringing war metaphors to talk of the pandemic, and personification of a virus reveals the creative nature of the language. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 43 published by scholink inc. references bbc. (2020). scotland’s papers: missing coronavirus cases and “raving covidiots”. retrieved september 13, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com bbc. (2020). “zoombombing” targeted with new version of app. retrieved april 23, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com behind the name (n.d.). (2007). rhona. in behindthename.com dictionary. retrieved may 19, 2007, from https://www.behindthename.com bilefsky, d., & yeginsu, c. (2020). of “covidivorces” and “coronababies”: life during a lockdown. the new york times. retrieved march 27, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com byfield, e. (2020). hair stylist explains why you shouldn’t get a #coronacut. nbc new york. retrieved april 17, 2020, from https://www.nbcnewyork.com cambridge dictionary. (n.d.). social distancing. in dictionary.cambridge.org. retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org cambridge dictionary. (n.d.). wfh. dictionary.cambridge.org. retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org cambridge dictionary. (n.d.), ppe. dictionary.cambridge.org. retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org christine, r. (2000, may 25). why we’ve created new language for coronavirus. bbc. retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/ collins dictionary. (n.d.). blursday. in collinsdictionary.com. retrieved may 20, 2020, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com collins dictionary. (n.d.), zumping. in collinsdictionary.com. retrieved april 17, 2020, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com coronaviruses (1968). nature. 220. nature publishing group. retrieved november 16, 1968, from https://www.nature.com curley, c. (2020, july 26). “doomscrolling” during covid-19: what it does to you and how you can avoid it. healthline. retrieved from https://www.healthline.com dictionary.com. (n.d.). new words we created because of coronavirus. in dictionary.com. retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com disord, j. a. (2020). coronaphobia: fear and the 2019-ncov outbreak, national center for biotechnology information. retrieved february 10, 2020, from doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102196 friedman, n. (2020). words of the week: coronacoinages. fritinancy. retrieved march 28, 2020, from https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com ginzburg, r. s., khidekel, s. s., knyazeva, g. y., & sankin a. a. (1979). a course in modern english lexicology (2nd ed.) (p. 136). russian federation, higher school publishing house. https://www.nytimes.com/by/dan-bilefsky https://www.nytimes.com/by/ceylan-yeginsu https://www.healthline.com/authors/christopher-curley www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 44 published by scholink inc. hamedy, s. (2020, april 17). people are ditching their homes and joining their friends to avoid isolation. it’s called quaranteaming. cnn. retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com lawson, r. (2020). coronavirus has led to an explosion of new words and phrases—and that helps us cope. the conversation. retrieved april 28, 2020, from https://theconversation.com mascarenhas, l. (2020, august 20). coronavirus websites usually go over people’s heads, study finds. cnn. retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com merriam-webster. (n.d.). shelter in place. in merriam-webster.com dictionary. retrieved december 15, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com merriam-webster. (n.d.). ncov. in merriam-webster.com dictionary. retrieved december 18 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com merriam-webster. (n.d.). self-isolate. in merriam-webster.com dictionary. retrieved december 18 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com merriam-webster. (n.d.). social distance. in merriam-webster.com dictionary. retrieved december 18 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com oxford english dictionary. (n.d.). new words list april 2020. public.oed.com dictionary. retrieved april, 2020, from https://public.oed.com online etymology dictionary. (n.d.), crown. in etymonline.com dictionary. retrieved from https://www.etymonline.com studfile. (2016). lexicology as a branch of linguistics, its aims and significance. links with other branches of linguistics. synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study (p. 12). retrieved february 23, 2016, from https://studfile.net the american national red cross. (2020). how to social distance during covid-19. redcross.org. retrieved may 13, 2020, from https://www.redcross.org the american national red cross. (2003). fact sheet on shelter-in-place. redcross.org. retrieved february, 2003, from https://www.redcross.org the novice chef. (2020). quarantini cocktail. retrieved from https://thenovicechefblog.com tyrrel, d., & fielder, m. (2002). cold wars (the fight against the common cold) (p. 96). oxford university press, united states. urban dictionary. (n.d.). coronaphobia. urbandictionary.com dictionary. retrieved march 7, 2020, from https://www.urbandictionary.com urban dictionary. (n.d.). zoombombing. urbandictionary.com dictionary. retrieved april 5, 2020, from https://www.urbandictionary.com urban dictionary. (n.d.). zoombombing. urbandictionary.com dictionary. retrieved march 18, 2020, from https://www.urbandictionary.com vivian, h. (2020). california: millions told to “shelter in place” to stop spread of coronavirus. the guardian. retrieved march 17, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com https://studfile.net/preview/5462020/page:12/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 45 published by scholink inc. worldometer. (2020). covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. retrieved december 18, 2020, from, https://www.worldometers.info գիրունյան գ. (2009). անգլերենի բառագիտության հիմունքներ (տեսական դասընթաց): երևան: հեղինակային հրատարակչություն: 112-139 էջ. и. в. арнольд. (1986). лексикология современного английского языка, москва, «высшая школа», 141-144 стр. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 32 original paper teacher education and competencies in an open democratic society asllan vrapi1* 1 pedagog, “ismail qemali” university of vlora, albania * asllan vrapi, pedagog, “ismail qemali” university of vlora, albania received: december 17, 2021 accepted: december 31, 2021 online published: january 21, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n1p32 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n1p32 abstract currently, albania, our homeland, is involved in the integration processes for membership in the european union. european integration processes should first of all be understood as processes: achieving standards, adaptation and legal, structural, curricular improvements, etc. the albanian education system is also part of these processes. the education system, especially in recent years, has been and continues to be part of programs and political, academic, scientific and educational programs and projects of the dominant actors of albanian society for its reform and adaptation to the education systems of european societies, within albania's ambitions for integration and membership. the teacher is the main actor of the educational process. it is necessary for the teacher to redefine his position in this constantly changing and integrating society, to empower and acquire new competencies. i think it is very interesting to discuss and research on re-dimensioning the position of teachers regarding the competencies of educating democratic citizens that they should gain in this period of reforms and european integration. the idea of the study is: today's children can learn better if teachers focus more on activating their strengths than on identifying their weaknesses. students should be evaluated not only on the basis of the results achieved, but, above all, on the basis of the capacity to fully address life situations. keywords educational competencies, initial education, integration processes, legal improvements, reform period, teacher qualification www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction currently, in albania teaching based on learning competencies is being implemented. regarding the teaching profession, a re-dimensioning of this profession is required, referring to these competencies. among the main competencies for teachers, we mention: a. initial teacher education. b. teacher training c. the profession of teacher and lifelong learning. d. teachers, project participants, and mobility within the education system. e. the teacher is a contributor to others and a collaborator with others. f. teacher as a user of technology, information, and new knowledge. the idea to undertake this study arose from discussions conducted in february 2014 with some of my doctoral colleagues. the discussions held on the reform in higher education by the leaders of the working group of this reform served as the beginning of the discussions. discussions continue to be present at school, in leisure time, etc. in these presentations for discussion the following educational issues: 1) the teacher should focus on reinforcing the strengths (most developed intelligence). 2) the teacher should focus on reducing the weak points (most underdeveloped intelligence). students should be assessed: a. on the basis of the results achieved. b. on the basis of capacity to handle and resolve life situations. 1.1 theoretical basis the discussions did not arise in vain, without having a real basis, they arose on the basis of the state of the education system and the conclusions presented by the pisa program of the world bank in albania. according to the researcher from albania, p. karameta: “our education system fails to prepare creative people who lead the development, just as it fails to form citizens with democratic tendencies... this requires that reforms and innovations reshape educational practices in pre-university education, the higher and the system of lifelong learning about a new perspective, according to which “education to identify and develop the potential of each individual, as a prerequisite for the formation of man who knows how to act” (karameta, 2012). during the last years, numerous legal, structural, curricular, human-professional resources, school infrastructure, technological etc., are been undertaken in our education system. it is necessary for the education system and especially the teacher as part of it to become part of a great movement for the realization of the common european principles on the competencies and qualifications of teachers (progress towards education and training, 2004). i am aware that reflecting on the educational competencies of the xxi century and studying the optimal ways for their realization in educational institutions may require numerous studies. “an individual may have a learning disability or learning disability. early detection and intervention are key to preventing a learning disability from adversely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. affecting a student in the classroom” (logsdon, 2019). however, i think this study can help however little in the great need for reflection and concentration. at the beginning of this century, the world has moved by leaps and bounds. teaching is also undergoing transformations. increasingly, student-centered teaching is being talked about and implemented. despite their methods and designations, one thing i believe is clear: the teacher continues to be in the position of leader, leader, organizer, performer, controller, and evaluator. the nature of work has changed and continues to change. changing the form of work and the needs for the competencies and skills of the century also needs to change the conception of the effective teaching that students need to prepare for life and its products. what is required of students is not just memorizing knowledge and information but education should focus on how to teach students how to learn in order to manage constant demands and changes. but what are some of the key educational competencies of the 21st century? 1.2 historical context educational competencies of the xxi century. the educational competencies of the 21st century in my opinion can be categorized into: 1) basic values possessed by man as a member of society. 2) professional skills. 3) training for life, career, and entrepreneurship. in the first category, we can mention those values that are related to human characteristics such as: • self-awareness. • self-management. • responsible decision-making • relationship management. • social awareness. in the second category: professional skills we mention: i. communication and information skills. ii. civic education, ability to accept cultural and religious diversity, and awareness of globalization (civic literacy, cross-cultural skills and global awareness). iii. critical and creative thinking. the third category: life, career, and entrepreneurship training includes: • ability to believe in oneself. • lifelong independent learning skills. • ability to be an active contributor. • ability to be an active citizen and engaged in the problems of social, political, economic life, etc. teaching is the activity that can strongly contribute to the recognition and realization of these competencies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. teaching is a planned and organized activity, it is an act of teaching led by the teacher. it plans and organizes the development of the teaching and learning process, which takes place in the processes of pre-action, interaction with students in learning, and post-action that aims to analyze and evaluate the teaching work developed. “essential characteristics of teaching: • teaching is a series of systematically planned events. • teaching is a process that communicates ideas, concepts, laws, and habits. • teaching takes into account individual and environmental factors related to the learner. “effective teaching enables all students to understand and master the essence of the content of the teaching material” (zekaj, 2018, p. 7). through teaching, the teacher facilitates the process of student learning through the implementation of various and appropriate learning strategies with forms, methods, which make the role of student and teacher change where the student becomes the main actor (student-centered learning) and not a simple spectator. a school is not judged by its beauty but by the results its students achieve. the beauty of the school is brought by the variety of students involved in it. students are different from each other, everyone has special requirements, everyone perceives, everyone listens, everyone speaks, everyone thinks, everyone learns differently from each other, so everyone should be given the opportunity! today when we talk about educational competencies we take into account or take into account the individual potentials and abilities of students, which makes it possible to help all students regardless of the difficulties they have. in the educational curriculum based on the competencies that the student should acquire in pre-university education in the republic of albania, we read: “pre-university education creates conditions and opportunities for students to build and develop knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values that require a democratic society; to develop independently and comprehensively; contribute to construction and well-being and albanian society and face the challenges of life in a constructive way” (institute for educational development, 2017). since the ways of students’ learning are figuratively speaking, they are as different as their appearance, we say that the educational competencies of teachers in open democratic societies are also of great importance. as part of the development of the theory of multiple intelligences, gardner writes that “intelligence quotient (iq) should not be measured as an absolute figure like weight, height or blood pressure. it is a mistake to assume that ki is a single fixed whole, which can be measured through a test. “it does not matter how smart you are, but it does matter what you are smart about. we all have the ability to solve problems of different kinds” (gardner, 2003). according to the theory of multiple intelligences, it is necessary for the teacher to recognize and promote in a wider space the talents and abilities of students, which means that teachers, in addition to recognizing the difficulties that students have in learning and efforts to facilitate them, they should also focus on students’ talents. “the teacher enables learning for all students through his interaction with students and students with each other, using effective communication techniques, learning strategies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 36 published by scholink inc. that actively engage students in the learning process and orient, guide him in time to achieve the quality of the result” (zekaj, 2018, p. 113). for the role and re-dimensioning of the personality of the teacher and pedagogue, prof. peshkëpia writes: “he guides the student or even the student in the process of obtaining”. 2. method 2.1 laying out the problem then let’s go back to the discussions on the problem i mentioned. as i mentioned at the beginning of this article, the need to conduct this study arose from the discussion with colleagues on defining as primary one of the issues: 1) the teacher should focus on reinforcing the strengths (most developed intelligence). 2) the teacher should focus on reducing the weak points (most underdeveloped intelligence). students should be assessed: a. on the basis of the results achieved. b. on the basis of capacity to handle and resolve life situations. 2.2 purpose of the study the purpose of this study is: 1) to identify where we need to intervene for education and educational competencies at the beginning of this century. 2) where should teaching focus on the realization of learning competencies? 3) what should we evaluate in the student in order to realize the educational competencies of the xxi century? 4) to propose forms and working methods for the realization of educational competencies of the xxi century. 2.3 variable teaching developed intelligence and educational competencies. independent variable: teaching focused on developed intelligence. dependent variable: educational competence. research question. does the improvement of intelligence-focused teaching lead to the realization of educational competencies? 2.4 hypothesis ho: educational competencies are realized without the need to focus teaching on developed intelligence. h1: educational competencies should focus on improving teaching in developed intelligence. 2.5 field study. methodology for the development of the study, discussions, debates, and surveys were conducted with school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. teachers: “ptoleme xhuvani”, “dhaskal todri”, “ali myftiu”, “inkus”, papër, broshkë, pajun of elbasan district, albania. the study was conducted in february-march 2018, all these schools in the municipality of elbasan. the study included 82 teachers from the above schools. for the teacher survey, there was no preference in the selection but this method was followed: those teachers were included in the surveys who entered the teachers’ room during the long break that day i was present in each school. so put another way the champion was with teachers who accidentally entered the teacher's hall that day. this random sampling method was followed in each school. 3. results through the survey the teachers were asked a questionnaire with the following questions: 1) the teacher should focus on strengthening the strengths (most developed intelligence) or 2) the teacher should focus on reducing the weak points (most underdeveloped intelligence). the results of the answers were: table 1. teacher focus on developing students’ intelligences as for the next question: students should be evaluated: a. on the basis of the results achieved or b. on the basis of capacity to handle and resolve life situations. the results of the answers were: table 2. teacher focus on assessing student achievement a on the basis of the results achieved. 33 b on the basis of capacities to handle and resolve life situations. 45 c teachers who did not mark any of the alternatives. 2 d teachers who did not participate in the survey. 2 e total teacher. 82 a teacher should focus on reinforcing strengths (most developed intelligence). 54 b the teacher should focus on reducing the weak points (most underdeveloped intelligence). 23 c teachers who did not list any of the alternatives. 3 d teachers who did not participate in the survey. 2 e total teacher. 82 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. 4. discussions from the answers and the diagrams constructed, it is noticed that: 1) regarding the first question from 82 teachers with whom the sample was formed as we mentioned above it turned out that 3 teachers did not circle any of the alternatives while 2 teachers were not involved at all, did not want to participate in the survey. 2) in the first question, in order to realize the educational competencies the teacher should focus on improving the most developed intelligence, it was noticed that out of 80 teachers that were included in the survey 54 teachers or 66% circled that we should focus on strengthening the points strongly, i.e., to the most developed intelligence. this does not mean that other types of intelligence should be neglected. it also means teaching needs to be invested to further empower that more developed intelligence. 3) “career education” should orient students in such a way that if a student has developed computational-mathematical intelligence then he should study in profile such as economics, finance, mathematics etc., and it should not happen that students with kinesthetic motor intelligence to try to study in mathematics profile while such students are invested to realize competencies in the field of physical education and sports. 4) the teacher should activate and motivate the student to strengthen the intelligence that he has more developed. 5) regarding the second question from 82 teachers with whom the sample was formed, it turned out that 2 teachers did not circle any of the alternatives while 2 teachers did not want to participate in the survey. 6) in the survey for the second question which had to do with assessment, specifically: whether students should be assessed on the basis of their achievements or on the basis of capacities (competencies) to deal with and resolve life situations, it was noted that by 82 teachers included in the survey 33 teachers or 41% answered that we should evaluate students on the basis of achievements and 45 teachers or 55% circled the exact alternative that evaluation should be based on the formation of competencies to deal with and resolve life situations. 7) pupils and students should be evaluated much more on the basis of capacities to address and solve life and school problems. 8) the teacher should not be satisfied with the control and evaluation of the knowledge acquired by the student but above all on the potentials that the student presents in the realization of knowledge in everyday life. 5. conclusions regarding the educational competencies of teachers should: 1) continue to develop the capacity of teachers to lead learning on the basis of 21st-century educational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. competencies. 2) the portfolio of teachers should include the results achieved in the development of students' educational competencies and subjects. 3) teachers should conduct studies on the results that students achieve in the competency-based curriculum. 4) clear definition of knowledge, skills, habits, and values that students should acquire in the curriculum based on competencies based on several years of experience of its application. 5) reformulation of the substantive structure of pre-university education in order to reflect the educational strategies for the development and evaluation of educational competencies of the xxi century. references chaskin, r. j., & rauner, d. m. (1995). teaching themes of care. bloomington: phi delta. gardner, h. (2003). uneducated mind. (translation) isp. tirana. llambiri, s. (2001). the secret abandonment of tirana. unicef albania. musai, b. (1999). educational psychology. pegi. tirana. myftiu, j. (2013). educational psychology. dija-poradeci. elbasan. karajani, p., dine, j., & hila, k. (2004). didactics of pre-mathematical concepts. tirana. institute for educational development. (2017). competence-based curriculum. tirana. albania peshkëpia, v. (2012). teaching and learning, their relations with european integration. tirana. fan noli. joint report of the council of europe and the european commission: progress towards education and training. (2014). brussels. tomlinson, a. c. (1999). the differentiated classroom: responding to the needs of all learners. alexandria. usa. vrapi, a. (july 2015). “advice for career in relation with multiple intelligences” academic star. journal of modern education review, 5(7). usa. zekaj, xh. (2018). teaching methodology and curricula at lse. “julvin 2” tirana. internet resources 1. http:/www.ohchr.org/en/udhr/documents/udhr_translations/aln.pdf.declaration of human rights. (last seen on 23.02.2018). 2. http://www.unicef.org/tfyrmacedonia/.pdf.declaration of the rights of the child. (last seen on 23.02.2018). 3. logsdon, a. (2019) www.verywellfamily.com/what-are-specific-learning-disabilities (last seen on 23.02.2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. 4. redlo, j. m. (2021) barriers in teaching the four c’s of 21 st century competencies https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/barriers-in-teaching-the-four-c%27s-of-21st-century-redlo/e 3aa920927662f4b3dc1b2f26fb48dcc31ce7f19. (last seen on 12.12.2021). 5. wilson, t. (2018) the giver: getting students out of their confort zone. english in texas, 48(1), 20-24 15. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1262624 (last seen on 23.11.2021). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1262624 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 32 original paper the significance of quality higher education for sustainable growth and development in africa: the case of ethiopia context melese mekasha woldeyes1* 1 mekane yesus management and leadership college, addis ababa, ethiopia * melese mekasha woldeyes, mekane yesus management and leadership college, addis ababa, ethiopia received: april 24, 2020 accepted: may 2, 2020 online published: may 7, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p32 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p32 abstract this paper examines the role of quality higher education for sustainable growth and development for african countries including ethiopia. in providing access to quality higher education in africa, using the ethiopian context as a case study. it draws on higher education for sustainable development (hefsd) is being significantly shaped by the global sustainability agenda, and it further explores the potential of higher education program delivery system in an ethiopian context. in addition, the study explores the policy of the conventional higher education. two instruments were used to gather relevant data, namely: interviews and document analysis. three quality indicators used, coherence, efficiency and impact of higher education, were used as tools of analysis. this article is divided into three sections which explore three key linked aspects of the importance of higher education. 1) higher education. 2) its access and quality. 3) concept of the sustainable development of african countries, including ethiopia. the author of this article develops a powerful framework for quality higher education and its essentials for growth and development, and seek to apply this in to various developing countries for sustainable growth and development in a range of international settings. in so doing to make an important connection between theoretical frameworks of the above practical elements. given the constraint of different segment of the development integration, the finding of this study highlighted the importance of higher education in developing countries including ethiopia, for fulfilling’s sustainable development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. agenda of the country. keywords access, quality, higher education, sustainable development, qualitative method, quality assurance, conventional education system 1. introduction the concept of higher education is high on the agenda of governments across the world, as global pressures focus increasing attention on the outcomes of education for economic prosperity and social citizenship. however, there is often an underdeveloped understanding of how quality education is formed, what drives it and how it impacts on schools and colleges. quality higher education, its process, themes and impact makes these connections and links to the wider challenges of educational leadership in a contemporary context. nevertheless, higher education for sustainable development (hefsd) is being significantly shaped by the global sustainability agenda. many higher education institutions, responsible for equipping the next generation of sustainability leaders with knowledge and essential skills, proactively try to action the sustainable development goals (sdgs) in hefsd policy, curriculum and practice through scattered and isolated initiatives. higher education with appropriate quality and low cost is achievable with in conventional system of higher education which is based on classroom teaching and learning or with in alternative mode. expansion is now the defining trend in the worldwide development of higher education. some scholars have predicted that by 2025, 40 present of the global workforce will be knowledge workers with a need for tertiary qualifications mannan (2010). the world bank, which made basic education its priority in the 1980s and 1990s, has changed its focus towards the development of higher education. this is an indication that higher education is getting precedence in the contemporary knowledge based economy. this, in turn, requires countries that have not yet developed their higher education systems to do more. indeed, there is evidence suggesting that developing countries want to join the knowledge society by following the example set by developed countries, where age participation rates in higher education of 40 to 50 % are now perceived as necessary for sustained and sustainable development kanwar (2009, p. 30). according to mannan (2013), national policies on the millennium development goals (mdgs) emphasise the need for expansion of the education system, which focuses on the conventional method of delivery of basic education and tertiary level services in building human and social capital. however, today, it is further seeking and explaining the alternative means of an intervening strategy to break the conventional business as usual and in doing so providing access to higher education services and dissemination of information and knowledge that affects personal and community life of individuals became vital especially in developing countries. globally, higher education has been expanding over the last few decades and, according to altbach et al. (2009), it has struggled to meet demands. according to a unesco (2003) report, many countries http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. have experienced higher rates of expansion and increase in student enrolment than anticipated. new, non-traditional learners have also appeared on the scene; these are “mature” students, i.e., those who are 30 years and over, who either had missed the opportunity of benefiting from higher education, or who want to improve on their qualifications, or who desire a career change. in addison, lifelong learning is now a common trend worldwide. this mass demand for higher education is creating great pressure for systems and institutions which are required to provide higher education of quality and relevance to the many students who are seeking to better their lot in life through higher education. the same trend of a rapidly growing demand for tertiary education is seen in most african countries, even over the past decade. for example, in uganda, enrolments grew from 20,000 in 2001 musisi (2003) to close to 180,000 in 2011. in ethiopia, there was an increase from 79,000 in 1991 to more than 600,000 students in the higher education system in 2012 teferra (2014). in kenya, enrolments in state universities have risen by 41% in two years—from 1995,428 in 2012 to 276,349 by the end of 2013 nganga (2014). however, these increased enrolments were not accompanied by investment of resources and this had serious implications for quality. internationally, different means of providing higher education have been explored as a result of the realisation of the inadequacy of traditional contact institutions to meet the increasing demand for higher education. the overall demand for higher and adult education, especially professionally related courses is increasing in most countries. there are a number of reasons for this including, among others, changing demographics, the increased number of secondary school graduates, and the movement to lifelong learning, as well as the growth of the knowledge economy. while the demand is growing, the capacity of the public sector to satisfy this need is being challenged knight (2006). while the international mobility of students and scholars represent long-standing forms of academic mobility, it has only been over the past two decades that greater emphasis has been placed on the movement of educational programmes, higher education institutions and new commercial providers across national borders. given the less developed nature of higher education systems in developing countries, many of these countries have become targets on the lack of capacity by governments to meet the growing demand for higher education. the lack of access to higher education has contributed to a shortage of qualified staff in public universities and other areas that require high skills in both the public and the private sectors. it is argued that given the constraints of resources to provide adequate access to higher education through traditional contact mode of delivery, lifelong education providers would plays an important role in providing access to quality higher education. to this end, this article uses the ethiopian higher education system as a case study to explore the role of higher education in providing access to post graduate education in ethiopia. it asks the research question “how can the higher education in ethiopia enhance sustainable growth and development in the country?” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. higher education with appropriate quality and low cost is achievable within traditional systems of higher education which is based on classroom teaching and learning mode. expansion is now the defining trend in the worldwide development of higher education. some scholars have predicted that by 2025, 40 present of the global workforce will be knowledge workers with a need for tertiary qualifications. quinn, c.n. (2012, the world bank, which made basic education its priority in the 1980s and 1990s, has changed its focus towards the development of higher education. this is an indication that higher education is getting precedence in the contemporary knowledge based economy. this, in turn, requires countries that have not yet developed their higher education systems to do so. indeed, there is evidence suggesting that developing countries want to join the knowledge society by following the example set by developed countries, where age participation rates in higher education of 40 to 50 % are now perceived as necessary for sustained and sustainable development kanwar (2009, p. 30). according to mannan (2013), national policies on the millennium development goals (mdgs) emphasise the need for expansion of the education system, which focuses on the conventional method of delivery of basic education and tertiary level services in building human and social capital. 2. literature review 2.1 background to higher education in ethiopia higher education in ethiopia has over the years faced problems of under-development which found expression in the neglect of higher education by successive governments since the turn of 20th century. some of the features of the system include inequitable access to higher education, out-dated curriculum and poor quality of education. currently, higher education faces problems associated with the relevance of programmes of studies and research, equity, resource constraints and inefficient utilisation of resources bogale (2006). the result of this is that access to higher education opportunities, in general, and postgraduate education, in particular, has been limited. this has necessitated the need to look at the alternative means of providing higher education especially in developing countries like ethiopia. the same trend of a rapidly growing demand for tertiary education is seen in most african countries, even over the past decade. for example, in uganda, enrolments grew from 20,000 in 2001 musisi (2003) to close to 180,000 in 2011. in ethiopia, there was an increase from 79,000 in 1991 to more than 600,000 students in the higher education system in 2012 teferra (2014). in kenya, enrolments in state universities have risen by 41% in two years—from 1995,428 in 2012 to 276,349 by the end of 2013 nganga (2014). however, these increased enrolments were not accompanied by investment of resources and this had serious implications for quality. the education system in ethiopia has, generally, faced a number of problems, including inequality, inaccessibility, the irrelevance of the old education system and low quality. generally, higher education in ethiopia was neglected and, consequently, became underdeveloped. currently, higher education faces problems associated with the quality and relevance of programmes of studies and research, equity, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. resource constraints and inefficient use of resources. the universities’ have not been able to produce the large numbers of the human resources required for the development of the country bogale (2006). after acknowledging the undeveloped status of higher education in the country, the present ethiopian government introduced reforms in the higher education system to enable higher education institutions to contribute to the development of human resources needed for the social and economic development of the country. the main reason for restructuring the ethiopian education system was to bring about a desired quality of standard and a relevant system for the economic development of the country—an aspect which was not recognised by the old education system. thus, the major focus of higher education in the country should be to provide quality and relevant education. as a result, new higher education reform policies were adopted in proclamation no.351 of 2003 and proclamation no.650 of 2009 moe (2009). for the first time, following the implementation of these reforms, higher education institutions became autonomous and were able to run and manage their own affairs, including appointing their own academic vice-presidents and institutional managers. the notion of higher education for sustainable development (hefsd) is becoming a mainstream in scholarship. there is an increasing debate, both in the literature and at the policy level, about the role of higher education institutions in addressing the complexities across human and environmental interactions globally. since its inception the new higher education reform policies in ethiopia was adopted in the effects of the new education and training policy include a significant increase in the number of higher education institutions and—as a consequence—the enrolment rate and participation of female students in higher education. table 1 presents the enrolment trends in postgraduate programmes in higher institutions for both public and private higher educational institutions. table 1. enrolment trends in postgraduate programmes in higher education institutions by ownership, degree programme, sex and year public or government non-government total master’s phd master’s total female % female year total female total female total female 2007/08 7,211 702 258 7 7,469 709 9.5 2008/09 9,436 1,069 325 26 364 51 10,125 1,146 11.3 2009/10 12,621 1,485 791 47 860 171 14,272 1.703 11.9 2010/11 18,486 2,490 789 99 875 193 20,150 2782 13.8 2012 22,804 4,635 1849 319 1,007 228 25,660 5182 20.2 source: moe, statistical abstract, (2011/2012) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 37 published by scholink inc. the above table shows a significant increase in postgraduate enrolment, both in public and private higher educational institutions in ethiopia. the percentage of female postgraduate students in the country also indicates a significant improvement from 9% in 2007 to 20.2% in (2012). the sharp increase in enrolment was because of the private higher education sector, including distance education. however, tertiary enrolment in ethiopia remains significantly low compared to other developing countries. currently, it stands at 2.5% suggesting that more needs to be done to develop alternative means of education. therefore, government needs to attract more private investors especially in the higher education sectors. in ethiopia, as in other african countries, distance education could facilitate the advancement of human resource development at different levels. 3. conceptual framework the conceptual framework of latchem and jung (2007) and perraton (2000) was adopted and used to guide data analysis. the framework is based on the quality assurance indicators in higher education. the framework adopted examines the various quality assurance approaches employed in asian higher learning settings. in their context, different ways of managing the quality in brings together the three quality indicators chosen for this study, namely: coherence, efficiency and impact. the first quality indicator of the study is known as ‘coherence’ which relates to the national education policies with regard to higher education development and the private sector. it was found that like other higher education institutions in ethiopia ignou followed the country’s higher education policy and guidelines to operate in partnership with local private higher institutions. ‘efficiency’ is the second quality indicator used to assess the institution’s various activities such as the quality of course materials, student support services and learner’s assessment methods. the third quality indicator is ‘impact’ which is concerned with the assessment function of the various stakeholders’ perceptions including among others, the moe, herqa (write in full)as well as the main key players of the study: the graduates of mard, prospective students and staff members. the theoretical approach posits that there is interplay between the main activities of teaching and learning, which directly affect the quality in higher education in general. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. figure 1. conceptual framework adopted for and the three quality indicators 4. methodology a qualitative research design was used in this study. in particular, a case study was employed. stratified and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the research site and potential respondents. the study was delimited to one university called the indira gandhi national open university (ignou) in ethiopia. ignou was selected as a case study because it is one of the largest universities in the world which provides higher education opportunities on open distance and conventional levels. it is also one of the leading educational institutions in ethiopia with a high number of postgraduate students compared to other private universities in the country. it offers nine master’s programmes, namely: master of business administration; master of commerce; master of arts in public administration; master of arts in rural development; master of arts in economics; master of arts in sociology; master of arts in political science; master of arts in social work; and master of arts in tourism management. the focus on the master in rural development was based on the fact that a majority of the ethiopian population (85%) is engaged in agricultural work and lives in rural areas tesfaye (2010). as result, an education programme that has a focus on rural educational development will have some relevance in this context, especially in meeting the human resource needs of the country. a total of 40 participants were purposively selected from those who already involved in higher or postgraduate education programs and interviewed accordingly. quality coherence efficiency impact www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. 5. discussion and reflections on the findings in this section we discuss the implications of the findings. there is increasing recognition among scholars as well as participants in this study that conventional higher education wider access to for men and women, marginalised group of people and working populace. it also improves the quality of the existing education system and maintains equity by democratising higher education. however, the debate around higher education expansion calls for further improvement within this sector. participants in this study suggested that the student support services which remain centralised need to be decentralised as many postgraduate education students come from far regional areas. in addition, it was also revealed that final results took an average of two or three months to be returned to them. in an attempt to widen access to those who are marginalised and living in rural areas greater resources are required from different stakeholders including private sector in order to develop efficient and effective higher education. therefore, higher education, in general, and postgraduate studies in particular, can be achieved through the collaboration of government, universities and the private sector. the participants of this study, collectively and individually, said that there are many factors that hinder the effective development of higher education. the problems as revealed by the participants relate to the institution, stakeholders’ perceptions of distance education as well as, the policies of national education in the country. indeed, stories from a number of participants indicate the importance of policy integration with private higher education programmes, was suggested that herqa should have a clear policy framework with more autonomy and authority to be an external quality control agency for conventional higher education. in terms of the quality of ignou’s postgraduate studies all participants were not in agreement. to say that the quality of higher education in ethiopia, at this level is at the desired quality standard seems to be unrealistic. however, they all agreed and acknowledged that ignou’s provision of access to postgraduate studies had positive aspects. definition of one of the key terms: sustainable development: definition and principles although many definitions abound, the most often used definition of sustainable development is that proposed by the brundtland commission (cerin, 2006; dernbach, 1998; dernbach, 2003; stoddart, 2011). this broad definition, which will be used in this article, does not limit the scope of sustainability. the explanation does, however, touch on the importance of intergenerational equity. the overall goal of sustainable development (sd) is the long-term stability of the economy and environment; this is only achievable through the integration and acknowledgement of economic, environmental, and social concerns throughout the decision making process. 6. conclusion and recommendations given the constraints of resources that many governments face in meeting the demand for higher education in general and postgraduate studies in particular, especially in developing countries, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. including ethiopia, such as ignou, offer educational opportunities for rural-based communities and marginalised groups, who would, otherwise, not have been able to access higher education. this article demonstrates that conventional higher education can provide access to higher education in the ethiopian context. however, it is difficult to determine whether the quality issues are up to the required standard. rather, there is a need to encourage the institutes to fulfil the quality indicators in order to enhance quality of higher education. we argued in this article that government should make a greater effort to utilise the full potential of higher education by providing policy framework for the sector and to assure development of quality assurance policies and, thereby, meet the various human resource development needs of the country. this article recommends that in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of higher education the following need to done: decentralise services into different regional administrative centres, and put in place quality assurance mechanisms and integrate into the national education. we also highlighted the key factors which impact on the growth of higher education programmes in the country. in particular the possibility of improving and integrating with other conventional education systems through the policy framework, and furthermore, it highlighted also the use of modern information and communication technologies icts in these programmes. nevertheless, higher education for sustainable development (hefsd) is being significantly shaped by the global sustainability agenda. many higher education institutions, responsible for equipping the next generation of sustainability leaders with knowledge and essential skills, proactively try to action the sustainable development goals (sdgs) in hefsd policy, curriculum and practice through scattered and isolated initiatives. with this quality higher education for sustainable growth and development for african countries including ethiopia fulfills its main objectives. 7. acknowledgement i would like to express my great appreciation and acknowledgment for this journal publishers for their encouragement and support during this article publication. my families and close friends are deserve further gratitude and appreciation for their time and support and encouragement during my studies and various articles productions. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. (2012). changing course: ten years of tracking online education in the united states. sloan consortium\po box 1238, newburyport, ma 01950. altbach, p. g., reisberg, l., & rumbley, l. e. (2009). trends in global higher education: tracking an academic revolution. unesco. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004406155 bogale, s. (2006). higher education in ethiopia: the higher education strategy centre. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. brodhag, c., & taliere, s. (2006). sustainable development strategies: tools for policy coherence. natural resources forum, 136-145. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-8947.2006.00166.x cerin, p. (2006). bringing economic opportunity into line with environmental influence: a discussion on the coase theorem and the porter and van der linde hypothesis. ecological economics, 209-225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.01.016 daniel, a. k., & stamenka, u.-t. (2009). breaking higher educations iron triangle: access, cost, and quality, change. the magazine of higher learning, 41(2), 30-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/chng.41.2.30-35 dernbach, j. c. (2003). achieving sustainable development: the centrality and multiple facets of integrated decision-making. indiana journal of global legal studies, 247-285. https://doi.org/10.2979/gls.2003.10.1.247 dernbach, j. c. (1998). sustainable development as a framework for national governance. case western reserve law review, 1-103. desimone, l. m. (2009). improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: toward better conceptualizations and measures. educational researcher, 38(3), 181-199. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0013189x08331140 dey, i. (1993). qualitative data analysis: a user friendly guide for social scientists. london: routledge and kegan paul. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203412497 fayessa, d. (2010). distance learning at the tertiary level in ethiopia: as strategy for promoting human resource development, at the university of south africa (phd thesis). fdre (federal democratic republic of ethiopia). (2003) & (2009). higher education proclamation no. 351/2003 and no.650/2009 addis ababa: negarit gazette. ignou. (2012). about indira gandhi national open university. retrieved april 23, 2012, from http://www.ignouonline.ac.in/vel/pgccl.html ignou. (2013). common prospectus. retrieved september 27, 2013, from www.ignou.ac.in/upload/prospectus2013-141pdf seinfeld, j. i., & mino, t. (2009). education for sustainable development: the challenge of trans-disciplinarily. sustain sci., 4(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-009-0072-6 immerwahr. j. (2002). the affordability of higher education: a review of recent survey research the national centre for public policy and higher education, and public agenda. jung, i. s., & latchem, c. (2007). assuring quality in asian open and distance learning. open learning, 22(3), 235-250. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680510701619885 kanwar, a. (2009). breaking higher education’s iron triangle: access, cost, and quality commonwealth of learning cc by sa. kishore, s. (1998). student support and quality indicators in distance learning. indian journal of open learning, 7(2), 205-212. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. knight, j. (2007). cross-border higher education: issues and implications for quality assurance and accreditation. in b. c. sanyal, & j. tres (eds.), higher education in the world 2007. palgrave mcmillan. knight, j. (2006). higher education crossing the border: a guide to the implications of the general agreement on trade in services (gats) for cross-border education. paris. moe (ministry of education). (2003 & 2007). education statistics annual abstract. addis ababa: federal democratic republic of ethiopia. moe. (2011/2012). ministry of education annual abstract. addis ababa. federal democratic republic of ethiopia. musisi, n. (2003). uganda. in d. teferra, & p. g. altbach (eds.), africanhigher education: an international reference handbook (pp. 611-623). bloomington, indiana, usa: indiana university press. nganga, g. (2014). university regulator slams growing inequality: the global window on higher education. australia, university world news, issue, 00332. nwuke, k. (2008). the private provision of higher education in ethiopia: growth, challenge, and prospective. council for the development of social science research in africa, united nations economic commission for africa, addis ababa, 6(1), 71-94. perraton, h. (2000). open and distance learning in developing world. published, london: rutledge. pityana, n. b. (2004). distance education in africa: dome challenges and perspectives. paper presented at the annual conference of nadeosa: the potential of mixed mode delivery, st john’s college, johannesburg. quinn, c. n. (2012). the mobile academy m-learning for higher education usa: jossey-bss. roper, c., & shaw, m. (eds.). (1993). quality in education: aspects of education and training. london, new jersey: kogan page. sharma, r. c. (1997). distance education in global perspectives. university news, 35(46), 12. taylor, j. (2001). fifth generation distance education. report no. 40. higher education series, department of education, training, university of south queensland. teferra, d. (2014). charting african higher education: perspectives at a glance. international journal of african higher education, 1(1), 9-21. http://dx.doi.org/10.6017/ijahe.v1i1.5642 tesfaye, s. (2010). adult and continuing education in post-secondary education in ethiopia: policy, practice, and challenges, hawassa, journal of social sciences, 13(1), 34. yin, r. (2003). case study research: design and methods. sage, thousand oaks. yin, r. (2009). case study: research design and methods (4th ed., vol. 5). sage publications, los angele. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 11 original paper component-structural model of formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography in the process of professional training volodymyr cherkasov1* 1 department of musical art of the communal institution of higher education “academy of culture and arts” of the transcarpathian regional council, uzhgorod city, ukraine * volodymyr cherkasov department of musical art of the communal institution of higher education “academy of culture and arts” of the transcarpathian regional council, uzhgorod city, ukraine received: january 22, 2024 accepted: february 14, 2024 online published: march 1, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p11 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p11 abstract in the article, the author investigated the essence of the definitions of “model”, “scientific competence”, “professional training”, theoretically justified, implemented and experimentally tested the model of the formation of scientific competence of future choreography teachers in the process of professional training. it is proved that the formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography is possible under appropriate conditions, which include principles, approaches, content, forms, methods, means, technologies, criteria, levels, and pedagogical conditions aimed at increasing the level of effectiveness of the formation of the specified phenomenon. the model of the formation of the scientific competence of future teachers of choreographic disciplines in the process of professional training should be considered as a sample concept. keywords model, scientific competence, professional training 1. justification of the relevance of the problem and analysis of the latest research modern realities of ukrainian society require close attention to the issues of formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography in the process of professional training. a modern graduate of a higher educational institution of artistic direction should be competent in the field of scientific research methodology, possess the method of organizing research work in the field of choreographic art, be able to create artistic and stage compositions in certain areas of choreographic art. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. according to this approach, the substantiation of the component-structural model of the formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreographic disciplines in the process of professional training is relevant and timely. analysis of recent research and publications. the analysis of the sources of pedagogical and artistic direction proves that domestic and foreign scientists, including: v. adolf, i. beh, r. bogdanova, v. bolotov, v. bondar, o. honcharuk, i. zimnia, i. zyazyun, ya. kodlyuk, m. kolomiets, a. kochetov, v. kryzhko, v. krychevskyi, n. kuzmina, o. lebedev, a. markova, o. ovcharuk, o. oleksyuk, o. oleinikova, n. sergienko, s skvortsova, v. slastyonin, v. strelnikov, n. petrikova, l. horuzha, a. khutorskyi, various issues of the competence approach, professional and pedagogical training, formation of various types of competences of teachers of various specialties have been largely investigated and revealed. the topic of our scientific research largely complements the research of the named authors, makes it possible to understand the peculiarities of the formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography in general educational institutions and extracurricular institutions of artistic and aesthetic direction. based on the stated issues, the purpose of the article is to substantiate the component-structural model of the formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography in the process of professional training. 2. presentation of the main research material 2.1 definition of the key concepts of the study the justification of the component-structural model of the formation of the scientific competence of future choreography teachers in the process of professional training enables clarification of the main definitions of the study, namely: “model”, “scientific competence”, “professional training”. regarding the first definition, “modulus” in latin means measure, sample, analogue. from a philosophical point of view, this is a system, the study of which is a means of obtaining information about another system, a representation of any real process, phenomenon or concept. investigating the meaning of the phenomenon “scientific competence”, it is worth noting that in the scientific environment there are different points of view regarding the interpretation of this phenomenon. first of all, it should be emphasized that in translation from latin “competens” means responsibility and ability, that is, a range of issues with which a person is well-versed, has certain knowledge and experience. the scientific competence of a choreography teacher is, in our opinion, a personal quality of a teacher who knows the methodology of scientific and pedagogical research, has knowledge and experience in the field of organization and conducting scientific research in certain areas of choreographic education. and, in the end, as regards professional training, it is right to consider mastering by students of higher educational institutions of the art direction the content of professionally oriented disciplines and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 13 published by scholink inc. basics of scientific research, as well as the participation of students in the work of scientific circles and problem groups, the preparation of diploma and master’s theses, participation in the work of student scientific and practical conferences of various levels. the component-structural model of the formation of the scientific competence of future teachers of choreographic disciplines in the process of professional training should be considered as a sample of the concept, which contains structural components that reproduce its essence as a scientific system that enables the formation of a new pedagogical phenomenon and consists of certain blocks, among which: methodological-targeted, content-procedural and evaluation-resultative. 2.2 methodologically-targeted block the goal, approaches and principles that provide the methodological basis of the proposed concept, which allows systematizing the entire amount of scientific knowledge and creating conditions for the development of further, effective directions of research in the field of choreographic education and the formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography, are defined within the methodological-target block. the main task of the methodology of scientific knowledge in the field of choreographic education is the synthesis of accumulated scientific knowledge, which allows to ensure the use of the achievements of the development of science for practical purposes. 2.3 content-procedural block the content-procedural block of the constructive-structural model includes subjects of scientific activity, namely: teacher, student, respondents, who participate in research and experimental work aimed at improving the content of educational disciplines, among which: “methodology of scientific research”, “fundamentals of scientific research in the field of choreography”, “theory and methodology of choreographic education”, “history of choreographic art”, “the art of the ballet master”, “folk costume and stage decoration of dance”, “directing of spectacular events”, “working with an amateur choreographic team”, “theory and methodology of historical and household dance”, “theory and methodology of classical dance”, “theory and methodology of folk stage dance”, “theory and methodology of modern ballroom dance”, “theory and methodology of ukrainian folk dance”, “theory and methodology of modern pop dance”. in addition, forms of work, such as: lectures using modern interactive technologies, training in the context of the rehearsal process, individual work with soloists, independent work on practicing exercises in the support, in the middle of the hall, on the gymnastic deck, participation in international and all-ukrainian scientific -practical conferences, discussion of the results of scientific research in the form of round tables and seminars, participation in master classes, concert performances of various levels, participation in international and all-ukrainian festivals, olympiads and competitions. the content-procedural block includes methods of scientific knowledge. among the methods of the empirical level of research, it is worth mentioning methods, among which: analysis of the content of pedagogical documentation and results of activities, choreographic and performing practice, an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 14 published by scholink inc. experiment in the implementation of modern concepts and new programs for the artistic and aesthetic education of young people, the introduction of this or that educational material or new dance compositions, innovative approaches to the interpretation of works of choreographic art. in addition, it is a method of pedagogical observation, conversation, interview, questionnaire, rating and self-evaluation, pedagogical council, written and oral survey, diagnosis of control works, pedagogical experiment, content analysis, generalization of pedagogical experience, expert assessment, sociometry, testing. the second group of theoretical methods is related to the experimental verification of new creative projects, the solution of integrated tasks, abstraction when characterizing the stage-art image, the creation of improvisations in certain genres of choreographic art. this is an analytical method, deductive, inductive, diachronic (periodization), modeling (physical, statistical (monte carlo method), mathematical), construction of idealized objects (idealization), comparison, abstraction and concretization, historical and logical interpretation of facts, monographic method, analysis and synthesis, quantitative and qualitative methods, classification, mental (imaginary) experiment, generalization of the studied material, systematic analysis, logical, chronological (historical). the content-procedural block of the component-structural model of the formation of scientific competence of future choreography teachers includes teaching aids that enable the effective assimilation of educational material necessary for the implementation of educational and professional activities within the limits of this or that educational institution. to achieve high performance in education, it is advisable to use the movements of classical, folk and modern ballroom dance, as well as plastic movements. in addition, rhythmics, which teaches the ability to coordinate one’s movements with music, is also important, as well as pantomime, which is an integral part of developing the expressiveness of movements. in addition to the above, specific groups of movements, such as acrobatic, semi-acrobatic, elements of the sports-gymnastic style, which include constructions, reconstructions, applied and general developmental exercises. the effectiveness of performing these movements depends on the correct execution technique, which can be achieved by applying exercises that control the work of the necessary muscle groups. it is quite clear that an important place among the means of learning is given to the means of intellectual and psychological influence of the educational environment, in which the formation and development of the future teacher of choreography and the formation of his general human and artistic-aesthetic values take place. in addition, compliance with hygienic factors, overcoming emotional tension during concert performances, removing negative emotions during stressful situations, achieving harmony and emotional balance in the formation of stage performance skills. educational and teaching-methodical aids, textbooks, electronic teaching aids, special literature, means of information and control, multimedia presentations are also included in the means of forming the scientific competence of future choreography teachers. photo, film and video materials, as well as various types of activities that contribute to solving the tasks of scientific research programs in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 15 published by scholink inc. process of professional training, namely: educational and cognitive, educational and practical and independent activities within scientific circles and problem groups. however, we should not forget about the arrangement of the necessary material and technical base, the availability of rehearsal halls equipped according to the requirements of professional training. in addition, providing the participants of theatrical performances with costumes, shoes and decorations, which are a necessary condition for staging certain concert programs and individual dance numbers. the fact that the beginning of the 21st century is characterized by the modernization of art education, the use of new interactive choreographic-pedagogical technologies and innovative teaching methods is undeniable. interactive choreographic-pedagogical technologies represent an integrative process that accumulates knowledge, forms, methods and means of learning in the field of choreographic education, aimed at the professional-pedagogical formation of future teachers of choreographic art and the formation of stage-performance competencies and the development of interpretive-intellectual qualities of the individual. it is an undeniable fact that the use of innovative methods in the choreographic-pedagogical field is due to the emergence of new trends in choreographic art, the use of modern computer technologies and computer programs in the staging of concert numbers, and the introduction of synergistic approaches to the interpretation of the artistic and figurative content of choreographic compositions. the analysis of scientific literature proves that innovative methods of choreographic training should be classified according to the following characteristics: a source of obtaining information aimed at the formation of choreographic culture; the logic of the organization of artistic-aesthetic and choreographic-cognitive activity; the level of emotional influence on the individual’s consciousness. the essence of the proposed classification of innovative methods of choreographic education is to adjust the educational process under the conditions of constant and active interaction between the teacher and the student during the solution of topical issues aimed at the professional and pedagogical training of future teachers of choreography. 2.4 assessment and result block the evaluation-resultative block of the constructive-structural model of the formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography contains criteria, levels and certifies the final result of the formation of the studied phenomenon. among the criteria, it is expedient to highlight the motivational-valuable, cognitive-intellectual and practical-active ones. the motivational and value criterion involves the formation of future choreography teachers’ interest in scientific and research activities, the need to create new choreographic compositions based on ethnographic material, and a valuable attitude to the traditions and culture of various peoples of the world. in the process of research activity, students develop universal human values that have a positive effect on the effectiveness of scientific activity and the formation of scientific competences. the cognitive-intellectual criterion includes indicators necessary for the implementation of scientific and research activities, namely: the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. development of creative and methodical thinking, creativity, flexibility of mental actions, fluency in the processes of synthesis, generalization, and systematization of scientific material. in addition, the general intellectual development, worldview, outlook and practical experience of the researcher is considered an important indicator. the practical-activity criterion is characterized by the ability to use scientific knowledge in the organization and conduct of experimental research, inclusion of the researcher in the real situation of scientific research, verification of scientific research methods in practice, selection and processing of experimental results, generalization of primary source material. an important component is self-analysis and self-monitoring of the results of research activities. 3. levels of formation of scientific competence of future choreography teachers in the process of professional training determining the levels of formation of scientific competence deserves special attention. practice proves that, according to the criteria, it is worth distinguishing three levels of formation of scientific competence of future teachers of choreography, namely: high, medium and low. with such an approach, it is very valuable to justify each one according to the defined criteria. 3.1 motivational and value criterion first of all, as regards the motivational-value criterion, a high level is characterized by full awareness of motivational-value qualities regarding the formation of scientific competence; persistent cognitive interest; constant striving to increase the level of motivational and valuable qualities regarding the formation of scientific competence, self-improvement and self-development; a positive attitude towards the formation of scientific competence; ability to make decisions, readiness to bear responsibility for results in research work. the average level is characterized by the partial formation of motivational and value qualities regarding the formation of scientific competence; incomplete awareness of motivational and value qualities; unstable cognitive interest in the formation of scientific competence; striving to increase the level of motivational and value qualities; situational manifestation of professional competence, self-improvement and self-development; contradictory attitude to the formation of scientific competence; striving for decision-making, sporadic readiness to bear responsibility for results in research work. the low level is characterized by insufficient formation of motivational and value qualities regarding the formation of scientific competence; insufficient awareness of motivational and value qualities; weak cognitive interest in increasing the level of motivational and value qualities, self-improvement and self-development; lack of interest in the formation of scientific competence; unwillingness to bear responsibility for the results of research work. 3.2 cognitive-intellectual criterion as for the cognitive-intellectual criterion, its high level is characterized by the presence of stable, systematized knowledge on the organization and conduct of research work; full understanding of the need to apply scientific knowledge in the process of organizing and conducting research activities; full www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. knowledge of the content, methods and ways of organizing and conducting research work. the average level is characterized by incomplete orientation in the goals and objectives of the organization and the conduct of research work; availability of partially systematized scientifically important knowledge; insufficiently deep understanding of the need to apply scientific knowledge in the process of organizing and conducting research work; incomplete familiarity with the content, methods and ways of organizing and conducting research and experimental work. the low level is characterized by a weak orientation in the goals and tasks of the organization and the conduct of research work; the superficial, unstable and unsystematized nature of the application of scientific knowledge in the process of organizing and conducting research activities; superficial familiarity with the content, methods and ways of organizing and conducting research work. 3.3 practical and operational criterion practical and operational criterion. a high level is characterized by sufficiently formed scientific competence; accuracy of scientific research work; independent reproduction of a certain sequence or system of actions in typical and atypical search situations; fully formed skills to carry out self-control and self-analysis of scientific and research activities; the ability to independently organize and plan research work; adequate self-assessment of the level of formation of one’s own scientific competence. the average level is characterized by the partial formation of scientific competence; insufficiently accurate performance of research work; independent reproduction of a certain sequence or system of actions in typical search situations; partially formed skills to carry out self-control and self-analysis of scientific and research activities; limited ability to independently organize and plan research work; not always an adequate self-assessment of the level of formation of one’s own scientific competence. a sufficient level is characterized by insufficiently formed scientific competence; inaccuracy in the performance of research work; reproduction of a certain gradualness or system of actions with the help of a teacher; lack of experience in research activity; unformed ability to self-monitor and self-analyze research activities; lack of skills of independent organization and planning of research work; inadequate self-assessment of the level of formation of one’s own scientific competence. the introduction of the proposed model will ensure the achievement of a high level of formation of the scientific competence of future teachers of choreography. in addition, the effectiveness of the formation of scientific competence makes it possible to define and introduce the appropriate organizational and pedagogical conditions, among which it is appropriate to highlight the following: creation of a creative educational environment; formation of the idea of choreographic art as a social phenomenon, awareness that genres and forms of choreographic art change along with society, its moral, ethical and aesthetic values; stimulation of sustained interest and positive motivation for research activities. 4. research conclusions and prospects for further development in view of what has been said and taking into account the insufficient development of the mentioned www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. issues, it is worth emphasizing that the formation of scientific competence of future choreography teachers is possible under appropriate conditions, which include principles, approaches, content, forms, methods, means, technologies, criteria, levels, and pedagogical conditions , aimed at increasing the level of effectiveness of the formation of the specified phenomenon. prospects for further scientific research may be related to the formation of scientific competence at the highest level, the preparation and writing of qualification papers on certain directions of the development of choreographic art and the methodology of teaching choreography in general educational institutions and out-of-school institutions of aesthetic orientation. references biluha, m. t. (2002). methodology of scientific research. filipenko, a. s. (2005). basics of the scientific research. summary of lectures: tutorial. kyiv. gonsharenko, s. u. (2008). pedagogical research: methodological advice for young scientists. kovalshuk, v. v., & moiseev, l. m. (2008). basics of the scientific research. pehota, o. m., & ermakova, i. p. (2012). fundamentals of pedagogical research: from a student to a scientific school: a teaching manual. sherkasov, v. f. (2017). fundamentals of scientific research in the musical-educational field. tzehmistrova, g. s. (2006). basics of the scientific research. tutorial. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper developing human resources in the era of digital transformation in vietnam: current status and solutions nguyen duc trung 1* 1 trade union university, vietnam * nguyen duc trung, trungnd@dhcd.edu.vn received: june 17, 2024 accepted: june 26, 2024 online published: july 14, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n3p1 abstract digital transformation is becoming an inevitable and powerful trend across all sectors of socio-economic life, contributing to the enhancement of business efficiency, government management, and the quality of life for the public. high-quality human resources with digital skills and adaptability to new technologies are crucial to the success of digital transformation. however, vietnam is currently facing numerous challenges in developing it human resources. this paper examines the current state of human resources in vietnam’s digital transformation, discusses the solutions that have been and are being implemented, and proposes specific steps to develop high-quality human resources. the policies and training programs from the government, enterprises, and educational institutions are analyzed and evaluated. finally, the paper provides recommendations on policies and long-term strategies to improve the quality and quantity of it human resources, ensuring that vietnam can seize opportunities from the fourth industrial revolution. keywords digital transformation, it human resources, digital skills, human resource training, support policies, information technology, human resource development, vietnam 1. introduction digital transformation is becoming an inevitable trend across all fields of socio-economic life, contributing to improved business efficiency, government management, and public life. with the proliferation of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (ai), big data, and the internet of things (iot), digital transformation not only involves the application of technology to existing processes but also requires a comprehensive change in the organization and operation of businesses, government agencies, and society. in this context, human resources are the key factor determining the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. success of digital transformation. [note 1] developing high-quality human resources with digital skills and the ability to adapt to new technologies is a prerequisite for vietnam to catch up and leverage the opportunities brought by digital transformation. however, the current state of human resources in vietnam faces many challenges. although vietnam trains about 65,000 it personnel annually, only 30% of them meet the job requirements immediately. additionally, the shortage of high-quality it personnel has become a serious issue, particularly as various sectors, fields, and localities need this human resource to drive the digital transformation process. [note 2] the vietnamese government has introduced numerous policies and programs to develop human resources for digital transformation, such as reducing personal income tax for high-tech personnel and training a minimum of 1,000 digital transformation experts. however, these policies are still not strong enough to thoroughly address the current challenges. the aim of this paper is to explore the current state of human resources in digital transformation in vietnam, discuss the solutions that have been and are being implemented, and propose specific results and directions to develop high-quality human resources for digital transformation. the paper hopes to contribute to building a sustainable and developed digital economy, propelling vietnam to thrive in the fourth industrial revolution. research methodology: this paper employs qualitative research methods, including the analysis of documents, reports, and studies related to the current state and solutions for developing human resources during the digital transformation period. information is gathered from government reports, international organizations, and academic materials. additionally, in-depth interviews with experts in the field of it and digital transformation are conducted to collect practical information and professional opinions. 2. current status of human resources in vietnam 2.1 quantity and quality of it human resources digital transformation requires a significant number of highly skilled information technology (it) personnel; however, the current state of it human resources in vietnam faces numerous challenges. each year, vietnam trains approximately 65,000 it personnel, but only 30% of them meet job requirements immediately upon graduation. most graduates lack sufficient skills and practical experience to participate in complex digital transformation projects. this situation forces many businesses to retrain or supplement the skills of newly hired employees. [note 3] data from labor market reports indicate that the demand for it human resources in vietnam is rapidly increasing, particularly in fields such as artificial intelligence (ai), big data, and information security. however, the supply of human resources does not keep pace with demand, leading to a severe shortage. according to the ministry of information and communications, vietnam currently lacks about 400,000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. it personnel, and this number is expected to increase if effective solutions for training and developing human resources are not implemented. [note 3] 2.2 training statistics and job readiness according to the international labor organization (ilo), approximately 70% of it graduates in vietnam need additional training before they can participate in real-world projects. only 30% of graduates meet the immediate job requirements of businesses. the primary reason is that the training programs at universities have not been updated in line with new technologies and focus insufficiently on practical skills. [note 4] current it training programs in vietnam primarily emphasize theory with limited opportunities for practical experience and teamwork. students often lack soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. this inadequacy poses difficulties when working in real-world environments, especially in digital transformation projects that require high levels of collaboration and creativity. 2.3 government policies to develop human resources the vietnamese government has introduced numerous policies to develop human resources for digital transformation. one significant policy is reducing personal income tax for high-tech personnel. this policy aims to attract and retain it experts while encouraging businesses to invest in training and developing human resources. additionally, the government has launched a program to train at least 1,000 digital transformation experts for various sectors, fields, and localities. this program aims to meet the urgent need for high-quality human resources, ensuring that sectors and localities have sufficient personnel to execute digital transformation projects. [note 2]  local programs for training digital transformation experts localities such as da nang and ho chi minh city have implemented various training and coaching programs to enhance digital skills for officials and public servants. for example, da nang has partnered with universities and businesses to organize intensive training courses on digital technology. ho chi minh city has also launched numerous digital skills training programs for officials, public servants, and enterprise employees to enhance their competitiveness and meet the demands of digital transformation. [note 3] these programs typically include courses on programming skills, it project management, information security, and applications of new technologies like ai, big data, and iot. additionally, many programs focus on soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, helping learners effectively apply it skills in real-world jobs.  challenges and issues shortage of high-quality it human resources: one of the most significant challenges today is the severe shortage of high-quality it human resources. although the number of graduates from it training programs increases annually, most of them do not meet labor market requirements. this situation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. creates substantial pressure on businesses, forcing them to invest heavily in retraining newly recruited employees. [note 4] the shortage of high-quality human resources not only hinders businesses from executing digital transformation projects but also affects the development of the it industry and the economy as a whole. to address this issue, comprehensive and robust solutions are required, ranging from improving the quality of training at universities to promoting continuous training and skill enhancement programs for employees.  difficulties in implementing training programs the implementation of it training programs in vietnam faces several difficulties. first, the training programs at many universities are still heavily theoretical, lacking practical elements, and not keeping up with new technologies. this inadequacy results in graduates lacking practical skills and failing to meet business requirements. second, many businesses are reluctant to invest in training and developing human resources. the primary reasons are high training costs and the lack of resources to implement continuous training programs. moreover, many small and medium-sized enterprises struggle to recruit and retain talent due to fierce competition with larger companies. [note 5] third, the shortage of experienced trainers and lecturers is a significant issue. many university lecturers lack practical experience and up-to-date knowledge of new technologies, leading to low training quality. to overcome these difficulties, close cooperation between universities, businesses, and government agencies is needed. promoting collaborative training programs between businesses and universities can enhance training quality and ensure graduates possess the skills required by employers. additionally, policies supporting businesses in investing in training and developing human resources, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises, are essential. [note 5] to continue addressing the challenges and issues in developing it human resources in vietnam, comprehensive and coordinated measures are required. below are some recommendations and approaches to overcome these difficulties: measures to improve training quality at universities. first, universities need to update their training programs to keep pace with the rapid development of technology. this update includes integrating courses on new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain into the curriculum. universities should also focus on teaching practical skills through real-world projects and collaborations with businesses, providing students with opportunities to gain practical work experience. [note 4] additionally, universities need to strengthen their faculty by inviting industry experts to participate in teaching and training. this approach not only improves teaching quality but also helps students access the latest knowledge and trends in the it field. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. increasing investment in training and developing human resources from businesses. businesses need to recognize the crucial role of investing in training and developing human resources. this investment includes establishing continuous training programs and enhancing employees' skills to help them stay updated and master new technologies. businesses should consider collaborating with universities and training organizations to develop specialized training programs that meet their specific needs. utilizing massive open online courses (moocs) is also an effective solution for disseminating digital skills to employees. businesses can encourage employees to participate in online courses to enhance their knowledge and skills while minimizing training costs. [note 3] government support policies. the government must continue implementing supportive policies to promote the development of it human resources. one crucial measure is to create favorable conditions for businesses to invest in training and human resource development. this can include reducing corporate income tax for expenses related to employee training or providing preferential loans for businesses that invest in human resource training. additionally, the government should intensify the implementation of digital transformation expert training programs at the local level. this approach not only ensures that localities have enough high-quality human resources to execute digital transformation projects but also helps alleviate the pressure of human resource shortages in major economic centers like hanoi and ho chi minh city. [note 2] enhancing international cooperation. international cooperation is also a key strategy for developing high-quality it human resources. vietnam can learn from countries that have successfully trained and developed it human resources, as well as collaborate with international organizations to build advanced training programs. student exchange programs, research collaborations, and joint projects with foreign universities and enterprises will help improve training quality and provide opportunities for vietnamese students and employees to access the latest technologies. [note 4] developing high-quality it human resources is a crucial and urgent task in the context of digital transformation. achieving this requires concerted efforts from multiple parties, including universities, businesses, and the government. comprehensive and coordinated solutions such as improving the quality of education, increasing investment in human resource development, and enhancing international cooperation will help vietnam overcome current challenges and build a strong workforce capable of meeting the demands of the fourth industrial revolution. 3. discussion 3.1 solutions for developing human resources in digital transformation support policies such as reducing personal income tax for high-tech personnel. the vietnamese government has implemented various support policies to attract and develop high-quality human resources, especially in the field of information technology (it). one important measure is reducing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. personal income tax for high-tech personnel. this policy not only encourages individuals to work in the it sector but also attracts technology experts from other countries to work in vietnam. this initiative contributes to improving the quality of human resources and meeting the increasing demand for highly skilled personnel in the context of digital transformation. training programs for digital transformation experts in various sectors and localities. to meet the urgent need for high-quality human resources in digital transformation, the vietnamese government has launched a program to train at least 1,000 digital transformation experts for various sectors and localities. this program focuses on enhancing the skills and professional knowledge of officials, civil servants, and enterprise employees. intensive training courses on digital technology, artificial intelligence, big data, and cybersecurity are regularly organized to ensure that these human resources have the necessary competencies to execute digital transformation projects in localities. [note 6] training and developing digital skills. urgent need and existing training programs in localities. the demand for digitally skilled human resources in vietnam is increasing, especially in the context of global digital transformation. localities such as da nang and ho chi minh city have implemented various training and coaching programs to enhance digital skills for officials and public servants. for instance, da nang has partnered with universities and businesses to organize intensive training courses on digital technology, while ho chi minh city has launched numerous digital skills training programs for officials, civil servants, and enterprise employees to enhance their competitiveness and meet the demands of digital transformation. these programs typically include courses on programming skills, it project management, information security, and applications of new technologies like ai, big data, and iot. additionally, many programs focus on soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, helping learners effectively apply it skills in real-world jobs. [note 7] proposing a digital higher education model and adding new majors. to meet the demand for high-quality human resources in digital transformation, there needs to be innovation in the higher education model. one proposal is to establish a digital higher education model, combining online and traditional learning, enabling students to access courses and learning materials from anywhere. universities need to add new majors related to digital technology, such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, and cybersecurity, to the curriculum. this will not only improve the quality of education but also ensure that graduates have the necessary skills and knowledge to meet labor market demands. applying technology and digital platforms in training. using massive open online courses (moocs) to disseminate digital skills. massive open online courses (moocs) are an effective solution for disseminating digital skills to the workforce. moocs provide online courses in various fields, from basic to advanced levels, helping learners enhance their knowledge and skills flexibly and cost-effectively. the government and educational organizations should encourage employees and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. students to participate in moocs to improve their proficiency and meet the requirements of digital transformation. [note 8] for example, platforms like coursera, edx, and udacity offer thousands of courses on digital technology, big data, artificial intelligence, and many other fields. businesses can also use moocs to train employees, helping them update their knowledge and skills, thus improving work efficiency and contributing to the digital transformation of enterprises. using chatbots and digital platforms to support training and human resource management. chatbots and digital platforms are increasingly being applied in training and human resource management. chatbots, integrated with artificial intelligence and natural language processing, can provide 24/7 support to employees, answering queries and guiding work processes quickly and accurately. this not only saves time and costs but also improves work efficiency and employee satisfaction. [note 8] additionally, digital platforms such as learning management systems (lms) and other online training tools are used to manage the training and development process. these platforms help track learning progress, evaluate learning outcomes, and provide rich learning materials, thus supporting the learning and skill development of employees effectively. developing human resources in the era of digital transformation is a crucial and urgent task. solutions such as improving the quality of education, increasing investment in human resource development, and applying digital technology in training will help vietnam overcome current challenges and build a strong workforce capable of meeting the demands of the fourth industrial revolution. the government, universities, and businesses need to work closely together to implement these solutions, ensuring high-quality it human resources that contribute to promoting digital transformation and sustainable socio-economic development. 4. results 4.1 evaluating the effectiveness of solutions the policies and programs implemented in vietnam to develop human resources for digital transformation have shown positive initial results. reducing personal income tax for high-tech personnel has attracted and retained many it experts, improving the quality of human resources in this sector. training programs for at least 1,000 digital transformation experts have enhanced the skills and knowledge of many officials, civil servants, and enterprise employees. localities like da nang and ho chi minh city have effectively implemented digital skills training and coaching programs, enhancing competitiveness and meeting digital transformation demands. courses on programming, it project management, information security, and new technologies like ai, big data, and iot have improved both practical and soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. however, challenges remain, including a severe shortage of high-quality it personnel, training www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. programs at many universities that are too theoretical and lack practical experience, and insufficient investment in human resource development from businesses. 4.2 proposing next steps recommendations for long-term policies and strategies: improving training programs at universities: update curricula to include new technologies like ai, big data, blockchain, and cybersecurity. emphasize practical skills through real-world projects and business collaborations. increasing investment in training and development: businesses should establish continuous training programs and collaborate with universities and training organizations to meet specific needs. promoting moocs: encourage employees and students to use moocs to improve their skills and meet digital transformation requirements. utilizing chatbots and digital platforms: use technologies like chatbots and learning management systems (lms) to save time and costs, improving work efficiency and employee satisfaction. specific measures to improve it human resources: international cooperation: collaborate with successful countries and international organizations to build advanced training programs. facilitate student exchanges, research collaborations, and joint projects with foreign universities and enterprises. encouraging private sector participation: introduce policies to reduce corporate income tax for training expenses or provide preferential loans for businesses investing in human resource training. establishing high-tech training centers: invest in high-tech training centers in key areas to provide intensive courses on new technologies and improve the professional level of it personnel. 4.3 future and vision developing human resources in the context of global digital transformation: developing high-quality it human resources is crucial for successful digital transformation. vietnam needs a flexible education and training system that can quickly adapt to technological changes. continuously updating and improving digital skills will help vietnam lead in the fourth industrial revolution. the importance of continuously updating and improving digital skills: continuously updating and improving digital skills is essential for meeting labor market demands. this effort increases labor productivity and creates new opportunities for socio-economic development. training and skill improvement programs should be widely and flexibly implemented to ensure everyone can access and develop necessary skills. vietnam needs to continue investing strongly in education and training, especially in the it field. the government, universities, and businesses need to work closely together to build an education and training system that meets labor market demands, promoting digital transformation and sustainable socio-economic development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion developing high-quality it human resources is a critical and urgent task in the context of digital transformation. policies such as reducing personal income tax for high-tech personnel, training programs for digital transformation experts, and digital skills training programs at the local level have yielded positive results. however, significant challenges remain, such as the severe shortage of high-quality it personnel, overly theoretical and practically lacking university training programs, and insufficient investment in training from businesses. to address these challenges, comprehensive and coordinated solutions are needed, including improving the quality of training at universities, increasing investment in training and human resource development from businesses, and enhancing international cooperation. the government, universities, and businesses need to work closely together to implement these solutions, ensuring high-quality it human resources that contribute to promoting digital transformation and sustainable socio-economic development. in the future, continuously updating and improving digital skills for the workforce will help vietnam not only catch up but also lead in the fourth industrial revolution. references [note 1]. giải pháp phát triển nguồn nhân lực trong chuyển đổi số tại việt nam. 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(n.d.). retrieved from https://www.hitachi.com/rev/archive/2019/r2019_03/03c01/index.html education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper advancing vocationalization of open schooling in botswana: addressing critical skills gaps and alleviating unemployment tommie hamaluba, phd1 1 dr tommie hamaluba, botswana open university, gaborone, botswana received: august 22, 2023 accepted: august 31, 2023 online published: september 10, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n3p1 abstract vocationalization of open schooling is paramount for botswana, a nation dedicated to sustainable development and economic growth. this article emphasizes the urgent need to integrate vocational education within the open schooling framework, focusing on its potential to address skills gaps, empower marginalized groups, and contribute to botswana’s knowledge-based economy. by equipping the youth with relevant skills, vocationalized open schooling offers a pathway to alleviate future unemployment challenges. this article estimates the demographic potential benefiting from this approach, particularly the youth population of botswana. vocational education stands as a strategic imperative for botswana, aligning with its goals of inclusive growth and equipping learners with practical skills that match industry demands. the convergence of vocational education and open schooling holds transformative power, providing accessible and relevant education to those historically excluded while preparing a capable and adaptable workforce. in a nation of approximately 2.35 million people, the youth represent both its strength and promise. vocationalized open schooling emerges as a conduit to empower this demographic, ensuring they possess skills that align with industry needs and fostering a generation poised to contribute to the nation’s aspirations for progress and prosperity. as botswana navigates the complexities of a changing global landscape, the integration of vocational education into open schooling shines as a beacon, illuminating pathways to employability, innovation, and socio-economic advancement. keywords vocationalization, open schooling, botswana, skills gaps, youth empowerment www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction botswana, a nation characterized by its rich cultural heritage and aspirations for continuous growth, finds itself at a crucial crossroads in the trajectory of its educational landscape. as an upper-middle-income country with an estimated population of approximately 2.35 million, botswana holds the potential to harness the power of education to propel its socio-economic development forward. in this dynamic environment, the integration of vocational education within the open schooling framework has emerged as a strategic imperative that not only responds to the evolving demands of the modern workforce but also holds the promise of addressing critical skills gaps, fostering employability, and driving holistic national progress. the significance of education as a catalyst for growth cannot be understated. botswana’s journey from an agrarian economy to an upper-middle-income status is a testament to the transformative impact of education on socio-economic development. however, as the country sets its sights on sustained prosperity and a knowledge-based economy, it is confronted with the challenge of equipping its workforce with skills that align seamlessly with the demands of a rapidly changing global landscape. the traditional education system, while invaluable, must be supplemented by innovative approaches that integrate practical skills and theoretical knowledge in a manner that resonates with the diverse needs of today’s job market. in this context, the concept of vocational education has gained increasing recognition as a pragmatic solution to bridge the gap between education and employment. vocational education empowers individuals with skills that are immediately applicable in the workforce, providing them with a competitive edge in an increasingly competitive job market. for botswana, a nation with a youthful population and a clear imperative for sustainable growth, vocational education presents a compelling pathway towards cultivating a skilled and adaptable workforce that can contribute effectively to the country’s development agenda. however, the significance of vocational education is further amplified when integrated within the open schooling framework. open schooling represents not only a flexible and inclusive approach to education but also a transformative model that has the potential to reach learners who may not have had access to traditional educational pathways. it represents an avenue through which education transcends geographical and socio-economic barriers, unlocking opportunities for marginalized populations, adult learners, and those who may have missed out on formal schooling. the convergence of vocational education and open schooling aligns with botswana’s aspirations for inclusive development and economic diversification. by tailoring education to the specific needs of industries and sectors, vocationalization within the open schooling context cultivates a workforce that is not only equipped with job-specific skills but also possesses a strong foundation of academic knowledge. this combination is invaluable in fostering well-rounded professionals capable of adapting to the demands of an increasingly dynamic and complex work environment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. in conclusion, botswana’s journey towards sustained growth and prosperity hinges on its ability to harmonize education with the evolving needs of its society and economy. the integration of vocational education within the open schooling framework emerges as a strategic avenue to address the critical skills gaps, empower marginalized populations, and drive holistic national development. as an upper-middle-income country with a youthful population of approximately 2.35 million, botswana has a unique opportunity to harness the potential of vocationalized open schooling to shape a workforce that is not only skilled but also poised to contribute meaningfully to the nation’s journey towards a knowledge-driven future. this article delves into the multifaceted rationale behind the need for vocationalization of open schooling in botswana, exploring how this strategic synergy can potentially reshape the educational landscape and position the nation for success on the global stage. 2. case of botswana skills gap in botswana botswana’s development trajectory hinges on a workforce equipped with diverse skills. however, the nation faces a pronounced skills gap that hampers its ability to meet industry demands. the traditional education system often falls short in providing practical, job-relevant skills. vocationalization of open schooling offers a strategic solution to this challenge, enabling learners to acquire skills that align with real-world job requirements. 2.1 empowering marginalized populations in the diverse tapestry of botswana’s population, there exists a group whose potential often remains untapped due to systemic barriers—marginalized populations. adult learners, out-of-school youths, and individuals residing in remote areas face unique challenges that hinder their access to education and, consequently, economic and social participation. the concept of vocationalization within the open schooling framework emerges as a beacon of opportunity, poised to empower these individuals by breaking down barriers and fostering their integration into the nation’s fabric. 2.2 a new dawn for adult learners the allure of education is not limited to the young; it spans across generations. adult learners in botswana, who once had their educational pursuits constrained by life’s demands, find a second chance through vocationalized open schooling. this approach recognizes that adult learners often juggle work, family, and other responsibilities. by offering flexible learning options, such as online courses or modular programs, botswana opens the door for these individuals to upskill or reskill themselves. through vocationalization, adult learners are not only able to enhance their employability but also contribute more meaningfully to their families and communities. 2.3 nurturing potential in out-of-school youths out-of-school youths, a segment of society that often finds itself on the fringes of educational access, grapple with a range of challenges such as poverty, limited accessibility, or familial responsibilities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. unesco aptly captures the essence of this struggle, highlighting that “out-of-school youth are more likely to be poor, marginalized, and vulnerable” (unesco, 2016). in botswana, as in many nations, this vulnerable group faces barriers that hinder their access to traditional education. these barriers, however, don’t negate their potential; rather, they illuminate the need for innovative solutions such as vocationalization within the open schooling framework. vocationalization within open schooling signifies a paradigm shift in addressing the educational aspirations of out-of-school youths. tailored vocational courses resonate directly with the demands of various industries, bridging the gap between theoretical education and practical employability. by offering focused vocational training, open schooling equips these young individuals with the tangible skills required by employers, thereby enhancing their marketability in a competitive job landscape. the unesco education for sustainable development framework recognizes the transformative power of education in empowering vulnerable groups, asserting that education “can help people escape the cycle of poverty, make informed decisions, and improve their overall quality of life” (unesco, 2021). botswana’s commitment to vocationalization within the open schooling framework aligns seamlessly with this vision. by providing an alternative pathway to education, vocationalization opens doors that were once closed to out-of-school youths. in a nation where youth unemployment is a pressing concern, vocationalization offers a beacon of hope. it empowers out-of-school youths to break free from the cycle of limited opportunities, charting a course toward sustainable livelihoods. this approach not only contributes to the individual empowerment of these youths but also nurtures a skilled and dynamic workforce that can contribute to botswana’s socio-economic progress. in conclusion, the marriage of vocationalization and open schooling in botswana offers a lifeline for out-of-school youths, enabling them to overcome barriers that previously hindered their educational and professional aspirations. through tailored vocational courses aligned with industry needs, these youths are positioned to thrive in the job market, thereby contributing not only to their personal development but also to the broader socio-economic fabric of the nation. 2.4 overcoming geographical constraints botswana’s geographical diversity presents both opportunities and challenges. in remote areas, individuals encounter geographical barriers that can isolate them from educational opportunities. vocationalized open schooling serves as a bridge, connecting these individuals to quality education irrespective of their physical location. through digital platforms and technology-enabled learning, botswana’s open schooling framework transcends geographical constraints, ensuring that even those in the remotest corners can access education and acquire skills that align with their aspirations. 2.5 botswana’s commitment to empowerment botswana’s commitment to empowering marginalized populations is exemplified by initiatives such as the botswana open university (bou). bou’s flexible programs accommodate the unique www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. circumstances of adult learners, out-of-school youths, and individuals in remote areas. the university’s reach extends beyond urban centers, delivering vocational courses to individuals who might otherwise remain underserved by traditional education systems. 2.6 integration of vocational and academic learning vocationalization within the open schooling framework encourages the integration of vocational and academic learning, fostering well-rounded individuals capable of seamlessly transitioning into the workforce. this approach cultivates a balance between theoretical knowledge and practical skills, a combination highly valued by employers seeking adaptable and competent professionals. 2.7 linkages to equivalency level open schooling represents a bridge between traditional education and practical skills training, particularly for students at school equivalency levels. for individuals who may not have completed formal schooling, open schooling provides an opportunity to attain recognized qualifications and gain valuable vocational skills concurrently. this integration of education and vocational training addresses both educational and employability needs. 3. addressing unemployment through skills development botswana, a nation on the cusp of realizing its aspirations for sustained development and economic progress, grapples with a challenge that resonates across the globe—unemployment. the potency of addressing this challenge lies in harnessing the potential of its youth; demographic comprising individuals aged 15 to 35 years. with an estimated youth population of approximately 815,000, constituting 34.7% of the nation’s total estimated population of 2.35 million, botswana stands at a crossroads where the integration of vocationalized open schooling emerges as a potential game-changer in navigating the complexities of unemployment. this demographic reality underscores the urgency of preparing young individuals for the ever-evolving demands of the job market. vocationalized open schooling presents a strategic solution that propels them beyond the confines of theoretical knowledge and into the realm of practical skills acquisition. by providing focused and industry-aligned training, this approach equips the youth with competencies that resonate with employers’ requirements, significantly enhancing their employability quotient. the transformative power of vocationalized open schooling lies in its ability to forge a direct connection between education and employability. traditional education systems often leave a gap between academic knowledge and real-world application, leaving graduates ill prepared to meet the dynamic demands of industries. vocational education within the open schooling framework narrows this gap by delivering training that is attuned to the specific needs of industries, ensuring that graduates are not just qualified but also equipped to make meaningful contributions from day one. in this journey, the significance of addressing unemployment extends beyond immediate employment opportunities. it encompasses the cultivation of a skilled workforce that contributes to national www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. development through innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. vocationalized open schooling stands as a catalyst for cultivating a culture of self-reliance, where young individuals are empowered to initiate ventures, leverage their skills, and contribute proactively to their communities and the nation as a whole. as botswana’s youth population aspires to a future marked by success and prosperity, vocationalized open schooling presents a tangible and transformative avenue. by offering practical and job-specific skills, it provides the youth with a competitive edge in a challenging job market. the investment in skills development not only enhances their prospects for immediate employment but also elevates their potential for sustained careers and upward mobility. as of the most recent available data from 2020, the youth unemployment rate in botswana was estimated to be around 24.6% (world bank, 2021). this figure represents the percentage of young people within the labor force who are actively seeking employment but are unable to find jobs. the youth unemployment rate is a critical indicator of the challenges faced by young individuals in accessing suitable job opportunities, and it underscores the importance of initiatives such as vocationalization within the open schooling framework to address this issue. 4. conclusion the integration of vocational education within the open schooling framework emerges as a strategic imperative for botswana’s educational transformation. by addressing skills gaps, empowering marginalized populations, and aligning with national development goals, vocationalization of open schooling promises to shape a workforce that is not only skilled but also adaptable, resilient, and poised to drive the nation’s progress in the 21st century. as botswana’s youth population looks towards a brighter future, vocationalized open schooling stands as a beacon of hope, offering a tangible solution to unemployment challenges and contributing to a thriving, knowledge-based economy. references https://botswana.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/botswana_young_people-print.pdf unesco. (2016). out-of-school children and youth. retrieved from https://uis.unesco.org/en/topic/out-school-children-and-youth unesco. (2021). education for sustainable development. retrieved from https://www.unesco.org/en/education-sustainable-development world bank. (2021). unemployment, youth total (% of total labor force ages 15-24) (modeled ilo estimate). retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/country/botswana?view=chart education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 6 original paper structural and functional concept of formation of interpretative competence of future teachers of choreography in the process of professional training volodymyr cherkasov 1* 1 department of musical art of the communal institution of higher education, “academy of culture and arts” of the transcarpathian regional council, uzhgorod city, ukraine * volodymyr cherkasov, department of musical art of the communal institution of higher education “academy of culture and arts” of the transcarpathian regional council, uzhgorod city, ukraine received: march 22, 2024 accepted: april 8, 2024 online published: april 22, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n2p6 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n2p6 abstract the study characterized the structural and functional concept of the formation of interpretive competence of future teachers of choreography in the process of professional training, investigated the essence of definitions, “interpretation”, “competence”, and also proved that the effectiveness of the formation of the specified phenomenon depends on the teacher’s mastery of the method of compositional construction of a choreographic work, objectivity in the interpretation of works of choreographic art, the professional and practical experience of the interpreter, the intellectual and creative nature of the director’s activity, as well as the level of development of his artistic and creative thinking. keywords structural-functional concept, interpretive competence, future teachers of choreography 1. introduction the integration of artistic education of ukraine into the global european space makes it possible to create the necessary conditions for the preservation and functioning, as well as the development of domestic choreographic education. first of all, this process is aimed at the professional and pedagogical training of the future teacher of choreography in the conditions of higher pedagogical educational institutions of the artistic direction. under such a situation, the substantiation of the structural-functional concept of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. formation of the interpretive competence of future choreography teachers in the process of professional training is relevant and timely. the analysis of the sources of pedagogical and artistic direction confirms that domestic and foreign scientists, including: l. m. androschuk, t. o. blahova, v. s. bosiy, o. s. goldrych, o. yu. zakharova, a ye. nikitin, a. m. pidlypska, o. a. plahotnyuk, v. f. pokhilenko, o. e. rebrova, o. s. skrypnyk, i. v. spinul, a. o. stryzhakov, n. i. tarasov, s. s. tverdokhlib, v. f. cherkasov, v.t. shevchenko, to varying extents, certain questions regarding the formation of interpretation skills of future choreography teachers in the process of working on a choreographic piece were investigated and revealed. the topic of our scientific search significantly complements the research of the named authors, enables the realization of the structural and functional concept of the formation of interpretative competence of future teachers of choreography in the process of professional training. 2. method theoretical methods, the purpose of which was to establish precedents and determine external connections between them. with their help, it was possible to find out what exactly caused these connections and why they are needed. empirical methods of observation and research of contact phenomena, experiment, as well as generalization, classification and description of the results of experimental research, their implementation in practical human activity. 2.1 definition of the key concepts of the study to clarify the content of any phenomenon in the artistic environment, it is advisable to determine the essence of the main concepts that characterize the content component of the phenomenon under study. with this approach, it is worth noting that the term “interpretation” comes from the latin “interpretatio”—clarification, interpretation of scientific and literary texts. regarding the nature of choreographic art, it is an explanation and interpretation of choreographic art works. delineating the essential nature of the term “competence”, in pedagogical science, depending on the field of activity, we find many interpretations of this concept. competence translated from the latin “competentia” means a range of issues in which a person is well-versed, has knowledge and experience. first of all, competence means awareness, awareness, and authority. we agree with the definitions of scientists regarding the stated definition and believe that competence consists of a complex of knowledge, abilities and skills in a certain type of professional activity, experience and moral and aesthetic values, worldviews and way of thinking. competence determines a person’s ability to have an active position in life and successfully carry out professional activities. in the context of the subject field of our research, we believe that the interpretive competence of the future choreography teachers is knowledge and experience that stimulate a complex communicative process, an artistic interpretation of an author’s work or folklore traditions based on the hermeneutic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. theory of knowledge, the process of reproducing a meaningful storyline, taking into account genre, stylistic, compositional and rhythmic features, the result of which is the appearance of new dance compositions or works of choreographic art. 2.2 factors of formation of interpretative competence according to this approach, the task of the interpreter is to help the participants of the choreographic action to understand the author’s idea, content and meaning of the work, to depict an action or character in the dance, to embody a certain idea through the true expression of feelings. the choice of methodology, method and methods of interpretation should always be motivated and foreseen by the nature of the work and the purpose of interpretation. choreographic interpretation is a multifaceted artistic phenomenon that occurs through the integration of a number of factors that contribute to the formation of new dance compositions that interact with each other and contribute to the creative development of the interpreter’s choreographic skill, the formation of the interpretive competence of the future choreography teachers. among such factors, it is worth highlighting: mastery of the technique of compositional construction of a choreographic work; objectivity in the interpretation of works of choreographic art; professional and practical experience of the interpreter; the intellectual and creative nature of the director’s activity; the level of development of artistic and creative thinking of the teacher-choreographer. 3. result 3.1 methodology of the compositional construction of a choreographic work it deserves special attention that future teachers of choreography should perfectly master the method of compositional construction of a choreographic work. according to the laws of dramaturgy, the compositional structure of a choreographic number consists of five parts, namely: exposition, beginning, action development, climax, denouement. first of all, it is the emergence of an idea or a theme of a choreographic piece in the mind of a future choreography teacher. according to the defined idea, the most optimal options for creating a compositional plan of a choreographic work or a miniature are selected, in which the production is divided into parts, the time, place of action, nature of music and precise timing are precisely indicated. it is also worth remembering the correspondence of the musical material to the director’s choreographic idea, correlation with it. if a choreographic piece is set to specially written music, the director interprets it in accordance with the composer’s intention, as well as in accordance with the traditions and requirements of choreographic art. having decided on the musical accompaniment, the teacher-choreographer begins to create the choreography of the performance and interpret it according to the laws of drama. an important stage in the creation of a choreographic work is the preliminary work on studying and summarizing the materials that characterize the main characters, the preparation of the choreographic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. text and the recording of this text. this leads to the creation in the imagination of the director of an artistic idea regarding the interpretation of the content of the choreographic work. the most responsible stage is staging and rehearsal work in the choreographic team, showing and studying solo parts and cardio ballet with the team members. and in the end, the final stage is considered the presentation of a choreographic work on the stage or inclusion in a concert program presented at the discretion of the audience. 3.2 objectivity in the interpretation of works of choreographic art objectivity in the interpretation of works of choreographic art is characterized by a generally accepted system of concepts and assessments that function in the field of choreographic art and enable the interpreter to create a certain choreographic composition that corresponds to the laws of creating an artistic image in which the character of the hero is revealed on stage in his behavior and actions means of choreographic art. in addition, with the help of certain movements and musical accompaniment, the color of the dance is reproduced, which is the embodiment of the cultural traditions of this or that people, complemented by inherent stage attributes and appropriate costumes. objectivity in the interpretation of works of choreographic art is ensured by unwavering adherence to the principles of scientific knowledge, multifacetedness of the cognitive process, systematicity, complexity and comprehensiveness of the study of a choreographic work. it is appropriate to emphasize that objectivity in the interpretation of works of choreographic art is based on universal human values, which help the interpreter to objectively reproduce the general picture and compositional structure of the choreographic work, to place emphasis on the main and culminating episodes of the stage action, to preserve synchronicity and clarity in mass scenes, faithfully interpret solo episodes and create positive motivation and motivation for success, which will allow the audience to get aesthetic pleasure from communicating and perceiving choreographic compositions and the concert program in general. there is no doubt that in the process of objective interpretation of works of choreographic art, the creative intuition of the interpreter is of great importance, the ability to grasp the truth by directly understanding it without justification and any evidence. the process of creativity, making sense of the data of sensory perception is often carried out through a momentary generalization, a kind of mental closure, directly from the initial data to the result. there is a rapid mobilization of previous experience to understand the essence of any episode or stage-artistic image. a sharpened intuitive feeling is usually gained by the interpreter, based on a solid foundation of professional and life experience, through inspiration. most scientists and choreographers believe that moments of inspiration are the most fruitful in the creative process. after some, perhaps long and painful searches, suddenly there is a strange feeling of creative impulse and clarity of consciousness. at this moment, the director works quickly and himself feels that he is doing professionally and qualitatively, exactly as needed, as he wanted. it is quite clear that intuition and inspiration prompt the future teacher of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 10 published by scholink inc. choreography to create a finished artistic image, which is a confirmation of the high level of skill of the interpreter of the choreographic work. 3.3 professional and practical experience an eloquent evidence of the formation of the director’s interpretive competence is his professional and practical experience, which is formed as a result of the theoretical and practical training of the future teacher of choreography within the framework of a higher educational institution, and above all, in the process of studying a number of disciplines, among which: mastering the basics of classical, folk and stage and modern ballroom dancing, introduction of rhythmic gymnastics, performance of parterre exercises. the formation of a worldview and choreographic thinking takes place during the study of the history of the emergence and formation of choreographic art, folklore and ethnographic traditions and choreographic culture of different regions of ukraine, the activities of professional, amateur and children’s and youth choreographic groups, the formation and development of choreographic education in ukraine in different periods of historical development. in addition, the basics of the theory of domestic and foreign dance art, folk choreography, dance art methodology. in addition, future specialists in the field of choreographic art study the method of choreographic work with children of different age groups in preschool education institutions, general educational institutions and extracurricular institutions of aesthetic orientation. a certain role is played by the study of elementary musical literacy, learning to play a musical instrument, and the development of vocal and creative abilities. there is no doubt that the practice of working in choreographic groups, participation in the work of educational dance groups, and performances in concert programs of various levels, festivals, competitions, and olympiads are of great importance. the practical experience gained by university students has a positive effect on their professional development and enables the formation of universal and professional values, is a significant factor in solving the problems of artistic and aesthetic education of young people and the formation of interpretive competence of the future choreography teacher. it is quite clear that an important factor in the formation of interpretative competence is participation in joint creative projects and observation of performances, analysis of stage performances and the level of choreographic skill of other professional and amateur groups. there is no doubt that the involvement of future teachers of choreography in active creative activity in choreographic collectives enables the development of a creative idea regarding the creation of a choreographic work with a certain dance image, which includes the choice of expressive means, the search for a compositional solution, the search for a unified style, the use of possible artistic and choreographic techniques. it is quite natural that in the process of active creative activity, the experience of stage performance skills is formed in future teachers of choreography, which has a positive effect on the development of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 11 published by scholink inc. choreographic thinking. in addition, the experience of collective responsibility, creativity, the ability to work in a team and to treat the suggestions and opinions of one’s comrades with respect, to show creative initiative in discussing certain problematic issues, and to treat folklore traditions and the heritage of previous generations with respect are formed. 3.4 intellectual and creative nature of the choreographer’s activity special attention should be paid to the intellectual and creative nature of the activity of a choreographer who accumulates experience working with choreographic groups, acquired knowledge, skills and abilities in the field of choreographic art and the ability to quickly and appropriately use them in the staging of new choreographic performances, as well as in the interpretation of a stage and artistic image or the compositional construction of a choreographic action. note that the basis of intellectual and creative activity is a genetically determined property of the nervous system, which determines the speed and accuracy of information processing, the representation of the process and the final result, with the help of which the stage-art image is constructed. therefore, it is quite clear that during the production of dance numbers, the individual level of intelligence of the choreographer is revealed, its influence on the participants of the creative process is determined, who intuitively perceive the intellectual and creative energy of their leader and, under the influence of energy impulses, reproduce the individual style of the author of the work or the peculiarities of folklore traditions of representatives of different nationalities and countries of the world. it is quite natural that the experience of the intellectual and creative activity of a choreography teacher is formed in the process of creative work with a choreographic team, during which the activation of emotional and volitional processes takes place, which require the activation of thinking, imagination, attention, memory, perception, feeling, that is, those mental processes that affect the final result of the product of creativity, the creation of a new choreographic composition that is unique, original, and unique. the famous psychologist l. vygotsky emphasized that “we call creative activity that creates something new”. therefore, it is natural that the higher the intellectual and creative potential of an artist, the more original and unique the consequences of his creative activity. this is evidenced by the performances of choreographic compositions and dances by famous choreographers, including: v. s. bosiy, m. m. vantukh, p. p. virskyi, a. e. korotkov, a. m. kryvokhizha, o. i. litvinov, d. v. matvienko, r. v. poklitaru, v. f. pokhilenko, h. m. chapkis, v. m. yama. valuable from the point of view of the study of the mentioned definition is the opinion that the formation of the interpretive competence of future teachers of choreography depends on the development of their artistic thinking, the essence of which is to foresee and forecast a situation of success, in which the viewer receives aesthetic pleasure from communication with works of choreographic art. the level of development of artistic thinking, i.e., thinking in terms of categories and symbols of choreographic art, determines the extent to which the teacher-choreographer is oriented in the issues of theory and practice of choreographic art. the final result of staging a stage action depends www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. on the depth and scope of artistic thinking. the essence, main characteristics and functions of artistic thinking are revealed through aesthetic culture, through the peculiarities of perception and evaluation of works of choreographic art, through the identification of the commonality and specificity of various types and genres of choreography. the study of the specified aspects of the intellectual and creative nature of the activity of choreography teachers makes it possible to determine the essence of artistic-figurative thinking as a type of associative-figurative thinking related to this or that genre of choreography, musical accompaniment or reproduction of a stage image in a musical performance. at the same time, it is a process of manipulating thoughts and feelings through the perception of a choreographic-artistic image and personal life experience. 4. discussion in view of what has been said and taking into account the insufficient development of the mentioned issues, let us emphasize that the structural-functional concept of the formation of the interpretive competence of future teachers of choreography in the process of professional training depends to a certain extent on mastering the method of compositional construction of a choreographic work; objectivity in the interpretation of works of choreographic art; professional and practical experience of the interpreter; the intellectual and creative nature of the director’s activity; the level of development of artistic and creative thinking of the teacher-choreographer. prospects for further scientific research may be related to the formation of interpretative competence in certain genres of choreographic art. acknowledgement we are grateful to institutions of higher education and heads of structural divisions for the opportunity to conduct our research with future teachers of choreography for the purpose of forming their interpretive competence in working on choreographic repertoire. references bazarova, n. p. (2009). classic dance. bilukha, m. t. (2002). methodology of scientific research: textbook. kyiv. cherkasov, v. f. (2016). theory and methods of musical education. kyiv. cherkasov, v. f. (2017). fundamentals of scientific research in the musical and educational field. kirovohrad. filipenko, a. s. (2005). fundamentals of scientific research. synopsis of lectures: study guide. kyiv. goldrych, o. s. (2006). methodology of teaching choreography: teaching. lviv. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 13 published by scholink inc. goncharenko, s. u. (n.d.). pedagogical research: methodological advice to young scientists. kyiv, vinnytsia. kovalchuk, v. v., & moiseev, l. m. (2008). fundamentals of scientific research: study guide. kyiv. kryvokhizha, a. m. (2005). harmony of dance: educational method. manual for pedagogic students education institutions. kirovohrad. pehota, o. m., & yermakova, i. p. (2012). basics of pedagogical research: from a student to a scientific school: educational and methodological manual. mykolaiv. tsekhmistrova, g. s. (2006). fundamentals of scientific research. kyiv. tsvetkova, l. yu. (2005). methodology of teaching classical dance: textbook. kyiv. vaganova, a. ya. (2000). fundamentals of classical dance (6th ed.). st. petersburg. vasylenko, k. yu. (2000). composition of ukrainian folk stage dance. kyiv. vygotsky, l. s. (1987). psychology of art. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 113 original paper california greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets (2030 and 2050): trends, projections and analysis oscar wambuguh, m.sc., ph.d.1* 1 department of health sciences, california state university, east bay, 25800 carlos bee blvd., hayward, ca 94542, usa * oscar wambuguh, department of health sciences, california state university, east bay, 25800 carlos bee blvd., hayward, ca 94542, usa received: september 3, 2020 accepted: september 13, 2020 online published: september 18, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p113 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p113 abstract fossil fuels are the primary sources of energy powering economic development globally. increased fossil fuel consumption produces greenhouse gas emissions (ghg) which build in the atmosphere and trap heat irradiated from the earth. the increased concentration of these gases causes global warming and extensive climate disruptions. this study examined ghg emissions data from 2000-2017 to evaluate whether california will meet ghg emissions reduction target of 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 as mandated by california’s executive order b-30-15. california’s ability to reduce ghg emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 (executive order s-3-05) was also evaluated. results indicate that transportation, electric power, industrial and commercial/residential) ghg emissions reductions declined by small magnitudes in the 18-year period (0.17% to 2.49%). in agriculture, refrigerant and recycling/waste agencies, emissions reductions increased in the 18-year period (0.08% to 0.8%). for 2030 and 2050 emissions reductions targets, no emissions category sector will achieve the targeted reduction. the highest emissions reduction amounts discrepancies between observed and expected were in transportation, industrial and commercial/residential sectors (2030); and in transportation, industrial and agricultural facilities (2050). an analysis of current trends and technological developments in each emissions sector is presented to guide and structure future emissions target reductions. keywords ghg emissions, mmtco2e, reduction targets, cap and trade, fossil fuels, decarbonization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 114 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction global economic growth is directly linked to increased energy consumption. international efforts to limit the increase in global mean temperature to well below 2°c and to “pursue efforts” to avoid a 1.5°c temperature rise requires a transition to net-zero emissions energy systems by 2050 (tong et al., 2019). for the past five decades, the main sources of energy powering economic development in many countries have primarily been fossil fuels that include oil, coal and natural gas. increased fossil fuel consumption produces gas emissions like co2, methane (ch4), water vapor, nitrous oxide (n2o), and ozone (o3). these gases rise into the atmosphere and prevent (or trap) heat irradiated from the earth from escaping into the outer reaches of the atmosphere. increased concentration of these gases causes global warming which brings about extensive climate disruptions (climate change). climate change is a change of climate attributable directly or indirectly to human activity, which in addition to existing natural climate variability, alters the composition of the global atmosphere for extended long periods of time typically decades (unfccc, 2020a). climate changes affects the planet in a variety of ways including altering global wind circulation patterns and ocean current cycles. these changes cause extensive rainfall disruptions in many areas causing drought, severe heat waves, extended rainfall, severe hurricanes, and extensive fires in many parts of the globe. due to the expected impacts of climate change, progress achieved in global population health in recent decades is at risk of reversal (watts et al., 2018). climate change is already contributing to higher air pollution levels, deforestation, ocean acidification, increased wildfires, expansive droughts, intense heat waves and sea-level rise, which threaten the health and livelihoods of citizens (euc, 2020). vulnerable populations like indigenous peoples and people whose mode of existence is primarily reliance on agriculture and other regions such as small island developing states and the arctic, are more vulnerable to its impacts (watts et al., 2018). similarly, efforts by countries in achieving key sustainable development goals (sdgs) under the united nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development are seriously curtailed by climate change (un, 2020). climate change affects world food production, disease vectors that are agents of disease, biodiversity, and damage to marine and freshwater environments like coral reef bleaching. for example, the world health organization (who) estimates that without climate adaptation, nearly 7.5 million more cases of stunted children by 2030 and 10.1 million by 2050 due to undernutrition caused by decreased food supply (who, 2020). with a mission of reducing their reliance on non-renewable sources of energy like coal and oil, many countries have been seeking alternative sources of renewable energy like solar, nuclear, geothermal, wind and hydropower. in addition to developing renewable energy, under the united nations inter-continental panel of climate change (ipcc), many countries have vowed to stabilize their greenhouse gas emissions to sustainable levels and eventually carbon neutrality. as noted by haszeldine et al., there are three options for humanity in how to deal with the impacts of climate change: 1) do nothing, and await practical consequences; 2) develop and deploy engineering www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 115 published by scholink inc. technologies to increase reflectance of solar radiation; and 3) reduce the rate of co2 emission and recapture large quantities of co2 already emitted (2018). to respond to the challenges posed by climate change, two main strategies have been adopted by many countries: mitigation and adaptation. mitigation refers to the reduction of magnitude of future climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions like developing renewable energy sources, reduction of energy consumption, and enhancing greenhouse gas sinks like afforestation (ipcc, 2014). adaptation refers to preparation and dealing with the negative consequences of climate change (for example, protecting coastal zones from sea-level rise) as well as taking advantage of the positive consequences of climate change (increased food production in areas are too arid for agriculture) (demski et al., 2017). climate neutral now (cnn) is an “initiative launched by un climate change in 2015 to encourage everyone in society to take action to help achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century, as enshrined in the paris agreement”. (unfccc, 2020b). according to unfccc, the inter-governmental panel on climate change (ipcc)—operating under the unfccc umbrella—works with governments, non-governmental organizations, and citizens towards global climate neutrality by addressing their own climate footprint in three main ways: 1) monitoring greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint); 2) deciding on actions that will reduce those emissions; and, 3) compensating for those emissions that cannot be avoided using un certified emissions reductions (a form of carbon credit) (unfccc, 2020b). as per the 2015 paris accord, the ipcc advocated emissions reduction targets of 80% below 1990 emission levels to stabilize global greenhouse emissions to a sustainable level. the majority of countries in europe are striving for between 60% to 80% reduction by 2050. more than 110 countries representing up to 75% of global emissions have ratified the paris accord agreeing to work together to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to slow global warming. this sustained progress would ensure reduction of greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to a steady state where by 2100 greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are approximately constant or decreasing (erickson, 2017). in the united states, a number of states have adopted the same emission reduction measures tweaked to accommodate the needs of state governments, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and private citizens. as of 2020, the center for climate and energy solutions notes that 23 states and the district of columbia have implemented statewide greenhouse gas reduction targets (cces, 2020). despite the withdrawal of the us from the paris accord, these states have vowed to uphold the u.s. commitment of reducing emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 (cces, 2020). in the state of california (ca), the former governor arnold schwarzenegger issued executive order s-3-05 of 2005, to reduce greenhouse gases by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. in april 2015, governor edmund gerald “jerry” brown signed executive order b-30-15 to reduce emissions to 40% below 1990 by year 2030. this legislation was enacted to ensure that california’s 2050 commitments (as per eo s-3-05) remain on target. according to the california air resources board (carb), ca www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 116 published by scholink inc. has made tremendous strides in reducing harmful air pollutants and cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions from industry, energy production, transportation and other sources (carb, 2020a). to ensure sustained progress in emissions reduction, the carb has maintained annual greenhouse gas (ghc) inventories from the year 2000. the california global warming solutions act of 2006 (ab 32) requires reporting of ghg emissions by major sources. excluding natural ghg sources, this inventory provides estimates of anthropogenic emissions within the state in addition to emissions associated with imported electricity. maintaining and updating california's ghg inventory is a charge given by the state to carb (arb, 2020b). the inventory includes estimates for carbon dioxide (co2), methane (ch4), nitrous oxide (n2o), and fluorinated gases with long lifetimes and high global warming potentials (high-gwp) like hydrofluorocarbons (hfcs), perfluorocarbons (pfcs), sulfur hexafluoride (sf6), and nitrogen trifluoride (nf3) (carb, 2020a). starting in 2009, emissions reporting in ca requires independent verification of ghg emissions data reports by carb-accredited verification bodies. the carb provides annual webinar training sessions regarding emissions requirements so that corporations and entities producing emissions can participate. in 2017, california’s most recent inventory data shows annual emissions measured at 424 mmtco2e. the changing climate has particularly affected the state in many ways: 1) worsening wildfires which are destroying lives, property, and disrupting businesses; 2) prolonged dry spells and droughts especially between the years 2012-2016; 3) with more than 840 miles of coast line and at least 85% of californians living/working in coastal counties, there is significant risk of sea level rise and flooding; 4) resulting health consequences of droughts, wildfires and flooding; 5) california accounts for over 13% of the nation's total agricultural value, thus disruption of the state’s food supply is a big concern; and, 6) there are significant effects on natural ecosystems primarily disruption of life-support systems and wildlife species. reviewing the emissions data reduction rates from various sources between 2010-2017, this study hypothesized that the carb’s 2030 emissions reduction targets (40% below 1990 levels; and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050) on state of emission reduction as required by the executive order b-30-15, would not be met if the current rates of reductions continue. using the current rates of emissions reductions observed in the last 18 years as a baseline, the study made future projections about meeting the 2030 and 2050 targets. an analysis of current trends and technological developments in the transportation industry, power generation and use, general industry, commercial and residential sector, and the agricultural, refrigerant and waste/recycling sectors are presented. it is hoped that these suggestions will help the state authorities and agencies contributing to emissions develop strategies to boost the annual rates of emissions reductions in the years ahead. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 117 published by scholink inc. 2. method using the emissions data from 2000-2017, the study’s first null hypothesis was that the total yearly greenhouse gas emissions observed in each emissions category from 2018 to 2030, were no different from those expected if california met the executive order b-30-15 (eo) interim greenhouse gas reduction target of 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. reaching this interim 2030 target would ensure california meets its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 (executive order s-3-05). the chi-square goodness of fit test (zar, 2009) was used to test whether there were differences between the observed and expected emissions reduction rates between 2018-2030. the study’s second null hypothesis was that the total yearly greenhouse gas emissions observed in each emissions category from 2018 to 2050, were no different from those expected if california met the executive order s-3-05 of 2005 with a greenhouse gas reduction target of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. the chi-square goodness of fit test (zar, 2009) was used to test whether there were differences between the observed and expected emissions reduction rates between 2018-2050. existing carb data from 2000-2017 was reviewed from each emission category (agencies in transportation, electric power, industrial, commercial and residential, agriculture, agencies producing gases with high warming potentials, and recycling/waste agencies). the following parameters were noted and used in the statistics calculated: i. the 1990 total emissions given by carb for california was 427 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (mmtco2e). ii. total emissions for 2017 amounted to 424 mmtco2e, which is not significantly different from the total emissions amount in 1990 of 427 mmtco2e. thus, the 1990 amounts were used to project annual percentage emissions for each category (transportation, electric power, industrial, etc.). iii. the annual mean percentages for each category were then calculated and used to project reduction rates for the years 2018-2030 assuming they would remain the same (observed reductions). assuming the carb projected 40% reduction by 2030, emissions reductions for the period 2018-2030 were calculated using the mean percentages for each category (expected reductions). assuming the carb projected 80% reduction by 2050, the mean percentages for each category were used to calculate the observed and expected reductions for the period 2018-2050. with these calculations, the questions guiding this study were: 1) were the observed 2030 emissions reductions in each category different from those expected with the projected 40% below 1990 levels? 2) if the differences were significant, ca would not meet the targeted emissions reductions proposed by the arb by 2030. how short were the emission amounts relative to the 2030 target? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 118 published by scholink inc. how long would it take ca to reach the 2030 targets assuming the same rates of reduction as observed? 3) likewise, were the observed 2050 emissions reductions in each category different from those expected with the projected 80% below 1990 levels? 4) if the differences were significant, ca would not meet the targeted emissions reductions proposed by the arb by 2050. how short were the emission amounts relative to the 2050 target? how long would it take ca to reach the 2050 targets assuming the same rates of reduction as observed? 5) what annual reductions amounts would be required if ca were to meet the 2050 reduction targets (80% below 1990 levels)? 6) what mitigation actions would be needed for ca to stay on the 2050 target (cap/trade, carbon tax, education, monitoring, incentives, funding [loans, grants], policy changes, and others)? 3. result using the available carb data for the years 2000-2017 annual mean percentage reductions for each category were calculated as shown (table 1). in four of the categories (transportation, electric power, industrial and commercial/residential) emissions reductions declined in the 18-year period, although only by small magnitudes (0.17% to 2.49%). in the other three categories (agriculture, refrigerant and recycling/waste agencies) emissions reductions had increased in the 18-year period (0.08% to 0.8%). table 1. annual mean percentage reductions for various ghg emissions categories category mean % emissions reduction transportation -0.32 electric power -2.49 industrial -0.47 commercial and residential -0.17 agriculture 0.08 high global warming potential 0.8 recycling and waste 0.09 the mean percentage emissions reduction rates calculated in the various emissions categories (table 2) indicate that by the year 2030, no emissions category will have achieved the targeted reduction. the three highest emissions reduction amounts discrepancies between observed and expected were found in transportation, industrial and commercial/residential facilities. the three highest percentage differences between the observed and expected reductions were found in hgw potential emissions industries which emit gases like r-22—the most common refrigerant today; recycling/waste generation agencies; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 119 published by scholink inc. and agriculture (table 2). overall, there was a significant difference between the observed and expected emissions reduction amounts for 2030 (chi-square=86.44, dg=6, p<<0.05). this significance disproves the first hypothesis of this study of no difference between total observed and expected mean emissions reductions by year 2030. table 2. observed and expected emissions reductions in various categories (assuming 40% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2030; units in mmtco2e) 2030 40% below 1990 emissions category observed expected difference % short transportation 162.95 101.61 61.34 37.6 electric power 44.94 36.51 8.43 18.8 industrial 84.08 53.39 30.7 36.5 commercial and residential 40.2 24.62 15.58 38.8 agriculture 32.75 19.46 13.29 40.6 high global warming potential 22.07 12.04 10.04 45.5 recycling and waste 9.01 5.35 3.66 40.7 total 396 252.96 assuming the mean emissions reduction rates observed between 2000-2017 persist, commercial/residential agencies, transportation agencies, and industry would take the longest time to achieve the 2030 emissions reduction targets (286, 147 and 96 years respectively, table 3). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 120 published by scholink inc. table 3. projected emissions reductions durations in various categories (estimated using the mean percentage emissions reduction rates observed between 2000-2017 [to reach 40% of 1990 emissions levels by 2030]; units in mmtco2e) emissions category 2030 duration (years) year achieved (emission rates) (following current reduction rates) (40% emission levels reached) transportation 162.95 147 2177 electric power 44.94 83 2113 industrial 84.08 96 2126 commercial and residential 40.2 286 2316 agriculture 32.75 ** ** high global warming potential 22.07 ** ** recycling and waste 9.01 ** ** ** mean percentage reduction rates increased between 2000-2017 (thus ignored in these projections) if current emissions reduction trends continue as observed in the period 2000-2017, the mean percentage emissions reduction rates in the various emissions categories indicate that by the year 2050, no emissions category will have achieved the targeted reduction (table 4). the three highest emissions reduction amounts discrepancies between observed and expected were found in transportation, industrial and agricultural facilities. commercial/residential facilities emissions reductions were a distant fourth. the three highest percentage differences between the observed and expected reductions were found in industrial, transportation and electric power generation facilities (table 4). overall, there was a significant difference between the observed and expected emissions reduction amounts for 2050 (chi-square=2345, dg=6, p<<0.05). this highly significant result disproves the first hypothesis of this study of no difference between total observed and expected mean emissions reductions by year 2050. table 4. observed and expected emissions reductions in various categories (assuming 80% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2050; units in mmtco2e) 2050 80% below 1990 emissions category observed expected difference % short transportation 152.81 15.5 137.31 89.9 electric power 27.11 5.56 21.55 79.5 industrial 76.51 5.69 70.82 92.6 commercial and residential 38.85 15.37 23.47 60.4 agriculture 33.29 8.15 25.14 75.5 high global warming potential 25.89 7.78 18.1 69.6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 121 published by scholink inc. recycling and waste 9.18 3.75 5.43 59.2 total 363.64 61.81 137.31 89.9 assuming the mean emissions reduction rates observed between 2000-2017 persist, transportation agencies, industrial and commercial/residential facilities would take the longest time to achieve the 2050 emissions reduction targets (713, 556 and 542 years respectively, table 5). table 5. projected emissions reductions durations of four categories** with decreasing emission reductions (estimated using the mean percentage emissions reduction rates observed between 2000-2017 [to reach 80% of 1990 emissions levels by 2050]; units in mmtco2e) emissions category 2050 duration (years) year achieved (emission rates) (following current reduction rates) (80% emission levels reached) transportation 152.81 713 2763 electric power 27.11 63 2113 industrial 76.51 556 2606 commercial and residential 38.85 542 2592 ** four categories highlighted because of their steady emissions reduction progress between 2000-2017 to reach the targeted 2050 emissions reduction levels of 80% below the 1990 levels, the seven ghg emission categories must have annual emissions reductions of at least the amounts shown in the column labelled “expected reductions/year” for the years 2018-2050 (table 6). to reduce overall emissions reductions to the targeted 2050 levels, the greatest emissions reductions achievements must be realized in three main categories: transportation, industrial and electric power. the mean emissions reduction amounts per category based on the 2000-2017 levels are shown in the last column. while mean emissions reductions were decreasing annually by the amounts shown in the last column for the first four categories (negative), the mean amounts were increasing in the last three categories (agriculture, hgw potential, and recycling/waste). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 122 published by scholink inc. table 6. expected annual emissions reductions by category between 2018-2050 based on the 2017 emissions reduction amounts (units in mmtco2e) 2050 (80% below 1990 levels) 2017 (emission levels) expected emissions reduction amounts to reach 2050 target (totals) expected reductions (per year) observed mean reduction rates (per year) transportation 15.49 169.91 154.4 4.67 -0.58 electric power 5.56 62.43 56.84 1.72 -2.36 industrial 5.69 89.44 83.71 2.53 -0.44 commercial and residential 15.37 41.12 25.73 0.78 -0.16 agriculture 8.15 32.45 24.25 0.73 0.08 high global warming potential 7.78 19.96 12.12 0.37 0.76 recycling and waste 3.75 8.97 5.15 0.16 0.09 projections indicate that for ca to reach its 2050 emissions targets of 80% below 1990 levels by the year 2050, total annual emissions must be reduced by the percentages shown for the next 33 years (table 7/figure 1). for comparison, the actual total percentage emissions reductions per year are shown (assuming emissions reduction rates remain the same as in the period 2000-2017). table 7. actual and required total annual percentage emissions reduction in each emissions category between 2018-2050 (to achieve 80% total emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2050) year total% required emissions reductions total% projected emissions reductions year total% required emissions reductions total% projected emissions reductions 2018 2.59 0.57 2036 4.85 0.45 2019 2.66 0.56 2037 5.09 0.44 2020 2.73 0.55 2038 5.37 0.44 2021 2.81 0.54 2039 5.67 0.43 2022 2.89 0.54 2040 6.01 0.43 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 123 published by scholink inc. 2023 2.97 0.53 2041 6.4 0.42 2024 3.06 0.52 2042 6.83 0.42 2025 3.16 0.52 2043 7.34 0.41 2026 3.26 0.51 2044 7.92 0.41 2027 3.37 0.5 2045 8.6 0.4 2028 3.49 0.5 2046 9.41 0.4 2029 3.62 0.49 2047 10.38 0.39 2030 3.75 0.48 2048 11.59 0.39 2031 3.9 0.48 2049 13.1 0.38 2032 4.06 0.47 2050 15.08 0.38 2033 4.23 0.47 2034 4.42 0.46 2035 4.62 0.45 year figure 1. actual and required total annual percentage emissions reductions in each emissions category between 2018-2050 (so as to achieve 80% total emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2050) 4. discussion reduction of greenhouse gas emissions greatly improves ambient air quality. policies to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions can yield public health benefits by also reducing emissions of hazardous co-pollutants, such as air toxics and particulate matter. although projected required total % emissions reductions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 124 published by scholink inc. ghgs like carbon dioxide impacts health indirectly through alterations of climate, they are not directly harmful due to the typically low outdoor concentrations they are commonly found (cushing et al., 2018). however, ghg emissions from fossil fuels combustion are accompanied by other hazardous co-pollutants such as particulate matter (pm), ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (nox), and volatile organic compounds (vocs) that cause increases in mortality due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases (cushing et al., 2018). the shortand long-term health benefits accruing from decreases in ghg emissions from fossil fuel combustion greatly improve local air quality; and evidence that the economic cost savings of reduced air-pollution-related illnesses and death outweighs the costs of ghg mitigation abounds (smith & haigler, 2008; nemet et al., 2010). air pollutants have been implicated in cancer etiology, premature mortality, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease; aggravate existing chronic conditions like type-2 diabetes; and raise risks of alzheimer's disease and dementia (apte et al., 2015; erickson & jennings, 2017; erickson, 2017). air quality regulations in the us in the past two decades have greatly reduced emissions from traditional polluting sources, such as sulfur dioxide (so2) and nitrogen oxides (nox) from coal-fired power plants and on-road transportation. resulting from these emission reductions, the national average annual particulate matter concentration has declined by 42% from 2000 to 2015 (epa, 2019). the results of this study clearly indicate that unless the state of california changes course in emissions reductions in the years ahead with more focused strategies (discussed below); it will not meet the targeted (and ipcc-agreed) emissions reductions by 2030, 2050 and beyond as anticipated. while emissions reductions in all categories were challenging during the 18-year period, there was some progress in transportation, electric power, industrial and commercial/residential categories. however, as shown in tables 1 and 2, the actual reductions are not enough to meet targets. according to carb, the overall trends demonstrate that the carbon intensity of california’s economy (the amount of carbon pollution per million dollars of gross domestic product [gdp]) is declining. carb asserts that from 2000 to 2017, the carbon intensity of california’s economy has decreased by 41 percent from 2001 peak emissions while simultaneously increasing gdp by 52 percent (2020a). however, this is just a positive way of looking at emissions trends—since a decline in economic output hurts jobs and people’s livelihoods. it is difficult to anticipate a situation where jobs will be preserved as the economy grows while at the same time emissions reductions are significantly declining. this study found that if current mean emissions trends in each sector persist in the decades ahead, california total ghg emissions will be short of targets by 143 mmtco2e (in 2030, table 2) and 302 mmtco2e (in 2050, table 4). this is consistent with what other studies have reported. for example, the 11th annual california green innovation index that california will meet its 2030 climate targets more than three decades late (in 2061) and could be more than 100 years late in meeting its 2050 target if the average rate of emissions reductions from the past year persists (next 10, 2020). the discussion below www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 125 published by scholink inc. will focus on current trends and developments in each of the sectors contributing most to us and california’s total co2 emissions. in the light of this study, an analysis of the current us and global technological trends and developments is presented to help inform conversations regarding boosting emissions reductions in the future. transportation sector transportation activities accounted for 28.8 % of u.s. greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. the largest sources of transportation greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 were passenger cars (41.3%); freight trucks (22.7%); light-duty trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans (17.8%); commercial aircraft (6.5%); other aircraft (3.1%); ships and boats (2.4%); rail (2.2%); and pipelines (2.2%) (epa, 2020). the sector remains the largest source of ghg emissions in california and for the 18-year period mean emissions reductions were only 0.32 mmtco2e per year (table 1). it remains about 38% short of meeting the emissions reduction target for 2030 (table 2); and 90% short of meeting the 2050 target (of emissions 80% below 1990 levels, table 4). with the business-as-usual model (mean emissions reductions tagged at 0.32 mmtco2e), it will take 147 years to reach the 2030 targets (year 2177); and 713 years to reach the 2050 target (year 2763). as noted by carb, direct emissions from vehicle tailpipe, off-road transportation mobile sources, intrastate aviation, rail, and watercraft account for 40 % of statewide emissions in 2017. about 90 % of emissions in the transportation sector come from passenger vehicles (69%) and heavy-duty vehicles (22%). the remaining emissions have come from a variety of other sources, including ships, airplanes, and rail (taylor, 2018; carb, 2020b). since vehicle transportation is responsible for most of the emissions (smog and particulates in the air) in urban areas, the quality of air can substantially be improved by electric and (to a lesser extent) hybrid vehicle technology. california can remain hopeful since electric vehicle technology has dramatically increased in many countries in the last decade. to its advantage, one major electric car company (tesla) is based in california. according to industry sources, tesla sold 245,240 vehicles in 2018; and about 145,846 of this total were “model 3s”, the company's midsize, four-door sedan that started production in 2017 (carsalesbase, 2020). the international energy association (iea) estimates that in 2018, the global electric car fleet exceeded 5.1 million, up 2 million from the previous year and almost doubling the number of new electric car sales (2020). the world’s largest electric car market is the people’s republic of china, followed by europe (e.g., in norway more than 25% of new car sales are electric vehicles) and the us (iea, 2020). in the us, combined local and global sales have increased by 518% between 2012-2016 (erickson, 2017). at least 40% of those sales are reported to be in the state of california where air quality control is more stringent than the rest of the us. for example, by 2045 california expects all commercial trucks to be electric as they account for 70% of pollution and 80% of diesel soot, despite numbering only 2 million of the roughly 30 million vehicles registered in california (gcr, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 126 published by scholink inc. a number of policies (including in california), have been enacted nationwide to help with ghg emissions reductions within the transportation network. these have focused on use of lower carbon fuels (including biofuels, advanced diesel, natural gas, hydrogen [for fuel cells], and electricity), targeted programs for lightand heavy-duty vehicles, and overall reduction of miles travelled per vehicle. the state has provide financial assistance to fuel consumers, vehicle manufacturers and fuel producers within the transportation industry willing to adopt lower emissions technologies, while others have focused on raising costs for using higher emissions technologies. however, despite these policies, emissions reductions are still lower than need to be to meet published 2030, 2045 and 2050 emissions targets. despite the slow progress in emissions reductions observed in california particularly in the transportation sector, there are several reasons to remain optimistic. battery technology has greatly improved as seen in the development of solid state batteries that do not have liquid electrolytes raising the potential to increase energy density and reduce cost (motavalli, 2015). these batteries have increased the range of new cars compared to earlier models and prices of new electric vehicles have declined. the development of ev charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is fast changing making travel distances of more than 200 miles possible with electric vehicles. the installation of electric vehicle supply equipment (evse) to allow fast charging along major highways, workplace and at home are the three most important infrastructure needs (erickson et al., 2017). newer developments like solar technology and wireless charging (where the electric vehicle is parked over a pad) added to this growing evse infrastructure, are added incentives to attract consumers to evs and increase sales. other incentives that will improve ev adoptions are solar energy storage in parking facilities in offices, schools, sports and entertainment events that attract many people. as is already happening—albeit at a slower pace—california must remain at the forefront of all these developments by incentivizing, financing, adopting, mandating, and monitoring incorporation of these new technologies within the transportation network. electric power sector according to carb, emissions from the electric power sector comprise 15 % of 2017 statewide ghg emissions divided into two broad categories: emissions from in-state power generation (including cogeneration emissions) and emissions from imported electricity (2020a). for the 18-year period (2000-2017) mean emissions reductions in the electric sector were the highest in all sectors at about 2.49 million metric tons of co2e per year (table 1). despite this, electric power utilities remain about 19% short of meeting the emissions reductions target for 2030 (table 2); and 80% short of meeting the 2050 target (of emissions 80% below 1990 levels, table 4). with the business-as-usual model (mean emissions reductions tagged at 2.49 mmtco2e), it will take 83 years to reach the 2030 targets (year 2113); and 63 years to reach the 2050 target (year 2113). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 127 published by scholink inc. one critical front helping california with emissions reductions is the increased adoption of renewable energy sources. california leads the nation in electricity production from renewable energy sources primarily solar, geothermal and biomass (useia, 2020a). in the decades ahead, the continued development of renewable energy alternatives (especially wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower) will remain a major force in greenhouse gas emissions reductions. the retirements of older, less-efficient fossil fuel units, availability of renewable energy tax credits, and the continued decline in the capital cost of renewables will fuel increased adoption of clean energy in the years ahead. projections show that by 2050, renewable energy will contribute about 38% of total electricity generation in the us comprised of solar (46%), wind (33%), hydropower (14%) and geothermal (3%) sources (useia, 2020b). california state legislature already passed senate bill 350 (2015), which requires all utilities in the state to source half of their electricity sales from clean, renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, and bio-power by 2030. referred to as the renewables portfolio standard (rps) program, the bill requires that 60% of retail sales of electricity in california come from eligible renewable resources by 2030, and 100% by 2045. the rps stimulates clean technology investment and innovation, and by ensuring the market for renewable energy in california will continue to grow, it creates a favorable climate for developers, investors, and planners of renewables projects (useia, 2020a). as of 2017, just over half of total generated electricity (in-state and imported) came from zero-ghg sources (solar, wind, hydropower, and nuclear) (carb, 2020a). if this trend is sustained, the state may reach the 2045 target of zero emissions in electricity generation. industrial sector the main industries with the bulk of emissions in california are oil refineries, oil and gas corporations, combined heat and power cogenerating industries, mixed industries utilizing petroleum products, cement, and pipeline. for the year 2017, emissions from the industrial sector contributed 21% of state’s total ghg emissions, with refineries and hydrogen production representing the largest individual source contributing 33% of the sector’s total emissions (carb 2020a). for the 18-year period (2000-2017) mean emissions reductions in the industrial sector were about 0.47 million metric tons of co2e per year (table 1); making this sector about 37% short of meeting the emissions reductions target for 2030 (table 2), and 93% short of meeting the 2050 target (of emissions 80% below 1990 levels, table 4). with the business-as-usual model (mean emissions reductions tagged at 0.47 mmtco2e), it will take 96 years to reach the 2030 targets (year 2126); and 556 years to reach the 2050 target (year 2606). projections up to 2050 indicate that the industrial sector’s energy consumption will grow by about 1.0% per year on average with coal consumption declining, while natural gas and hydrocarbon gas liquids consumption will grow fastest (reflecting strong supply growth and relatively low prices). the bulk chemicals industry (like heat, power and feedstocks) energy use will grow by about 1.6% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 128 published by scholink inc. accounting for about 35% of total u.s. industrial energy consumption by 2050. the iron and steel industry energy use is projected to decline by 19% while the paper industry will increase energy consumption by 11%. other industries like lime and cement, refining, glass and aluminum smelting are projected to remain stable in energy use over the same period (useia, 2020c). california’s cap-and-trade program globally, cap-and-trade has emerged as the favorable and main regulatory mechanism for pricing carbon and reducing ghg emissions from large stationary sources that emit more than 25,000 metric tons of co2e per year (for example, refineries, cement production facilities, oil and gas production facilities, glass manufacturing facilities, and food processing plants) (carb, 2020c). the program achieves the goals of economic development and carbon emissions reduction through both government and market regulation (jiang et al., 2019). the california cap-and-trade system allows carb to set an allowable total amount of emissions over a certain period and issue tradable emission permits. the program is estimated to account for less than 20% of all emission reductions under ab 32 (carb, 2020c). california’s program is very similar to other cap-and-trade programs, although at the practical level several detailed differences reflect active efforts by california policy-makers to avoid flaws perceived in other similar systems such as the world’s largest carbon pricing regime (european union emissions trading system), and the us east coast’s regional greenhouse gas initiative (bang et al., 2017). the program regulates carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated ghgs from power plants, refineries, industrial facilities, fuel suppliers, and other entities that emit over 25,000 metric tons of co2e of ghgs per year, not including biogenic co2 (cushing et al., 2018; carb, 2020c). under a cap-and-trade system, regulated companies must surrender tradable emission permits (called “allowances”) equal to the amount of ghgs they emit. typically, one allowance equals one metric ton of co2 equivalent (co2e). to ensure accumulated gains over time, the cap on emissions is set by the total allowances issued designed to decrease over time. the program creates a powerful economic incentive for significant investment in cleaner, more efficient technologies and applies to emissions that cover approximately 80 % of the state’s ghg emissions (carb, 2020c). it reduces ghg emissions from major sources by setting a firm cap on statewide ghg emissions while employing market mechanisms to cost-effectively achieve the emission-reduction goals. the total number of allowances provided by carb each year is equivalent to the annual allowance budget specified by ab32. as described by carb (2020c), three types of ghg emissions are covered by the cap-and-trade program: local direct emissions within the state, indirect emissions from electricity imported from outside state, and geographically distributed emissions from fuels such as gasoline and natural gas which started in 2015. beginning in 2013, industries were required to hold allowances equal to their ghg emissions (1 allowance=1 metric ton of co2e). during the first compliance period of 2013-2014, more than 90% of allowances were freely allocated, with the balance auctioned or reserved for price www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 129 published by scholink inc. containment. to meet a cumulative ghg reduction target of 15% from 2015 to 2020, the total number of allowances in circulation (“cap”) was planned to decrease by 3%-3.5% annually. companies could also meet 8% of their compliance obligation by purchasing ghg emission reduction credits generated by offset projects located in the us (1 offset=1 metric ton of co2e). regulated firms could be required or incentivized to purchase offsets that are linked to local projects that reduce ghg emissions, while also improving air quality in the regions where their facilities are located. such local offset projects could include electrification of railyards and ports, cleaning up truck fleets, development of solar cell parking roof arrays, or financing retrofits to reduce ghgs and co-pollutant emissions from other local emission sources. such local offset projects could enhance government oversight and promote community partnerships in project monitoring and emission verification. nevertheless, offsets have been cited as capable of undermining improvements to local air pollution by undercutting financial incentives for industries to reduce emissions on site (cushing et al., 2018). cutbacks in the use of more carbon intensive energy sources imported from outside the state (such as electricity generated from coal-fired rather than natural gas power plants) could also be used by regulated entities to meet emission reduction goals in lieu of in-state reductions (carb, 2020c). the cap-and-trade program also covers fuel distributors (natural gas/propane fuel providers and transportation fuel providers) to address emissions from transportation fuels and from combustion of other fossil fuels. facilities that do not adhere to program requirements are subject to stringent penalties (carb, 2020c). as has been observed in the european union, emissions permits are readily affordable for most sectors thus failing to incentivize polluters to reduce carbon emissions, and invest in abatement technology. monitoring compliances and enforcement by carb has not been consistent, plus the complex and unnecessarily costly red tape industry has to go through in their emissions reporting. carb must ensure that industrial operators use the most cost-effective emissions-reducing technologies to curb emissions to air, water and soil. as seen in the european union, carbon prices are not market competitive perhaps due to oversupply of permits and/or decreased demand due to decarbonization among regulated polluters. as long as carbon markets are not viewed by industry as effective and credible regulatory policy for the future, it will not be enough to industrial-distance from carbon-intensive production (cushing et al., 2018; bayer & aklin, 2020). the overall number of emissions allowances in the california’s cap-and-trade program need to be lowered to increase the pace for emissions cuts. for example, the european union’s emissions trading system plans to lower allowances by 26% starting 2021 (eu, 2020). funding must be made available to accelerate the development of promising innovative technologies and breakthrough creativity in the industrial sector. the current achievements of the cap-and-trade program (among other measures) can hardly be viewed as successful in cutting emissions judging from the mean percentage emissions reductions from various sectors as reported in this study (table 1). research suggests raising the minimum price for permits that industries must purchase under the state’s cap-and-trade law to emit www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 130 published by scholink inc. greenhouse gases. analysts note that carbon price generates favorable economic and social impacts, but policymakers express concerns over a political backlash if prices rise too much or too fast (busch & orvis, 2020). economic benefits due to carbon pricing are caused by the incentive to avoid low-value energy use, which translates to reduced energy consumption. currently, cap-and-trade carbon trading in auctions stand at $19 (2020), projected to be $29 (2030) if current trends continue. the lowest projected carbon price level for 2030 is $26; mid-level $63; and highest level $101 (busch & orvis, 2020). the cap-and-trade market system is far from a perfect mechanism for ghg emissions reductions. efficient climate regulation as has been argued by some economists and environmental justice advocates requires deeper ghg reductions in areas where the health benefits of co-pollutant reductions are maximized. however, as reported by cushing et al. (2018), this cannot be accomplished with the geographically unrestricted trading characteristic of cap-and-trade in which all ghg reductions are treated equally regardless of where they occur. unless the location and co-pollutant intensity of ghg emissions are incorporated into the design of a cap-and-trade system, carbon trading could also potentially widen social inequities in exposure to localized hazardous co-pollutants because ghg-emitting facilities, which are disproportionately located in disadvantaged communities, are able to purchase allowances or offsets rather than reduce their emissions. california’s climate policy could better harmonize efforts to reduce ghgs with improvements to local air quality, and that market-based strategies in general could provide greater overall benefits by incentivizing localized ghg reductions especially in disadvantaged and highly polluted neighborhoods (farber, 2012; boyce & pastor 2013; epa, 2017; cushing et al., 2018; pan et al., 2020). jiang’s et al.’s study (2019) highlighted several other limitations of the california’s cap-and-trade program. first, the potential positive health effects (co-benefits) accruing from the regulation are small, but can be improved by limiting the use of offsets to no more than 49% of total emission reductions (jiang et al., 2019). this according to the study would encourage on-site greenhouse gas reductions, targeting offsets with positive health co-benefits to california’s vulnerable communities, and maximizing the auction of emission allowances. enhanced environmental health surveillance systems to monitor future impacts and to ensure that no population bears a disproportionate health burden from the cap-and-trade program are recommended (jiang et al., 2019). third, cap-and-trade is not designed to lower criteria pollutants but to lower ghg emissions, as observed when entities use offsets to meet their emissions cuts. modifications to the regulation will ensure locational equitability in health benefits. fourth, cap-and-trade offers individual entities a high degree of freedom in attaining emission reduction targets offering flexibility but no health equitability. fifth, the program mitigates climate change but such policies cannot be used to justify exacerbation of existing health disparities in communities which are already challenged by the need for adaptation to climate change (jiang et al., 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 131 published by scholink inc. commercial/residential sector (cr) greenhouse gas emissions from the commercial and residential sectors are dominated by the combustion of fossil fuels in households and commercial businesses such as space heating, cooking, and hot water or steam generation (epa, 2020). residential buildings use energy for cooling, heating, lighting, refrigeration, clothes and dishwashing, cooking, water heating, and appliances. for the 18-year period (2000-2017) mean emissions reductions in this sector were the lowest in all sectors at about 0.17 million metric tons of co2e per year (table 1). as a result, this sector fell 38% short of meeting the emissions reductions target for 2030 (table 2); and 60% short of meeting the 2050 target (of emissions 80% below 1990 levels, table 4). with the business-as-usual model (mean emissions reductions tagged at 0.17 mmtco2e), it will take 286 years to reach the 2030 targets (year 2316); and 542 years to reach the 2050 target (year 2592). the centre for climate and energy solutions (cces) notes that in the last 49 years nationwide, rising population has led to the addition of a net average of 1.4 million completed homes a year, with total stock at 70.3 million as of 2017 (cces, 2020). carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion by the residential sector increased 7.8% from 1990 to 2015 (reflecting a 5.5% decrease in direct, and a 15.4% increase in indirect, emissions). in 2015, more than 85% of the sector’s direct emissions were from on-site fossil-fuel combustion, with most of the remainder resulting from leaks of hydrofluorocarbons commonly used as refrigerants. rising indirect emissions result from increased population, housing stock, and communications technologies in homes. largely due to energy efficiency and improved building codes, residential energy consumption is expected to remain largely unchanged despite population growth projections of 22.8% by 2050 (cces, 2020). commercial buildings use energy for ventilation, lighting, refrigeration, cooking, cooling, water heating, computer and office equipment, and heating. cces estimates that between 1979 to 2012, the number of commercial buildings rose by 40%, and the amount of floor space increased by 70%. further, from 1990 to 2015, total co2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion from the commercial sector increased 20.4%, as direct emissions rose 13.2% and indirect emissions increased 23.3%. in 2015, a little more than half of the direct emissions came from on-site fossil-fuel combustion (cces, 2020). commercial floor space is projected to grow by 40.5% from 2016 to 2050 and commercial energy consumption by 19.7%. direct emissions are projected to rise by 20.4% driven by the increased use of natural gas, while indirect emissions are projected to decrease by 5.9%. while more electricity will be used for information technology and telecommunications, hvac-related electricity use is expected to drop by 33% due to energy efficiency and population migration to the southern and western parts of the us. in addition, lighting intensity is expected to drop 56% due to increased efficiency from led bulbs. on-site electricity generation from solar photovoltaic panels and combined heat and power will also reduce the commercial sector’s demand for grid electricity (cces, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 132 published by scholink inc. the substitution of electricity for direct fossil-fuel combustion and improved energy efficiency, including through wider deployment of “intelligent efficiency” technologies provides major opportunities to decarbonize the buildings sector. however, some fundamental challenges remain including upfront costs, long payback periods, and “split incentives” among builders, owners, and occupants. electrification of end uses will be a key pathway to reducing emissions and using electricity for heating, cooling, and hot water needs, instead of burning natural gas or fuel oil, can greatly reduce a building’s emissions. since buildings undergo several phases over their lifetime, including design, construction, operation, and retrofits, opportunities abound to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions by: 1) adopting more natural lighting, 2) sourcing construction materials with less embodied carbon, 3) changing consumer behavior and electricity usage patterns to reduce energy demand, and, 4) planning major retrofits over the life of the building including improving building envelopes and window insulation to control for air and moisture and optimizing the cost and performance of led lighting (cces, 2020). residential and commercial buildings represent one of the highest energy consumption fields in the world and in developed countries, between 20% and 40% of the total energy consumed relates to buildings (moreno et al., 2014). the benefits of energy-efficient buildings to limit the global temperature rise to “well below 2°c” is imperative—if no action is taken to improve efficiency, global energy demand is projected to rise by 50% by 2050 (foggia, 2018; gan vincent, 2018). energy consumption in buildings emit close to 30% of the co2 emissions, while about 6% of the total emitted pollutants occur as a result of fuel consumption in households. thus, a reduction in a building’s environmental impact can lead to significant environmental benefits (delavar & sahebi, 2020). over time buildings undergo several phases in design, construction, operation, and retrofits, thus, opportunities abound to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions. for example, designing a building to use more natural lighting, using construction materials with less embodied carbon, influencing consumer behavior and electricity usage patterns to reduce energy demand, or planning major retrofits over the life of the building. technological advances can increase energy efficiency by improving building envelopes and window insulation which help control air and moisture flow, and optimizing the cost and performance of led lighting. include many buildings occupants’ lack of awareness and information about energy use will continue to be major challenges in energy efficiency. in addition, many commercial and residential properties monitor energy costs or embed them in rental charges which reduces transparency in energy use frustrating efficiency amongst occupants. most properties have electricity smart meters in the u.s. but there is some resistance experienced in smart metering due to cost, privacy and accuracy concerns. on the positive side, many companies now offer hardware, software, and services to help commercial and residential users benchmark their energy usage against peers to make better-informed decisions (di foggia, 2018; cces, 2020). other challenges encountered are that people who construct, own, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 133 published by scholink inc. occupy buildings will vary over time and buildings undergo different phases over their lifetime. for example, the builder (or owner) of a newly constructed building may not install the most energy efficient appliances or equipment, whereas the buyer or renter will be responsible for energy costs in the facility. this split incentive tends to favor lower upfront costs despite the net lifetime savings that could be achieved through greater energy efficiency. upfront costs may also be an obstacle to switching existing buildings to alternative fuels or technologies such as heat pumps. in both the commercial and residential sectors, potential financial incentives for such investments include: streamlined loan processes, rebates, favorable loan terms, weatherization assistance for low-income households, property assessed clean energy (pace) funds, and tax credits for both installing on-site renewable energy and pursuing specific green building certifications (gan vincent, 2018; cces, 2020; delavar & sahebi, 2020). agriculture, refrigerant and recycling/waste sectors agriculture the three major areas where emissions reductions have slightly increased in the 18-year period from 2000-2017 are agriculture, refrigerant and recycling/waste agencies, table 1. the three sectors were found to be 41%, 46% and 41% respectively short of the 2030-targeted emissions reductions; and 76%, 70% and 59% respectively short of the 2050-targeted emissions reductions (tables 2 & 4). the substantial contribution of food consumption to climate change necessitates urban action to reduce the carbon intensity of the food system, which contributes about 20-30% of global ghg emissions necessitating action to reduce the carbon intensity of food production and consumption (mohareb et al., 2018). greenhouse gas emissions related to agriculture totaled 582 million metric tons in 2017, up slightly from prior-year levels, but down 2% from a decade ago (epa, 2019). productivity in agriculture was 270% greater in 2017 than in 1948, and 136% greater than 1990, while total farm inputs were mostly unchanged from 1948, and only marginally higher than in 1990 (epa, 2019). innovations in animal and crop genetics, chemicals, equipment, and farm organization have enabled continuing output growth without adding much to inputs (usda, 2020). the agriculture end-use sector includes a variety of processes including methane (ch4) and nitrous oxide (n2o) emissions from enteric fermentation in domestic livestock, livestock manure management, rice cultivation, agricultural soil management, and field burning of agricultural residues; as well as carbon dioxide (co2) emissions from liming and urea fertilization. in 2017, agricultural soil management was the largest source of n2o emissions, and enteric fermentation was the largest source of ch4 emissions in the united states. this sector also includes small amounts of co2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion by motorized farm equipment such as tractors (epa, 2019). california’s agricultural sector contributed approximately 8% of statewide ghg emissions in 2017, mainly from methane (ch4) and nitrous oxide (n2o) sources. sources include enteric fermentation and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 134 published by scholink inc. manure management from livestock, crop production (fertilizer use, soil preparation and disturbance, and crop residue burning), and fuel combustion associated with stationary agricultural activities (water pumping, cooling or heating buildings, and processing commodities). livestock accounted for approximately 60% of agricultural emissions, which were generated primarily in the form of ch4 from enteric fermentation and manure management. dairy facilities are a major source of ghg emissions in california, accounting for roughly 60% of agricultural emissions. about 40% of ch4 emissions come from natural sources including wetlands, mostly in tropical regions and cold parts of the planet such as siberia and canada, lakes and rivers; natural geological sources on land and oceans such as gas-oil seeps and mud volcanoes; and smaller sources such as termite mounds in the savannas of africa and australia. luckily, about 90% of ch4 is destroyed through oxidation in the lower atmosphere by reacting with hydroxyl radicals. carb reports that agricultural emissions in 2017 were 16% higher than 2000 levels with crop production accounting for 20% of all agriculture emissions in 2017 (2020a). a more climate-friendly land use strategy for california will encourage the agriculture sector develop climate-smart agriculture practices. it will also support forest management practices that promote reforestation efforts (especially expanding urban tree-planting) which can store vast quantities of carbon sequestered from the atmosphere. research in carbon sequestration indicates that u.s. forests will continue sinking carbon for many years, although recent research indicate that due to increased forest disturbances (like drought, wildfires and the spread of diseases), slower forest growth, and other factors the co2 absorption rate may begin to decline (belenky, 2016). california aims to expand carbon sequestration in natural and working lands, defined as including forests, rangelands, farms, wetlands, and soils (carb, 2020b). these efforts can be supported with financial incentives, by regulation and monitoring, education/training/demonstration centers, and provision of agricultural inputs with lower emissions (like fertilizers). while the manufacture of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers produces a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, its application is also an important factor contributing to direct n2o emissions from agricultural soils (chai et al., 2019). increased n2o stimulates microbes in the soil to convert nitrogen to nitrous oxide at a faster rate than normal. encouraging farmers to embrace changes in fertilizer use and agricultural practices will help to mitigate the release of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. on a positive note, u.s. farmers and ranchers are today producing more crops, livestock, fruits and vegetables, fuel and fiber than ever before while using less water, protecting against erosion and conserving more soil, avoiding nutrient loss, increasing wildlife habitat and improving biodiversity while using less cropland. farmers also contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by sequestering carbon in that soil. in addition to sequestration, livestock producers have greatly enhanced their sustainability efforts by investing in methane digester technology—reducing methane emissions into the atmosphere and producing renewable energy (afbf, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 135 published by scholink inc. refrigerants in 2017, california’s refrigeration and air conditioning equipment contributed 90% of ozone depleting substance substitutes emissions. these are primarily hydrofluorocarbons (hfcs) used in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, solvent cleaning, foam production, fire retardants, and aerosols. due to their high global warming potential and refrigerant charge leaks from the system, refrigeration and air conditioning systems have high, negative environmental impacts (beshr et al., 2017). refrigerants are fluids used in refrigeration cycles to cool a space like a room, office building, or warehouse. they work by capturing heat and releasing it to another space using thermodynamic phase changes where fluids change to a gas or vice versa in the refrigeration cycle. refrigerants are used primarily in refrigerators/freezers, air conditioning, fire suppression/explosion systems, cleaning solvents, propellants, foam blowing, sterilants, adhesives, coats and inks. there are numerous industrial, commercial and residential uses of refrigerants including commercial ice machines, chillers, cold storage warehouses, household refrigerators/freezers, ice-skating rinks, motor vehicle air conditioning, retail food refrigeration, refrigerated transport, vending machines and water coolers among others (kasera & bhaduri, 2017; mclinden et al., 2017; epa, 2020). hydrofluorocarbons (hfcs), currently used as refrigerants in air-conditioning systems, are potent greenhouse gases, with high values of global warming potential. highly commercialized in the 1990s as replacements for the ozone-depleting cfcs and hcfcs, hfcs are now the dominant refrigerants in new refrigeration, ac and heat-pump equipment (mclinden et al., 2017). the kigali amendment to montreal protocol requires the participating parties to gradually reduce hfcs use by 80 % to 85 % by the late 2040s. the substances controlled by the protocol are ozone-depleting substances with high global warming potentials including cfcs, halons, other fully halogenated cfcs, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, hcfcs, methyl bromide, and hfcs (un, 2020). according to the american society of heating, refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers (ashrae), the most common refrigerant families include methane/ethane series, ethers, propane, cyclic organic compounds, nitrogen compounds, and inorganic compounds (2020). refrigerant blends include zeotropes and azeotropes (mostly designated “r-” series like r-22, r-404a, r-407a, r-410a, etc.). refrigerants like r-22 are often thousands of times more polluting than co2, and in 2010, the environmental protection agency (epa) implemented a ban on the production and import of r-22. it has a 100-year global warming potential (gwp) of 1,810, almost 2,000 times the potency of co2. for comparison, a pound of r-22 is nearly as potent as a ton of co2 (taylor, 2018). illegal for use in us starting from january 01, 2020, r-22 has several replacements approved by the epa due to their zero-ozone depleting potential including tens of them as listed by the epa like r-404a, r-407b, r-407c, r-407f, r-410a, r-410b, etc. (2020). ideal substitutes for refrigerants that are free of all environmental and safety concerns, are chemically and thermally stable, and perform efficiently, are extremely unlikely to be found. as a result, trade-offs www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 136 published by scholink inc. among desired outcomes, will be necessary to achieve balanced solutions (calm & didion, 1998; mota-babiloni et al., 2016). for california to make progress with refrigerant emissions, progress will come with the state’s epa continued progress in regulation and monitoring, financial incentives to defray industry adoption costs of lower warming potential refrigerants, and education/training both for industry, and commercial/residential consumers. recycling/waste sectors reduction of emissions from energy consumption through recycling saves energy for less energy is needed to extract, transport, and process raw materials; and to manufacture products when people reuse things or when products are made with less material. the reduction of emissions from incinerators can be achieved by diverting certain materials from incinerators through waste prevention and recycling. landfills emit ch4 and waste prevention and recycling (including composting) divert organic wastes from landfills, reducing the amount of methane released. as trees store carbon in wood (carbon sequestration), waste prevention and recycling of paper translates to leaving more trees standing in the forest. as noted by the epa (2020), waste prevention and recycling in the us can make a significant contribution to reducing ghg gas emissions. the waste reduction and recycling initiative initiated and coordinated by the us epa is expected to contribute at least 5% of the total greenhouse gas emission reductions. these can be enhanced by specific programs as follows: 1) wastewi$e, a voluntary partnership between epa and us businesses, state and local governments, and institutions to prevent waste, recycle, and buy and manufacture products made with recycled materials. 2) pay-as-you-throw program where the epa provides technical and outreach assistance to encourage communities to implement pay-as-you-throw systems for solid waste. residents are charged based on the amount of trash they discard creating an incentive for them to generate less trash and recycle more. waste reductions of 15-28% have been reported in some communities with this program. 3) developed with epa support, the epa/chicago board of trade recyclables exchange is an online exchange that helps develop markets for recyclable commodities, thereby diverting more materials from the waste stream. 4) the epa has also funded over 20 projects that demonstrate innovative waste reduction approaches with potential to achieve significant carbon emissions reductions (epa, 2020). programs such as these launched by epa and others have accrued climate benefits of waste management options in waste prevention, recycling, composting, incineration, and landfilling. the ghg emissions associated with managing ten types of waste materials (office paper, newspaper, corrugated cardboard, aluminum, steel, plastics, food scraps, and yard trimmings were estimated. the study concluded that waste prevention is the best management option, with recycling the next best approach to reducing emissions. for example, the epa estimates that increasing the country’s national recycling rate from its current level (27%) to 35% reduces ghg emissions by 11.4 mmtco2e over landfilling the same material (epa, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 137 published by scholink inc. practical implications california’s policy-makers call for tightening california’s low-carbon fuel standard, expanding programs to reduce methane emissions from dairy farms, increasing reforestation efforts, and lowering the amount of carbon that industry can release under the cap-and-trade program. the state needs to chaperone investments in modernizing the energy sector, boosting energy efficiency, and facilitating transitioning into a zero-carbon economy for older industrial systems. some of the innovative strategies that can be implemented in california and have been proposed elsewhere particularly in european union (eu, 2019) are: a) promotion of a circular economy in california where material use is reduced, reused and recycled especially in resource intense sectors like electronics, textiles, construction and plastics. b) decarbonization and modernization of california’s energy-intensive industries especially in steel and cement production. c) stimulation and development of new market avenues for the consumption of climate neutral and circular products, and green financing options. d) promoting energy use efficiency, climate-proofing buildings, strict regulation of building energy use, and increased digitalization of provided services. e) preservation of biodiversity in ecosystems, reduced or zero-pollution targets for industry, creation of toxic-free environments for citizens, and substantial reduction or total elimination of urban pollution by industry. f) elimination of fossil fuel state and federal subsidies especially in the utilization of high emissions fuels by industry, and stricter pollution enforcement in the transportation sector. for example, zero tolerance of truck idling on truck stops, highways and in urban centers. g) funding for research and development of innovative sustainable solutions, education and training in schools, mid-level educational, and higher educational institutions. for california to meet its ghg emissions targets in 2030 and 2050, the current policy framework must be reviewed, adjusted, mandated and monitored. as shown in tables 1 and 7, california must raise its current rate of emissions reductions (currently totaling 0.57 mmtco2e/year) six-and-half times (to 3.75 mmtco2e/year) by 2030; and by twenty-six-and-half times (to 15.08 mmtco2e/year) to meet the 2050 target. with the climate change effects already being experienced in the state projected to get worse in the decades ahead, many of the current and future innovative technologies and trends discussed above in the seven emissions sectors will be crucial in meeting these emissions cuts obligations. busch and orvis (2020) highlight a package of six policies that in addition to reducing ghg emissions, they will generate significant economic and health benefits. the first three policy recommendations strengthen existing policies (cap-and-trade, clean energy use, zero emissions vehicles); the next three are suggested (accelerating building electrification, zero emission performance standard for industrial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 138 published by scholink inc. sector heating, and new emissions standards for cement and concrete production—since cement is the largest source of coal combustion in california). although california’s ambitions must remain strong and optimistic to serve as a model for other states, and a testing ground for new policies and innovations, a number of emissions reductions challenges are projected in california in the years ahead. the 2018 wildfires are reported to have produced more than nine times greater emissions than were reduced across the entire state’s economy between 2016 and 2017—with wildfires contributing more than the commercial, residential or agriculture sectors did in 2017. recycling rates were also reported down in the state, and landfill emissions have been increasing since 2004 as commercial, and residential waste generation rises (next 10, 2020). there are also uncertainties in the coming years especially at the national level. the trump administration is currently preparing to take the final steps to pull the us out of the paris climate agreement. a legal battle by the administration is also currently waiting to roll back california’s emissions standards for new vehicles—despite the fact that cars and trucks make up about one-third of the ghg emissions in california. california is the most populous state in the nation, has the largest economy in the nation (fifth largest economy in the world), and is second only to texas in total energy consumption (usbea, 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(2009). biostatistical analysis (5th ed.). new york, ny: pearson. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224153 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc6818783/ education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper in search of authentic peer leaders: finding, nurturing, and affirming tim o. peterson1*, shontarius d. aikens2 & martha l. loudder3 1 department of transportation, logistics, & finance, north dakota state university, fargo, nd, usa 2 offutt school of business, concordia college, moorhead, mn, usa 3 department of accounting, texas a&m university, college station, tx, usa * tim o. peterson, department of transportation, logistics, & finance, north dakota state university, fargo, nd, usa received: may 22, 2020 accepted: june 1, 2020 online published: june 12, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p1 abstract luthans and avolio (2003) have posited that we need methods to develop authentic leaders. one method is to form learning communities on college campuses. within these communities, peer leaders influence the development of newly admitted peers. the question is: why do some students become peer leaders and others do not? we believe that the answer lies somewhere in their core values. by the time people enter college, they are predisposed to value certain end-states and modes of conduct. therefore, it is important to determine these predispositions so that leadership development opportunities such as peer leadership can be made available to those who are ready for this type of development. however, at this point we do not know which core values make a difference. this gap in the knowledge is what led to this study. the findings identify the core values of both peer leaders and non-peer leaders. in most cases, these values are the same for both groups. however, the core value of a sense of accomplishment stands out as being significant in determining who will select this type of leadership development opportunity. the paper expands on how to find, nurture, and affirm these select students. keywords learning communities, authentic peer leader, peer mentor, values 1. introduction in times of crisis, people such as mother teresa, abraham lincoln, rudy guiliani, and martin luther king, jr. have stepped forward to provide positive leadership to confront the challenge facing the community. yet, luthans and avolio (2003) point out that naturally occurring events do not provide a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. sufficient number of authentic leaders. therefore, we need other methods to develop authentic leaders. one method of developing these authentic leaders is to form learning communities on college campuses that create a peer leadership relationship between experienced students and newly admitted students. many universities and colleges are creating peer leadership or sometimes called peer mentoring programs to assist first year students navigate the currents of higher education (jacobi, 1991). we are seeing these mentoring programs showing up in business education (fox, stevenson, connelly, duff, & dunlop, 2010; d’abate & eddy, 2008; sanchez, bauer, & paronto, 2006) in an effort to increase academic success, increase student satisfaction, and retain students. however, how we select and develop these mentors is critical to the success of the learning communities and the outcomes. terrion and leonard (2007) point out that while much research points out the usefulness of peer leaders in improving academic performance and reducing student attrition, there is little research that helps us identify the type of student who would make a great peer leader. in order to begin coming to some understanding of the characteristics of student peer mentors, terrion and leonard (2007) did an extensive literature review. they found 54 articles and from those articles identified ten peer mentor characteristics. peer leaders serve two primary functions according to terrion and leonard (2007), task-related functions in this case academic issues and psychosocial functions such as providing acceptance, emotional support, personal feedback, and being a role model. their literature review specifically identified two task-related functions and eight psychosocial functions. they also identified some prerequisites such as ability and willingness to commit time, university experience, and academic achievement (terrion & leonard, 2007). while these findings are important, they still fail to identify what type of student would make a great peer leader. we thought the key might be in their values. we define peer leadership as the ability to mobilize an equal to want to struggle for shared aspirations and to live by a set of shared values and guiding principles. to be able to influence in this situation would require the leader to be a role model. one way they do this is by modeling and encouraging internalization of the collectivistic moral values that transcend self-interest (dvir, eden, avolio, & shamir, 2002). part of being a role model to another individual requires the peer leader to be authentic in his or her own beliefs and actions. london (2003) argues that peer leaders who are respected and influential are more likely to be vocal and forthcoming in sharing information about themselves and their beliefs. burns (1978) argued that people who wanted to become leaders related leadership behaviors to “a set of reasoned, relatively explicit, conscious values” (p. 46). one important measure of these beliefs are the core values held by the peer leader. lencioni (2002) defines core values as deeply ingrained guides to action. core values have intrinsic value to the individual. further, people, teams, and organizations generally only have a few core values, usually between three and five (collins & porras, 1996). in the book authentic leadership: rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value, bill george, former chairman and ceo of medtronic, argues that core values define the moral compass of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. the leader (george, 2003). they provide the leader with a deep sense of what is the right thing to do. kouzes and posner (2012) argue that these values represent our personal bottom line and influence our every action. rokeach (1973) defines a values system as “an enduring organization of beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states of existence along a continuum of relative importance” (p. 5). institutions have found that shared values systems between the organization and members of the organization can improve commitment and feelings of success and reduce stress (posner & schmidt, 1993). despite the fact that rokeach published his works on values over forty years ago, he is still revered today and continues to be cited in the most current publications. forty-eight percent of the papers in the book emerging perspectives on values in organizations (2003) reference the works of rokeach; specifically his 1973 publication of the same values survey we have utilized for this empirical evaluation. a value system consists of a set of values. rokeach (1973) defines a value as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence” (pp. 7-8). he went on to distinguish between what he called terminal values and instrumental values. terminal values are those values that describe a desired end-state of existence. for example, one of the terminal values rokeach recognizes is a sense of accomplishment. figure 1 shows the eighteen values rokeach identified as terminal values. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. comfortable life (a prosperous life) an exciting life (a stimulating, active life) a sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution) a world at peace (free of war and conflict) a world of beauty (beauty of nature and the arts) equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all) family security (taking care of loved ones) freedom (independence, free choice) happiness (contentedness) inner harmony (freedom from inner conflict) mature love (sexual and spiritual intimacy) national security (protection from attack) pleasure (an enjoyable, leisurely life) salvation (saved, eternal life) self-respect (self-esteem) social recognition (respect, admiration) true friendship (close companionship) wisdom (a mature understanding of life) figure 1. rokeach’s terminal values on the other hand, instrumental values describe the desired mode of conduct to reach those end-state goals. rokeach (1973) identifies honest as an instrumental value. figure 2 displays the eighteen instrumental values identified by rokeach. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. ambitious (hard-working, aspiring) broadminded (open-minded) capable (competent, effective) cheerful (lighthearted, joyful) clean (neat, tidy) courageous (standing up for your beliefs) forgiving (willing to pardon others) helpful (working for the welfare of others) honest (sincere, truthful) imaginative (daring, creative) independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient) intellectual (intelligent, reflective) logical (consistent, rational) loving (affectionate, tender) obedient (dutiful, respectful) polite (courteous, well-mannered) responsible (dependable, reliable) self-controlled (restrained, self-disciplined) figure 2. rokeach’s instrumental values within these terminal and instrumental values are found the core values of peer leaders. there are also espoused values and situational values found within both sets of values. in this study, we are interested in determining the core terminal values and core instrumental values of peer leaders. therefore, the research question that guided this study was: what are the core terminal and core instrumental values of peer leaders and do these core values differ from non-peer leaders? as we examine the core values of peer leaders, it is logical to ask how this will manifest in peer leaders. clare and sanford (1979) analyzed data reflecting managerial values patterns. in their research, managers were more likely to value things that enhanced personal growth and competency over those items that created social growth and character building. for example, the number one terminal value for managers was a sense of accomplishment, with a world at peace ranking near the bottom. managers ranked ambition number one and helpfulness near the bottom. these findings do not agree with the general data generated by rokeach (1973), so it is important to repeat the empirical study with each target group. more recent studies have utilized the rokeach values framework in work settings. weber (2015) used the rokeach value survey (rvs) to determine how managers assigned importance to various values. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. after comparing the rvs scores of mid-to upper-level managers at two different time periods (t1: 1980’s; t2: 2010’s), the results showed that the value orientation of managers at t2 are different than at t1. murphy, mujtaba, manyak, sungkhawan and greenwood (2010) used the rokeach value survey to examine value differences across generations. conducted in a work setting in the country of thailand, it compared the value differences of baby boomers against generation y and generation x and found differences. a review of the literature indicates that the rokeach values framework has been utilized often in research within higher education settings. the focus of the studies ranged from examining the values of college instructors in india (triveni, 2014) and value differences as it relates to the gender of students in hungary (bosci, 2012). additional studies have been conducted with business students within the disciplines of management (ng & burke, 2010), accounting, and finance (giacomino, brown, & akers, 2011; giacomino, li, & michael, 2013; mccarthy, 1997). the peer educator literature argues that one issue new students face upon entering college is a range of new and controversial viewpoints that challenge their personal values. ender and newton (2000) point out that peer leaders can assist in the new students’ maturation process by displaying appropriate values. given the importance of this process, it is our belief that it is important to determine both the terminal core values and the instrumental core values of potential peer leaders. therefore, our first two hypotheses are: hypothesis 1: peer leaders will identify a small set (three to five) of core terminal values. hypothesis 2: peer leaders will identify a small set (three to five) of core instrumental terminal values. assuming that we find that peer leaders do have a small set of core terminal and core instrumental values, the next question would be whether these core values different from those of non-peer leaders. this reasoning led us to our next two hypotheses, which are: hypothesis 3: peer leaders’ terminal core values will differ from non-peer leaders. hypothesis 4: peer leaders’ instrumental core values will differ from non-peer leaders. 2. method 2.1 subjects the subjects were 46 peer leaders and 64 non-peer leaders enrolled at a large southwest university. all peer leaders were 19 to 20 years old and held the academic rank of sophomore. the non-peer leaders were chosen because they mirrored these demographics but were not peer leaders. each subject was asked to complete a multiple page questionnaire that included the rokeach values survey. no extra credit was extended to these subjects for their involvement in the study. 2.2 measure we used the form e version of the rokeach value survey. this instrument consists of two pages. the first page has eighteen terminal values listed on it. figure 1 is an example of the terminal values part of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. the survey. the second page has eighteen more values on it, but all of these values are instrumental values. figure 2 is an example of the instrumental values part of the survey. 2.3 procedure the questionnaire was handed out to the subjects and they were asked to return the surveys to one of the researchers’ offices. the subjects were assured of anonymity and that only aggregate data would be reported. each subject was asked to rank order the eighteen terminal values using 1 as the most important value and 18 as the least important value. once the subjects completed the terminal values, they were asked to rank the instrumental values using the same process where 1 represented the most important value and 18 represented the least important value. 2.4 analysis the statistical analysis was conducted using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss). after the data set was created, it was checked for errors. next, consistent with tukey’s (1977) advice to get to know your data, we produced a series of descriptive and exploratory data analyses to examine the data. we used the explore function of spss to determine outliers, unusual values, and peculiarities in the data set. each of these occurrences was traced back to the original questionnaire and corrections were made if necessary before any further analysis was done. we next reverse coded both the terminal values and instrumental values for all subjects so the value that is ranked highest received a score of 18 and the value that is ranked lowest received a score of 1. next we analyzed the data to answer our hypotheses. 3. results to test both hypotheses 1 and 2, we performed t-tests on each of the terminal values and instrumental values for the peer leaders. to qualify as a core value, the specific value in question had to meet two criteria. first, its mean score had to be greater than the average mean score of 9.5, which is the average score that would be received for each value if they were all equal. second, because we are only looking for the small set of core values, we only accepted those values that exceeded the .001 level of significance. table 1 shows the means and t-test results for the terminal values. five terminal values meet the two criteria. these are: a sense of accomplishment, family security, happiness, salvation, and true friendship. these values are in bold print in table 1. table 2 shows the means and t-test values for the instrumental values. the peer leaders identified three instrumental core values. the three values are: honest, loving, and responsible. these values are in bold print in table 2. these results confirm both hypothesis one and two. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. table 1. t-test for all terminal values for peer leaders (n = 46; test value = 9.5; df = 45) behaviors mean sd mean difference t-value comfortable life 9.15 5.16 -.35 -.46 an exciting life 9.00 4.33 -.50 -.78 a sense of accomplishment 12.52 4.26 3.02 4.81*** a world at peace 4.24 3.47 -5.26 -10.30*** a world of beauty 4.15 3.37 -5.35 -10.78*** equality 6.39 3.96 -3.11 -5.33*** family security 12.43 4.08 2.93 4.88*** freedom 9.98 3.71 .48 .88 happiness 13.48 3.39 3.98 7.96*** inner harmony 8.74 4.86 -.76 -1.06 mature love 10.89 4.85 1.39 -1.94 national security 4.57 3.34 -4.93 -10.03*** pleasure 8.63 4.08 -.87 -1.44 salvation 14.98 5.26 5.48 7.06*** self-respect 10.52 3.59 1.02 1.93 social recognition 7.02 4.49 -2.48 -3.74** true friendship 12.78 3.39 3.28 6.56*** wisdom 11.72 4.20 2.22 3.58** *p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. table 2. t-test for all instrumental values for peer leaders (n = 46; test value = 9.5; df = 45) behaviors mean sd mean difference t-value ambitious 1109 5.61 1.59 1.92 broadminded 6.98 5.48 -2.52 -3.12** capable 10.52 4.36 1.02 1.59 cheerful 8.87 5.00 -.63 -.86 clean 4.72 3.93 -4.78 -8.26*** courageous 9.26 5.36 -.24 -.30 forgiving 7.61 4.39 -1.89 -2.9** helpful 10.46 4.17 .96 1.56 honest 14.37 4.05 4.87 8.16*** imaginative 7.96 5.19 -1.54 -2.02 independent 9.98 5.12 .48 .63 intellectual 10.07 5.03 .57 .76 logical 8.26 4.92 -1. 24 -1.71 loving 13.30 4.46 3.80 5.78*** obedient 7.26 4.91 -2.24 -3.090** polite 8.83 3.94 -.67 -1.16 responsible 13.22 3.17 3.72 7.96*** self-controlled 8.48 4.29 -1.02 1.61 *p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001 from this point we are only interested in the five core terminal values and the three core instrumental values. to test hypothesis 3 and 4, we calculated the means and standard deviations for the values in question for the non-peer leaders. we then performed t-tests on these eight values comparing the two groups. the results are reported in table 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. table 3. t-test values for the core value hypotheses by peer leaders and non-peer leaders hypothesis n mean sd difference df t-value h3 – a sense of accomplishment peer leaders 46 12.52 4.26 3.52 108 4.04*** non-peer leaders 64 9.00 4.69 h3 – family security peer leaders 46 12.43 4.08 -.30 108 -.35 non-peer leaders 64 12.73 4.64 h3 happiness peer leaders 46 13.48 3.39 .00 108 -.01 non-peer leaders 64 13.48 3.39 h3 salvation peer leaders 46 14.97 5.26 .49 108 .47 non-peer leaders 64 14.48 5.55 h3 – true friendship peer leaders 46 12.78 3.39 -.31 108 .03 non-peer leaders 64 13.09 3.61 h4 honest peer leaders 46 14.37 4.65 .87 108 1.02 non-peer leaders 64 13.50 4.46 h4loving peer leaders 46 13.30 4.46 .34 108 .41 non-peer leaders 64 12.97 4.06 h4 responsible peer leaders 46 13.22 3.17 .87 108 1.23 non-peer leaders 64 12.34 4.00 *p< .05; **p< .01; p< .001 hypothesis 3 was partially supported. one of the terminal core values was found to be significantly different between the peer leaders and non-peer leaders. however, the other four core terminal values were found not to be significantly different between the two groups. these findings will be discussed more in the discussion session. hypothesis 4 was not supported. the three instrumental core values identified by the peer leaders were not significantly different from those identified by the non-peer leaders. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion 4.1 core terminal values four of the core terminal values were the same for both the peer leaders and the non-peer leaders. those four values describe quite clearly what students of this generation are seeking as an end-state for their lives. they want to find spiritual fulfillment. they want to have close friendships and to take care of their families. overall, they want to be happy. a few years ago, the first author was the director of an undergraduate leadership program at this same southwest university. when the first author surveyed the members of this program on the core values of the group, the number one core value expressed by the group was happiness. not only did both the peer leaders and non-peer leaders select these four values as core values, there was no significant difference between these four values between the two groups. however, these values do not help us understand why some students choose to become peer leaders. burns (1978) believed that end-values (i.e., terminal values) would help explain why some people would sacrifice for the common good in their organizations. one core terminal value that was significantly different between the peer leaders and non-peer leaders was a sense of accomplishment. the peer leaders want to make a lasting contribution to the organization and the future members of the organization. it is important to point out that the learning community to which these peer leaders belonged was initiated by the students who now serve as peer leaders because as they said, “we want to make a difference”. this speaks directly to the exemplary leadership that burns had in mind. it is also consistent with luthans and avolio (2003) assertion that “the leader’s authentic values, beliefs, and behaviors serve to model the development of associates” (p. 243). the non-peer leaders did identify one additional terminal value that was core for them. it was self-respect (mean = 11.69; sd = 3.76; tdf=64 = 4.66; p < .001). a post hoc analysis showed that while this was a significant core value for the non-peer leader group, it was not a significant core value for the peer leaders (mean = 10.52; sd = 3.59; tdf=45 = 1.93; p = .06). however, there was not a significant difference between the two groups mean scores (mean difference = -1.17; tdf=108; p = .11). so, while self-respect is not a core value for the peer leaders, it is an important value having a mean score of 10.52. this mean score is slightly greater than the target mean of 9.5 but not significantly different from the target mean. as a result, it is not a core value for peer leaders. 4.2 core instrumental values both groups defined the same three core instrumental values. collectively these three values speak to how both the peer leaders and non-peer leaders choose to behave. they want to be caring, dependable, and trustworthy people. george (2004) says, “while the development of fundamental values is crucial, integrity is the one value that is required in every authentic leader” (p. 32). the integrity that george talks about seems to be similar to what positive psychologists call authenticity (harter, 2002). being honest, sincere, trustworthy are all factors in becoming an authentic leader. 4.3 implications for management education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. the results from our findings do provide some insights as to how the core value of a sense of accomplishment can be translated into action. in other words, how do we align a student’s sense of accomplishment to the goals and objectives of a learning community? we posit three general strategies that can be used in business learning communities utilizing student peer leaders: 1) finding (involves the selection process of identifying student peer leaders), 2) nurturing (involves training and development of student peer leaders), and 3) affirming (involves establishing credibility, recognition, and reinforcement of successful initiatives conducted by the peer leaders). 4.3.1 finding the first and most important strategy involves finding the right type of students for the peer leader program. research indicates the importance of using the right criteria to select students for mentoring roles (fox, stevenson, connelly, duff, & dunlop, 2010; hall & jaugietis, 2011; terrion & leonard, 2007). as it pertains to the findings of this study, it would be important to find those students who exhibit the core value of a sense of accomplishment. the results of this study clearly highlight values that distinguishes between students who choose to be peer leaders versus those who choose not to be peer leaders. therefore, the first implication is to be careful in the selection process. we have included some tips as it relates to the selection process for potential candidates. written application. all students interested in serving as a peer leader would be required to submit a written application as part of the selection process. applying our findings to this aspect, the application should require the candidate to respond to one of the following questions: “tell us about a time when you had a sense of accomplishment or when you have been proud of something you accomplished”. these questions are designed to be intentionally broad enough to allow the candidate to elaborate in sufficient breadth and depth with an example. in addition, it could be required that the candidate submits a letter from a reference. in the letter, the reference would be prompted to specifically address an example of accomplishment that they have witnessed for the candidate. after reviewing the candidate’s response to the application question and the comments from the reference, it would be safe to assume that the application reviewer would have some indication that the candidate has the core value of sense of accomplishment. interviews. once the potential peer leaders’ applications are screened, the next phase would be the face to face interview process. while it is important for a person to exhibit in writing a sense of accomplishment, it is important to ascertain the root of that core value, whether it is centered on a personal sense of accomplishment or centered on a sense of accomplishment involving others. we believe these are two separate entities. students say they want to be leaders. however, some don’t have the disposition or don’t want to do it for the right reason. it will be important to identify potential peer leaders who exhibit a sense of accomplishment centered on involving others to be successful. one way to distinguish between a sense of accomplishment for personal reasons or the involvement of others is through behavioral interviewing questions. two sets of questions would be posed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. the first set of behavioral interview questions might be centered on personal accomplishments. below are a few examples of interview questions: • question 1: we read about the accomplishment you listed in your application. please tell us about another example. • question 2: tell us about a time when you wanted to accomplish something out of reach. how did you go about achieving it? in addition to gathering additional examples of the sense of accomplishment from the candidate, these questions could be asked when the written response was not sufficient in details (i.e., lacking in breadth or depth). the second set of behavioral interview questions to ask would be centered on the sense of accomplishment as it involves other people. below are a few examples of suggested interview questions: • question 3: could you give us an example of an accomplishment in your life that involved other people. • question 4: assuming you become a peer leader, what would a sense of accomplishment look like for you? • question 5: what would be the greatest accomplishment while you were a peer leader? unlike the personal accomplishment questions, these questions are disguised for the purpose of identifying any potential red flags based on prior answers in the interview. for example, question 3 is specific in its scope to include other people. if in their response to question 3, the candidate can only give examples that are personally related, that might be an indicator that the root of their sense of accomplishment is more personal. given that the function of a mentor is to be influential in helping other people reach major life goals (gibbons, 2000), this would suggest why the involvement of others in regard to sense of accomplishment is so vital given the nature of the peer leader role. thus, a candidate should be able to provide examples in this area as well. questions 4 and 5 are designed to get the applicant to project or to create a vision of how a sense of accomplishment would look like when involving others. plus, by asking these questions in a moderately stressful situation such as an interview, the candidate’s response would be another indicator to use in determining if the candidate would make a good peer leader. 4.3.2 nurturing after students have been successfully identified, the second strategy involves training and developing students. a review of the literature indicates the presence of some type of orientations or training for those selected to serve in student peer leader positions (d’abate & eddy, 2008; rodger & tremblay, 2003; sanchez, bauer, & paronto, 2006). as part of training and development, the first aspect is to discuss in detail the core value of sense of accomplishment. during the peer leader training, it would be explained that they were selected, because they were identified to possess a strong need for a sense of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. accomplishment. in nurturing their understanding and helping them to claim this, one could start with a technique called “a circle talk” during the training section. in a circle talk, each peer leader expresses to the other peer leaders a personal sense of accomplishment that they have had in the past. sharing examples is done to help students become more aware of this core value and to have them personally affirm this core value. then, the facilitator would be responsible for introducing the peer leaders to the fact that while a personal sense of accomplishment is important, in the context of the peer leader role, they would need to get a sense of accomplishment from other people’s successes as well. a sense of accomplishment as a peer leader has to be greater about the successes of other people. at this point, the peer leaders should be introduced to the concept of servant leadership (greenleaf, 2008). greenleaf asks the question, “who is the servant-leader?” he answers: the servant-leader is servant first—as leo portrayed (in the journey to the east, 1956). it begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead (p. 15). greenleaf (2003) goes on to posit that what distinguishes the servant-leader of others verses self-serving person is: do those being served grow as persons; do they become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous while be served? (p. 41) what is critical for the new peer leaders to understand is that a sense of accomplishment comes from serving their peers and that part of that service is to prepare their peers to not need them after the mentoring period. it is to make the peer wiser, freer and independent. the second aspect is to help students come up with an individual plan of action to utilize their sense of accomplishment in their peer leader position. one way this could be accomplished is through the identification of a master list of goals and objectives for the students in the program based on commonly held success markers for first year students. helping students understand how to link activities to program goals is a key aspect for training (hall & jaugietis, 2011). for example, in academic learning communities, academic performance (i.e., gpa) and student retention, campus engagement, and civic involvement are the common measures of assessment for student progress and program assessment (evenbeck & borden, 2001; hegler, 2004; hotchkiss, moore, & pitts, 2006; robbins, oh, le, & button, 2009). during the peer leader training, the peer leaders can develop a list of key activities based on these markers as well as other goals they deem to be important. one indication from the literature when it comes to goals in mentoring programs is that the goal areas can vary a great deal (d’abate & eddy, 2008). as a way to ensure consistency from a programmatic standpoint, a common core of goals can be identified through the use of a multi-voting exercise in which each peer leader can highlight the items that they think are the most important that should be accomplished by everyone (core goals). after tallying the results, at least 2-3 core goals would be identified by the group. the remaining items would be considered elective goals, and each peer leader www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. would have to select at least one of these goals. figure 3 provides an example of a master list containing core goals and electives centered around common 1st year success markers for 1st year students. core goals all peer leaders should develop an individual plan of action to have their students reach these goals • 70% of the students in my group will achieve a 2.5 or higher gpa at midterms. • 80% of the students in my group will achieve a 2.5 or higher gpa at the end of the semester. • 85% of the students in my group will get involved in at least 1 extracurricular activity by the end of the semester. • 80% of the students in my group will not drop a class during the first semester. • 70% of the students in my group will attend at least 3 outside school small group social events by the end of the semester. elective goals choose 1 goal from the list below (or create a new goal) and include it on the individual plan of action • hold 1 on 1 meetings with each student in my group at or before midterm. • hold 1 on 1 meetings with each student in my group at or before 2 weeks before the start of finals. • send a weekly encouraging email to students in my group. • have individual “coffee dates” with each of the students in my group before the end of the semester. organize and plan a weekly study group session for the students in my group. figure 3. core and elective goals 4.3.3 affirming the third strategy is affirming, which involves a) establishing credibility and b) recognition and reinforcement. while peer leader training and development helps to affirm a peer leader’s sense of accomplishment within the circle of their peers, it is also critical to establish credibility in the eyes of the students they are leading. the most obvious and direct manner to establish credibility would occur during the first large group meeting of students. during this meeting, the director of the program would introduce the peer leaders to the first year students and would tell them that due to their core value of sense of accomplishment, they are unique and have been selected for the peer leader role. the second method is to recognize and reinforce behaviors indicative of the peer leader’s sense of accomplishment. while one method of recognition can occur at the conclusion of the program in the form of a dinner or banquet (hall & jaugietis, 2011), we recommend recognition to occur during the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. learning cycle. those who hold positions of authority in the program (i.e., the director, instructors) should look for specific examples of accomplishments based on the individual plans created by the peer leaders. for example, if students within a peer leader’s group have perfect attendance to classes, sessions, or meetings, this should be acknowledged to all participants in the program. or, if a peer leader is going above and beyond to implement one of their goals, the director of the program could provide that student with a handwritten note. what is important is that this occurs frequently throughout the learning cycle as a way to reinforce ideal behaviors and goal achievement. 4.4 limitations while using students as subjects is often a limitation of a study, that is not the case in this study. these students are equals with the incoming students and have no position authority over the entering students. they represent true peer leaders. on the other hand, there are limitations to this study, and they need to be acknowledged. the data was collected at a single southwest university. generalizing to other learning communities and to peer leaders in general is questionable. the use of only the rokeach instrument needs to be expanded to include other values instruments with those results correlated with those of the rokeach instrument. at the same time, these findings do shed light on the core values held by peer leaders and the significance peer leaders place on making a lasting contribution. 4.5 future research so what can we learn from these findings that could spur additional research? those students who have a desire to make a lasting contribution will be more inclined to seek out opportunities to be peer leaders. this desire to leave a legacy is consistent with being future-oriented, or as kouzes and posner (1993, 2012) label it being forward-looking. it seems that a logical next step in this research stream is to look at the relationship between the core value of a sense of accomplishment and future-orientation. it might also be worth an investigation to examine the relationship between a sense of accomplishment and visioning ability. it seems that those individuals who have a stronger need to make a lasting contribution would also score higher on the ability to vision. however, this is an empirical question for another day. several directions for future research are noted. first, expending this research at other campuses that have learning communities with peer leaders is a logical next step. since this learning community is part of a business school, it would be useful to survey peer leaders in other disciplines. second, using other value instruments would help triangulate on the issue of core values. in the limitations section, we acknowledge the use of only one instrument in this study (rokeach) and the need to include other value instruments. several options exists. the most logical choice would be to utilize the schwartz value survey (svs) (schwartz & bilsky, 1987) since it is based on the rokeach value survey. the svs is now the most dominant approach to examine values in the social sciences (tsirogianni & sammut, 2014). another option would be to utilize the musser and orke (1992) typology. also based on the rokeach instrument, the typology attempts to put these values into a matrix and to classify people by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. value type. a third option is to utilize the portrait value questionnaire (pvs) developed by schwartz (2002). the pvs is an improved version of the svs because it a) measures values indirectly without the respondent knowing that they are having their values investigated, b) reduces the risk of multiple interpretations, and c) simplifies the measurement of values (tsirogianni & gaskell, 2011). while all of these options now add a rich research stream, we initially wanted to return to the seminal instrument to establish a baseline with the original rokeach instrument. third, examining the relationship between psychological capital (efficacy, hope, optimism, resiliency) and core values could shed some light on how to continue to develop authentic peer leaders (luthans, youssef, & avolio, 2007). fourth, one could look at how to get individuals, particularly students, to act on values. as mentioned in our opening statement with the inclusion of notable historical figures, individuals confront challenges facing the community. in the context of behavioral ethics, this would suggest three components: 1) awareness of values, 2) ability to analyze a situation and justify a position, and 3) taking action. the findings from this study, specifically as it relates to the value of a sense of accomplishment implies action. in contrast to traditional instructional methods for ethics that focus on only the first two items (awareness and analysis), the giving voice to values curriculum focuses on all three components (gentile, 2017). while there is research that examines the effect of this approach to behavior ethics in accounting and legal education (christensen, cote, & kamm latham, 2016; holmes, 2015), a future research stream could examine how the giving voice to values curriculum can be incorporated in peer leader development. 5. conclusion in conclusion, the value that distinguishes peer leaders is an end-value just as burns had advocated. it is a value that makes these students sacrifice their time, their talent, and their treasure for the betterment of unknown students, the university, and potentially the world. they do transcend their self-interests for a greater good of making a difference and a sense of accomplishment. it speaks to what csikszentmihalyi (2003) calls having a soul. he says living organisms are thought to have a soul if they can use part of their energy, not for their own growth and survival but to care for, invest in, or help transform others. he says one manifestation of soul in leaders is “doing something of benefit to others” (csikszentmihalyi, 2003). given these peer leaders are all business majors, there may be hope for the businesses of the future to also have soul through these authentic leaders. acknowledgement the authors would like to thank the many peer leaders who shared their time and thoughts with us to make this paper possible. the authors also appreciate the helpful comments made by claudette m. peterson, on earlier drafts of this paper. a previous version of the manuscript was presented at the gallup leadership summit. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. references burns, j. m. 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(2015). identifying and assessing managerial value orientations: a cross-generational replication study of key organizational decision-makers’ values. journal of business ethics, 132(3), 493-504. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2364-8 t-value mean difference mean behaviors -.46 -.35 5.16 9.15 comfortable life -.78 -.50 4.33 9.00 an exciting life 4.81*** 3.02 4.26 12.52 a sense of accomplishment -10.30*** -5.26 3.47 4.24 a world at peace -10.78*** -5.35 3.37 4.15 a world of beauty -5.33*** -3.11 3.96 6.39 equality 4.88*** 2.93 4.08 12.43 family security .88 .48 3.71 9.98 freedom 7.96*** 3.98 3.39 13.48 happiness -1.06 -.76 4.86 8.74 inner harmony -1.94 1.39 4.85 10.89 mature love -10.03*** -4.93 3.34 4.57 national security -1.44 -.87 4.08 8.63 pleasure 7.06*** 5.48 5.26 14.98 salvation 1.93 1.02 3.59 10.52 self-respect -3.74** -2.48 4.49 7.02 social recognition 6.56*** 3.28 3.39 12.78 true friendship 3.58** 2.22 4.20 11.72 wisdom t-value mean difference mean behaviors 1.92 1.59 5.61 1109 ambitious -3.12** -2.52 5.48 6.98 broadminded 1.59 1.02 4.36 10.52 capable -.86 -.63 5.00 8.87 cheerful -8.26*** -4.78 3.93 4.72 clean -.30 -.24 5.36 9.26 courageous -2.9** -1.89 4.39 7.61 forgiving 1.56 .96 4.17 10.46 helpful 8.16*** 4.87 4.05 14.37 honest -2.02 -1.54 5.19 7.96 imaginative .63 .48 5.12 9.98 independent .76 .57 5.03 10.07 intellectual -1.71 -1. 24 4.92 8.26 logical 5.78*** 3.80 4.46 13.30 loving -3.090** -2.24 4.91 7.26 obedient -1.16 -.67 3.94 8.83 polite 7.96*** 3.72 3.17 13.22 responsible 1.61 peer leaders non-peer leaders peer leaders non-peer leaders peer leaders non-peer leaders peer leaders peer leaders peer leaders peer leaders peer leaders -1.02 4.29 8.48 self-controlled education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 55 original paper accounting academic workloads: balancing workload creep to avoid depreciation in the higher education sector dr warrick long1, associate professor lisa barnes1,2*, professor maria northcote1 & professor tony williams3 1 avondale university college, cooranbong, australia 2 conjoint university of newcastle, ourimbah, australia 3 university of wollongong, wollongong, australia * associate professor lisa barnes, avondale university college, cooranbong, australia; conjoint university of newcastle, ourimbah, australia received: june 15, 2020 accepted: june 22, 2020 online published: june 27, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p55 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p55 abstract accounting academics are subject to external influences such as preparing graduates for future workplaces, bridging the gap between industry and academia and development of pathways to becoming professional accountants. add to this the internal influences of delivery methods for student engagement, work integrated learning and casualisation of the workforce, the accounting academic is at capacity in terms of how these influences impact on workload. using the “lived experience”, this research delves into the academic themselves to find that they categorize their workload into four themes of teaching, research, accounting academic workload and development of curricula, deemed the trac framework for this study. using this workload trac framework, accounting academics identified five factors they believe will influence their future roles. these include growth in international students that student success will be a shared responsibility that student engagement will be critical, that curricula design will involve stakeholder input and that expectations around research will change. these additional impact factors when added to the already at capacity workload model for accounting academics, will create a type of workload creep. this workload creep can be described as an increase in academic wear and tear, almost like depreciation on capital assets. keywords workload creep, trac model framework, wif model, depreciation, accounting academic, academic workload www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 56 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the literature shows both external and internal influences are challenging how accounting academics (aa) teach at the higher education level (steenkamp & roberts, 2018). amongst the many challenges facing accounting academics in maintaining relevance, six stand out amongst the literature, being divided into external influences, (graduate attributes, industry-academia gap, alternate pathways) and internal influences, (delivery methods, work integrated learning (wil), and the casualisation of the workforce). this research uses the lived experience to find out what the impacts of these influences are on the workload of the accounting academic, and what they perceive the future outlook for their profession to be. 2. external influences on accounting teaching graduate attributes for accounting students is a challenge for accounting academics. o’connell et al. (2015) reported that “accounting academics face the difficult task of delivering the requisite professional knowledge while also trying to develop the professional skills of future professionals” (p. 29). employers have a range of graduate attributes that they prefer (graduate careers australia, 2014), and which are often at odds with what the academics believe are necessary (kavanagh & drennan, 2007; naidoo, jackling, & prokofieva, 2012). graduates and students themselves also have a view on what attributes they feel are needed (de lange, jackling, & gut, 2006; jackling & calero, 2006; jackling & de lange, 2009). stakeholders are highlighting the importance in a “fast-changing business world” (albrecht & sack, 2000, p. 59) of non-technical skills (hancock, howieson, kavanagh, kent, tempone, & segal, 2009; oliver, whelan, hunt, & hammer, 2011) and, in particular, interpersonal skills like teamwork and communication (parker, 2001; tempone et al., 2012). the challenge for accounting academics is to accommodate these changing and differing expectations (bunney & therry, 2010; de lange et al., 2006) with what is realistically deliverable (cappellatto, 2010). as observed by kavanagh, hancock, howieson, tempone, and kent (2010), “this is a complex issue reflecting many factors, including the perceived objectives of a university degree, the availability of resources, the diverse characteristics of employers, and even the expectations of students” (p. 3). knowing what graduate attributes are required is a challenge for the accounting academics, as they risk becoming irrelevant in the event of accounting graduates not acquiring the requisite graduate attributes needed by a diverse range of stakeholders. another major issue challenging the relevance of accounting education is the industry-academia gap, which in accounting academia, “exists between what accountants do and what accounting educators teach” (bedford, 1986, p. 172), and while this comes from a us report, it is supported by studies in australia (burritt, evans, & guthrie, 2010; guthrie, burritt, & evans, 2011; kavanagh & drennan, 2007). this gap within the accounting discipline has been identified as arising from an “underdeveloped bond” (levitt & nicolaisen, 2008, p. 19) and “weak links” (ryan, 2010, p. 26) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 57 published by scholink inc. between practitioners and academics. as a consequence of these two communities not working together (howieson, 2003, p. 94), the academics are charged with receiving “little direct insight” into accounting practice (behn et al., 2012, p. 29), which parker (2001) believes produces “a predominantly narrow, technicist accounting education focus which neither fits our contemporary accounting and business environment” (p. 441). they further note that “not only have academic accounting educators failed to lead practice, but they have resolutely failed to even follow the broader scope of activities and skills already being adopted in practice” (parker, 2001, p. 442). addressing the industry-academia gap is important because of the potential for substantial mutual benefits (akili, 2005) arising from the beneficial relationship of the practitioners needing both graduates and solutions to problems, and academics needing resources to provide such (see guthrie et al., 2011, pp. 15-16). other researchers (russell, kulesza, albrecht, & sack, 2000, p. 6) also contend that accounting education has essentially remained static in its delivery while accounting practice has adapted in an ever-changing world of business. most importantly, students stand to gain the most advantage from having a strong industry-academia collaboration through the faculty having a strong understanding of the current professional environment (behn et al., 2012), practical experience (levitt & nicolaisen, 2008), and maintaining a connection with industry which can assist the academics in keeping, “undergraduate and graduate curricula and pedagogy relevant and dynamic” (behn et al., 2012, p. 71). however, there are difficulties in maintaining close connections between the two communities, including the view that there is, “a mismatch between the objectives, process and outcomes of accounting education, and the reality of the discipline and of the society in which practitioners work” (palm & bisman, 2010, p. 180). in part, this is a result of the changed emphasis of university administrations onto research prestige, meaning research rather than professional qualifications form key criteria for recruitment (annisette & kirkham, 2007; behn et al., 2012). to realise the benefits of a closer industry-academia alliance, ways need to be found to make progress in communicating and engaging with practitioners (chapman & kern, 2012), including developing alliances between academics and practitioners, as identified by both burritt et al. (2010) and kaplan (1989). support for a closer alliance also needs to come from university administrations and the various accrediting agencies to recognise not just academically but also professionally qualified staff (levitt & nicolaisen, 2008). with this support it is then possible to offer incentives (bedford, 1986; behn et al., 2012) for academics to engage in activities like industry sabbaticals (thambar, 2012), consulting, internships and residencies (albrecht & sack, 2000) that give them the connection and experience with industry to keep pace with developments and practice. the final issue involves the development of alternate pathways to becoming a professional accountant, which do not involve the university accounting academic. private higher education providers are able to offer undergraduate or post-graduate degree programs, which may be recognised by the professional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 58 published by scholink inc. accounting bodies for graduate entry. ryan (2010) notes that typically these providers will have a competitive advantage over universities based on a narrow mission and focus that allows them to provide “high volume, low cost” programs characterised by low overheads, a highly casualised teaching workforce, a mainly teaching-only approach, and strong links with industry and associations that can provide employment opportunities upon completion. nor do the private providers “pretend to make broad social and intellectual contributions” (ryan, 2010, p. 25) as is characterised by the universities. the university is no longer the sole provider of the requisite accounting degree for admission to the professional accounting bodies programs. in 2008, the professional bodies announced that from 2010 cpaa, and the icaa from 2012, would change their admission criteria to allow entrance with a non-accounting degree. the reasons proffered by the professional bodies for making these changes include the need to boost the number of professional accountants to beat shortages (thomason & ward, 2012, p. 63), providing candidates with a quicker and cheaper pathway (matchett, 2009, 26 august), and addressing a negative perception of employers about the quality and communication skills of graduates (farrow, 2012; hancock, howieson, kavanagh, kent, tempone, segal et al., 2009). these changes were met with “shock and awe” and “outrage” from academics (poullaos & evans, 2008, pp. 1-28) who questioned whether the goal was “training or educating” professional accountants? (matchett, 2009, 26 august, p. 29). in the wash-up of these exchanges, it remains that the professional bodies have created another pathway for becoming a professional accountant that excludes having a university accounting degree. a third pathway into professional accounting has arisen with the arrival into australia of additional international professional accounting bodies. the association of chartered certified accountants (acca) and chartered institute of management accountants (cima) are both international accounting bodies that provide alternatives to cpaa and caanz for recognition and accreditation as a professional accountant. the “point of differentiation” for these bodies is their international acceptance and recognition in a context of global business and employment. in a global business environment, these professional bodies have created another pathway into professional accounting. 3. internal influences on accounting teaching the influence of the teacher themselves plays a significant role, as identified by russell et al. (2000) who found that, for accounting students, “the most critical element in a student’s successful classroom experience is an inspiring professor” (p. 9). supporting this, jackling and calero (2006) note that “…accounting educators at the first year level have an important role to play” (p, 434). and in a study of an accounting program in a new zealand university, interviewees informed bui and porter that the two key shortcomings of educators are “…deficient teaching skills and a lack of passion for, and apparent interest in, the subject matter” (bui & porter, 2010, pp. 45-46). this may be in response to a “dry” accounting curricula, as noted by mcgowan (2012) who observed that “…many students found www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 59 published by scholink inc. the course relevant to their program dull, thus, reducing their engagement with the course materials, activities, assessment tasks, and their peers” (p, 1098). this highlights that the traditional teaching methods used by accounting educators are neither effective (fouché, 2013, p. 146), adequate or suitable for accounting (zraa, kavanagh, & hartle, 2011, pp. 7-16). the issue of how accounting academics teach will be considered, specifically looking at the issues with delivery methods, alternatives like online learning and work integrated learning (wil) and the casualisation of the workforce. accounting educators perceive that university administrations fail to appropriately recognise and reward teaching (bexley, james, & arkoudis, 2011) and give priority to research over teaching (behn et al., 2012), which may not provide incentives for accounting academics to invest significantly in developing adaptive or flexible teaching. howieson mused whether requesting changes to teaching may be perceived by accounting academics as “…threatening a change to their underlying knowledge/research base and interests” (howieson, 2003, p. 94). yet the need is for accounting academics to be a “change agent” rather than a “change resistor” (parker, 2001, p. 447), and to keep up with the changing environments of the accounting academic (behn et al., 2012, p. 78). in particular, students now “…expect that higher education providers will accommodate pressures outside of study, such as paid employment and meeting family responsibilities, through the flexible delivery of teaching, services and advice” (bradley, noonan, nugent, & scales, 2008, p. 71). the introduction of online learning into the delivery of accounting courses is an option for giving greater flexibility. the use of technology for online learning is seen as a “…new era emerging” (guthrie, burritt, & evans, 2013, p. 19). this “new era” brings with it a number of opportunities that, according to guthrie et al. (2013, p. 19) include: • greater opportunities for wider collaboration; • interactive case studies; • opening courses to geographically, socially and economically disadvantaged persons, hence giving a more diverse range of students; • anytime anywhere education; and • real-time dissemination of research. however, the typical accounting academic has not necessarily embraced the use of new technology in their teaching, with the cost to develop and transition seen as significant by academics in terms of adding to their workload and taking significant time for training and development (gamage & mininberg, 2003; subramaniam, 2003). accounting academics are also concerned that not being able to watch students reactions in class makes it harder to “read” the attentiveness of students and their ability to grasp what is being taught (gamage & mininberg, 2003). there is also apprehension that accounting students will not develop all the graduate capabilities in a purely online context (freeman & hancock, 2013), and an earlier study found that only 50% of surveyed accounting educators believed adopting online teaching methods will be quite helpful for student learning (subramaniam, 2003). another study www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 60 published by scholink inc. identified a concern about the loss of social interaction and spontaneity as having a significant detrimental effect of online learning (howieson, 2003), and in their extensive review of the literature, gamage and mininberg (2003) found similar concerns, noting: sitting in front of a machine and controlling everything in your world has frightening implications for how individuals relate to each other and understand and manage interpersonal relations (p. 194). however, in the decade that followed these statements a “middle ground” position seems to have evolved with support growing for an amalgam of both online and classroom-based approaches. for example, lytle proposed in 2012 that “…hybrid learning, which combines online education with in-class instruction, and “individualized, just-in-time learning approaches” will be much more common by the year 2020” (lytle, 2012). supporting this view, freeman and hancock (2013) submitted that: what is more likely to happen is academics will judiciously incorporate technology-enabled learning into a blended or hybrid learning environment (p. 90). in his phd thesis on situated learning (another term for wil) in accountancy stanley (2010) diagnoses accountancy as a profession, built on a community of practice (p. 100), with transmission “…still the dominant mode of teaching accountancy” (p. 46) even though this “…transfer of knowledge is not working” (p. 52). identifying this issue led stanley to exploring ways to bridge the gap between education and work, and in particular the concept of situated learning. work integrated learning (wil) has had different names like, “…internship, co-operative education, experiential learning and action learning” (leong & kavanagh, 2013). jackson (2013) notes that this includes “…work placements, internships and practicum; project-based learning; and service learning” (p. 99). leong and kavanagh (2013) build on these definitions and types of wil as follows: wil is learning by doing and is designed to help students to develop a better understanding of their future career path, personal and professional direction, extend their knowledge of the world of work and range of employment opportunities (p. 3). common amongst these explanations and examples of wil is the theme of integrating theory and practice, which is a significant factor in the use of wil in teaching accounting at the tertiary level. from the perspective of the student, this greatly assists in their learning (eskola, 2011; jackson, 2013, 2016; simmons, williams, sher, & levett-jones, 2012; stanley, 2010). wil has also been found to assist students in exploring and affirming their career choice (cord, bowrey, & clements, 2010; patrick et al., 2008; stanley, 2010). importantly, there has been significant research into how wil enhances the graduate attributes for students, both profession specific and more generic (abeysekera, 2006; beard, 2007; beard & humphrey, 2014; cord, sykes, & clements, 2011; freudenberg, brimble, & cameron, 2011). moreover, perhaps foremost in the mind of the student is the prospect of employability, and wil has been found to enhance the employability of graduates (beard & humphrey, 2014; bradley et al., 2008; eskola, 2011; jackson, 2013; paisey & paisey, 2010). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 61 published by scholink inc. other stakeholders to also benefit from wil include accounting employers/practitioners who can gain an advantage by previewing potential employees, which can improve selection and increase employee performance, retention and loyalty (beard & humphrey, 2014, pp. 564-566). the accounting professional bodies also stand to gain from wil “…by having well-trained accounting professionals, membership drive, and enhancing their professional strength due to greater membership and image” (abeysekera, 2006, p. 26). even with such benefits and potential advantages to adopting a wil approach, challenges still exist in implementing them. one such challenge is the reluctance of faculty to “…take on the role of a master or mentor in the master/apprentice or mentor/mentee paradigm” (stanley, 2010, p. 99), which is important in guiding students through a wil program. another more complex challenge comes from the various stakeholders in the process (e.g., students, universities, faculty, employers, professional bodies), and whose interests, views, and objectives were paramount and would most influence the design of accounting curricula. there are multiple and largely competing views on this, and implementing a wil program encounters the same challenges with tensions arising “…from the tendency of stakeholders to have different motivations, objectives and understanding of the intended purpose of wil” (patrick et al., 2008, p. 17). patrick et al. (2008) further identify other major challenges for wil, which include issues of equity and access (e.g., international students, regional and remote students), ensuring consistent quality of the placement experience, and adequate resourcing for the wil program. that is, there has been a substantial increase in the number of casual academics employed within universities is the third internal influence accounting academics face. a casual academic, is defined by percy et al. (2008) as “sessional teachers including any higher education instructors not in tenured or permanent positions, and employed on an hourly or honorary basis” (p. 4). casuals are also referred to as “sessional” (coates, dobson, goedegebuure, & meek, 2009) and on occasion as a “conjoint” or “adjunct” (nadolny & ryan, 2013). the extent of the use of casual academics in the australian university sector is very significant (bexley et al., 2011) and it was noted in the bradley report into higher education in australia that australian universities are “highly dependent on a casual workforce” (bradley et al., 2008, p. 22). estimates report that 50% of all teaching is by casual staff (percy et al., 2008), and more than 50% of all undergraduate teaching in australian universities (national tertiary education union, 2012). more recently, mccarthy, song, and jayasuriya (2017) have asserted that casualisation has moved so far within australian universities that “the majority of teaching [is] now conducted by casual staff” (p. 1023). while the focus of this study is on the australian context, vajoczki, fenton, menard, and pollon (2011) note that casualisation of academic staff is an international issue, with ontario, canada, uk and the us experiencing similar levels of casualisation in the university sector as australia. as a part of the university, the discipline of accounting has similarly experienced the casualisation of its academic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 62 published by scholink inc. workforce. both guthrie and parker (2014) and ekanayake and jackling (2014) report that it is typical within the university accounting departments that the academic staff is now highly casualised. two important impacts of casualisation are the potential degradation of the quality of university education and the added workload to the existing tenured staff. several studies report that due to the poor selection process, lack of professional development opportunities, and poor performance management processes for casuals, there will be a consequent flow-on effect to the quality of the teaching (lama & joullié, 2015; probert, 2015; ryan, burgess, connell, & groen, 2013; steenkamp & roberts, 2017). the risk to quality was noted by coates et al. (2009), where “the universities’ main business is handled by its least-connected workforce segment, a lot could be at stake” (p. 53). this sentiment is reinforced by the productivity commission (2017), where they record “it seems likely that a system where a significant share of the teaching is provided by junior staff with limited long-term teaching interest will not generate the best educational outcomes for students” (p. 14). the increased workload to tenured staff as a consequence of the growing casualised academic workforce (kimber, 2003) arises from the added pressure to coordinate this labour segment (coates et al., 2009). while the large numbers of casual staff may collapse into only a small number of full-ime equivalents (fte) of tenured staff, there remains a growing supervisory and coordination load that the permanent staff must undertake, impacting on their own workloads (percy et al., 2008). auaas experience similar workload pressures from the increased casualisation in the accounting departments, as noted by cappellatto (2010) and wright and chalmers (2010). based on the literature review, the following spheres of influence have been developed demonstrating the external and internal influences on accounting academics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 63 published by scholink inc. figure 1. spheres of influence based on these current internal and external influences, this study will then investigate what accounting academics perceive to be the future outlook for teaching of accounting by asking the following research question: how does the accounting academic (aa) perceive the outlook for teaching of accounting and its impact (if any) on workload? 4. methodology: the lived experience in its simplest form lived experience is the “…experience we live through before we take a reflective view of it” (van manen, 2014, p. 42); however in the context of research, lived experience is “…a representation and understanding of a researcher or research subject’s human experiences, choices, and options and how those factors influence one’s perception of knowledge” (boylorn, 2008, pp. 490-491). van manan (2004, pp. 580-581) expands on this to note that lived experience “…remains a central methodological notion that aims to provide concrete insights into the qualitative meanings of phenomena in people’s lives.” essentially it is an attempt to construct or express the meaning of what a person experiences as they live through phenomena (e.g., occurrence, episode, happening, and encounter) (creswell, 2013; crotty, 1998; schwandt & burgon, 2006). developing an awareness of the meaning of lived experience can often lead to improving practice associated with the phenomena of the lived experience (lindseth & norberg, 2004). for example, examination of the lived experience has the potential to develop a better understanding of the challenges and joys of being a parish nurse in australia (gosling, 2012), knowing more about what it is to be an entrepreneur (berglund, 2007), or understanding the natural music learning process of children (green, 2005). this study is important as the lived experience of accounting academics has not yet been fully explored elsewhere. e x t e r n a l i n t e r n a l accountin g academics (aa) graduate attributes industry-acad emia gap alternate pathways delivery methods wil casual staff www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 64 published by scholink inc. lived experience comes under the qualitative research method known as phenomenology and, more particularly, hermeneutic phenomenology. 5. data analysis invitations to an online questionnaire were sent to 808 accounting academics who were listed on the university websites as being accounting educators, of which 162 useable responses were received. these responses were followed up with semi-structured interviews of a smaller group of 8 australian academics from five different australian universities to further explore key issues raised in the questionnaire. demographics from the interviews are shown in tables 1 and 2. figure 2. sources and connections of data collection table 1. participant characteristics characteristic number of participants gender female 4 male 4 academic position lecturer 3 senior lecturer 3 associate professor 2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 65 published by scholink inc. table 2. participant universities characteristic universities participants size (no. students) large (>40000) 2 2 medium (20001 – 40000) 2 5 small (< 20000) 1 1 location cbd 2 2 regional 3 6 four themes emerged in the data collection process of teaching, research, workload and curricula. each of these will now be analysed. 6. theme 1: teaching-related workload factors the first of the teaching-related workload factors that came to light during the data analysis are those activities that involve the administration of teaching, and include activities such as compliance, class preparation, and developing new materials. the accounting academics (aa) described this as being “overburdened with administration” (q47), and “…we’ve got too many other demands on our time around teaching-related sort of activities” (aa 2). included in these demands is “…an overabundance of compliance required by the university related to teaching tasks” (q47) and “bureaucracy regarding teaching” (q24). however, these compliance related tasks were only part of issue for the accounting academics in the study. the preparation of teaching material was reported as a secondary issue affecting teaching (q47), with comments such as the following, time to develop material the time it takes to prepare for a lecture/tutorial/seminar, even in the case of a subsequent year “repeat performance” lack of preparation time aa(1) noted that “…teaching is very intensive in terms of getting the material organised”, highlighting that the act of teaching encompasses more than just the face-to-face function of content delivery. while preparing for teaching a class is identified by the accounting academics in the study as an issue in their teaching workload, a greater number of accounting academics noted developing new material and methods of teaching as a crucial issue. typical of their responses were, lack of time for improving teaching (q23) lack of time to develop new methods of presenting the lectures and notes (q47) too busy with teaching and admin., so limited time available for designing new assessments and teaching materials (q47) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 66 published by scholink inc. constant changes mean no time to fully develop and consolidate great content and delivery methods (q49) it was aa(4), when discussing the time involved with all the time allocated for teaching, who used the phrase “…it wasn’t teaching, it was the administration of teaching”. in discussing the same issue, aa(5) summed up the feeling of the accounting academics regarding such administration, when they noted, “i don’t think the administration around teaching is acknowledged enough”. the final issue within the teaching-related theme reported by the accounting academics in the study involves online teaching. with over 90% of respondents to the questionnaire noting that the use of online environments has increased over the last five years (q32), and over 80% indicting staff have increased their use of electronic feedback for assessments (q33), the pressure for online development is real for the accounting academics in the study. in responding to five of the questions in the questionnaire the accounting academics very clearly perceived significant pressure to be moving into an online/blended delivery mode of teaching, indicative response to the questions are: too much of a push to “blended learning” (q23) [would like] less pressure to move courses online, accounting is a people based career (q24) pressure for on-line development (q47) pressure to teach solely online (q48) [issue is the] balance of online v face to face (q49) in particular, this was seen to be a primary challenge expected to be encountered in their teaching in the next five years (q48). while the responses of the accounting academics indicated much of this pressure came from the university (e.g., “restructuring to provide more online teaching” q48), the expectations of students were also reported as an important influence. a secondary response to questionnaire q30 (ways student expectations of teaching have changed) involved the desire for more online resources, examples of these responses included, better online learning environment more on line teaching more demands for online materials students expect significant online content clearly the accounting academics in the study perceive a demand from students for more content and resources to be available online (“…increasing proportion opt for online”, q30). the primary issue with this as noted by the accounting academics was that online/blended learning delivery requires more resources, most significantly the time of accounting academics. to meet this demand requires accounting academics to adapt, which includes, more time devoted to developing materials, especially online (q24) time to put stuff online takes away from class time (q47) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 67 published by scholink inc. finding time to deliver high quality online resources (q48) the accounting academics noted that online/blended learning approaches are increasing and with this comes the need to develop different/additional teaching materials. the lack of support, training and resources available to the accounting academics for what they perceive to be the inevitable transition to the online environment is of concern to them. 7. theme 2: research related workload factors the second identified workload factor external to teaching that impacts on the accounting academics teaching is the requirement for research. the participants in the study noted the tension between research and teaching, with indicative comments including: balancing time between research and teaching (q47) research teaching trade off (q23) teaching research tension (q23) an important number of accounting academics in the study noted they felt increasing pressure to research and publish, which they believed has a detrimental effect on the time available for teaching, see for example the following responses to q48 when asked about the challenges ahead to teaching, meeting research expectation (takes time away) increased pressure to publish (less time for teaching) less time for teaching-related activities due to more time required for research these sentiments were echoed in other responses throughout the questionnaire, as illustrated by the following, increased demands for research – less time for teaching (q47) workload expectations for research output allowing minimum time for teaching (q50) pressure to focus on research rather than on teaching (q23) the pressure felt by accounting academics in the study within the research component of their workload at the expense of teaching is perceived to be a “lack of recognition of teaching” (q25) and impacts on not just the time available for teaching, but also the quality of teaching (q23). 8. theme 3: administration workload factors in the context of this research, administration refers to the “paperwork” and compliance requirements of accounting academics associated with their role. it does not refer to the administration of their teaching (e.g., marking and preparing classes). the accounting academics repeatedly noted in the study that administration has increased, and intrudes into time for teaching, as indicated by the following typical comments: heavy admin load for coordinators who are trying to maintain a balance between research and teaching but mostly spent in managing and coordinating (q23) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 68 published by scholink inc. intrusion of administration into time (q48) increased time spent on admin (q50). an example of the type of administrative functions that are imposing on their time for teaching-related activities is provided by aa(8), oh, the admin is, the admin, there are a lot of things that we do from an administrative point of view that, waste our time, that take us away from improving materials for students and, i was asked recently to put my cv into a template for teqsa for one of the places i work at, their, reaccreditation process. and i looked at it and thought, you’ve got my cv and you’ve got the template, and someone in admin could’ve put my cv into the template but now i’m doing it, which takes me away from, doing things that i could be doing for my students or, improving my blackboard being required to engage in administrative tasks that could be undertaken by non-academic staff is an area the accounting academics keenly felt as a pressure point on their teaching component within their workload. aa(1) further noted below that even though their role requires them to fulfil administrative duties, there is insufficient recognition in the workload model for such: …i find administration duties take a lot away from me as well. so, i’m constantly looking after staff, staffing issues, arranging staff events and those sorts of things. even though it gets recognized in my role, it doesn’t really get recognized in terms of this workload model. the increased role of administrative work required of accounting academics is perceived by the academics in the study to be impacting their teaching, to the point in some cases where their identity as educators is threatened, and evidenced by the following comment from aa(4), a senior lecturer: so, another challenge, another challenge that i notice is that i’m no longer, i try hard to hang onto this, but i feel i’m no longer an educator, i’m an administrator within the traditional workload model for academics, administration may be the smallest component, but in the study reported here and noted above, the accounting academics see it as growing and putting pressure on the time available for teaching. the accounting academics in the study reported feeling the pressures of workload in two discrete ways. the first was in relation to the volume of work which they indicated impacts on the balance between work and non-work activities (work/life balance). work-life balance was reported as a primary issue facing the discipline (“work-life balance issues”—q23), an example of increased student expectations on accounting academics (“expect staff to be available 24/7” —q30), a challenge ahead for teaching (“lack of time”—q48) and an obstacle to implementing positive changes (“time constraint”—q25). the second of the workload pressures reported by the accounting academics in the study is the competing demands for time within allocated work time. that is, the balance between the traditional academic roles for lecturers and senior lecturers of teaching (40%), research (40%) and administration www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 69 published by scholink inc. (20%) (which includes administration, service, community and industry engagement is perceived as being very difficult to maintain, as illustrated in 2 and noted by aa(2) that “… probably like everywhere else, there’s an ongoing debate and concerns about increasing workloads, just in terms of, say, class contact time and things like that”. other responses to the questionnaire in relation to this included: competing demands (q47) balancing research, admin., and teaching (q48) balancing time—teaching/admin., and research overlap and can implode one another (q49) within the study’s questionnaire, q45 asked participants to indicate how their academic workload is broken down across a year, noting that the total should equal 100%. the results for the average of each component for each academic role is shown in figure 3 compared to the traditional weighting and notes that teaching is the dominant component, with research being less than the traditional model and admin/other more: figure 3. traditional lecturer/senior lecturer academic workload components 9. theme 4: curricula related workload factors the accounting academics in the study noted there are changes in the world of accounting that may potentially impact on the university accounting curricula. these changes include: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 70 published by scholink inc. figure 4. accounting academic reported work components • the changing role of accountants and the accounting workforce (q23); • the nature of the accounting profession and the nature of accounting (q23 and q47); • the changing preferences of students (q47); and • changing graduate attributes (q48). driving these changes are accounting academics, employers, students and the accreditation processes of universities and the accounting professional bodies. three major potential changes to the accounting curricula that the accounting academics see are needed: more emphasis on information technology; giving greater priority to developing “soft skills’ in students (e.g., communication skills and critical thinking skills); and producing work-ready graduates curricula. the accounting academics, when asked to rate a number of different student skills in the questionnaire (q27), primarily voted the following as their top three, indicating a need for “soft skills” to be included in accounting curricula: problem solving (98.5%) written communication (96.2%) critical thinking (94.7%) this was supported by responses in the questionnaire asking what changes the accounting academics would like to see in the accounting discipline (q24), with indicative responses including: broader range of non-accounting based subjects less emphasis on vocational skills the accounting academics perceive that accounting students instead prefer curricula content that emphasises “real-life” examples and a focus on practical skills, as evidenced by typical comments: students too focussed on technical skills (q25) practical oriented teaching (q30) expectation of the use of real life examples takes priority to the actual subject content (q30) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 71 published by scholink inc. accounting students are looking for a context in which to apply the lessons they are learning and skills they perceive will enhance their employability. the accounting academics in the study reported their perception of the influence of industry/employers on the accounting curricula as being: demands for work-ready graduates (q23) industry demands for work-ready graduates (q25) there were a small number of accounting academics who indicated a criticism of this: curricula too influenced by industry organisations (q23) industry focusses on applied ability, even if they talk about soft skills (q25) however, the primary response suggested more accounting academics support the idea that the curricula should better reflect what prospective employers want in potential graduates, and invite their involvement, as evidenced in typical responses to questions asked in the questionnaire about the changes they would like to see in the accounting discipline (q24): more industry engagement in determining course structure and subject content more input from industry in curriculum design review curriculum to match industry expectations incorporate more industry involvement accounting academics perceive that employers are seeking graduates who are “work-ready”, a term not defined by the accounting academics yet considered critical in the design of accounting curricula. accounting courses are regularly accredited as part of the university quality assurance process, to meet the university’s overall accreditation requirements as an approved higher education provider. in addition the accounting professional bodies (cpa/caanz) offer accreditation of accounting courses which gives advanced standing into the respective professional body membership and graduate programs to accounting graduates from degrees accredited by cpa/caanz. there may be other accreditation processes that accounting courses and/or faculties at particular universities are subject to, including more recently the move towards accreditation with the association to advance collegiate schools of business (aacsb). gaining accreditation requires the satisfaction of criteria, some of which impact the design of the accounting curricula. the accounting academics in the study noted the influence of accreditation as a driver of change in the accounting curricula. they were particularly critical of the accounting professional bodies, as evidenced by: content of syllabus too much driven by the accounting profession (q23) [would like to see] less involvement of professional organisations/accreditation, more academic freedom in the design of the curricula (q24) [would like to see the] removal of accreditation of degree programs by the accounting profession (q24) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 72 published by scholink inc. professional body accreditation is mandatory, but is often self-serving (q53) however, a small number of other accounting academics pointed out that the professional bodies have relaxed their requirements and “…haven’t been overly prescriptive as far as what they actually want” aa(2). 10. trac framework using the lived experience of the accounting academic, the four themes identified, being teaching, research, accounting academic workload and curricula have been used to create the (trac) framework. this framework is an adaption of biggs and tang (2007) framework of constructive alignment for quality learning and teaching, recognised and employed in higher education in australia, and includes the themes of institutional climate, curricula and teaching methods and assessment. the perspectives in the trac theme framework can also be viewed as concentric circles which is also based on biggs and tang (2007) framework, in which the accounting students are the centre and relate outwards to the accounting academic. the accounting academic then is next, who is concerned with students and the university, and finally the university, whose interactions with students is largely through the accounting academic. these differing perspectives of accounting academics impact on research problems being considered through the issues, challenges and outlooks of accounting academics and their lived experience. 11. discussion and conclusions the research question has as its objective to construct what the accounting academics outlook for the teaching of accounting and the impact on workload. in achieving this, the accounting academics in the study noted five factors that will shape the immediate future of the academic accounting profession, and in particular their dissatisfaction with workload issues, summarised as: • growth of international students will continue to present challenges • student success at the beginning of university is a shared responsibility • change in engaging with students is necessary • curricula design needs to be relevant and have input from multiple “stakeholders” • differing expectations around research continue www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 73 published by scholink inc. figure 5. the university spheres of influence growth of international students will continue to present challenges. the growth of the international student cohort in the accounting discipline at australian universities is anticipated to continue. this means that international students will be an established part of universities in australia for the foreseeable future, and accounting academics will need to accept this and adapt. this cohort of students provides a significant source of revenues for universities, and accounting academics will need to be vigilant to ensure the quality of the education delivered is not compromised in order to protect this revenue. the outlook of accounting academics is that international student growth is part of accounting academics lived experience for the near future. student success at the beginning of university is a shared responsibility. while accounting academics feel challenged by a number of issues pertaining to students’ apparent lack of preparedness for study at university level, questions remain over whose is responsible to address these issues. the overarching issue is one of shared responsibility, including accounting academics, and until steps are taken to coordinate and address these issues, the perception of unprepared students will remain. the uncertainty of this most likely means accounting academics will continue to encounter students they perceive as being under prepared for university study, part of the outlook of accounting academics. change in engaging with students is necessary. since universities first began, students have reflected the culture and characteristics of their changing generations. this will be the case as long as universities exist and accounting academics over the course of their career will need to be constantly reviewing how to best engage with the students of the time, adapting as necessary. the accounting academics outlook for the future is that there will always be a generational gap between most students and accounting academics, and it is incumbent on academics to attempt to bridge this. curricula design needs to be relevant and have input from multiple “stakeholders”. change is also ever-present in the worlds of business and technology, and accounting curricula needs to be regularly reviewed to ensure it remains current. while the authors of accounting curricula are the accounting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 74 published by scholink inc. academics, they do need to ensure they have appropriate forums for engaging with other stakeholders in accounting graduates (including employers, students, and accounting professional bodies) to ensure the curricula is relevant at all times, forming part of the outlook of the accounting academics lived experience. without significant change to the accounting higher education sector, it is unlikely there will be any change to the pressures on universities to keep sourcing additional revenue streams and keeping costs as low as possible. as such, there is not likely to be additional resources available for accounting academics to have their workloads reduced or provided with additional support for research activities. the accounting academics in the study anticipate in their outlook that the issues associated with workloads (e.g., increasing administration, larger classes and increasing student demands) and research support will be ongoing and part of accounting academics lived experience for the near future. table 3. trac theme framework of accounting academic perceptions accounting academics perception of how the student views: how accounting academics view: accounting academics perception of how the university administration views: the purpose of university preparation for a career to develop and impart knowledge big business • teaching teach me the way that i like, without challenging me too much support for adapting my mode of teaching teaching as efficiently and low cost as possible in a way that attracts and retains students— i.e., low cost/high volume/high demand • research whatever helps me in my career reasonable expectations of and support for me researching in my areas of interest focus research in areas that maximize funding opportunities • accounting academic workload be available to me 24/7 allow me flexibility and autonomy within a balanced and reasonable workload allocated so as to maximize income generation while keeping costs to a minimum • curricula deliver what i need to give me the best chance of getting a job in my chosen career designed according to what i think the student needs designed to attract students and satisfy multiple stakeholders www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 75 published by scholink inc. figure 6. workload impact factor (wif) model the lived experience used both survey and interviews to identify the 4 themes of current accounting education, being trac (teaching, research, accounting academic workload and curriculum), and from these themes, five outlook factors were identified and have been incorporated into the following workload impact factors (wif) model, demonstrating the impact on the accounting academic particularly on workload. this has been called “workload creep” (petry, 2011) as although the institutions still allocate a workload model based on 40% teaching, 40% research and 20% administration, the accounting academics researched indicated that this is no longer a balanced model and that in fact they were expected to do far more than the simple 100% model. the workload impact factor (wif) model incorporates the four related themes from the research (trac) and combines them with the 5 outlook factors for the projected future for the accounting academic, and demonstrates this concept of “workload creep”. this research has reviewed the literature to see that accounting academics have both external influences (graduate attributes, industry-academia gaps and alternate pathways) and internal influences (student engagement, wil and casualisation of the workforce). with these influences in mind, the lived experience of accounting academics was researched using both survey and interviews to discover 4 main themes using the trac theme framework (teaching, research, accounting academic workload and curriculum). these themes then highlighted the workload impact factor (wif) model, in order to answer the research question of “how does the accounting academic (aa) perceive the outlook for teaching of accounting and its impact (if any) on workload? finally the effects on workload were that the five factors together created a higher than expected workload creep, where accounting academics believe that the future only holds more work to be absorbed by current workload. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 76 published by scholink inc. accounting academics are a smaller component of the larger academic community. as such, they are subject to largely the same issues and pressures as the general academic workforce, and are not immune from changes to the way of academia. there is significant pressure on university administrations to introduce cost efficiencies, and consequently university managers are looking for less expensive delivery methods and greater use of casual academics. however, there are still costs associated with the resourcing, developing and managing of these initiatives. there are additional workload allocations required for engaging in wil activities and coordinating the growing casual academic workforce. the challenge for accounting academics is to do so within a balanced workload model, rather than the workload creep that many accounting academics are forecasting to be the outlook for academics. this workload creep can be described as an increase in academic wear and tear, almost like depreciation on capital assets. depreciation is a recognition of assets use, and its diminution in economic benefits or value. accounting academics must be careful not to be classified as an asset subject to depreciation, as then they could become commercially obsolete. finally, a positive view of the future remains with the following comment from aa(2) which summarises well the workload and outlook of accounting academics in this study: “yes there are increasing demands on our time, at the end of the day, compared to working out in the corporate world on a full-time basis; 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(2011). teaching accounting in the new millennium. paper presented at the 2011 cambridge business and economics conference proceedings. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 22 original paper covid-19 and the politics of gastronomic consumerism in pandemic india minu susan koshy1* & abina sulhath2 1 assistant professor, dept. of english, mar thoma college for women (affl. to mahatma gandhi university), perumbavoor, kerala, india 2 m.a student, dept. of english, mar athanasius college (autonomous) (affl. to mahatma gandhi university), kothamangalam, kerala, india received: february 24, 2022 accepted: march 14, 2021 online published: april 25, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n2p22 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n2p22 abstract food culture has always been a definitive marker of identity throughout the ages, reflecting transformations social orders have undergone over time. consumerism finds its most potent manifestation in food cultures, especially in terms of the type of food consumed (imported, ready-to-eat, frozen etc.) and the modes in which it is consumed (at restaurants, dine-ins, online ordering). the covid-19 pandemic situation saw drastic transformations in the way indians perceived and consumed food and drinks, with the gig economy and home-made food industry flourishing. the lockdown and associated restrictions led to a sharp decline in the number of people eating out at restaurants, hotels and cafes. besides, the work-at-home culture made leisure possible for a significant section of the middle-class, propelling the subjects to cook at home, often leading to the emergence of local food-based start-ups. domestic servitude declined due to the upper-class suspicion of maids and “lowly” domestic employees who came from “unclean” locales. as such, homemakers and working subjects, especially women, began cooking on their own, leading to innovative food cultures and novel modes of gastronomic consumerism. the paper attempts to explore the multifaceted modes in which the covid-19 situation propels transformations in gastronomic consumer culture and the “culture industry” in india, as revealed through surveys, published reports and social media pages. the study would also engage with the modes in which gender, class and caste intersect with pandemic consumerism in the gastronomic arena, thereby developing a holistic perspective on how it affects consumer and food cultures across social groups in india. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. keywords food culture, pandemic, lockdown, consumer culture, social media, gastronomy, gender dynamics, class, gig economy, consumerism 1. introduction after the first case of covid-19 was reported in india on 30 january 2020, the country was caught in a gigantic wave that crushed lives and economies across the world. developing nations such as india with limited health care and medical facilities are among the worst affected, especially in terms of their economic standing. the consumer industry is perhaps one among the best indicators of the economic status and stability of a country. consumerism finds its most potent manifestation in food cultures, especially in terms of the type of food consumed and the modes in which it is consumed. this becomes significant in the pandemic situation, as food is “the” most important requirement for subjects, irrespective of the class or gender they belong to. food culture has always been a definitive marker of identity throughout the ages, reflecting transformations social orders have undergone over time. as a country with a wide array of food items and food sources, with small dhabas co-existing with mcdonalds and kfcs, with the innumerable supermarkets that are often accessible only to specific groups of people, and with food being a significant marker of identity, the situation in india merits attention. “goods are consumed not only for their material characteristics, but even more for what they symbolize” (goodman & cohen, 2004, p. 2). among such commodities, food is of prime importance in that it is one of the most conspicuous markers of identity. it is symbolic and it represents dominant ways of a society. consuming food is a ritual and a performance that showcases the nuances of the subject’s identity. the pandemic period witnessed drastic transformations in the ways in which we approach and engage with food. 2. method this paper attempts to analyse the modes in which consumers engaged with food during the pandemic and how a significant change could be observed in gastronomic consumer culture in india. food cultures will be explored to analyse the transformation in food consumption patterns. the one-year period from 1 april 2020 to 1 april 2021 is taken as the “pandemic period” for the purpose of the study. a survey was conducted and a questionnaire was distributed online. the study draws from the survey as well as from various social media platforms which perhaps saw the highest traffic in terms of foodrelated posts during the pandemic period when most other modes of communication came into a partial halt. google trends has been used to comprehend patterns through keyword searches and trending words. this will be an analytical study and information will be drawn from various online sources, especially social media, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. including facebook, twitter, instagram and whatsapp, reports from reliable sources and surveys conducted by the researchers. 3. analysis the covid-19 situation led to increased restrictions on the movement of people and hence a majority was forced to stay at home. consumers went to small retail shops and corner stores near their house to purchase necessary food items with planned lists. the “covid-19 consumer pulse research report” reveals that 90% of the indian respondents are changing their consumption patterns and that the emphasis on branded products would decline. “consumers are now focused on their most basic needs while cutting back on non-essentials” (tandon, 2020). this meant that conspicuous waste, was not affordable anymore for a majority of the middle and upper middle classes. and where there were instances of conspicuous waste, it was censured by the social order, especially through social media. celebrities were criticized for engaging in gourmet cooking and fancy vacations at a time when millions were starving. here, social media functions as an ideological state apparatus, subtly ensuring adherence to group norms during times of crisis, with food as a central point of debate. 74% of the indian consumers surveyed by accenture said that they rely now on locally-sourced products and 80% prefer shopping in stores in the neighbourhood. the emphasis was on hygienic food. people preferred to go to relatively small shops to reduce person-to-person contact. this is evident from the 39% increase in grocery sales in neighbourhood kirana shops in india as documented in the mckinsey report, 2020, which also found that 29% of the customers surveyed intended to continue purchase in such stores even after the pandemic period. regular shopping at local stores provides venues for the emergence of personal connections, while supermarkets and malls thrive on impersonal relationships. the increased reliance on small stores for groceries and basic supply would establish new bonds and minor discounts and concessions, which might well continue into the post-pandemic period. the impersonality associated with the act of purchasing food in modern social orders might reduce with the increased reliance on local stores, taking us back to the period before the establishment of retail chains, supermarkets and malls. after the pandemic set in, there was an increased demand for healthy, immunity-boosting food. metro cash and carry reveals that there was an increase of 60% in the sales of immunity-boosters like honey, green tea, chyavanprash and neem and tulsi drinks. they also highlighted the huge jump in demand for items in the health and wellness sector—by april 2020, the sales figures had outgrown those of 2019 by 4%. junk food and fried food declined in popularity and healthy alternatives were preferred (anand, 2021). the fear of being infected combined with strict restrictions on roadside dhabas and fast food joints led to sharp transformations in eating habits. besides, the work from home culture led to increased bonding between family members, thereby facilitating the ritual of “eating together as a family”. home food was preferred owing to safety and hygiene concerns. 92% of the respondents in our survey said that their habit www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. of dining out decreased considerable after the onset of the pandemic. dining-out is a performance, laden with symbolic significations. it is one of the modes of conspicuous consumption and indicative of social status. in countries like india, it is only the upper classes who can afford to visit restaurants on a regular basis. such visits are as much acts of “casual” dining-out as they are of assertion of their belonging in the leisure class. customers expects restaurant to “satisfy deeper emotional desires for status and belonging” (finkelstein, 1989, p. 105). however, the pandemic and the resultant loss of jobs meant that even the upper middle-class subjects had to be cautious with spending their money on leisure and luxury items. the use of half-processed items and ordering food online had become usual much before the pandemic. this trend continued during the pandemic and ensured that online orders remained steady or increased during the pandemic. according to the mckinsey report , there was an increase of 11% in ordering from restaurants during the pandemic (shashidhar, 2020). there was huge surge in the demand for food delivery and various apps were developed by groups in small towns in the model of swiggy and zomato after the lockdown. amazon also made forays into the food delivery sector in 2020. the pandemic led to the flourishing of the gig culture in the gastronomic arena. however, we should keep in mind that the majority of the customers for these apps belonged to the middle and upper middle classes, who could afford to buy fancy food and pay delivery charges. the demand for ready-to-eat (rte), ready-to-cook (rtc) and frozen foods rose owing to the difficulty in visiting shops often. with people increasingly preferring to eat at home and the prices of fresh food rising drastically, the frozen food market grew by 40-50%. rte and rtc food items, which during the pre-covid times had been purchased only when exigencies arose, came to be in high demand during the pandemic period. rtc food items had the additional advantage of being “home-made”, which remains a fetish in the indian household. the august-october 2020 newsletter of the federation of indian chamber of commerce and industry (ficci), the demand for packaged food, especially pulses, dry fruits and sweets will increase during and after the pandemic owing to concerns over hygiene. as such, roadside merchants and gully markets have either already closed down or are on the verge of shutting shop. this is a huge advantage for glocalized mncs who make “indian” foods and “export” it to india. here again, the issue of class becomes significant. only the upper classes could purchase packaged items on a regular basis. the pandemic served to exacerbate the “stigmatizing inequality” (goodman & cohen, 2004, p. 75) already existing in the indian social order. while the “mithai bhandar” was a common meeting place for many indians, especially youngsters, the pandemic brought a halt to the culture as packaged sweets were preferred. the same pattern could be seen in the case of roadside tea stalls, most of which had to be closed down. by banning gatherings, the state spelled the doom of such traditional shopkeepers. it served the additional biopolitical purpose of bringing bodies under control, shaping them into docile entities. in many states, political discussions took place in these small roadside shops and stalls. the prohibition of gatherings also spelt the end of such www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. discussions by the common people. that the pandemic came at a time when the protests against the citizenship amendment act (caa) were gaining momentum served to further the interests of the political regime. panic buying by consumers in the initial days of the lockdown led to food scarcity, making conspicuous the disparity between the rich and the poor. while the upper classes had consciously avoided going to the ration shops in order to assert their “distinction” (bourdieu, 979/1984, p. 5), the fear of scarcity of food and the reasonable quality of the items distributed propelled them to get the ration kits. in such instances, we see the class distinctions dissolving in the face of crisis and the emergence of a “carnivalesque” (bakhtin, 1984, p. 15) situation. the availability of ration rice, which is considered low quality rice in many states across india, led to a deluge of videos on youtube and social media featuring dishes, including fried rice, biryani, and cake, made with ration rice. the last year, more than 40 youtube channels uploaded videos on ration rice dishes. everyone seemed to be “experimenting” with ration rice. although a seemingly innocent act, this is an instance where we see the privileged asserting their distinction from the lower classes. by making, or rather, “experimenting” biryani and exotic dishes which require a lot of other ingredients with ration rice, the financially stable category attempts to mark themselves as distinct from the lower classes who cannot afford to use ration rice for “experimenting”. the desire to be “different” manifests itself conspicuously in the videos. for instance, in a popular cookery channel, the voice of the cook tells us: “i decided to make a biryani that saadharanakaar (the common masses) can make”. the word “saadharanakaar” in malayalam is a euphemism to denote the lower classes. by asserting that the biryani is for “saadharanakaar”, the cook is subtly detaching herself from the category and asserting her class identity as someone who is outside and above the group labelled thus. there is also an emphasis on giving a “make-over” to the ration rice, indicating the “need” to change the class status that the rice symbolizes in the indian psyche. most youtube videos featuring ration rice contain a clause: “even though we are using ration rice...” in several videos, the cook tells us specifically that “there will be black coloured rice in the ration rice” and we see her picking up the black rice in her hands to show that the ration rice needs thorough cleansing, unlike the rice we buy from stores. this rarely happens in cookery videos featuring “paid” rice. the popularly held notion that ration rice is for “unclean” people, meaning the “lower” classes/castes, is propagated here. another food trend that dominated social media was the dalgona challenge. google trends reveals that the search words “how to make dalgona coffee” was among the top three “how to” searches in 2020. whipping it up was considered fashionable, as “high quality coffee powder” (times food, 2020), unaffordable to the poor, was essential to make it. the work from home culture and the lack of jobs also led to a number of women turning to baking, either for leisure or for making a living. many relied on youtube videos to learn baking and some even launched business ventures of their own. in 2020, “how to bake cake” was at the top of the list of google searches and around 59 million viewers had watched videos on making cakes in youtube. baking at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. home had traditionally been the forte of the elite classes. initially restricted to areas with a strong british presence, home baking percolated to the upper classes among indians after the colonial period. however, during the pandemic, people belonging to the middle classes also took to baking. while the relatively wealthy pursued it as a hobby, others established small-scale business ventures to offset the household income. while baking items were mostly available in supermarkets and relatively large stores before the pandemic, the pandemic period saw even small, local shops selling bakery essentials such as baking soda, baking powder, cocoa and even regular baking trays and pipettes. here again, we see the pandemic leading to the dissolution of class barriers. facebook and instagram posts and whatsapp statuses of many women (and men) from various strata featured baked goodies and baking lost its exclusive nature. the gender dimension of food cultures during the pandemic merits attention here. even in normal circumstances, women are among the most vulnerable to food insecurity in countries like india where patriarchy is deep-rooted. “within the family, status and power differences according to gender can be reflected in the distribution of food” (wood, 2004, p. 132). whenever there are worries of food shortage, the women cut down on their food intake, leading to severe health consequences. this tendency becomes conspicuous during extra-normal situations like the pandemic period. since mobility was severely affected during the lockdown, many men who usually went out during their leisure time, were forced to sit at home. this meant having to share the domestic workload, including cooking. in a patriarchal society, a man who cooks is often termed “effeminate” and “not man enough”. as such, indian men have traditionally been reluctant to get involved with cooking. however, the emergence of social media and the possibility of creating tiktok and youtube videos and posting them on facebook and instagram served as motivation for a handful of men to cook at home. in many households, maids were not allowed due to the upper-class suspicion of those in the lower rungs of the social ladder by virtue of their class or caste; servants were believed to be potential carriers of the virus as they came from “unclean” locales. as such, the burden of household work on women increased. besides, many men had to stay at home owing to sudden unemployment. around 104 million men had lost their jobs in april alone. these factors together led to increased participation of men in household management, childcare and cooking. nevertheless, women continued to devote a greater number of hours than men to household work. besides, many men cooked to “experiment” or to post photos on social media, while the task of cooking “proper”, regular meals for the family fell on the women. although the larger burden still falls on women, we can see a gradual shift in the gendering of household work, with men increasingly being involved in purchasing grocery and cooking. 4. conclusion food has thus occupied a central place in the indian imaginary during the pandemic period. there was scarcity and food insecurity on the one side and abundance on the other. food was the cause of misery as well as celebration, depending on the subject’s class and social status. the what, how and where of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. eating became prominent issues with food and the act of eating functioning as performances and symbolic systems. conspicuous waste has been replaced by conscious consumption, with customers increasingly focusing on mindful spending and healthy eating. during the second wave of covid-19 that has hit india, there are mounting concerns regarding the availability of food. the future of the country seems unpredictable, and so does the consumer culture which has undergone radical transformations. the paper has offered a preliminary glimpse in to the patterns of consumption and food cultures in india during the first phase of pandemic and has located them within the socio-political contexts from which they draw significance. the question as to whether these changes are here to stay is debatable and nothing conclusive can be said in this regard till the pandemic is under control, and the country returns to “normal”, if ever there can be a “normal” after covid-19. references anand, s. (2021, april 15). demand for ready-to-eat, processed food, breakfast cereals surges: metro cash and carry. economic times. retrieved from https://m.economictimes.com/industry/cons-products/food/demand-for-ready-to-eat-processed-foo d-breakfast-cereals-surges-metro-cash-and-carry/amp_articleshow/82082920.cms bakhtin, m., & iswolsky, h. (1984). rabelais and his world. indiana university press. bourdieu, p. (1984). distinction: a social critique of the judgement5 of the taste (richard nice, trans.). harvard university press (original work published.1979). chopra et al. (2020). impact of covid-19 on lifestyle-related behavioursa cross-sectional audit of responses from nine hundred and ninety-five participants from india. diabetes & metabolic syndrome: clinical research & reviews, 14(6), 2021-2030. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsx.2020.09.034clio finkelstein, j. (1989). dining out: a sociology of modern manners. cambridge polity press. finkelstein, j. (2004). chic cusine: the impact of fashion on food. in d. solan (ed.), culinary taste, consumer behaviour in the international restaurant sector (1st ed., pp.59-76). elsevier butterworth-heinemann. gabriel, y., & lang, t. (2006). the unmanageable consumer (2nd ed.). sage publications. goodman, d. j., & cohen, m. (2004). consumer culture: a reference handbook. abc-. retrieved from https://consumerpyramidsdx.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=wshreport&nvdt=202010051720 34840&nvtype=events&ver=pf&ver=pf krishnan, k. (1970, august 22). cmie cpdx. consumer pyramids. miles, s. (1998). consumerism as a way of life. sage publications. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. news18 staff. (2020, may 8). google reveals what recipes indians searched most on internet during lockdown. news18. retrieved from https://www.news18.com/amp/news/buzz/google-reveals-what-recipes-indians-searched-the-moston-internet-during-lockdown-2611571.html press trust of india, posted by: alfea jamal. (2020, august 5). baking in times of coronavirus: increased home-baking in covid-19 pandemic times, spikes sales of syrups, spreads & cocoa powder. hindustan times. retrieved from https://www.hindustantimes.com/more-lifestyle/baking-in-times-of-coronavirus-increased-home-b aking-in-covid-19-pandemic-times-spikes-sales-of-syrups-spreads-cocoa-powder/story-q7ff9cyy zzifxygki3jl0n_amp.html shashidhar, a. (2020, april 16). coronavirus lockdown: 39% jump in grocery sales in kirana stores, says mckinsey. business today. retrieved from https://m.businesstoday.in/lite/story/coronavirus-lockdown-39-percent-jump-in-grocery-sales-in-ki rana-stores-says-mckinsey/1/401195.html tandon, s. (2020, august 11). covid survey: 90% of consumers making lasting changes to how they live, work. mint. retrieved from https://www.livemint.com/news/india/covid-survey-90-of-consumers-making-lasting-changes-to-h ow-they-live-work-11597146722679.html times food. (2020, april 10). watch: dalgona coffee by chef anuj wadhawan. times food. retrieved from https://recipes.timesofindia.com/bevarage/non-alcoholic/dalgona-coffee/rs75011600.cms veblen, t. (1967). the theory of the leisure class. viking press. wood, r. c. (2004). gender and culinary taste. in d. solan (ed.), culinary taste, consumer behaviour in the international restaurant sector (1st ed., pp.131-149). elsevier butterworth-heinemann. declaration this is to certify that the paper titled covid-19 and the politics of gastronomic consumerism in pandemic india is an original work written by us and it has not been published previously. place: perumbavoor dr. minu susan koshy date: 10/3/2022 ms. abina sulhath m.a bio notes minu susan koshy currently works as assistant professor in the department of english, mar thoma college for women, affiliated to mahatma gandhi university, kerala. she has published extensively in national and international journals and has served as the resource person at several conferences. her areas of interest are cultural studies, postcolonial studies and comparative and world literatures. her books include narrating childhood trauma: the quest for catharsis (dc books-expressions, 2015), a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 2, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. translation of the malayalam anthology tattoo (authorspress, 2015), an edited collection of poems titled gossamer reveries ( authorspress, 2019) and mapping the postcolonial domestic in the works of vargas llosa and mukundan: tales of the threshold ( cambridge scholars publishing, 2020). she is also a reviewer for the journal of global south studies (university of plattsburgh, new york), education, society and human studies, los angeles, and studies in english language teaching, los angeles. she can be contacted at minususankoshy@gmail.com ms. abina sulhath ma is pursuing her post-graduation in english literature at mar athanasius college (autonomous), kothamangalam, affiliated to mahatma gandhi university, kerala. she has presented papers at various conferences. her areas of interest include masculinity studies, gender studies, cultural studies, food studies and comparative literature. she can be contacted at abinasulhath@gmail.com mailto:minususankoshy@gmail.com mailto:abinasulhath@gmail.com education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 46 original paper the contrastive study on discursive construction of identities and the adaptation in cosmetic advertising anqi ye 1 , qian li 1 & mengchi feng 1 1 anhui university, china received: may 6, 2024 accepted: may 16, 2024 online published: may 24, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n2p46 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n2p46 abstract discursive strategies are often used in cosmetic advertisements to construct different discursive identities in order to enter larger markets. based on the graphic advertisements, the article reveals the dynamic selection and construction of discursive identities and their dynamic adaptation in the foundation advertisements of international brands and national brands. it is found that the cosmetic advertisements employ textual features to construct three discursive identities: one explicit identity for marketing purposes and two implicit identities: friend identity and expert identity. based on the theories of discursive identity and linguistic adaptation, the article explores the dynamic discursive identities in this kind of advertisement discourse and analyzes the ways to dynamically adapt to the psychological, social and physical worlds of the discourse receivers. keywords discursive identity, constructive process, cosmetic advertising language, adaptation 1. introduction the competition in cosmetic products market is becoming increasingly fierce where the new research and development of international brands and national brands emerge in endlessly and the promotion means become more and more iterative. there are various types of cosmetics advertisements and promotions, which play a key role in the rise of product sales. but the quality of cosmetic products is mixed, thus most consumers have developed a sense of vigilance and will not be gullible to believe the words in the advertisement. based on this paradoxical attribute, cosmetic advertisements use multiple discourse strategies to construct different discursive identities and communicate effectively with consumers virtually, in order to adapt to the relevant communicative contexts and improve product promotion. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. this paper selects the foundation advertisements of international brands such as lancôme and estee lauder (hereinafter referred to as i1, i2 etc.), and national brands such as florasis, carslan, and judydoll (hereinafter referred to as c1, c2, c3 etc.) as the research samples. the sales and reputation of these major brands of foundation have reached upper-middle level in the industry, and these brands are quite ingenious in advertising and marketing, therefore, this paper selects the foundation advertisements of the above brands as the research object. 2. literature review studies on identity construction from the perspective of pragmatics are mostly based on constructivism; tracy (2002) argues that the relationship between discourse and identity construction is reciprocal, that identity influences the way people communicate, and that specific discourse practices can contribute to the construction of identity. chen (2013), a domestic scholar, puts forward the concept of “discursive identity”, that is, the identity of the self or the other that the language user chooses consciously or unconsciously, and the identity of the social individual or group that the speaker or the author refers to in his/her discourse. the belgian linguist verschueren (1999) put forward the theory of linguistic adaptation in his book new perspectives of linguistics, who believes that language use is actually a process of people making choices about language continuously. linguistic adaptation involves four aspects: contextual adaptation, which refers to the various contextual factors to be taken into account in language choice; linguistic structural adaptation, which refers to the fact that adaptation involves various linguistic dimensions and principles of linguistic structure; the dynamics of adaptation, which refers to the ever-changing process of adaptation in the process of language choice and negotiation; and conscious salience of adaptation, which refers to the degree of consciousness of the communicators about language choice. the four aspects are interdependent and mutually constraining, but dynamics is the core of them. combined with the theory of linguistic adaptation, discursive identity is constructed dynamically through language, and also is dynamically adaptative. it is specifically manifested in the variability, negotiability and adaptability of discursive identity. according to the discourse types of identity construction proposed by tracy (2002) and chen (2018), cosmetic advertising discourse contains stylistic choices (formal or informal), lexical choices (e.g., salutation, jargon, abbreviation, or intonation), discourse content (e.g., topic, message, point of view, or presupposition), speech acts (e.g., criticizing, praising, suggesting, or announcing), epithets (hinting at the relationship of one’s own or the other party’s identity), and discourse practices such as phonological features (the use of rhythmic features to emphasize identity). currently, most studies view identity as a resource for doing or acting (jiang qingsheng, 2019), i.e., they examine how communicators construct specific identities to achieve specific communicative purposes, such as the dynamic selection and construction of consultant identity in business www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. conversations. for example, advertisers make dynamic choices and construct consultant identity in business conversation. in the past, most research on cosmetic advertisements focus on the advertising strategies and language features, like jiang (2006) and zhou (2012), which stuck on the surface analysis of language. as research method expand, scholars start to analyze advertisements from the perspective of pragmatics. li (2022) analyzed the cosmetic advertisements using speech act theory. there are also other studies conducted through presuppositions and cooperative principles (du, 2008; li, 2021). at present, no scholars have conducted comparative studies on international and domestic cosmetic advertisements from the perspective of discursive identity. seeing that, this study will do a contrastive study to explore discursive identities and dynamic adaptation in international and domestic cosmetic advertisements. 3. research design in this paper, the graphic advertisements on the product pages of the official website are selected as the research object, ranging from the advertisements of international brands such as lancôme, estee lauder, and nars, to the advertisements of national brands such as florasis, carslan, and judydoll. the textual content of the advertisements was extracted from the official product websites, removing irrelevant information such as pictures, characters, scenes, etc. and followed by manual proofreading to improve the accuracy. since the text content is mostly incoherent statements, this paper focuses on qualitative analysis. research questions of this paper include: 1) what are the characteristics of the two types of brand advertisements at the text level? and what are the similarities and differences? 2) what discursive identities are constructed in the dynamic process of discourse practice in the two types of advertisements? and what are the similarities and differences? 3) how do these discursive identities adapt to communication in virtual contexts? 4. data analysis 4.1 text analysis commonality analysis of the two types of brand texts: the sentiment analysis of the extracted texts reveals that positive emotions account for the majority of the corpus, followed by neutral emotions and very low proportion of negative emotions. among them, the positive sentiment words praise the product more, focusing on words describing the effect and function of the product, such as “light”, “flawless” and “flattering”, so as to attract consumers. neutral sentiment text mainly refers to quantitative and compositional words such as “ten years of scientific research”, “70% of skin-care essence ingredients” and “hyaluronic acid”, which accurately conveys the relevant information about the product. the advertising language deliberately avoids the use of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. negative words in order to frame the content of the product. according to the high-frequency words and sentiment analysis, keywords can be categorized into product efficacy, ingredients, applicable groups and other categories. among them, product efficacy vocabulary are all positive words, focusing on the durability of the product and the lightness and flawlessness of the makeup effect, which are all the effects that consumers are looking for; ingredient vocabulary mainly belongs to the field of science and technology, especially the brand’s patented results, which emphasizes the professionalism of the product; applicable population vocabulary use a lot of positive words, creating a unique symbolic value of the product, which conveys the idea of “consumption of things equal to you!”. the author also found that there are two tendencies in the use of negative words in the advertisements of the two types of brand foundations. one is the tendency to use a combination of negative words and negative emotional words to emphasize the high quality of the product, for example, “no fake face”, “no make-up removal” and “no dullness”. the other is to ask a question that presupposes that the consumer has had a lot of negative problems with their previous foundations, and then to introduce their own product, thus creating the impression that their product can solve these negative problems. personality analysis of the texts of the two types of brands: the two types of brands have coincided with their emphasis on product ingredients, functions and effects, but they are also different. most of the big international brands have a long history and rich brand culture, so they emphasize the historical nature of their brands in their advertising campaigns. a lot of historical vocabulary is used in their advertising text, mainly through the use of quantitative words to emphasize the specialty of the brand in the field of foundations and the brand’s own value. local affordable brands, on the other hand, make more frequent use of words that express the concept of “innovation”, as well as quantifiers that demonstrate sales volume. among them, innovation words are mainly used to describe scientific and technological terms to demonstrate the product’s technological strength and give consumers an impression of reliability. the extensive use of quantitative words highlights the product’s considerable sales volume and creates the impression that the product is suitable for the general public. taken together, the two types of advertising texts are basically the same in terms of product efficacy, ingredients, description of the applicable population and vocabulary selection, but the international brands highlight historical vocabulary to emphasize the brand’s own historical value. local affordable brands, on the other hand, will highlight product sales and innovative ingredients, demonstrating the continuous innovation and unstoppable power of emerging brands. 4.2 the analysis of pragmatic identities in foundation advertisements 4.2.1 commonality analysis of two types of brand identity construction explicit identity of professional salesman and consultant: the core identity constructed in the advertising discourse, i.e., the salesman identity, is aimed at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 50 published by scholink inc. exploring people’s consumption needs. salespeople need to provide as much professional information and usage of products as possible and make personalized recommendations to consumers in order to boost product sales. e1: i1: 十年科研（色彩捕捉技术），专研科技（贴皮持妆网） c2: deep-bomb 黑科技，升级高倍保湿，干皮赋活 i4: 后台御用无暇上妆手法（第一步……第二步……） c3: 彩妆师建议上妆手法…… i1: ten years of scientific research (color capture technology), specializing in science and technology (skin-attached lasting makeup membrane) c2: deep-bomb black technology, upgraded high-fold moisturizing, dry skin empowerment i4: flawless makeup techniques exclusively used backstage (first step ... second step ...) c3: makeup-wearing techniques suggested by makeup artist... example 1 uses jargons in the field of science and technology and integrates different languages to show its own expert status and the professionalism of the product. through the speech act of instruction on the product technology and product usage in detail, consumers can have a more thorough understanding of the product quality and other information, and psychologically expect the effect on themselves, which can stimulate the consumer’s desire to buy. in addition to providing basic information about the product, professional salesman also deliberately emphasizes the unique selling points of their products, so as to highlight the special features of their products, and then attract customers to consume, as demonstrated in the example 2. e2: i1: 专为亚洲肌肤定制 i2: 专利吸油不拔干 i3: 专研“持妆透气网膜”，一抹三效 i1: customized for asian skin i2: patented oil-absorbing, non-drying i3: specialized in “long-lasting breathable membrane”, three effects with one apply when selling a product, professional salesman will recommend complementary products of the same brand, with the title of “perfect partner for makeup”, or in the capacity of a consultant, giving consumers advice to achieve the advertised “perfect” effect. e3: i1: 四步解锁完美底妆 i2: 持妆粉底液“星搭档”总有一套适合你 c3: 王牌持妆家族（妆前乳，粉底液和蜜粉） i1: four steps to unlock the perfect base makeup i2: makeup-holding foundation “star partners” always have a set that suits you. c3: ace makeup holding family (pre-makeup lotion, foundation & powder) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. one of the duties, or purposes, of salesman is to increase the sales of a product. using the speech act of suggesting a specific product while recommending other products of the same brand is a common way to increase sales, and this is also true in the virtual context of one-way conversations. implicit identity of scientific and technical expert: expert identity is used to explain certain specialized knowledge in cosmetic advertisements, and strong emotional discourse, first and second person pronouns, abbreviated forms, slang, and colloquialisms are less frequently used in expert discourse. expert identity gives authority to the information in the advertisements and allows consumers to better understand the value of the product. e4: i2: 天然植萃，协同 3 大抗氧精华同源成分，水飞蓟精粹+维 e+维 c 酯 i3: 液态空气膜，低密度、高吸附分子结构，长久持妆，肌肤无压力 c1: 三重粉体分散技术，有效改善毛孔型积粉 i2: natural plant extracts, synergized with 3 major antioxidant essence homologous ingredients, silymarin essence + vitamin e + vitamin c esters i3: liquid air film, low density, high adsorption molecular structure, long-lasting, skin-free makeup c1: triple powder dispersion technology, effectively improve the pore-type powder accumulation in example 4, a lot of scientific and technical terms are used to present the ingredients of the product, avoiding the use of emotional terms. each scientific and technological terminology is immediately followed by a function supplemented by an explanation, and this presentation not only strengthens the identity of the expert in the advertisement, but also highlights the advantages of the product, and enhances the consumer’s trust in the product and their desire to buy it. e5: i1: 32 种精粹凝蕴，上妆即护肤。 c2: 24h 高倍保湿，品牌保湿专利 i3: 精华养肤，6 重精粹加持，0 有害添加 g3: 国货草本养肤，添加山茶花、野生积雪草、北极维生素 i1: 32 kinds of essence condensation, makeup as skin care. c2: 24h high moisturizing, with branded moisturizing patent i3: essence nourishing skin, with 6 essence supplements and 0 harmful additives g3: national herbal skin care, adding camellia, wild centella asiatica, arctic vitamins the introduction of skin care function in example 5 seeks a balance between maintaining the basic function of foundation products and pursuing skin care value. in addition to the brand effect and quality assurance, the skin care function of foundation products is incorporated into consumer demand. the development of the times has given multiple meanings to foundation products, and consumers pay more attention to improving the quality of life. the rhetorical technique repetition has been used in the promotion of skin nourishing ingredients, which gives consumers visual stimulation and increase the impression of the skin nourishing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. characteristics of the product. the introduction of the topic of skin care will enhance consumer recognition of the effect of the product to the recognition of the value of skin care, to make up for the harm of cosmetics on the skin. 4.2.2 personality analysis of identity construction of two types of brands the implicit friend identity in the advertisements of international big brands: one of the strategies of advertising is to establish a close relationship with consumers, to bring them closer so as to complete the product introduction, and this is also true for cosmetic advertisements. the products of big international brands are usually expensive and above the consumption level of normal people. it is difficult to make consumers desire to consume by only providing specific data and objective information, but building the identity of consumers’ friends through words can narrow the psychological distance between the two. e6: i1: “还在寻找夏日底妆天菜？” i2: “想要获得干净服帖的底妆吗？” i1: “still looking for a top summer makeup foundation?” i2: “want to get a clean and flattering foundation?” example 6 brings the consumer closer by asking questions that portray a friend who understands the consumer’s needs. the daily conversation creates an environment to communicate with the consumer, providing reasons for purchase. at the same time, the discursive strategy of asking questions about past makeup problems plus launching their own products evokes curiosity and creates the impression that their own product can solve consumers’ problems. with intimate interpersonal relationships and multiple discursive practices, the sincerity of the advertisement is greatly enhanced, and the consumers’ willingness to buy is greatly increased despite the unpopular prices of the international brands. the identity of fashion and culture experts of international brands and the identity of oriental culture experts of national brands: cosmetic brands are inextricably linked to fashion and culture, so in their advertising campaigns, brands will emphasize their fashion attributes or cultural load. i found that international brands have been established for a long time, and have long been deeply rooted in the fashion industry, so they will emphasize their own fashion attributes, and use vocabulary and discourse strategies to build their own identity as experts in fashion and culture. on the other hand, because of their relatively brief brand history, national brands will emphasize more on chinese cultural factors to build their identity as experts in oriental culture. e7: i1: (品牌名)底妆世家,10 年科研，专研色彩捕捉技术 i2: 品牌创始于 1994 年，是法国彩妆大师缔造的美国彩妆艺术品牌。 i3: 品牌故事（因专业而秀，为后台而生）。品牌所缔造的是审美盛宴，纽约、伦敦、米兰、 巴黎、上海每季 100 场顶级大秀，240 位后台彩妆师，2000 款妆容，领衔全球趋势，锻造专业标 杆。 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 53 published by scholink inc. i1: (brand name) base makeup family, 10 years of scientific research, specializing in color capture technology i2: founded in 1994, the brand was is a french makeup master created by the american makeup art brand. i3: brand story (show for the professionalism and live for the backstage). what the brand has created is an aesthetic feast, with 100 top shows in new york, london, milan, paris and shanghai every season, 240 backstage makeup artists, and 2,000 makeup looks, leading global trends and forging professional benchmarks. example 7 constructs the identity of an expert in promoting the company’s fashion culture through the discursive practice of narrative. third-person pronouns are chosen in the corpus to ensure the truthfulness and objectivity of the knowledge, and the comprehensive introduction of the brand story popularizes the fashion culture and added value of the collection to consumers. expressions like “makeup master” and “top show” build a high-end consumption context. the advertisements are supplemented with pictures of models and celebrity spokespersons, setting the tone of the product as fashionable and premium. e8: c1: 国货草本养肤，含珍稀 100%野生积雪草。 c2: 以“鼻烟壶”之形，承东方之韵，数百年前的东方风尚，流行至今。 c2: 取形自小轩窗，取色自粉与黛。 c1: chinese herbal skin care, containing rare 100% wild centella asiatica. c2: in the shape of a “snuff bottle”, bearing the charm of the orient, the oriental fashion of hundreds of years ago, popular to this day. c2: taking the shape from the small window, taking the color from the pink and dai. the constant reference to chinese elements in example 8 reinforces the domestic identity of the brand. unique chinese elements such as “herbal”, “powder” and “snuff bottle” add oriental charm to the brand and enhance the psychological convergence of domestic consumers. constantly innovating researcher identity of national brands: e9: c1: 革新 oil-beat 专利，进阶控油力，平衡好肤感 c2: 93.55%消费者认同妆面服帖，93.55%消费者认为不拔干，93.55%消费者认为持色不暗沉 c3: 本产品页面如宣称保湿、控油、舒缓等类似表述，均为经过消费者使用测试得出的结论。 c1: innovative oil-beat patent, advanced oil-control power, balanced skin feeling c2: 93.55% of consumers agree that the makeup fits well, 93.55% of consumers believe that it is not drying out, and 93.55% of consumers believe that it’s long-lasting without dullness. c3: any claims of moisturizing, oil-control, soothing, etc. on this product page are the conclusions reached after consumer use testing. in example 9, the promotion of chinese products constantly presents concepts such as the latest research and development, innovative technologies, etc., emphasizing the differences and advantages www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. over previous versions. at the same time, specific data of consumer feedback are presented in the advertising campaigns, which is the most intuitive guarantee of product effectiveness in the virtual context. with the combination of constantly upgraded technology and consumer feedback data, consumers’ trust in new domestic products rises sharply, and product sales can also rise. 4.3 the adaptation analysis of discursive identity discourse identities in cosmetics advertisement discourse change dynamically, switching between different discourse identities in the same communication. the choice of discursive identity needs to go through negotiations, and the process is not only governed by the linguistic context, but also influenced by the non-linguistic context. verschueren (1999) believes that the communicative context belongs to the non-linguistic context, which includes the language user, the physical world, the social world and the psychological world. the salesman identity conforms to the physical world, and the language choice involves temporal and spatial factors, such as time indicators (“founded in 1994” and “10 years of scientific research”) to objectively confirm the historical value of the brand and the history of craftsmanship heritage. the advertising slogan of “show for the professionalism and live for the backstage” applies the influence of spatial distance on communication, breaks through the limitation of space with exaggeration, creates the image that the effect of foundation is enough to go on the professional show. the brand’s cultural confidence and confidence in the product are shown to the recipients of the discourse, thus arousing consumers’ expectation of the product and desire to buy. in the social world, there are many social factors that require language to comply, and the process of compliance is more dynamic and complex. the construction of friend identity imposes certain constraints on verbal behavior, thus shortening the social distance between participants (li, 2022). there is an asymmetry in information reception between advertisers and consumers, thus requiring certain discourse strategies to achieve a balance in the discursive relationship. consumers, being exposed to unknown products, need to have knowledge of their basic information and advantages before making a purchase choice. therefore, the advertisement text needs to explain the advantages and ingredients of the product in detail as a professional salesman and technician in order to emphasize the value of the product and enhance the consumer’s desire to buy. there is also a certain distance between advertisers and consumers, especially between ordinary consumers and international brands, so it is necessary to adopt a certain discourse strategy to narrow the psychological distance between the two sides. the text uses the question “still looking for…?” to shorten the social distance between the two parties and create an intimate social environment. from the perspective of a friend’s identity, the advertiser makes a recommendation based on an image of understanding the consumer’s needs, thus generating an effective sales pitch. the psychological world usually involves the communicator’s mental state, including emotions, desires and motives. in advertisement discourse, the adaptation of discursive identity to the psychological www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. world mainly focuses on emotional and face pandering, and the influence of the listener’s psychological state on discourse comprehension is particularly obvious. example 7 emphasizes that the product is used in the “top show” held in the big cities of each country, and the identity of the product designer is the “makeup master”, which not only highlights the professionalism of the product itself, but also creates an impression of “high-end people use high-end products”. 5. conclusion combining the theory of discursive identity and linguistic adaptation, this paper finds through qualitative analysis that there are similarities and differences in the discourse identity construction of foundation advertisements of international big brands and national brands. the two types of brand advertisements dynamically construct the same explicit salesman identity and implicit scientific and technological expert identity with the help of textual features. but the international brands also construct implicit friend identity and fashion culture expert identity, while the national brands construct oriental culture expert identity and constantly innovating researcher identity. the salesman identity tries to provide information about the value of goods, thus conforming to the physical world; the friend identity’s conformity to the social world is reflected in the discursive balance between the speaker and the listener, providing consumers with pertinent advice; and the expert identity dynamically conforms to the psychological world in the communicative context, catering to the psychological needs of consumers (status identity, cultural identity, or the pursuit of better results). references chen, x. r. (2013). pragmatic identity: dynamic choice and discursive construction. foreign languages research, (04), 27-32, 112. chen, x. r. (2018). pragmatic identity: how to do things with worlds of identity. beijing normal university publishing group, beijing. du, x. l. (2008). analysis of pragmatic presupposition in cosmetic advertising. guangxi normal university, ma thesis. jiang, x. j. (2006). discussion on cosmetics advertising strategy market modernization, (26), 120-121. jiang, x. j. (2019). studies of pragmatic identity in the last decade: five theoretical approaches and methodologies. journal of fujian normal university (philosophy and social sciences edition), (01), 57-63, 169. li, c. h. (2022). discursive identity construction and conformity in alcohol advertising discourse. voice & screen world, (19), 90-92. li, l. c. (2021). analysis of cosmetic advertising slogans based on cooperation principle. journal of news research, (04), 243-244. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 2, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. li, n. n. (2022). a study on the chinese cosmetic advertisement in the perspective of speech act. shaanxi university of technology, ma thesis. tracy, k. (2002). everyday talk: building and reflecting identities. new york: the guilford press. verschueren, j., & he, z. r. (1999). understanding pragmatics. foreign language teaching and research press, beijing. zhou, l. (2012). a study on cosmetic advertising language characteristics. anhui university, ma thesis. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 6 original paper an interview with ajay singh: the ages and stages questionnaire (asq) michael f. shaughnessy1* 1 educational studies department, eastern new mexico university, portales, new mexico 88130, united states of america * michael f. shaughnessy, educational studies department, eastern new mexico university, portales, new mexico 88130, united states of america received: april 7, 2020 accepted: april 14, 2020 online published: april 21, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p6 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p6 abstract the ages and stages questionnaire is one of the most well researched and utilized instruments in use today in developmental centers, head start facilities and kindergarten and first grade schools. in this interview dr. ajay singh discusses the main components of the test and responds to questions as to its utilization. keywords early childhood assessment, ages and stages questionnaire (asq), validity, reliability 1. introduction in this interview, professor singh discusses an extremely well known and sophisticated test used worldwide known as the ages and stages questionnaire (asq). 2. method this interview was conducted electronically to ascertain relevant pertinent information about a specific test that has been extensively utilized and researched by several scholars. 3. result 1) professor singh, when did you first begin working on the ages and stages questionnaire? when i was doing my graduate program in early intervention at the national institute for the empowerment of person with intellectual disability, secunderabad, india (which is functioning under the aegis of ministry of social justice and empowerment, government of india) and affiliated with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. osmania university, hyderabad, india then i came to know about the asq (ages and stages questionnaire) during my theory and practicum classes, the asq which were developed and designed by professor diane bricker and professor jane squires at university of oregon (squires, bricker, & potter, 1997). after one year, i received an invitation from one of the south carolina public school district superintendent through edcil (educational consultants india limited; edcil is a public sector undertaking in india under administrative control of the ministry of human resource development, government of india) to come to south carolina as a special education exchange visitor certified teacher in k-12 public school system then i get to use more the asq in the public school district in south carolina. after three years working in the south carolina public school system, i decided to join the phd program from university of oregon because of the asq and professor jane squires. so, i applied in the university of oregon for phd program under professor jane squires, after rigorous several round examinations and several interview process, finally i admitted to the phd program at the university of oregon under professor jane squires and from day one professor jane squires allowed me to work in her asq research team in the early intervention program at university of oregon. 2) what was your initial goal and objectives for this rating/developmental scale? while working in the asq research team, i realized that it was developed and designed for up to the age of 66 months only. so, i informed professor squires that most of the children don't go to public schools before the age of 6 years in the us, and we need to have something for those population because most of them won't have access to such health questionnaires due to various reasons. so, professor jane squires allowed me to design new age intervals for the asq, so i designed new age interval under her dynamic leadership with her research team at university of oregon and later on she allowed me to use it for my phd dissertation. the 6-year asq will also evaluate five developmental domains: 5 communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal adaptive skills, for children from the ages of 66 months to 78 months (singh, 2015). it’s gold level assessment tool designed for parents but pediatricians, health workers, social workers, home-visitors, early intervention professionals, nurses, special educators, etc., also use it for assessment purpose and it's very accurate (singh, squires, yeh, heo, & bian, 2016). it is highly recommended by pediatricians for early identification in the united states. the asq has been translated into several languages (e.g., spanish, french, dutch, chinese, macedonian, norwegian, hindi, persian, turkish, etc.) and the number of international studies on its psychometric properties with diverse cultural environments is increasing (e.g., australia, brazil, canada, chile, china, denmark, ecuador, france, ghana, india, iran, korea, lebanon, netherland, norway, republic of macedonia, spain, taiwan, thailand, turkey; singh, yeh, & blanchard, 2017). 3) now, what are its psychometric processes? the asq screens for risk of delays in gross motor, fine motor, communication, problem-solving, and personal-social skills; takes 10-15 minutes to complete it and available in multiple languages; written at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. 6th to 8th grade reading level; 94% test-retest reliability, 44-83% internal consistency; 76-91% concurrent validity; 70-90% sensitivity; 76-91% specificity. it has excellent psychometric properties including test-retest reliability of 92%, sensitivity of 87.4% and specificity of 95.7%. validity has been examined across different cultures and communities across the world (squires, bricker, & potter, 1997; squires, potter, bricker, & lamorey, 1998; squires, bricker, heo, & twombly, 2002; squires, katzev, & jenkins, 2002; squires, & bricker, 2007; squires, & bricker, 2009; squires, twombly, bricker, & potter, 2009; squires, waddell, funk, & macy, 2013). 4) who else was involved in its development? the 6-year asq was initially studied in four phases; the first phase included 18 to 26 test items per domain. initially test items were randomly arranged (i.e., not placed in chronological order) to decrease any possibilities of order effect and to address the item functioning questions (e.g., item difficulty test items which estimate the difficulty of each test item based on the participants’ ability to correctly respond to each test item). in the second phase, test items per domain were selected by using item response theory (irt) analysis and were investigated for technical adequacy (e.g., reliability) and item functioning (e.g., item difficulty). in the third phase, test items and item difficulty were evaluated by a panel of 13 experts with previous work experience with young children in special education, pre-school, early childhood, or worked as a school psychologist, principal, professor, assistant professor, researcher, k-12 teacher, service coordinator, speech therapist, social worker, occupational therapist and physical therapist. the experts were academicians/professionals with relevant experiences between 2 and 25 years in their expertise areas. the range of experiences provided a wide and relevant perspective on the appropriateness and validity of the items to be included. in the fourth and final phase, 622 test items per domain for a total 30 test items were included. 5) how frequently is it being used and for what purposes? it should be used every 3 months to monitor, if there is any delay in the following areas; gross motor, fine motor, communication, problem-solving, and personal-social skills. 6) in what other countries is it being used? it's already adopted and used in the following countries; australia, brazil, canada, chile, china, denmark, ecuador, france, ghana, india, iran, korea, lebanon, netherland, norway, republic of macedonia, spain, taiwan, thailand, turkey. i was personally involved in the republic of macedonia, india and in korea (singh, yeh, & blanchard, 2017). last year, we published the result from the republic of macedonia, which we completed with professor vladimir trajkovski, md, phd, university “ss. cyril and methodius”, skopje, republic of macedonia and with professor luis annunciacas, federal university of rio de janeiro, brazil under the supervision of professor jane squires (stanoevska, anunciação, squires, singh, & trajkovski, 2018). this year we completed our research in india, which we conducted with professor shefali gulati, chief, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. child neurology division coordinator dm pediatrics neurology program, faculty in-charge, centre of excellence & advanced research on childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, department of pediatrics, all india institute of medical sciences (aiims), new delhi and with her research team under the guidance of professor jane squires and submitted for publication. 7) why is this instrument important? the american academy of pediatrics (2001, 2006) recommendations emphasize screening during the initial years of child’s life but the recommendations also clearly state that surveillance should continue throughout childhood into early school years (bethell et al., 2011; bricker & squires, 2007; glascoe 1997; glascoe & squires, 2013; schor, 2007). 8) what are some reasons why children do not seem to develop properly? due to various reasons, including but not limited to nature and/or nurture. 9) how does the asq fit into early child find? the goal of child find systems is to identify the infants and young children who require in-depth assessment and may be eligible for early intervention and special education services. because child find systems operate first-level screening programs; programs that screen and monitor large numbers of children; you need a screening tool that is reliable, easy to use, cost-effective, and appropriate for diverse populations. the ages & stages questionnaires (asq) meet the requirements for first-level comprehensive screening systems. child find systems in many states have made asq an integral component of their programs (squires, 1996). 10) what have i neglected to ask? nothing professor shaughnessy, thanks again for your time, i really appreciate it. 4. discussion this interview has attempted to highlight some of the main features of the ages and stages questionnaire (asq). the main relevant information as to standardization, reliability, validity and usage were reviewed for practitioners. it is hoped that this short succinct interview will provide practitioners with the information needed to utilize this instrument with the appropriate populations. references american academy of pediatrics. (2001). developmental surveillance and screening of infants and young children. pediatrics, 108(1), 192-196. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.108.1.192 american academy of pediatrics. (2006). identifying infants and young children with developmental disorders in the medical home: an algorithm for developmental surveillance and screening. pediatrics, 118, 405-420. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2006-1231 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. american academy of pediatrics, council on children with disabilities. (2006). identifying infants and young children with developmental disorders in the medical home: an algorithm for developmental surveillance and screening. pediatrics, 118(4), 1808-1809. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2006-1231 bethell, c. d., kogan, m. d., strickland, b. b., schor, e. l., robertson, j., & newacheck, p. w. (2001). developmental surveillance and screening of infants and young children. pediatrics, 108(1), 192-196. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.108.1.192 bethell, c. d., kogan, m. d., strickland, b. b., schor, e. l., robertson, j., & newacheck, p. w. (2011). a national and state profile of leading health problems and health care quality for us children: key insurance disparities and across-state variations. academic pediatrics, 11(3), s22-s33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2010.08.011 glascoe, f. p. (1997). parents’ concerns about children’s development: prescreening technique or screening test? pediatrics, 99(4), 522-528. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.99.4.522 glascoe, f. p., & squires, j. k. (2013). quality developmental screenings are essential to quality surveillance. pediatrics, 132(5), e1450-e1450. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-2720b schor, e. l. (2007). the future pediatrician: promoting children’s health and development. the journal of pediatrics, 151(5), s11-s16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2007.08.014 singh, a. (2015). validity, reliability and utility of the 6-year ages and stages questionnaire. the journal of special education and rehabilitation, 16(3/4), 122. singh, a. (2015). parent-completed developmental screening: validity, reliability and utility of the 6-year ages and stages questionnaire (doctoral dissertation, university of oregon). singh, a., squires, j., yeh, c. j., heo, k. h., & bian, h. (2016). validity and reliability of the developmental assessment screening scale. journal of family medicine and primary care, 5(1), 124. https://doi.org/10.4103/2249-4863.184636 singh, a., yeh, c. j., & blanchard, s. b. (2017). ages and stages questionnaire: a global screening scale. boletín médico del hospital infantil de méxico (english edition), 74(1), 5-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bmhime.2016.07.001 squires, j. (1996). parent-completed developmental questionnaires: a low-cost strategy for child-find and screening. infants & young children, 9(1), 16-28. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001163-199607000-00004 squires, j., bricker, d., & potter, l. (1997). revision of a parent-completed developmental screening tool: ages and stages questionnaires. journal of pediatric psychology, 22(3), 313-328. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/22.3.313 squires, j., & bricker, d. (2009). ages & stages questionnaires [r], (asq-3 [tm]): a parent completed child-monitoring system. brookes publishing company. po box 10624, baltimore, md 21285. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. squires, j., & bricker, d. d. (2007). an activity-based approach to developing young children’s social emotional competence. ph brookes publishing company. squires, j., bricker, d., heo, k., & twombly, e. (2002). identification of socialemotional problems in young children using a parent-completed screening measure. early childhood research quarterly, 16(4), 405-419. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0885-2006(01)00115-6 squires, j., bricker, d., & potter, l. (1997). revision of a parent-completed developmental screening tool: ages and stages questionnaires. journal of pediatric psychology, 22(3), 313-328. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/22.3.313 squires, j., twombly, e., bricker, d., & potter, l. (2009). asq-3tm user’s guide. baltimore, md. paul h. squires, j., katzev, a., & jenkins, f. (2002). early screening for developmental delays: use of parent-completed questionnaires in oregon’s healthy start program. early child development and care, 172(3), 275-282. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430290030804 squires, j. k., potter, l., bricker, d. d., & lamorey, s. (1998). parent-completed developmental questionnaires: effectiveness with lowand middle-income parents. early childhood research quarterly, 13(2), 345-354. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0885-2006(99)80043-x squires, j., waddell, m., funk, k., & macy, m. (2013). parent and professional collaboration in the assessment process. journal of intellectual disability-diagnosis and treatment, 1(1), 74-84. https://doi.org/10.6000/2292-2598.2013.01.01.9 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 21 original paper the role of models in the discovery of the nucleus: ernest rutherford and his school andrea durlo1* 1 italian group of history of physics, italy * andrea durlo, italian group of history of physics, italy received: may 19, 2020 accepted: may 30, 2020 online published: june 7, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n2p21 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n2p21 abstract ernest rutherford is remembered as the scientist who proposed a planetary atomic model that would overcome the atomic structure of the early 20th century, proposed by j.j. thomson, and based on a volume of positive charge within which the negative charge was considered to be uniformly distributed. reading rutherford’s original paper published in 1911—allows us to compare the models of these two physicists and discuss the concept of the model itself. keywords rutherford, bohr, atom model, α particles, history of physics, epistemology 1. introduction from the beginning of civilizations, curiosity has driven man to investigate himself and nature, and the principal means of tracing the why of things has very often been to “enter”, physically or through speculation and conjecture, into them. the atom has been no exception; ever since it was first defined by leucippus, epicurus, democritus and titus lucretius carus, it has been the ultimate term of investigation of matter in man’s quest to unlock its secrets. what atoms are and how they are made up are two questions that particularly marked the history of science between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, not only as simple questions whose purpose was to provide answers that would enhance experience, but above all to broaden the intellectual horizon, suggest new combinations of concepts and embark on untried experimental paths. in science and physics, moreover, the role of models has always been very important in reconstructing phenomena and their properties through known structures and relationships. models have the task of recreating correspondences between a natural object and an artificial one, but also of structuring a set www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. of relations that describe—usually in the language of mathematics—the relations that exist between the elements that constitute an object and the description of it in formal terms. the model thus becomes a simplified version of reality that allows certain structural and functional relations to be isolated. 2. ernst rutherford: notes about the man “in science there is only physics: all the rest is stamp collecting”. lord kelvin ernest rutherford is remembered in manuals as the one who, thanks to a solar system atomic model, was able to overcome j. j. thomson’s vision of an atom made up of a positive charge diffused in a spherical volume and within which the negative charge was dispersed. however, to notice how behind the new idea of the atomic model a figure of absolute prominence stands, both as a scientist and as a man, we only need to recall what niels bohr said about him. «although rutherford was always intensely occupied with the progress of his own work, he had the patience to listen to every young man, when he felt he had any idea, however modest, on his mind. at the same time, with his whole independent attitude, he had only little respect for authority and could not stand what he called “pompous talk”. on such occasions he could even sometimes speak in a boyish way about venerable colleagues, but he never permitted himself to enter into personal controversies, and he used to say: “there is only one person who can take away one’s good name, and that is oneself!” (bohr, 1963)» in 1913, bohr himself sent rutherford a memoir, drafting his first work on the atomic constitution and his quantum theory; bohr fondly recalls that the response was not long in coming and could not be ignored, neither from a scientific nor from a human point of view. «dear dr. bohr, i have received your paper safely and read it with great interest, but i want to look over it again carefully when i have more leisure. […] there is one criticism of minor character which i would make in the arrangement of the paper. i think in your endeavour to be clear you have a tendency to make your papers much too long, and a tendency to repeat your statements in different parts of the paper. […] i do not know if you appreciate the fact that long papers have a way of frightening readers, who feel that they have not time to dip into them. […] i shall be very pleased to see your later papers, but please take to heart my advice, and try to make them as brief as possible consistent with clearness [ibidem].» these words give an idea of the human depth behind the scientist; bohr himself recalls how rutherford – as well as holding his learned colleagues in high esteem—took to heart all the young physicists who had the opportunity to work with him, whether for short or long periods. rutherford, who would never claim for himself the authorship of someone else’s work, always seemed to be able to guess where the talent was: an inexhaustible source of encouragement and strength, eleven nobel prize winners would emerge from his school. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. 3. the model issue “making a comparison between a piece of machinery and its model is like going to a restaurant to eat the menu”. anonymous the full reading of ernest rutherford’s article “lxxix. the scattering of α and β particles by matter and the structure of the atom”, as published in philosophical magazine series 6, 21:125, 669–688, is absolutely fundamental to understand the importance of the concept of model. what immediately strikes the reader is the complexity of the writing and the number of ad hoc hypotheses that are invoked from time to time as needed. at the same time, rutherford is able to establish some remarkable symmetries (p. 671): «[...] it will be shown that the main deductions from the theory are independent of whether the central charge is supposed to be positive or negative. for convenience, the sign will be assumed to be positive (rutherford, 1911).» and he confirms them at the end of his dissertation (p. 688): «the deductions from the theory so far considered are independent of the sign of the central charge, and it has not so far been possible to obtain definite evidence to determine whether it be positive or negative [ibidem].» while he does not seem to be overly concerned about handling a stable model for his atom, at least not right away (p. 671): «the question of the stability of the atom proposed need not be considered at this stage, for this will obviously depend upon the minute structure of the atom, and on the motion of the constituent charged parts [ibidem].» nor does he seem to bother citing atomic models that have already been disproved or statements that proved not to be true (p. 688): «it is of interest to note that nagaoka has mathematically considered the properties of a “saturnian” atom which he supposed to consist of a central attracting mass surrounded by ring of rotating electrons. he showed that such a system was stable if the attractive force was large [ibidem].» reading the original rutherford’s text allows a comparison to be made between j.j. thomson’s atomic model, cited by rutherford in his paper as a point of comparison, and that of the new zealand physicist himself; from the step-by-step analysis of the article it was possible to draw the following considerations. the analysis of the hypotheses at the basis of the models proposed by thomson and rutherford reveals an anti-symmetry between the issues considered essential by one and the other scientist, as if different eyes were looking at the same experimental data to interpret them in the light of their own ideas. the aspect that is untouchable for thomson, the stability of the atomic nucleus in terms of classical mechanics, turns out—as already illustrated—to be unnecessary for rutherford; for the latter, instead, the behaviour of α particles is of fundamental importance, a behaviour that rutherford leads back to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 24 published by scholink inc. the presence of a central nucleus, in accordance with his own hypothesis. we would like to point out that the question of the α radiation was particularly dear to rutherford; rutherford himself said, on the occasion of the fragmentation of lithium nuclei by proton bombardment, which he carried out together with cockcroft and walton in 1932: «those scintillations look mighty like alpha-particle ones. i should know an alpha particle scintillation when i see one for i was in at the birth (reeves, 2008).» the question then arises of how to reconcile the phenomenon of scattering of largeand small-angle α and β particles according to the two models we have proposed to examine. for example, the large-angle scattering of α particles, which is fundamental in rutherford’s modelling of a central massive nucleus atom, is in fact an anomaly in thomson’s model, which does not agree with this phenomenon (p. 670): «the theory of sir j.j. thomson is based on the assumption that the scattering due to a single atomic encounter is small, and the particular structure assumed for the atom does not admit of a very large deflexion of an α particle in traversing a single atom (rutherford, 1911).» the anomaly in thomson’s model could be explained by introducing forces of a different nature where the coulombic interaction loses its validity: in this way it would be possible to safeguard the model according to the framework of classical mechanics. on the contrary, the scattering of the β particles becomes a phenomenon that can be adapted to both models: according to thomson, the deflection is not appreciable, according to rutherford, observable results would be obtained only if the atom were surrounded by thousands of electrons. a fundamental difference between thomson’s and rutherford’s atomic description is the estimation of a measurable atomic radius of the order of 10-10m, which rutherford does not introduce. the lack of a radius, that is the impossibility to obtain dimensionally a length with the quantities involved in the “planetary” modelling, makes the model irreconcilable with the laws of classical physics (an electron in motion on an orbit like the one proposed by rutherford radiates energy, causing the inevitable collapse of matter). describing matter according to the planetary model leads to serious difficulties intrinsic to the instability of the electron system, difficulties which did not appear according to the model proposed by thomson. thus, the fundamental difference between thomson’s model and rutherford’s model is that the forces which thomson says act on the electrons make possible certain electronic configurations and movements of the electrons, at which the system is in stable equilibrium: there are no such considerations in the rutherford model. in other words, the character of the difference is more marked if we consider that among the quantities that refer to the first atom there is one, the radius of the positive sphere, which has the dimensions of a length and the same order of magnitude of the linear dimensions of the atom: this length does not appear among the quantities that characterise the second www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. model; it is not possible to go back to the length of the radius of the rutherford model only through the masses and charges of the electrons and of the positive nucleus. only a little later, it will be niels bohr to reconsider this fundamental point, neglected by rutherford in the exposition of his structure of the atom, and to establish the measure of a radius through planck’s constant, proving that the relation: (3.1) has the physical dimensions of a length. this is the opening passage of his 1913 publication, and it is also interesting in virtue of the fact that it is, somehow, an “incipit” in dimensional terms of the quantities involved in the dissertation. minus a factor of 4π that we would expect in the denominator, the numerical value obtained is about 20å, a generic order of magnitude of atomic dimensions. bohr also realised that there must necessarily be a link between h and the structure of the atom itself, which is why h should appear in all equations relating to this structure. «[…] the electron will approach the nucleus describing orbits of smaller and smaller dimensions, and with greater and greater frequency; the electron on the average gaining in kinetic energy at the same time as the whole system loses energy. this process will go on until the dimensions of the orbit are of the same order of magnitude as the dimensions of the electron or those of the nucleus. a simple calculation shows that the energy radiated out during the process considered will be enormously great compared with that radiated out by ordinary molecular processes. it is obvious that the behaviour of such a system will be very different from that of an atomic system occurring in nature. in the first place, the actual atoms in their permanent state seem to have absolutely fixed dimensions and frequencies. further, if we consider any molecular process, the result seems always to be that after a certain amount of energy characteristic for the systems in question is radiated out, the systems will again settle down in a stable state of equilibrium, in which the distances apart of the particles are of the same order of magnitude as before the process. […] the way of considering a problem of this kind has, however, undergone essential alterations in recent years owing to the development of the theory of the energy radiation, and the direct affirmation of the new assumptions introduced in this theory, found by experiments on very different phenomena such as specific heats, photoelectric effect, röntgen &c. the result of the discussion of these questions seems to be a general acknowledgment of the inadequacy of the classical electrodynamics in describing the behaviour of systems of atomic size. whatever the alteration in the laws of motion of the electrons may be, it seems necessary to introduce in the laws in question a quantity foreign to the classical electrodynamics, i. e., planck’s constant, or as it often is called the elementary quantum of action. by the introduction of this quantity the question of the stable configuration of the electrons in the atoms is essentially changed as this constant is of such dimensions and magnitude that it, together with the mass www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 26 published by scholink inc. and charge of the particles, can determine a length of the order of magnitude required (bohr, 1913).» if we now make a comparison between rutherford’s and bohr’s models, we will observe that the introduction, in the calculation, of the “quantum of action” will allow bohr to state that each emission or absorption of radiation by the atom is an individual process accompanied by a transfer of energy: (3.2) for the rutherford atom we should not even expect a line spectrum, since, according to ordinary electrodynamics, the frequencies of radiation accompanying the electronic motion would change continuously with the energy emitted (bohr, 1963). far from wishing to exhaust the whole theory of bohr’s model here, it is worth emphasising how—among the stumbling blocks it has allowed to be overcome—it also allows a visualisation of the atom as a small copernican system, to some extent compatible with the classical conception. it overcomes, in this way, a sort of “horror vacui” of the mind, linked to the necessity of a graphic model son of an imagination linked to classical connotations: it was possible to visualise the electrons on their stationary orbits as a copernican system. 4. in memoriam we conclude this paper with the obituary niels bohr wrote in the 18 december 1937 supplement of the journal nature. bohr's words give a good description of rutherford as a researcher, but at the same time underline the deeper aspects of his personality. «i am thankful for the invitation of the editor of nature to write a few words about my relations with lord rutherford that have been so decisive for my work and have filled so large a place in my life. indeed, neither in the short article about rutherford’s relationship to his pupils, which i had the pleasure of contributing to the cavendish laboratory supplement to nature of december 19, 1926, nor in the short tribute to rutherford’s memory, which i had the sad duty of giving at the galvani congress in the announcement of his untimely death and which appeared in nature of october 30, 1973, did i find opportunity to give a proper expression of my personal indebtedness to him, who was to me everything that an inspiring leader and a fatherly friend could be. from the moment i was admitted into the group of students from very different parts of the world working under rutherford’s guidance in his laboratory in manchester, he has to me appeared as the very incarnation of the spirit of research. respect and admiration are words too poor to describe the way his pupils regarded the man whose discoveries were the basis of the whole development in which they were enthusiastically striving to partake. what we felt was rather a boundless trust in the soundness of his judgement, which, animated with his cheerfulness and good will, was the fertile soil from which even the smallest germ in our minds drew its force to grow and flourish. his simplicity and disregard of all external appearance perhaps never disclosed themselves more spontaneously than in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. discussion with his students, who were through his straightforwardness even tempted in youthful eagerness to forget with whom they were talking until, by some small remark, the point of which they first fully understood after they left him, they were reminded of the power and penetration of his insight. the stimulus rutherford gave his pupils was, however, in no way limited to times of daily intercourse. thus when, returned to denmark, i pursued the line of work which i had taken up in manchester, it was to me a most encouraging feeling to know that i could always count on his warm interest and invaluable advice. indeed, looking through our correspondence from those days, i can hardly realize how in the midst of all his work he could find time and patience to answer in the kindest and most understanding way any letter with which a young man dared to augment his troubles. especially close our relations became during my stay for the first years of the great war as lecturer in manchester and when, in times of full anxieties, he kept up the spirits of the small group left in the laboratory and, in the short moments of leisure from the great practical duties entrusted upon him, steadily went on preparing the road to new discoveries which should soon lead to such great results. in later years, it was each time to me the greatest source of renewed encouragement to visit him in his home in cambridge, where, in spite of never–ceasing work and ever heavier burden of duties, he shared so quiet and simple a life with the companion who, always in contact with what was deepest in his character, from early days stood by him in every joy and sorrow. with age the vigour of his spirit did not abate, but found outlet in every new ways, and his genial understanding and sympathy with all honest human endeavour gave to his advice in any scientific or practical matter a value treasured in wider and wider circles. to every one of us to whom he extended his staunch and faithful friendship an approving smile or a humorous admonition from him was enough to warm our hearts, and for the rest of our lives the thought of him will remain to inspire and guide us (bohr, 1937).» acknowledgement i would like to thank prof. alfio briguglia, of the italian group for the history of physics who, during the final reports at the 2018 annual meeting, allowed me to give the talk of his working group from which this paper originates. deep thanks also go to prof. fabiano minni, who in 2018 was the national coordinator of the italian group for the history of physics and allowed me, together with the members of the board, to join this research group in the history of physics. to both of them goes my gratitude. references bohr, n. (1913). on the constitution of atoms and molecules. philosophical magazine series, 6(26), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14786441308634955 bohr, n. (1937). ernest rutherford’s obituary. supplement to nature, december 18, 1937. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. bohr, n. (1963). essays 1958-1962 on atomic physics and human knowledge. new york: john wiley & sons. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3051271 rutherford, e. (1911). lxxix. the scattering of α and β particles by matter and the structure of the atom. philosophical magazine series, 6(21:125), 669-688. https://doi.org/10.1080/14786440508637080 reeves, r. (2008). a force of nature. new york: atlas book llc. notes note 1. nagaoka’s atomic model, presented in phil. mag. vii, p. 445, 1904, had already been rejected on the grounds that it could not cope with the classical problem of the radiation of the electron in motion around the nucleus and therefore could not explain the non–collapse of matter. note 2. while rutherford's model had no graphical description in the 1913 article, it is true that bohr's model in turn did not allow the transitions of electrons from one orbit to another to be represented graphically. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 105 original paper how to motivate students to study online julia koifman1* 1 beit ekshtein high school, rupin, israel * julia koifman, beit ekshtein high school, rupin, israel received: august 12, 2020 accepted: august 18, 2020 online published: august 24, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p105 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p105 abstract covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented change in education. all the schools in israel and other countries had to find all the possible solutions to convert their teaching and learning to remote online options. according to the research, distant learning with the help of online boards is supposed to catch students’ attention and make them interested and motivated (newton, 2020). you can do it with the help of such smart boards as zoom, miro, wakelet, socrative and others. they provide teachers and their students with a wide range of eye-catching materials, such as highlighted pieces of text, pictures, videos which enhance general understanding of the material and enlarge students’ passive and active vocabulary. moreover, kids can create their materials themselves and share them with their classmates. sometimes it is the only way to keep them motivated and to prevent them from leaving “boring online lessons”. it also has a great educational effect on those students who struggle while using traditional textbooks and misunderstand the tasks. besides, online learning technology (lt) helps them to develop the skills of collaboration, negotiation and leadership which is especially important in international communication. keywords teaching online, motivation, creativity, learning disabilities, collaboration 1. why don’t kids want to study online? in many israeli schools each class is equipped with a projector, a tv screen and a computer which enables each teacher to conduct a collaborative frontal work, so that students would be able to participate in doing tasks on their mobile devices. but the spring 2020 “brought a sudden shift for teachers and their students into an online setting” (ralph, 2020). during the quarantine israeli schools practiced teaching via zoom and other boards in order to involve kids into online classroom activities, including self-checking tasks. for many teachers it was their first experience, so they had to learn immediately and it was frustrating trying to help students in this way. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 106 published by scholink inc. “teaching an online course requires different methods from the traditional classroom, so it’s important that teachers adapt or develop their skills to the online learning environment” (cooper, 2016). due to coronavirus pandemic schools in many countries of the world had to conduct lessons online. many kids and their parents did not accept this idea and complained that it didn’t work well. there are some reasons why school children refuse to study online. • they are bored • they are not very strong students • they are afraid of making mistakes • they use their personal devices to play games and to communicate with their friends only • they don’t like studying • they are too young • they are distractible • they have specific education needs (sen) research studies show that computerized lessons enhance learning in less motivated students. nevertheless, they might be bored while sitting in front of the screen for 45 minutes. so, with the help of videos and other online activities distant lessons become “student-centered and offer the possibility of new classroom management and new relationship between teachers and learners” (fazinic, 2015). 2. how to catch their attention? 2.1 problem solving in the online classroom no child left behind! education leaders are tackling the unexpected challenge of providing distance learning. according to c.seale, “distance learning has the strategic advantage of making it easier in some cases for teachers to pinpoint specific academic struggles”. therefore, due to modern smart boards, teachers can make their lessons effective and help their students to complete the school program in accordance to the national curriculum. in israel and other countries, it requires developing students’ listening skills, enlarging their vocabulary, improving their spelling and grammar, developing their writing skills and developing critical thinking. for successful online learning teachers need to provide students with tasks that should be interesting, success-orientating and require students to interact with each other. by sharing the same screen content, such as a virtual textbook, picture, video or chart, enable your students to see exactly what they are supposed to do. avoid too complicated instructions that might cause confusion or misunderstanding. besides, it must be built on the previous material they have learnt recently. in order to prevent difficult situations, you need to be creative. as einstein once said, “creativity is intelligence having fun”, it is an important aspect of teaching. being a creative teacher means that you need to be an actor, a singer or an artist in order to entertain your students. it means that you need to “solve problems, think up new ideas and have insightful ‘eureka’ moments” (brann, 2017). for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 107 published by scholink inc. instance, if your students get bored you should offer them a game, a song or a film that contain vocabulary, grammar or a topic that your students are learning currently. therefore, you should have 2-3 lesson plans in store. besides, you can play a piece of background music to catch their attention, to help them focus while working in pairs or groups or as a sign that it is time to start or stop the activity. if you teach in elementary school, you can play a “switch on-switch off” game. thus, you can offer them to switch off their cameras and ask questions, such as: “who has a cat or a dog at home? switch on your cameras if you have a dog. great! switch them off. and now i want you to switch on your cameras if you have a cat”. then ask them to comment, for example, “dan has a cat and jane has a dog. but mary doesn’t have any pets”. for junior high and high school students you can prepare the similar game based on more complicated questions, including english literature. if the forenamed game is too easy for them, use kahoot and other online quizzes. creative teaching is also important because in this way we can help our students to believe in themselves and to be more confident in learning (smith, 2017). 2.1.1 teaching kids with specific education needs online if you teach students with specific education needs, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) and other disorders, lt can help them because they do not need to write and be afraid of making mistakes. before the coronavirus pandemic lt had become very popular and made a great progress in sen schools in israel—therefore remedial teachers used screens for frontal work and students continued doing tasks on their devices individually and in pairs or groups. during the quarantine it was practiced distantly on smart boards. israeli kids like playing computer games and watching films in english. therefore, usually they are good at speaking, even sen ones. nevertheless, the latter ones lack motivation when it comes to grammar learning and practicing it in the classroom when they are taught in a traditional way. they make a lot of mistakes and get frustrated or even start making troubles. during the quarantine some of them even blocked their teachers’ accounts on their personal computers and telephones because after the range of failure in virtual classes, they got frustrated and gave up studying. if you teach sen students, be prepared for unexpected situations. misunderstanding the schoolwork, emotional problems, anger and misbehavior often take place in sen classes. “the behavior that accompanies this dampened motivation may range from quitting (“school is boring”), avoiding any attempt (“i’m stupid; why try?”), clowning (for attention), denying (“i don’t care about english”), being impulsive (“there! i’m done!”), bullying in the real classroom or trolling online” (koifman, 2017). many sen children hate school but go there just because they have no choice. they do not feel motivated to succeed at school and stop participating in the lessons even so they still dream about high grades. so, the aim of their teachers is to make them focused and interested in learning. since they like playing computer games, they should be offered to do the spelling, vocabulary and grammar ones. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 108 published by scholink inc. “the key to motivating the child with attentional problems is to modify and adjust the learning environment” (lavoie, 2015). therefore, when remedial teachers start giving online lessons, they need to create a dyslexic-friendly atmosphere in the virtual classroom. many sen students find it difficult to focus in class, mainly those who have both dyslexia and adhd. therefore, distractible children should be focused and involved in interesting and success-oriented activities which can be done with the help of audio-video tasks. as it was mentioned above, such materials provoke students’ interest. it is also a sort of learning autonomy that makes each student busy and motivated. since sen kids have difficulties with reading and spelling, they can have a real help from smart boards and exercises, which correct their mistakes. in addition, it can be successfully used on the exams, which is already done in the range of the countries including israel. in my opinion, the forenamed activities can be done distantly on miro. this smart board provides self-checking tasks. furthermore, it contains charts for graphic organizers which can enhance sen students’ learning. since many sen students are visual learners, we offer them diagrams on miro to improve their reading comprehension and general understanding of stories, poems and novels. those who are aural learners, can be taught with the help of listening to their teachers, peers and audio materials uploaded on miro before the beginning of the lesson. both the visual and aural ways work well to develop their reading strategies (rs). remedial teachers should provide sen students with detailed graphic organizers to guide them as they read a particular text. such organizers might be the series of prompts that ask the students to preview particular features of text and note how they are related to the main body of the text. it is an effective way to teach rs. moreover, teachers should divide the classes into online groups of 3-4 kids and they can prepare their own graphic organizers, so that the groups will exchange them later. “when doing group work, they realize what they need, they can begin to take responsibility for their own learning” (rosenberg, 2018). therefore, this is one of the ways to motivate sen students. in fact, they would like to succeed but they struggle, so miro enables them to do works in groups, take part in discussions, design a research project, illustrate key concepts, leave feedback, and facilitate group work easily. besides, you can engage with your students of any level wherever they are. and what is the most important, they can complete and upload their book reports and other projects as a part of the curriculum. and finally, miro is a very good board for collaboration and other important skills of the 21st century in sen and regular classes. 3. studying and developing important skills no doubt that teachers who work to help students achieve their goals may struggle in the distance learning environment. but there are countless apps that can help educators gather the necessary information in a distance learning environment. “to define success, presume that every single student has the necessary support to participate in distance learning” (seale 2020). online teaching supposes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 109 published by scholink inc. not only academic achievement but learning all the necessary skills of the 21st century, such as: * active learning and learning strategies * creativity * critical thinking and analysis * collaboration * leadership and social influence * debate and negotiation schools today provide a lot of material that can be found online and might be necessary for their projects and homework. step by step the ability to choose and analyze leads to academic achievement. so, students can set their own academic goals for distance learning and follow them in their own pace. on the first glance it seems difficult to learn such skills online but educators can help them with clear instructions and doing works that must be submitted before the deadline. as it was mentioned above, creativity is very important not only for teaching, but for studying as well. in the online classroom it increases motivation, empowers learners and helps them to develop a sense of excitement and self-esteem. you can encourage your students to create their own activities and share them on such smart boards as miro, google classroom or socrative, depending on what you choose for them. teaching is much less important than focusing on whether and how students are learning and creating tasks themselves (seale, 2020). making their own activities based on the material that has been learning currently is not only a great way for students to create innovative products using technology but also a powerful tool to increase their motivation, creativity and autonomy. many students are good at technology and may be interested in preparing their own materials and share them with their classmates. in this way, they will get an opportunity to express themselves. thus, many kids like making their own videos and share them with their classmates. they can do it individually or in groups. other groups can create their own materials, for example, quizzes, crosswords, word games and other appropriate materials for the class smart board. such online activities make lessons much different from the traditional ones in the real classroom and with textbooks and notebooks. during the lesson you can divide the class into virtual groups and they can exchange their materials with other groups. later they can give classroom presentations and evaluate each other’s materials and performance. in this way they develop the skills of critical thinking and analysis. “asking students to analyze and interpret primary materials and timely content can boost their critical thinking and engagement” (ralph 2020). besides, in this way they learn the skill of collaboration. while in a real classroom students meet in-person, during online classes, teachers and students need additional resources to collaborate virtually. m. hart claims that for the virtual classroom teachers need to use the following tools in order to build a collaborative online learning environment: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 110 published by scholink inc. 1) video conferencing 2) lesson recording and video creation tools 3) learning management system (lms) 4) cloud-storage tools 5) exam and assessment software 6) scheduling platform 7) library resources in many countries, there is a strong tradition of the authoritarian role of the teacher and the transmission of information from the teacher to the student and most of the lessons are teacher-centered. nevertheless, nowadays in israel efl lessons are student-centered and it is acceptable to challenge or criticize the views of teachers. besides, israeli culture has a strong oral tradition, based on story-telling, rather than on direct instruction. moreover, israeli efl teachers started teaching the subject of debate and diplomacy some years ago and their students learn the skills of leadership which enables them to conduct negotiations. 4. international communication in israeli school for the last decade international communication and diplomacy have become a part of israeli efl curriculum. although this subject is not compulsory, the ability to conduct negotiations is necessary and some lessons are devoted to debate. taking an online course in diplomacy develops skills and ideas that are often highly applicable to many life situations. moreover, learning to communicate with others in a diplomatic manner is beneficial to relationships at work and home, and in social situations. therefore, some students choose the subject of international communication and diplomatic studies as a part of their matriculation. taking a diplomacy course can provide the beginnings of a successful career in many fields, but it requires a good command in english. the program of the forenamed course is designed to provide knowledge, analysis tools and advanced thinking processes in modern diplomacy and conflict resolution. students in 11-12th grades come to the educational experience with different expectations and backgrounds, especially immigrants from different countries. as a result, there are often major cultural differences in students, who start learning diplomatic studies, with regard to participating in discussion-based collaborative learning that in the end reflect deep differences with regard to traditions of learning and teaching. so, teachers need to be aware that there are likely to be students in any class who may be struggling with english language, cultural or epistemological issues and they might quit the course, especially new immigrants. during the pandemic israeli teachers found out that teaching diplomatic studies online was a sensible way for high-school students to gain knowledge about the field of diplomacy and practice critical thinking. the virtual classroom is an online learning environment that allows for live interaction www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 111 published by scholink inc. between teachers and students and gives them an opportunity to expand not only their knowledge, but also your network all while staying at home. therefore, it is a real collaboration and a brilliant opportunity to develop the forenamed skills of the 21st century. in order to motivate high school students to take a diplomacy course online, teachers should let them know that it “…offers the opportunity to create a highly social learning environment, characterized by participation and interactivity for both students and instructors” (brindley et al.). 5. conclusion according to the research, many of the strengths and challenges of collaborative learning apply both in face-to-face or online learning contexts. we can teach schoolchildren of all ages and levels online. some teachers claim that there is no or very little difference between online collaborative learning and well-conducted traditional classroom. others think that it is still challenging to catch their attention and to keep them in front of the screens for 45 minutes, especially when you teach kids in elementary school or sen ones in junior high and high school. therefore, they need eye-catching materials and games on virtual smart boards. once again, we see that the form of conducting a lesson is less important than the structure of the lesson, the way of teaching and keeping them interested and motivated. it can work well in both contexts. indeed, it is possible to conduct either model synchronously or asynchronously, at a distance or face-to-face. in my opinion, there is enough evidence that collaborative learning can be practiced online in any age. teamwork has traditionally played a critical role in traditional schools. and these days, while many of teachers and students find themselves physically isolated, their collaborative work with one another may be more important now than ever and it really motivates them to study together. references brann, a. (2017). creativity. is your intelligence having fun? https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v10i3.675 brindley, j. e., walti, c., & blaschke, l. (2009). creating effective collaborative learning groups in an online environment. retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/675/1271 cooper, s. (2016). five strategies to improve your online teaching. retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/5-strategies-improve-your-online-teaching fazinic, v. (2015). filmmaking in the classroom. iatefl 2015, manchester conference selections (p. 142). hart, m. (2020). how to create a collaborative online learning environment. retrieved from https://www.owllabs.com/blog/collaborative-online-learning kaldonek-crnjakovic, a. (2017). multisensory, structured, metacognitive method in teaching english as a foreign language to dyslexic learners. iatefl inclusive practices & seт newsletter, 1, 17. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 112 published by scholink inc. koifman, j. (2017). teaching students with specific education needs. retrieved from https://www.ijires.org/administrator/components/com_jresearch/files/publications/ijires_971_fi nal.pdf lavoie, r. (2015). motivating the child with attention deficit disorder. retrieved from http://www.ldonline.org/article/19975 newton, d. (2020). most teachers say they are not prepared to teach online. retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2020/03/26/most-teachers-say-they-are-not-prepared-t o-teach-online/#16934f497f2c ralp, m. (2020). teaching strategies of award-winning online instructors. retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-strategies-award-winning-online-instructors rosenberg, m. (2018). learning styles and activities for them. meta conference brochure, may 2018, 35. seale, c. (2020). distance learning during the coronavirus pandemic. retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/colinseale/2020/03/17/distance-learning-during-the-coronavirus-pan demic-equity-and-access-questions-for-school-leaders/#1f09050b1d4d smith, a. m. (2017). creating an inclusive classroom: raising awareness of dyslexia and neurodiversity. iatefl 2017, glasgow conference selections (p.128). biography julia koifman was born in ukraine and graduated from simferopol state university in 1995 and received an ma degree in tefl. in 1999 she immigrated to israel and has taught english in junior high and high school. now she is an english coordinator in beit ekshtein high school in the settlement of rupin in the center of israel. julia has published articles about overcoming dyslexia and sen. she is a member of iatefl and tesol and a regular conference presenter. in 2018 she won a scholarship for participation in iatefl conference in brighton uk. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 19 original paper alternance training strategies implementation project in professional technical secondary education josé manuel salum tomé, phd1* 1 doctor in education, catholic university of temuco, chili * josé manuel salum tomé, doctor in education, catholic university of temuco, chili received: february 14, 2024 accepted: february 24, 2024 online published: march 3, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p19 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p19 abstract professional technical education is one of the fundamental pillars that governs the educational system, its strengthening is a task assumed by him ministry of education through the implementation of the national vocational technical training policy taken to the practice through national strategy for vocational technical training. are multiple the challenges involved in carrying out actions to promote and generate instances of participation and decision-making that enable the involvement of all actors to articulate the educational system and the economic development. in this sense, the professional technical schools with nursery care specialty assume a strategic and predominant role in the educational sector, since the young people who attend the specialty, they put in practice what was learned in classrooms and workshops them allow insertion indeed in the world of work, access your practice professional and insert in the higher education. and in the most cases, be an agent of change at the family level to improve socioeconomically the reality of their homes. for this reason, chile needs to have technicians in level nursery care means that allow us to address the challenges of your own development and its growing stake in the care system preschool, with demands of greater added value, dynamic and challenging. in this scenario, the alternation training will not only strengthen the specific technical skills specialty, but also the innovation capacity, entrepreneurship, work as a team, and a set of skills transversal courses that will prepare the students to perform in multiple areas of education. keywords educadacion tecnica, alternancia, company, university www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. introduction vocational technical education is one of the fundamental pillars that governs the educational system, its strengthening is a task assumed by the ministry of education through the implementation of the national vocational technical training policy put into practice through the national training strategy professional technician. there are multiple challenges involved in carrying out actions to promote and generate instances of participation and decision-making that enables the involvement of all actors to articulate the educational system and economic development. in this sense, professional technical high schools with a specialty in early childhood care assume a strategic and predominant role in the educational sector, since the young people who study the specialty put into practice what they have learned in classrooms and workshops, allowing them to be effectively inserted in the world of work, access their professional practice and enter higher education. and, in most cases, be an agent of change at the family level to socioeconomically improve the reality of their homes. for this reason, chile needs to have mid-level nursery care technicians who will allow it to address the challenges of its own development and its growing participation in the preschool care system, with demands of greater added value, dynamic and challenging. in this scenario, alternation training will not only strengthen the specific technical skills of the specialty, but also the capacity for innovation, entrepreneurship, teamwork, and a set of transversal skills that will prepare students to perform in multiple areas of education. thus, this training by alternation type internships in ies, as a learning modality, brings students early to the labor field in activities with boys and girls under 6 years of age (pre-school stage in its three levels of attention), allowing put into practice the knowledge, skills, abilities and aptitudes that are being acquired both in technical training and in the general plan and that, given the pandemic and distance education, have been strongly affected. (1) national vocational technical training strategy, 2020. (2) rex 1080/2020: alternation training strategy. the advantage of internship training allows students to learn, interact and develop in a higher-level educational context with professors and student mentors of higher-level technicians, acquiring skills for their professional training and for the transition to higher education and laboral future. in this way, we present an alternation plan, aimed at 4th grade students, first semester, focusing on module 7 of the preschool care specialty “literary and theatrical expression with toddlers”, with its respective learning objective: lo 1: “carry out and evaluate educational activities with preschoolers of different levels, creating pedagogical environments appropriate to their needs and their cognitive, emotional, social and psychomotor development, in accordance with the curriculum bases of early childhood education and the guidelines and instruments received from the educators”, expected learning and evaluation criteria linked to the experiences that the students will experience. these curricular components will be addressed in a total of 16 pedagogical hours distributed over 4 face-to-face days at the pontificia universidad católica, villarrica headquarters. the name of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. alternation experience designed by the puc is “explore, experiment and create, strengthening tools of artistic expression for early childhood”. participating directly and in person in the activities at the higher education institution will allow the students, together with the tutor teacher, to take ownership of the contents and see their comprehensive training complemented. on the other hand, this strategy allows them to apply the techniques and skills proposed by the specialty program to comply with the graduation profile; in addition, to establish an early relationship with higher education, with the purpose of strengthening knowledge and technical skills by generating learning experiences that favor the development of language, creativity, emotional bonding through the expression of emotions and feelings of the students. boys and girls in their different stages of development. to this end, the proposed program encourages students to delve into 2 expected learnings corresponding to lo 1, plus all the collateral benefits (hidden curriculum) of being present and interacting with the higher education institution. thus, you will be able to: offer comprehensive pedagogical opportunities to promote literature with relevant resources for boys and girls under six years of age, applying methodology according to the characteristics of the children. toddlers, according to criteria agreed with the educator or the educator and pedagogical principles. offer pedagogical experiences that favor the expression creative children, applying theatrical techniques according to the interests and artistic possibilities of boys and girls under six years of age and implementing the pedagogical principles in an environment that protects hygiene and security. the above is essential for the professional training of students in the theatrical and literary area, creating simple dramatizations and learning to use different resources to represent artistic expressions, in order to offer pedagogical environments that favor the comprehensive development of preschoolers in the field of literature and theatrical expression. the monseñor guillermo hartl educational complex has as institutional seals: • educational training based on christian-catholic values, open and dialogue that recognizes diversity, in harmony with the family and the community. • comprehensive and inclusive education, in which various educational practices are promoted for the development of students, ensuring contextualized, meaningful learning experiences that favor integration, access, permanence and participation. • active and innovative training, through the implementation of methodological strategies that favor the educational trajectory, based on innovation and contextualized curricular management. • with values such as respect, solidarity and autonomy. from the above and in accordance with the educational policy, the establishment puts its work and resources in pursuit of effective, innovative learning that achieves significance for the life projects of the students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. finally, this teaching strategy provides opportunities for the student to develop and perfect their knowledge and technical skills, in such a way that it will allow them to be better prepared, since they will have more experience and more elements for making vocational decisions about their career employment and/or to continue studies in higher education. finally, this internship at ies has a workshop-type methodology, where the students are the protagonists, based on different learning methods, such as: • the contents will be taught in this context, among the activities to be carried out, the following: • interactive presentations by the teacher (spaces for comments, questions and answers). • theoretical practical classes with the support of audiovisual resources. • demonstrations and role plays. • workshops for the development of body expression. • representation and simulation exercises. • workshops for making theatrical resources: scripts, sets, makeup, costumes. methodology the curricular analysis of the modules of the specialty has to enable the selection of learning objectives, both generic and specialty, which will be addressed in the lyceum and which in the alternation institution, considering the number of hours corresponding to the module. repeat the following table according to with the number of modules specialty defined for alternation strategy. (a table must be prepared for each module ordered by course). course fourth year module name literal and theatrical expression with toddlers number of hours 228 hrs. learning objective ( extracted of the study program ) expected learning ( extracted of the study program ) note: you can trigger new evaluation criteria _ evaluation criteria ( extracted of the study program ) note: you can trigger new evaluation criteria _ generic objective ( extracted of the study program ; point out only the letter) annual hours institution lyceum perform and evaluate educational activities with preschoolers of different levels, creating pedagogical environments appropriate to their needs and 1. offers comprehensive pedagogical opportunities to promote literature with resources relevant to boys and girls children under six years 1.1 contributes to the design, development and evaluation of learning experiences comprehensive that includes the promotion of literature in the children and _ girls under six years old. c.j. 6hrs. 68 hours. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. their cognitive, emotional, social and psychomotor development, according to the curricular bases of the education kindergarten already at guidance and instruments received from educators. of age, applying methodology according to the characteristics of the toddlers, according to criteria agreed with the educator or the educator and pedagogical principles. 2. ae2 offers pedagogical experiences that favor the expression creative children, applying theatrical techniques according to the interests and _ artistic possibilities of boys and girls under six years of age and implementing the pedagogical principles in an environment that protects hygiene and security. 1.4 select and use a variety of literary texts in learning experiences _ with the children and _ girls, according their stage of development and agreements made explicit in the planning, mediating its use according to the pedagogical principles. b.c. 1.5 prepare the physical space and learning resources of educational experiences that include the use of various literary texts in printed or digital format. h 2.1 apply the pedagogical principles contributing to the design, implementation and _ evaluation of experiences comprehensive pedagogies that enhance the theatrical expression from the various artistic languages in boys and girls. c.j. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 24 published by scholink inc. 2.2 half the stake active of the girls and the children in various dramatic expressions (plays, puppets, musicals ), facilitating this instance through the oral or body language. a.c. 6 hrs. 74hrs. 2.3 prepare and organize the physical space by collaborating in the organization of the scenography, use or design of the costume and makeup, according to the requirements of the pedagogical experience, considering the pedagogical principles and safeguarding the rules of hygiene, safety and risk prevention. bck total, annual hours: 228 16 hrs. 2 12 hrs. analysis of results or development—body of text relationship of the activities with the learning defined in the graduate profile learning objective (lo) taxable activity lo 1: perform and evaluate educational activities with preschoolers of different levels, creating pedagogical environments appropriate to their needs and their cognitive, emotional, social and psychomotor development, according to the curricular bases of the education kindergarten already at guidance and instruments received from educators. ● learn to tell stories, legends, fables to the boys and girls ● learn to stage a play. ● making puppets and other support resources to tell stories. ● learn it organization of the set design, costumes and makeup. ● collaborate in safeguarding hygiene, safety and risk prevention standards in the different pedagogical instances. ● evaluation of literary and theatrical educational experiences. ● learn to select and use a variety of literary texts in the different learning experiences with the children. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 25 published by scholink inc. ● carry out activities telling stories, legends, fables to the children. ● preparation of the physical space and learning resources, both printed and digital. ● learn activities that encourage literature in _ children under 6 years old. ● communicate orally with clarity. ● carry out activity in a manner neat, fulfilling deadlines established. discussion of results the objective of the alternation training strategy is to achieve the learning, developing work and employability skills, alternating the teaching in the educational establishment with others different spaces, so that students improve their skills and competencies for working life and/ or continuity of studies. therefore, we seek to expand the possible spaces for development of the differentiated professional technical training middle education. for this purpose the ministry of education elaborated this regulation that regulates the implementation of the alternation training, which is understood as that which is carried out in spaces other than the defined educational establishment. the aforementioned regulations mainly regulate the approval of projects of this teaching strategy. 1) the learning agreement must indicate the general information of the place where the alternation learning will take place (also called alternation center), as well as the learning training plan. a) name of the company, higher education institute, state administration body, public service or company that offers the learning places. b) rut of the alternation center. c) description of the business line. d) telephone and email address of the alternation center and the legal representative. e) sections related to the specialty that will be subject to alternation f) number of workers (only for companies, state administration bodies, public services or companies). g) identification and qualification of the people who will participate in the activities by the alternation center. h) years of accreditation of the alternation center (only in the case of higher education institutions. i) training commitment letter to the person in charge of instruction in appropriate cases. 2) the descriptive information of the learning training plan: a) place and date of the learning agreement. b) place where the learning activities will take place. c) duration of the agreement (the minimum is one year). d) duration and distribution of the day(s) of activities. e) indication of mobilization benefits, and snack. f) indication of who will deliver the required tools and work clothes. g) record the obligations of the alternation center and the educational establishment. h) the alternation quotas committed by the alternation center. comply with the approved pedagogical proposal. deliver annual management report in january of each year. article 18, exempt resolution no. 1,080 of 2020 of the mineduc. ensure the functioning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 26 published by scholink inc. of the alternation training commission, at least once a month. references area, m., & adell, j. (2009). e-learning: teaching and learning in virtual spaces. in j. de pablos (ed.), educational technology. teacher training in the internet area. aljibe publishing house. easy lms. (2020). synchronous learning vs. asynchronous: what’s the difference. retrieved from https://wwweasy-lms.com/en/knowledge-center/lms-knowledge-center/synchronous-vs-asynchron ous-learning/item10387 guzmán, s. a. (2019). implementation of flexible learning environments with ict for capacity development: a mobile learning experience with secondary school students. retrieved from http://sedici.unlp. edu.ar/handle/10915/90739 mariño, s. i. (2018). information and communication technologies (ict) to support knowledge management processes in virtual classrooms. engineering education magazine, 13(26), 77-81. merodio, j. (2018). content marketing. how to define your strategy for 2018. entrepreneurs. ministry of education mineduc (2017). guidelines for virtual education in higher education. retrieved from https://aprende.colombiaaprende.edu.co/ckfinder/userfiles/files/lineamientos_para_la_educacion_ virtual_dic_29.pdf morado, m. f. (2017). technopedagogical support as an alternative for the appropriation of technology in university teachers. research news in education, 17(3), 190-214. perdomo, y., & perdomo, g. (2012). elements involved in online teaching and learning. opening, 4(1), 66-75. romero, s. (2018). flexible environments for learning: b-learning. techno review, international technology, science and society review, 7. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 8 original paper thinking, a diverse and inclusive process: an epistemological look josé manuel salum tomé1* 1 phd, doctor of education, catholic university of temuco, temuco, chile * josé manuel salum tomé, phd, doctor of education, catholic university of temuco, temuco, chile received: june 23, 2022 accepted: june 30, 2021 online published: july 11, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n3p8 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n3p8 inclusive education is the transformation of the system; it highlights difference and diversity, to strengthen the development of skills, under the premise of respect for difference and diversity (barton, 2013). today, educational inclusion is carries out and attends to the educational needs of students individually, where the actors of the educational process contribute to learning while respecting the differences and diversity of each individual, by fulfilling the transforming and integrating role that improves skills and breaks with barriers to learning. resume contemporary education has taken on the challenge of promoting different programs aimed at promoting inclusive teaching-learning processes that facilitate attention to diversity. it is evident that the integration of students with special needs in regular educational centers has caused significant changes in the curriculum, infrastructure and training among teachers. in the last ten years, educational inclusion has made significant progress, but much remains to be done to expand inclusive spaces. keywords educational inclusion, epistemology, inclusive classroom, inclusive teacher introduction this article carries out an analysis around the main epistemological difficulties that the inclusive education and diversity approach faces today, in public policies of equal opportunities. initially, it describes a certain epistemic vacuum within the educational sciences and, therefore, an unclear pedagogical knowledge, regarding the foundational dilemmas that it has proposed to solve. a displacement model is observed that advances above the problems of the new century, evidencing a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. hybrid or preconstructed paradigmatic model or approach, facing the challenges and transformations that postmodern societies demand in times of exclusion. it is concluded about the need to advance towards the assurance of a field of timely curricular, didactic and evaluative problematization in the matter. the epistemology of education and diversity a large percentage of children and adolescents between 5 and 17 years of age are part of school exclusion. in the 60s, 70s and part of the 80s, the genesis of exclusion from education lies in mistreatment, discrimination, neglect of basic physical and emotional needs, among other factors; at that time only normal children received education. epistemological foundations of inclusive education and diversity the epistemological foundation of inclusive education at the beginning of the 21st century opted for a transdisciplinary enrichment that allows promoting a genealogical critique of its founding paradigm of special education. ocampo (2015) in epistemic terms, inclusive education must address the total eradication of exclusion, that is, it seeks to eliminate school failure and exclusion. this study presents reflections, to contemporary education, to deal with traditionalist pedagogy, which impede the development of skills, proposes epistemological meditation, which positively contribute to overcoming the conflicts faced by students with special educational needs. “currently, the scenarios in which inclusive education and education for all are promoted have diversified and new subjects and new forms of acceptance and/or social elimination have appeared”, kaplan (2007) that condition social life and school of multiple students. an important step is to understand, from an epistemic perspective, that inclusive education is a model or current trend that is different from education for all. therefore, it is the educational systems and the designers of educational policies who are more aware of what they promote today, because under the model of inclusion, poorly built, new forms of homogenization, marginalization and some contradictions in the management of education become visible institutions and training practices. the challenge now is that the programs on the matter signify and redefine all our citizens. accepting our own history of ways of thinking about the world, we should situate ourselves in what the different narratives and explanations have called the western tradition of thought, which, in addition to its logical types and rationality, has proposed the paradigm of simplification , this from plato to classical science has affected philosophy and science, which would not be a major problem if it did not directly impact the field of decision-making, and therefore ethics, aesthetics and politics. its aim is to idealize, rationalize, normalize, that is, conceive of reality as something reducible to schemes or ordered and computer concepts, understood from the perspective of identity logic and the principle of disjunction. as for ethics and politics, they are also presided over by rationalization and the unifying order, so that they reject or exclude the “less developed” or “irrational” forms. in short, it is a thought that is based on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. reifying concepts and an epistemological ideal that is characterized by assuming an absolute point of view, that is, an external, omniscient observer. this epistemological conception implies in parallel the idea of an illusory objectivity that is also absolute, which is not affected by the subject/observer. such an ideal of knowledge, typical of classical philosophy and science, is impossible. from the point of view of action, it is also shown by social and political history, in particular that of our century, which, when it has tried to determine/unify society, has succeeded in the best of cases for a short time. from the above, we can affirm that our role as educators is to respond to the diversity of the student, the objective of inclusive education, and possibly it is the challenge that the educational system must face, to achieve a quality education that benefits all students at different levels. the changes proposed in education have caused teachers to feel pressured by the demands regarding the constant curricular overload, updating and professionalization of teachers, among other factors. in order for these pressures to be overcome, it is necessary to promote reforms, both in the cultural, organizational and good practices of schools, in order to achieve a change in the attitude of teachers and thus guarantee access, relevance, participation that facilitates learning of all students. inclusion is a right to education under equal conditions; in this sense, the participation of people is carried out under the slogan of respect for diversity, to contribute to the advancement of society. it is important to be clear that each individual is a different world, and each one has their own learning style, which confirms that they are all different. all of the above allows us to socialize the term thinking in our students; it is made clear that everyone has this ability, which is why we will give a perception of thinking from an epitymological perspective. philosophy thinking and philosophy when one hears the word philosophy, one thinks of a person, relaxed, who begins to see and think about everything he does and wants to draw conclusions from all actions. it is seen as something dark and mysterious that few men are able to understand and not be able to think about its meaning. however, we see that philosophy is the most natural activity of man; it is something that comes with his essence. it is simply the curiosity of man for each and every one of his actions and to know how? and for what? is in this world, as person. man, because he is not born in the adult stage, gets used to having some questions unanswered and seeing things that he may not understand, but it has always been like that. if man were born an adult, he would ask himself many questions since he would not even know how? why? or what for? is here, therefore the power is restricted to think. philosophy is the knowledge that human reason claims immediately and naturally, its definition is as follows: science of all things by their ultimate causes acquired by the light of reason. for its ultimate causes. this speaks of the fact that he studied all the meanings of a subject, not by parts, nor by specialization, but rather everything in general, so that there is a greater understanding. acquired by the light of reason. this tells us that philosophy is not based on facts of faith, but on real facts, on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. questions verifiable to man’s reason. in this sense, we can say that the sciences do not think. this does not mean anything negative; on the contrary, the sciences know much more than thinking. they accumulate knowledge about the world that “is there”. thinking, on the other hand, does not accumulate knowledge, it only questions the origin of the world. we don’t think because the memory of our essential historical being was expelled from the beginning of history. we have entered history expelling from memory the original being that opened this history. due to this forgetfulness, we are not thinking. this forgetting of what essentially originates us, this expulsion from memory of the foundation of our essential historical way of being, constitutes a peculiar way that we human beings have of linking ourselves with the history. epistemology, thinking and knowing think and knowledge. the act of thinking and its results, thoughts are still a complex problem for philosophy. in fact, to think is to know. but what is thinking? plato says that it is to remember. descartes that is to doubt, affirm, deny, want, not want, imagine, feel. while hegel affirms that it is the realization for himself of the effective reality of the absolute through human language. however, diversity, we can characterize thinking as a psychological activity, as the act that occurs in the consciousness of a subject in a certain period of time, which can be performed with full attention, distraction, with pleasure or dislike. the result of this activity is the thought that as such is indifferent to who thinks it, how and when they think it, maintaining its identity with itself. in this sense, thought is spaceless and timeless; the socratic maxim “know yourself”, as a thought remains unchanged, regardless of whether it was thought in very particular conditions. socrates in the 5th century bc, or let me think of it now in a different sense. on the other hand, thought is usually accompanied by perceptions or images, i can see something or imagine it; but these elements are not essential to thought, every time i read a book, i do not imagine everything i am reading. the expression of thought also appears the signs that express it as its meaning or meaning. finally, we can point out that the object of thought, the reference. all thought is thought of something. there are no mere, empty thoughts. we must not, however, confuse thought with its object, since objects as such are not modified by thinking about them. epistemology think epistemology the human being lives inserted in a determined physical and social environment. throughout space and time, he has tried to get to know this medium in various ways and using different procedures, each of which has provided him with a concrete explanation of reality. this explanation has nourished the capital of knowledge that has been accumulating. sometimes, summarily, other times, an explanation has replaced the previous one. knowledge is therefore a possibility and a necessity that all societies have developed in one way or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. another. in our context, in which social work is located, scientific knowledge is the instrument that we have given ourselves to point out the difference between what is true and what is false. no one can doubt the importance of science in our society. its development is at the base of the organization and of life social. we must question its repercussions in all areas of society. social work, insofar as it is present in a society where science is the dominant criterion in establishing what is true and what is false, has to ask itself about its scientific character or not. epistemology will be a means for this. the conception that we have about it would be determined by considering that it consists of an analysis of the conceptual structures of a particular science and of science in general. this analysis is located at a second order level with respect to scientific reflection itself. its object of work would be determined not by limited space-time entities..., but by the concepts that the specialists of this science handle for its development (ulysses moulines, (1988). epistemology does not want to impose an a priori system, dogmatic, authoritatively dictating what should be knowledge scientific, otherwise study the genesis y the structure from scientific knowledge, that is, studying scientific production from all its aspects, without forgetting that the concepts used, and science itself, are produced in a specific context, so the relationship between science and society should be analyzed (mardones & ursúa , 1982, 41-44). science thinking as a creative act it doesn’t seem like these are good times, it’s for philosophical reflection; however, it is urgent that thought be strengthened in these times when scientific and technical development would be capable of putting an end to the evils that the world suffers. it is neither possible nor desirable to return to a pre-scientific world, from which many can be learned things, but never idealize it; everything that anarchism has already combated since its origins was present in that world: poverty, exploitation, ignorance, prejudice, disease...; all this is possible to eradicate today by delving into the problems thanks to technological progress. it depends on us to be capable of a renewal of philosophical thought that helps to rationalize and humanize societies, as well as to seize the power that is perpetuated in the hands of a few, or, being consistent with the libertarian point of view, to enable that power is diluted in society as a whole, and that hinder the construction of a decent future for everyone. today, more than ever, we have the possibility to plan the world we want and we can be capable of being the legitimate owners of our lives, thoughts and our destination. it can be concluded that a “philosophy of science” is necessary, although it is difficult to determine what its real mission would be. some authors have decided that philosophy must precede science and provide it with a solid base; others, that what must be achieved is a theory of knowledge, either popular or academic, or a professional language that synthesizes all scientific, technical and practical languages. habermas, so critical of marx for subordinating knowledge to the productive forces, considers that the true mission of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. philosophy is to be critical of science: “criticize the objectivist self-conception of the sciences, the scientistic concept of science and scientific progress; it should deal in particular with basic questions of a social-scientific methodology, so that it does not hold back. but it is required, the adequate elaboration of basic concepts for systems from action communicative”; habermas (1981), not denies the science as the productive force, but it only admits it if it is accompanied by science as the emancipatory force. ontology nothing is broader than the sum of thinking and being. everything, both real and unreal, both existing and nothing, is located in one of these two areas, and there is no more. to take them into consideration is to encompass everything and there is no room for a broader totality. however, the sum of thinking and being is not a totality, in the sense that there is a genus to which two species belong, respectively thinking and being. it is a totality only in the sense that any “data” belongs to one or another area; it is a merely quantitative totality, and therefore abstract. next, it will begin to clarify what is the relationship in which thinking and being are with each other. they do not intend to go through all the aspects of the matter, but they do touch on the characteristic points. the historical investigation, so important, but so extensive, is left aside, and it is limited to trying to show the outstanding features of the relationship thinking-being compatible and required by “metaphysical realism”. i understand by such realism, from a historiographical point of view, the one found mainly in aristotle and saint thomas aquinas. from a dogmatic point of view, it is that it admits the possibility of metaphysics, that is, of the science of being as such. of course, within this path there are numerous variants that are incompatible with each other at some points that are not secondary or little ones. the “problem” of thinking and being is exercised by thinking. it is a problem for thinking, because being itself does not question thinking. thinking questions its relationship with being insofar as thinking understands itself as a modality of being, as a particular way of being, and, on the other hand, insofar as thinking is situated on the horizon of thinking the being, that is, to the extent that thinking wants to be thinking being. it is, therefore, a problem initially raised from thinking and for thinking. it is the entire thinking, from the outset, that is in question, when it questions itself about being. final reflection epistemologically, education is a diverse and complex process that encompasses all human beings, cultures, religions, ideologies etc. and that allows us to realize that diversity is present in our society. although transformational learning is complex, it is possible and necessary, it invites us to reflect on ourselves and on our work as human beings in a world of which we are a part, and on our ability to understand the processes of change and adapt to them creatively, and our survival will depend neither more nor less. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. thinking as a normal process of the human being and viewed from different epistemological perspectives, more so in the case of the human and social sciences, also shows that we are facing different epistemological positions. thinking is a discipline that belongs to this category. there is a clear difficulty in defining its object or objects of study, which causes a proliferation of theories based on diverse philosophical assumptions. teaching has to think implies making these presuppositions patent. in this way, the different theories can be ordered showing the configuration of the world that they presuppose. teaching the thinking process involves influencing the configuration of the students’ network of beliefs so that they can place their object of study within the framework of a certain vision of reality. epistemology, evidently, is complexity. it is transcomplexity. but, it is authentic rationality. however, all this is better appreciated when it is developed as a work of intellectual craft characterized by the deep desire to know and, to that end, by the yearning to find a type of knowing that, once it becomes conscious, is diluted in new understandings. because this is another feature of epistemological thinking: to evolve—this concept is applied to oneself. in addition, it transcends mere grammatical categories; it is transformational and transgressive of all order. epistemology overcomes the statements of opportunity and context and is always open to the scenario where the probable, the possible and the uncertain come together, again, in favor of the historical formulation of new knowledge, in direct and proportional relationship with the future of the science. without neglecting that epistemology, it takes flight, in such a way that, on occasions, it assumes scientific leadership. it has been said that epistemology is a sine qua non condition for any attempt associated with science, in addition to being a direct access door to philosophical insight. reference barton, l. l. ((2013). inclusive education and teacher education: a foundation of hope or a discourse of delusion. london: university of london. conadis. ((2013). national agenda for equality in disabilities. quito, ecuador: conadis. constitution of the republic of ecuador. (20 of 10 of (2008). the constitution of the republic of ecuador legislative decree s/n. montecristi, manabí, ecuador: official register 449. escribano, a., & martínez, a. ((2013). educational inclusion and inclusive teachers. madrid: narcea ediciones. habermas, j. (1981). theorie des kommunikatives handelns, frankfurt 1981, volume i, 225 ssisch. john. r. c. (2016). normal school of specialization humberto ramos lozano. national and international journal of inclusive education (pp. 264-275). monterrey. mexico. le. (2011). current proposals and challenges in education: the ecuadorian case. educação & sociedade, campinas—brazil, 373-391. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 3, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. mardones, j. m., & ursúa, n. (1982). philosophy of the human and social sciences. fontamara. logo collection. barcelona. nomads. (2007). 27, 62-73, central university, colombia. ocampo, g. a. (2015). thesis epistemology of inclusive education (p. 152). granada spain: university of granada. oea, o.d. (2014). advances and challenges of inclusive education in ibero-america. buenos aires: organization of ibero-american states. santos, m. (n.d.). epistemology in education. dni: 72097495q. unesco. (2008). inclusive education, the way to the future, meeting 48 of the international conference on education. retrieved september 16, 2018, from http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/policy_dialogue/48th_ice/press_kit/glyer_ic e_sp,pdf who, m. (2011). international classification of functioning, disability and health. geneva, switzerland. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 52 original paper ruler: a social emotional learning program’s impact on school climate caroline l. south1* & nancy dejarnette1 1 university of bridgeport, bridgeport, connecticut, usa * caroline l. south, university of bridgeport, bridgeport, connecticut, usa received: january 3, 2021 accepted: january 14, 2021 online published: january 22, 2022 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n1p52 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n1p52 abstract an urban public school system in the northeastern united states implemented the ruler program, an evidence-based social emotional learning program, into schools in 2014. this case study investigates the impact of the ruler program on school climate at one pre-k-8 school within that larger urban system. the study sought to determine if there are statistically significant changes in student suspensions, attendance, and academic achievement at that school since the initial implementation of the ruler program by performing 2-proportion z tests. this study also sought to determine faculty and staff perceptions of school climate at the subject school by performing a descriptive analysis of survey data and coding interview and observation data for themes. the quantitative and qualitative data merge to provide a comprehensive explanation of the impact of a school wide social emotional learning program on school climate. keywords social emotional learning, ruler program, emotional intelligence, emotional literacy, school climate 1. introduction schools have a responsibility to address student behavioral, social, and emotional needs in order to better serve all students. this study provides information to school administrators regarding how a school wide social emotional learning (sel) program impacts teacher perceptions of school climate and student outcomes in one k-8 urban high-needs school. decades of research on emotional intelligence has put a spotlight on sel, which refers to the process of integrating thinking, feeling, and behaving in order to become aware of self and others, make responsible decisions, and manage one’s own behaviors and those of others (brackett & rivers, 2014). the ruler program is based on the theory that individuals’ emotions impact life outcomes (provini, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. 2014). past studies from authors, klem and connell (2004) and howes and smith (1995), demonstrated that students in emotionally supportive classrooms reported being more engaged, chose more complex cognitive activities, performed better academically, and scored higher on standardized tests (reyes, brackett, rivers, white, & salovey, 2012). the program that this study explores is the ruler approach to social and emotional learning (ruler) (brackett & rivers, 2014). ruler is an acronym that represents five interrelated emotional literacy skills: recognizing emotion, understanding emotion, labeling emotion, expressing emotion, and regulating emotion (brackett & rivers, 2014). ruler is an evidence-based sel program that uses professional development and the incorporation of emotional literacy instruction into the classroom curricula to improve classroom interactions (hagelskamp, brackett, rivers, & salovey, 2013). the program was developed by the yale center for emotional intelligence and is designed to be integrated into everyday teaching and learning activities (meyer & strambler, 2016). teaching and learning in schools have strong social, emotional, and academic components (zins, weissberg, wang, & walberg, 2004). typically, learning is not an independent activity undertaken by one person. students learn through collaboration with teachers, peers, and families (durlak, weissberg, dymnicki, taylor, & schellinger, 2011). as an integral part of how people learn, emotional processes must be taken into account when schools plan learning experiences for students. the diversity within 21st-century schools makes addressing the emotional needs of students more challenging. many students lack social-emotional competencies and a cycle of disengagement develops as they progress through elementary, middle, and high schools (durlak et al., 2011). the purpose of this case study was to determine how a school wide sel program impacted school climate at a high-needs urban public school by measuring faculty and staff perceptions of school climate as well as changes in student suspension data, attendance data, and standardized test scores at the pk-8 school since implementation of the ruler program. the school, located in a large urban school district, implemented the ruler program, an evidence-based social emotional learning program, in the 2014-2015 school year, as part of a district wide initiative. a positive school climate, a decrease in disruptive student behaviors, and improved academic achievement are desired outcomes of the ruler program. in this study, faculty and staff perceptions of a positive school climate, a decrease in disruptive behaviors as measured by student suspensions, a decrease in student chronic absenteeism, and a decrease in students scoring at the lowest level on the smarter balanced math assessment would be indications that ruler had positively impacted school climate and student outcomes. the results of this study inform school leaders and educators of the impact a school wide sel program can have on school climate and student outcomes. the central research question guiding this study was, “how does the presence of a school wide sel program impact school climate?” more specific research questions included: quantitative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. 1) has there been a statistically significant change in disruptive student behavior, as measured by percentage of suspensions, at the subject school since implementation of the ruler program? 2) has there been a statistically significant change in student attendance, as measured by the percentage of chronically absent students, at the subject school since implementation of the ruler program? 3) has there been a statistically significant change in percentage of students scoring at level 1 on the smarter balanced math assessment at the subject school since implementation of the ruler program? 4) do faculty and staff perceive a positive school climate at the subject school three years after the implementation of the ruler program, as measured by the “panorama staff survey”? qualitative 1) what are teacher perceptions of school climate as measured by the semi-structured interview data and observation data? the subject school’s school system partnered with yale university in 2014 to launch the ruler program district-wide to “support the social and emotional well-being of students and district staff” (meyer & strambler, 2016, p. 2). a 2016 yale university report to the community stated that students in this school system reported more self-control, had higher grades, fewer absences, were less likely to be suspended or expelled. those who reported more student-teacher trust also had higher grades and were less likely to be suspended or expelled (meyer & strambler, 2016). the theoretical framework that guides this study relies on three theories: positive youth development theory, ecological systems theory, and self-determination theory. environment is a critical factor in education. positive youth development theory maintains that the needs of youth will be met by creating environments that promote outcomes like student achievement and positive relationships (brackett & rivers, 2014). sel programs emphasize positive learning environments, school climates, and relationship-building. sel is grounded in positive youth development theory and accepts the notion that youth will essentially adapt to the environment around them. for this same reason, ruler is a program that focuses on the development of supportive and safe environments. in addition to positive youth development theory, ruler draws upon urie broffenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, which states that the setting in which youth exist shapes their development, and self-determination theory, which states that “youth are more likely to flourish when in settings that address their social and emotional needs” (brackett & rivers, 2014, p. 6). according to ecological systems theory, human development and behavior should be studied through a multi contextual approach, which recognizes that individuals participate in multiple social contexts at the same time as well as enter and exit different contexts throughout their lives (kirk, 2009, p. 482). broffenbrenner (1986) stated that in order to understand a child, the child’s environment must be investigated (burns, warmbold-brann, & zaslofsky, 2015). the social-emotional climate of a classroom refers to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. relationships between and among students and teachers as “demonstrated by supportive and caring interactions, positive feelings, a shared sense of cohesion and respect, and teachers’ sensitivity to student needs” (hagelskamp, brackett, rivers, & salovey, 2013, p. 2). the “success of any attempt to educate the whole child is dependent upon the extent to which learning occurs in caring, supportive, safe, and empowering settings” (brackett & rivers, 2014, p. 6). 2. method 2.1 participants an urban public school system in the northeastern united states implemented the ruler program, an evidence-based social emotional learning program, into schools in 2014. this convergent parallel mixed methods case study investigates the impact of the ruler sel program on school climate at one pk-8 school within a large urban district. the participants included in the suspension data and student attendance data are from the collective student body at the subject school, kindergarten through grade 8. the 2014-2015 school year was representative of all of the years before the ruler program was implemented and the 2017-2018 school year was representative of all of the years after the program was implemented. the total student population in 2014-2015 was 562 (n=562) and the total student population in 2017-2018 was 549 (n=549). the participants included in the standardized test score data included only students in grades 3, 5, 6, and 7. fourteen (n=14) school staff and faculty participated in the “panorama staff survey” (panorama education, 2018). all of these participants were certified faculty members, such as teachers, although the opportunity was presented to all staff and faculty, including non-certified staff such as paraprofessionals, office staff, and security. six (n=6) classroom teachers participated in the classroom observations and 5 (n=5) of those classroom teachers participated in interviews. 2.2 quantitative data collection and analysis the quantitative strand of this study includes four data sources: suspension data, student attendance data, smarter balanced math assessment scores, and survey data. the year 2014-2015 represents the pre-implementation population that had no school wide sel program, and the year 2017-2018 represents the post-implementation population that did have a school wide sel program. the third year of implementation, as opposed to the first year of implementation, was selected because the ruler program is meant to be embedded in the school curricula and there may be an adjustment period for staff and students, thus the data better illustrates the long-term effects of the ruler program. the student suspension data was analyzed using a 2 proportion z test to demonstrate if the two populations differ significantly on a single characteristic (suspensions). since the 2014-2015 group and the 2017-2018 group are similar in composition and size, this test is appropriate. statistical significance was set at .01. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 56 published by scholink inc. discipline data has been used as a measure of the effects of reform efforts in schools to combat negative student behaviors and has been determined to be a valid and reliable measurement of student behavior (sugai, sprague, horner, & walker, 2000; anderson, 2009; barkley, 2013). further, student behaviors are an indicator of school climate: negative student behaviors reflect poor school climates and positive student behaviors reflect positive school climates (story, 2010). thus, student suspension data is an appropriate measure. the second dataset used in the quantitative phase of this study is student attendance data. the data was organized into a table showing the proportion of students who were chronically absent in the 2014-2015 and 2017-2018 school years. the student attendance data was analyzed using a 2 proportion z test to demonstrate if the two populations differ significantly on a single characteristic (chronic absenteeism). statistical significance was set at .01. the third dataset used in the quantitative phase of this study is the smarter balanced assessment. math scores were analyzed by grade level in the 2014-2015 and the 2017-2018 school years. the only grade levels that were analyzed were grades 3, 5, 6 and 7. only scores from the math portion of the smarter balanced assessment were used. all grades had a 100% participation rate in the 2014-2015 and 2017-2018 school years. the data was organized into a table showing the number of students in grades 3, 5, 6, and 7 who scored level 1 (not met) on the standardized test. a 2 proportion z test was used to determine if the 2014-2015 data and the 2017-2018 data differ significantly on the number of students scoring level 1 (not met) on the math portion of the smarter balanced assessment. the researcher measured students scoring level 1 (not met) instead of those scoring level 2 (approaching), level 3 (met), or level 4 (exceeded) because the data required to perform a statistical analysis on these other levels is not available due to the suppression of data for student confidentiality. statistical significance was set at .01. the fourth form of quantitative data was the results of the “panorama staff survey” (panorama education, 2018). a link to an electronic version of the survey was made available to all school staff and faculty. the surveys provide ordinal data which was converted to numerical data that was organized into a frequency table. descriptive analysis was conducted to determine the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation. these procedures have been used and been found effective in analyzing survey data (barkley, 2013). the measures of central tendency are important to give an overview of the survey results. the mean score for each item identifies specific items that have scored very high or very low. this indicates that as a group, the teachers feel school climate is strong or poor. determining the standard deviation (sd) of each item indicates how much teachers agreed on each item. a sd of .50 or lower implies that most teachers agreed on an item; a higher sd suggests that teachers varied in their responses to a particular item and that the item could be an area in which teachers have conflicting views (gruenert & whitaker, 2015). the results are presented. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 57 published by scholink inc. considering the small number of participants in this survey, a descriptive analysis of data to determine the mean, median, mode, and standard deviation of each survey item number is provided as opposed to inferential analysis. to begin analysis, the survey’s ordinal scale was converted to its numerical equivalent. the more positive responses are reflected in higher, positive numbers; the more negative responses are reflected in lower or negative numbers. the measures of central tendency are important to give an overview of the survey results. the mean score for each item identifies specific items that have scored very high or very low. this indicates which survey items teachers feel strongly about. statistical significance was set at .05. a standard deviation of .50 or lower indicates that most teachers agreed about an item; a higher standard deviation would suggest that teachers varied in their responses to a particular item and that the item could be an area in which teachers have conflicting views (gruenert & whitaker, 2015). 2.3 qualitative data collection and analysis the qualitative strand of this study includes two data sources: classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. the purpose of classroom observations was to collect data about teacher implementation of ruler in the classroom. to analyze both the classroom observation data and the semi-structured interview data, the researcher followed creswell’s (2012) steps in the process of analyzing and interpreting qualitative data. this process included conducting a preliminary analysis of the data by reading through it to obtain a general sense of the data, playing back the recorded interviews, transcribing the interviews, and reviewing all field notes and memos. the qualitative research question focused on teacher perceptions of school climate at the subject school. instrumentation to measure perceptions of school climate included semi-structured teacher interviews and classroom observations. of the six classroom teachers who were observed, five participated in interviews. after initial coding of the interview data, twenty-five initial codes emerged. after reviewing these initial codes, the researcher was able to identify relationships among the codes and pare down to twenty axial codes, five of which are main concepts. field notes collected from the classroom observations included descriptive and reflective notes focusing on the implementation of ruler and the overall climate of the observed classrooms. the researcher utilized a coding process to analyze the data and was able to identify relationships among the codes and pare down to fourteen axial codes, four of which were main analytical concepts. 3. result 3.1 quantitative data collection and analysis the results of the 2 proportion z tests to determine if the 2014-2015 data and the 2017-2018 data differ significantly on student suspensions as seen in table 1. a 2 proportion z test indicated that there was a statistically significant positive change in suspensions since the ruler program was implemented. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 58 published by scholink inc. table 1. students with at least one suspension in the academic year academic year at least one suspension no suspension total student enrollment 2014-2015 122 440 562 2017-2018 73 476 549 a 2 proportion z test indicated that the proportion of students chronically absent from school differed significantly before and after implementation of the ruler program as seen in table 2. the percentage of students who were chronically absent from school was higher before implementation of the ruler program. table 2. students chronically absent from school academic year chronically absent not chronically absent total enrollment 2014-2015 140.5 421.5 562 2017-2018 88.94 460.06 549 the results of the 2 proportion z tests on the smarter balanced math assessment data are displayed in table 3. the z-score was for grade 3 was 2.77 and the p-value was 0.003. this is significant at.01 so there is evidence that the percentage of students scoring at level 1 was higher before the implementation of the program. the z-score was for grade 5 was 0.053 and the p-value was 0.48. this is not significant at .01 so there is no evidence that percentage of students scoring at level 1 was higher before the implementation of the program. the z-score was for grade 6 was 2.11 and the p-value was 0.017. this is significant at .01 so there is evidence that percentage of students scoring at level 1 was higher before the implementation of the program. the z-score was for grade 7 was 0.785 and the p-value was 0.22. this is not significant at .01 so there is no evidence that percentage of students scoring at level 1 was higher before the implementation of the program. table 3. smarter balanced math assessment 2 proportion z test results grade level z score p value significant 3 2.77 0.003 yes 5 0.053 0.480 no 6 2.11 0.017 yes 7 0.785 0.220 no p value = 0.01 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 59 published by scholink inc. evidence that the percentage of students scoring at level 1 was higher before implementation indicates that a statistically significant number of students were scoring lower on the smarter balanced math assessment prior to implementation of the ruler program. grades 3 and 6 do demonstrate that the percentage of students scoring at level 1 was higher before the implementation of the program but grades 5 and 7 fail to provide evidence of the same. the results of these tests, therefore, do not consistently demonstrate that the percentage of students scoring at level 1 was higher before the implementation across the grade levels presented. based on the results of the “panorama staff survey”, particularly the preponderance of high means indicating favorable responses, the researcher concludes that faculty and staff perceive a positive school climate at the subject school, three years after implementation of the ruler program. results of the survey are shown in table 4. table 4. panorama staff survey descriptive statistics (n=14) question mean median mode standard deviation 1. on most days, how enthusiastic are the students about being at school? 3.93 4.00 4.00 1.00 2. to what extent are staff trusted to work in the way they think is best? 4.36 4.00 4.00 .50 3. how positive are the attitudes of your colleagues? 3.64 4.00 4.00 .74 4. how supportive are students in their interactions with each other? 3.57 4.00 4.00 .51 5. how respectful are the relationships between staff and students? 3.93 4.00 4.00 .62 6. how optimistic are you that your school will improve in the future? 4.50 4.50 4.00 and 5.00 .52 7. how often do you see students helping each other without being prompted? 3.86 4.00 4.00 .53 8. when new initiatives are presented at your school, how supportive are your colleagues? 3.79 4.00 4.00 .43 9. overall, how positive is the working environment at your school? 4.29 4.00 4.00 .47 note: response anchors: 1-not at all, 2-slightly, 3-somewhat, 4-quite, 5-extremely. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 60 published by scholink inc. 3.2 qualitative data analysis and results when the interview and observation data were analyzed together, the main analytical concepts of relationships, shared vision, belief in social emotional education, school leadership, and student-centered outcomes emerged, as seen in table 5. table 5. combined interview and observation thematic table main analytical concepts interview subcategories observation subcategories relationships environment building trust safety positive student-teacher interactions promoting community positive reinforcement calming music on-task behaviors clear routines and structured environment shared vision fidelity of implementation putting children first ongoing process fidelity of implementation: elements of ruler present in classrooms belief in social emotional education positive behavior interventions and supports faculty and staff buy-in incorporation of other sel programs pbis used as positive reinforcement pbis used as punitive threat school leadership high expectations of administrators support of administrators administrators’ belief in program student-centered outcomes student self-advocacy and self-awareness improved student behaviors student and faculty emotion management productive student-student interactions the only main analytical concept that was not present in both datasets was that of school leadership. school leadership must be included as a main analytical concept because of its prominence in the interview data as a factor contributing to school climate. in all of the interviews, the topic of leadership emerged and the perception among all of the participants was that the strong leadership at the subject www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 61 published by scholink inc. school has had a profound and positive impact on school climate. the fact that school leadership did not emerge as a main analytical theme in the observation data makes sense because the researcher was observing everyday classroom routines and lessons where the administrator was not present. 4. discussion marzano, waters, and mcnulty (2005) found that the overall climate of a school and the climate of individual classrooms can have a positive or negative influence on a school’s effectiveness and ultimately student performance. the results of this study demonstrate that the presence of a school wide social emotional learning (sel) program has impacted school climate positively as evidenced by a decrease in student suspensions, a decrease in chronic absenteeism among students, staff and faculty positive responses on the “panorama staff survey”, and the emergence of the main analytical themes of relationships, shared vision, belief in social emotional education, school leadership, and student-centered outcomes from the qualitative data. based on the results of the suspension data analysis, the chronic absenteeism data analysis, the survey data analysis, and the interview and observation data analyses, the researcher concluded that the presence of a school wide sel program impacts school climate by decreasing disruptive student behaviors, decreasing chronic absenteeism, and improving faculty and staff perceptions of school climate. overall, the presence of a school wide sel program improved school climate at the subject school. the survey and interview data demonstrated that faculty and staff perceived implementation of the ruler program and strong school leadership to be two significant factors that have resulted in a positive school climate. the elements of this positive climate are strong and meaningful relationships among staff and students, a shared vision for the school, the belief that faculty and staff have in social emotional education, and the focus on student-centered outcomes. outcomes of the climate are improved student behavior, improved student attendance, and positive faculty and staff perceptions of school climate. this study provides school leaders with evidence that sel programs do impact student outcomes and school climate. it also provides evidence that the programming that school leaders select needs to be supported by strong building administrators and that purchasing a program is not enough. faculty and staff need to be trained and supported in their daily implementation of the program and best practices in school leadership need to be continued (hill, palmer, klein, howell, & pelletier, 2010). the results of this study support the use of the ruler program because of its impact at the subject school. school leaders must select programming based on the needs of the individual school and select one which can be integrated into the day to day functions. purchasing a sel program is not sufficient. school leaders need to make the sel program an ingrained part of the school in order to see results (brackett & rivers, 2014). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. schools need to be a place in which students feel safe, both physically and emotionally. continued research on school climate and sel programming will help us better understand how to create environments in which students feel safe and in which students can find the most success. references anderson, e. (2009). the effectiveness of a proactive school wide discipline plan on office discipline referrals at the elementary school level (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1299&context=doctoral barkley, b. p. (2013). teacher perception of school culture and school climate in the leader in me schools and non leader in me schools (doctoral dissertation). the university of southern mississippi. retrieved from https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/392 brackett, m. a., & rivers, s. e. (2014). transforming students’ lives with social and emotional learning. to appear in the handbook of emotions in education. yale center for emotional intelligence, yale university. bronfenbrenner, u. (1986). ecology of the family as a context for human development: research perspectives. developmental psychology, 22(6), 723-742. doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.22.6.723 burns, m. k., warmbold-brann, k. w., & zaslofsky, a. f. (2015). ecological systems theory. school psychology review, 44(3), 249-261. creswell, j. w. (2012). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). boston, ma: pearson. durlak, j. a., weissberg, r. p., dymnicki, a. b., taylor, r. d., & schellinger, k. b. (2011). the impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: a meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. child development, 82(1), 405-432. gruenert, s., & whitaker, t. (2015). school culture rewired: how to define, assess, and transform it. alexandria, va: ascd. hagelskamp, c., brackett, m. a., rivers, s. e., & salovey, p. (2013). improving classroom quality with the ruler approach to social and emotional learning: proximal and distal outcomes. society for community research and action, 1-22. hill, i., palmer, a., klein, a., howell, e., & pelletier, j. (2010). assessing the train-the-trainer model: an evaluation of the data & democracy ii project. the urban institute. retrieved from https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/28971/412174-assessing-the-train-the-trainermodel-an-evaluation-of-the-data-amp-democracy-ii-project.pdf howes, c., & smith, e. w. (1995). relations among child care quality, teacher behavior, children’s play activities, emotional security, and cognitive activity in child care. early childhood research quarterly, 10(4), 381-404. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 63 published by scholink inc. kirk, d. s. (2009). unraveling the contextual effects on student suspension and juvenile arrest: the independent and interdependent influences of school, neighborhood, and family social controls. criminology, 47(2), 479-520. klem, a. m., & connell, j. (2004). relationships matter: linking teacher support to engagement and achievement. medicine. the journal of school health. doi: 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2004.tb08283.x marzano, r. j., waters, t., & mcnulty, b. a. (2005). school leadership that works: from research to results. alexandria, va: ascd. meyer, j. l., & strambler, m. j. (2016). social and emotional learning in the bridgeport public schools: an initial report to the community. retrieved from http://consultationcenter.yale.edu/bridgeport_public_schools_report_281651_1095_51.pdf panorama education. (2018a). panorama school climate survey-staff. retrieved from https://www.panoramaed.com provini, c. (2014). ruler program positively impacts student behavior and achievement. education world. retrieved from www.educationworld.com/a_curr/emotional-intelligence-ruler-program-yale.shtml reyes, m. r., brackett, m. a., rivers, s. e., white, m., & salovey, p. (2012). classroom emotional climate, student engagement, and academic achievement. journal of education psychology, 104(3), 700-712. story, l. c. (2010). a study of the perceived effects of school culture on student behaviors. electronic theses and dissertations. paper 2249. retrieved from https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3 621&context=etd sugai, g., sprague, j. r., horner, r. h., & walker, h. m. (2000). preventing school violence: the use of office discipline referrals to assess and monitor school wide discipline interventions. journal of emotional and behavioral disorders, 8(2), 94-101. zins, j. e., weissberg, r. p., wang, m. c., & walberg, h. j. (2004). building academic success on social and emotional learning: what does the research say? new york, new york: teachers college press. http://consultationcenter.yale.edu/bridgeport_public_schools_report_281651_1095_5_v1.pdf education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 144 original paper how should higher education institutions provide lectures under the covid-19 crisis yutaka kurihara1* 1 department of economics, aichi university, nagoya, japan * yutaka kurihara, department of economics, aichi university, nagoya, japan received: september 24, 2020 accepted: september 30, 2020 online published: october 7, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p144 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p144 abstract as the covid-19 crisis prevails, many universities and colleges all over the world were not able to conduct face-to-face classes and instead conduct online learning. online learning has merits and is evaluated by learners and university faculties. however, whether or not the learning quality of online learning improves or maintains should be evaluated. furthermore, online learning without being face-to-face is different from flipped classroom. this paper examines how the quality of online learning changes empirically. the empirical results show that most of the results are not different from face-to-face class, and online quiz type test scores are quite high; however, the quality of reports (writing) has declined significantly. there is some possibility that surface knowledge improved by online learning of undergraduates, but in-depth learning by thinking or discussing with other learners and faculty are not realized. keywords active learning, covid-19 crisis, face-to-face, flipped classroom, online learning, university 1. introduction recently, researchers who not only major in higher education but also major in other fields have raised doubts about the effectiveness of traditional lecture-type teaching. one-direction teaching method from teachers to students has been criticized repeatedly. instead, in-depth study methods by thinking for themselves such as “active learning”, have been highly regarded. on the other hand, such methods like active learning have also been criticized because of the effectiveness of promoting learnings. in spite of the fact that evolutions in ict (information, communication, and technology) enable new ict-based methods meaningful for pedagogy, traditional teaching is still the core teaching patterns regardless of conducting online learning. of course, the introduction of ict in classes needs knowledge about such www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 145 published by scholink inc. fields and time; however, some teachers do not agree that introducing ict would have a positive effect. some people say that educators are not familiar with the ict; however, the reason is not so simple as such. these situations have changed suddenly and greatly because of the spreading covid-19 in 2020 all over the world. many schools, universities, and other educational institutions that have not introduced such ict systems largely have to introduce online learning inevitably. in japan, as well, most university and college classes are performing online learning. by now, a lot of studies and questionnaires have been presented for university education. most studies show that not only learners but also faculty are satisfied with the online-based method. however, the evaluation of such learning method has not been examined in depth. flipped classroom was introduced not only to junior and high schools but also to universities, and it has spread gradually. most of the flipped classrooms use online materials and learners have to do pre-study before attending the class. therefore, almost all the flipped classrooms are strongly related with online learning. in my class, the flipped classroom was introduced about fifteen to twenty years ago. active learning such as teaching others, discussion, and presentations has been used for increasing the quality of learning. however, most flipped classrooms perform as a blended class, namely, online learning and face-to-face class. my class is no exception. flipped classrooms may have to be changed without face-to-face classes under the covid-19 crisis. chats and forums are used for communicating among learners and between learners and faculty; however, different types of flipped classrooms would be necessary. this study examines the effects of online learning for student education. more concretely, the effect of online learning without face-to-face classroom education is examined. there would be a high possibility that most universities will have to continue online learning at least for the time being. it is necessary for universities to examine the effectiveness of the online learning without feelings or intuition, and sometimes make up for the shortcomings when able to. too much dependence on feelings or intuition is dangerous, regardless of the satisfaction of educators and learners. this study is structured as follows. section 2 reviews existing studies which focus on online learning. moreover, some studies which examine flipped classroom and active learning are reviewed. section 3 provides a preliminary one for empirical analyses. section 4 examines the effectiveness of online examinations for my class’s data and the statistical results are analyzed. finally, this study ends with a brief summary. 2. existing studies for online learning the pros and cons of online learning have been discussed much in many ways. online learning reduces time and place barriers in general, and a lot of studies insist on large merits. studies which focus on these merits have been presented, and advanced research have also been examined. milman (2012), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 146 published by scholink inc. steed (2012), and louhab et al. (2018) showed that learners can study at their own pace and convenient time. under this covid-19 crisis, some students feel better when they do not need to ride crowed trains or buses to go to universities or colleges. moreover, with on-demand-type lectures, students are able to view the video lectures repeatedly, if necessary. learners can listen to lectures not only on a pc/tablet but also faculty can provide mobile devices whenever it is convenient to use. goodwin and miller (2013) revealed that educators who use this for online lessons feel this usefulness because they can give some students more advanced contents. learner levels are not the same in almost any of the cases. some learners sometimes feel bored because they have to spend much time on subjects they already know or understand without any difficulty. for such learners, educators provide materials that are more advanced levels. of course, educators can give students easier, clearer, more concrete explanations. online learning is easy to fit with learners’ levels. schneider, wallace, blikstein, and pea (2013) suggested that learners who enter into open-ended studies can attain better achievements than other learners who used traditional textbooks. by using chat or other functions, learners are able to participate in open-ended discussion or sometimes learners, themselves, can teach. teaching others is sometimes a useful way, not only for learners who do not understand, but also for learners who are not perfect but understand well. explaining to others can sometimes promote learners’ understandings. wu, hsieh, and yang (2017) found that the online learning group not only promotes meaningful collaboration, but also achieved the participants’ oral proficiency, and it leads to more active learning in highly interactive learning activities, such as class discussion and presentations by groups. in most meeting software, such as zoom, slack, and teams, such functions are equipped and learners and educators can use without difficulties. amasha et al. (2018) suggested that the usage of online learning and assessment in synchronization becomes a motivation and can enhance students’ performance. surely, some reports indicate that the drop rate of students during the semester decreased. chats and forums can free learners from loneliness. on the other hand, some educators have negative opinions on online learning and feel face-to-face classes instead of online learning are more appropriate (see, for example, willet, brown, & danzy-bussell, 2019). whitney (2019) indicated that online learning appears to have negative effects on student learning compared to in-person teaching. there are some studies which found no difference between online learning and face-to-face learning. yen et al. (2018) revealed that students achieve equally well across all (three) teaching modalities. one important key point for the success of online learning seems to depend on learners’ readiness. bovermann, weidich, and bastiaens (2018) showed that students who indicated low readiness for online learning have non-autonomous motivation. on the other hand, learners who have strong incentives to study are sometimes not eager to study online learnings. flipped or reversed classrooms have recently been paid much attention in education. the relationship between online learning and flipped learning is, of course, strong. the flipped classroom is a reversed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 147 published by scholink inc. method of traditional teaching in which learners study using materials outside of class (school), such as at home, usually videos (on demand) or textbooks, and then do their additional work, such as problem-solving, discussion, or debates, in the classroom. caviglia-harris (2016) showed that students in the flipped classroom scored higher points. kurihara (2018) found that a flipped classroom facilitates the effectiveness of learning, but it is difficult to increase active learning such as spontaneous incentives for study. sometimes there seems to be a lot of cases where lecture-based classrooms achieve more active study. if the goal of teaching is usually to engender understanding, educators must move from memorization of knowledge and facts, known as surface learning, for example, to deep learning in which understanding is promoted from active and constructive processes (kurihara, 2016). it seems difficult to decide which is better, online learning or face-to-face learning. they are inconclusive at this point. there is one small possibility of blend classes, which constitute of online learning and face-to-face class; however, it is too intrinsic. there is less evidence about models that blend elements of online and in-person instruction. in most countries, most universities or colleges had to perform classes by online learning from april (most japanese universities usually start from april). there is little study that copes with the pros and cons of online learning as the spreading of covid-19 has been too sudden. however, researchers have to cope with covid-19 and at least after covid-19. it would be necessary to report the results of my class. improving the quality of higher education is necessary. 3. preliminary analysis for evaluating online learning it should be examined much more from now on whether online learning promotes learners’ learning or not. more information is necessary to examine the examples of whether online learning will be or should be continued. there would be possibility that blend classes of online and face-to-face should be conducted after the covid-19 crisis if the effectiveness of such style would be large. table 1 is the questionnaire results for learners. the number of the sample is 42. it is interesting to note that “on-demand” type is the most popular among online learning. of course, some points should be noted. one is that the results depend too much on the situation of covid-19. for example, it is expected that face-to-face would be unpopular when the situation is too serious or rapidly worsening. furthermore, as freshman have not been to universities almost at all, some of them would like to go to universities to make friends or for some incentives such as finding extracurricular activities. most japanese education institutions start from april. moreover, if learners have many classes live, they sometimes feel tired. watching screens for a long time impairs eyes and health. however, it is clear that on-demand type is popular and live type is unpopular. the number of the sample is small and the results are too dependent on many kinds of situations; however, hybrid type, namely, on-demand and face-to-face would be reasonable. one reason is that flipped classroom would be preferable if conducted face-to-face. however, as the covid-19 situation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 148 published by scholink inc. becomes too serious, face-to-face class would be impossible for many education institutions all over the world. in my classes, some classes that the number of students is relatively small, live type was employed; however, a few students could not join because the network was not working fully. at the earlier stage, microphone and camera were sold out. some students may feel so stressful when they appear on the screen. thus, on-demand type was basically used. other classes that the number of the students is large, only on-demand type was conducted. figure 1. preference for students this study focuses on the quality of learners’ learning. a lot of the results of questionnaire including the large number of samples have been presented about online learning; however, quality of learners’ learning has not been analyzed much. quality assessment is urgently necessary. table 1 is the results of evaluation of one class. this class is finally evaluated by report, small test, and final test. present times and times of seeing the video were not included for final evaluation. the parentheses of the table are “mean” and are compared with face-to-face class (last year). additionally, the weight of each point for final evaluation is different between this year and past ones (including last year). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 149 published by scholink inc. table 1. statistical description and comparison of online class and face-to-face class final result (0-100) present (0-15) times of seeing the video (0-) report (0-10) small test (0-15) exams of the end of the semester (0-65) mean 76.1404 (-4.6096) 14.7544 (0.8244) 105.5439 (67.3639) 3.7543 (-5.0557) 13.7421 (4.6211) 53.7532 (-0.6518) median 75.0000 15.0000 107.0000 4.0000 14.4000 57.5001 maximum 95.0000 15.0000 215.0000 10.0000 15.0000 64.0000 minimum 40.0000 8.0000 43.0000 0.0000 0.0000 25.0000 std. dev 12.1479 1.0737 33.0843 2.5587 2.3095 14.9214 skewness -1.0992 -5.0878 0.6531 0.6120 -4.2977 -0.6911 kurtosis 4.9710 30.0437 3.6653 2.6386 24.0924 2.4030 jarque-bera 20.7047 1982.900 1231.995 3.8689 1231.996 1.5009 probability 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.1445 0.0000 0.4736 note. parentheses are “mean” and compared with face-to-face class (last year). it should be noted that the number of learners seeing the video is large and it increased compared to the past face-to-face class; about a 1.5 times increase. also, the score of small test (some of them are multiple choice) increased, but the score of reports decreased largely. rublic was used because evaluation criteria should be much more clarified under this situation; however, it did not function well. there are not in the table, but for small tests, the scores of multiple-choice-type small tests scores are quite high but the scores of writing-type small test are quite low. it is interesting to note that there would be some possibility that the quality of the class did not improve. in the next section, some statistical analyzes are employed for further analyses. 4. empirical analyses this paper focuses on the achievement of my class. numerous studies have begun to be presented; however, the evaluation of quality has not been fully examined and discussed. the correlations of each variable are in table 2. table 2. correlations among variables present times small test present 1 0.1970 0.8064 times 0.1970 1 0.2650 small test 0.8064 0.2650 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 150 published by scholink inc. leaners could not attend face-to-face classes at all, so seeing the video at least one time counts as “present” in the class. as expected, some learners repeatedly viewed the video. however, have they accomplished this subject’s goal successfully? other important points including this one are analyzed next. regression analyses are performed for the final scores. least squares and robust estimations are empirical methods. robust estimation is unlike maximum likelihood estimation and is used because the number of the samples is not so large. ols estimates for regression are sensitive to observations that do not follow the pattern of other observations. this is not a problem if the outlier is simply an extreme observation from the tail of a normal distribution; however, if the outlier is from non-normal measurement error or some other violation of standard ols, it compromises the validity of the regression results if a non-robust regression method is employed. in the panel analyses, fixed effects model and random effects model are employed. the results of the regressions are in table 3. table 3. regression analyses for final score method ordinary least squares robust least squares ordinary least squares robust least squares c -69.5333*** (-4.5128) -70.2128*** (-4.3871) -40.2426** (-2.3701) -39.9641** (-2.2284) present 8.8867***+ (8.3701) 8.9969*** (8.1582) 4.7584*** (2.9204) 4.8286*** (2.8057) times 0.0730** (2.1189) 0.0662* (1.8491) 0.0542 (1.6697) 0.0534 (1.5587) small test 2.4460*** (3.1757) 2.3518*** (2.8908) adjusted r-squared 0.5966 0.6547 adjusted rw-squared 0.6944 0.7015 f-statistic 42.4145 36.3951 prob(f-statistic) 0.0000 0.0000 rn-squared statistic 78.9857 95.2412 prob(rn-squared statistic) 0.0000 0.0000 note. parentheses are t statistics. ***, **, and * denote significant at 1, 5, and 10%, respectively. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 151 published by scholink inc. it should be noted that learners could get final good scores by multiple choice small tests. as table 2 shows, however, the score of reports declined largely. wring ability seems not to be increased. moreover, the times of viewing the videos are related positively with the final score; however, the relationship is not so conclusive. there would be a possibility that the method of learning has damaged some aspects. spontaneous and progressive learning may be hindered. on the other hand, learners asked many questions compare with the last year (face-to-face). finally, the number of questions increased. it cannot conclude that the willingness to study has not seemed to be damaged; however, there would be some possibility that learners who are not good at face-to-face class may have asked questions while learners who are good at face-to-face class may not have asked questions. finally, three questionnaires are conducted: q1: did it (video material) help your understanding? q2: did it make you challenge spontaneous study? q3: did you feel growth as a learner? the results are in table 4. table 4. questionnaires q1 q2 q3 mean 4.0833 (-0.4287) 3.4583 (-0.8227) 3.9166 (-0.2184) median 4.0000 3.5000 4.0000 maximum 5.0000 5.0000 5.0000 minimum 2.0000 1.0000 1.0000 std. dev 0.7389 0.9443 1.0883 skewness 0.4499 -0.2618 -0.9350 kurtosis 2.8957 2.7279 3.3302 jarque-bera 1.6411 0.6965 7.2130 probability 0.4401 0.7058 0.0271 note. parentheses are “mean” and compared with face-to-face class (last year). faculty must change themselves and move from “memorization” of knowledge and facts, generally known as surface learning, to deep learning which learners understanding is facilitated from meaningful and constructive processes (kurihara, 2016). it would be quite difficult to achieve significant and positive effects in my class by introducing a flipped classroom and active learning at the same time; however, it would not be impossible. a blended class that combines the flipped classroom and face-to-face class may be one key issue or solution with or after the covid-19 crisis. however, flipped classroom and online class are not goal. for flipped www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 152 published by scholink inc. class, the method was almost the same with the last year (face-to-face). however, it seems that learners could not improve important abilities in reality. spontaneous study may drop and this problem is serious. face-to-face could have solved this issue, although it is difficult to judge. however, at least over dependence on online learning could cause serious problems. pursing too much clarity on the grounds that we are not face-to-face or reducing the level of the class for clarity would hinder learners’ learning, especially spontaneous learning. comparing last year’s class, the key points are the results of reports and multiple choice tasks. learners would like to learn under this sever condition. however, communicating with other learners, much more feedback from faculty to students, and tasks which are related with real world would be solutions. face-to-face classrooms give selectable choices. moreover, learners are under too much stress and worry about tasks, so some faculty, including myself, did not give students many tasks. faculty may have to adjust the amount and number of tasks with other faculty. while considering such things, the contents of the tasks should be also considered. 5. conclusions as the covid-19 crisis occurs, many education institutions all over the world have to quit face-to-face classes and instead conduct online learning. online learning has merits and are highly welcomed by learners and faculty. however, whether the learning quality of online learning improves or not should be evaluated adequately. online learning without face-to-face is different from flipped classrooms. the empirical results show that most of the results are not different from face-to-face class and quiz-type test scores are quite high; however, the quality of reports declined significantly. there is some possibility that surface knowledge improved, but in-depth learning by thinking or discussing with other students are not realized. there is room for further studies. ramirez (2018) showed no differences in attitudes toward twitter for educational purposes based on the number of online courses the students and faculty completed. as such, new technologies will be invented and teachers should follow them if the introduction will improve the classes. acknowledgement this work was supported by the nitto foundation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 153 published by scholink inc. references amasha, m. a., abougalala, r. a., reeves, a., & alkhalaf, s. (2018). combining online learning & assessment in synchronization form. education information technologies, 23, 2517-2529. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-018-9728-0 bovermann, k., weidich, j., & bastiaens, t. (2018). online learning readiness and attitudes towards gaming in gamified online learning—a mixed methods case study. international journal of educational technology in higher education, 15, 27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0107-0 caviglia-harris, j. (2016). flipping the undergraduate economics classroom: using online videos to enhance teaching and learning. southern economic journal, 83(1), 321-331. kurihara, y. (2016). flipped classroom: effects on education for the case of economics. journal of education and e-learning research, 3(2), 65-71. kurihara, y. (2018). is flipped classroom effective in higher education for the case of economics. journal of business economics and information technology, 5(5), 1-7. louhab, f. e., ayoub, b., & talea, m. (2018). considering mobile device constraints and context—awareness in adaptive mobile learning for flipped classroom. education and information technology, new york (may 2018), 1-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10639-018-9733-3 milman, n. b. (2012). the flipped classroom strategy: what is it and how can it best be used? distant learning, 9(3), 85-87. ramirez, d. m. (2018). computer technology and twitter for online learning and student engagement. journal of multidisciplinary research, 10(1-2), 137-153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2019.100206 westermann, e. b. (2014). a half-flipped classroom or an alternative approach? primary sources and blended learning. educational research quarterly, 38(2), 43-57. whitney, k. (2019). moving the classroom to the computer lab: can online learning with in-person support improve outcomes in community colleges? economics of education review, 70, 159-172. wu, w.-c. v., hsieh, j. s. c., & yang, j. c. (2017). creating an online learning community in a flipped classroom to enhance efl learners’ oral proficiency. educational technology & society, 20(2), 142-157. yen, s.-c., lu, y., lee, a., & enriquez, j. (2018). learning online, office, and in-between: comparing student academic outcomes and course satisfaction in face-to-face, online, and blended teaching modalities. education information technologies, 23, 2141-2153. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-018-9707-5 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 171 original paper keeping students’ attention active duli pllana1* 1 math teacher at jose marti stem academy, boe union city, hudson county, nj, usa; math adjunct ae eic, bellville, nj, usa * duli pllana, math teacher at jose marti stem academy, boe union city, hudson county, nj, usa; math adjunct ae eic, bellville, nj, usa received: november 6, 2020 accepted: november 16, 2020 online published: november 26, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p171 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p171 abstract students’ attention during the class designs the thick lines of the learning trajectory. a good portion of the lesson’s content may be perceived slightly easy with an active alertness, and the rest of it requires extended time to analyze the given material outside the classroom-homework. active attention equips students with the necessary data and more information of an addressed lesson during a session; the key concern remains how to keep students’ attention to the maximum in the classroom. the paper will elaborate various facts and observations, which might contradict each other in numerical aspects. for instance, a great number of researchers support the idea that a student’s attention lasts continually for ten minutes, and then is off. afterward, the mind wanders outside the session’s frame. a certain group of researchers support the idea that attention lasts for a short period of time, it rests for a few minutes and then again is active-this process occurs periodically throughout the session. others comply with different ideas, which are aligned with strong evidence, too. on top of everything else, the paper concerns how to keep student’s attentiveness wide-awake during a learning discussion by describing the main idea in different versions and keeping high their learning trajectory that reaches its highest points. keywords student’s attention, the main idea, games/videogames, learning trajectory 1. introduction 1.1 the influence of general factors on keeping attention active during a session all students can learn. one of the leading issues in learning is poor students’ attention in the class. in my teaching experience at different high schools and a few colleges, i came to the realization that students who pay a longer attention to the lesson get better results than those who don’t. students cannot pay whole attention throughout a session for some natural or environmental reasons. as a result, i am trying www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 172 published by scholink inc. to comprehend reasons for swaying students’ attention from several standpoints. the paper will elaborate seizing student’s attention during a presentation. in the introduction will shed some light of attention span from the perspective of different books and articles including, “design for how people learn” capturing students’ attention: how to capture and hold the attention of easily distracted students, during lecture: beyond ten minutes, video games and attention skills. in addition, the paper will compare and contrast various facts to shed a little more light on the students’ attention span. moreover, there will be some tips that will be investigated intuitively, which might improve students ‘attention. the book, “design for how people learn”, gave a general scientific description on how people learn and how to design lesson plans for learners. i spent some time analyzing how to capture student’s attention, and i was not quite effective. the best analogy that explains how the brain works during the attention process is the comparison between parts of the brain and rider on elephants (happiness hypothesis-jonathan haidt). like many researchers in education, julie dirksen mentions that the students’ attention lasts shortly (seven to eighteen minutes). though, students’ attention depends on several factors. attention lasts longer if the lesson is exciting and well addressed, otherwise attention decreases. in case, students need to learn a lesson for tomorrow, the attention increases its time-duration. according to the analogy of assertion in the book, the rider signifies verbal thinking brain—the elephant signifies emotional visceral brain. rider reasons rationally and directs the elephant in the right direction. if the elephant is not inspired to follow the instructions of the rider, the elephant will sabotage the rider. whenever the elephant is not happy or interested to follow reason, the elephant will not obey the rider's rules. the rider can control the elephant temporarily (shortly) for a limited frame-time. afterwards, the show belongs to the elephant. similarly, disinterested learners in a lesson will not pay attention effectively unless the lesson is in urgency and vital. another great significant fact in the learning process is the weight of the lesson and urgency. urgency in learning is described by the hyperbolic discount diagram. let’s first define what is a hyperbolic discount. in the article, hyperbolic discount, indicates “hyperbolic discounting refers to the tendency for people to increasingly choose a smaller-sooner reward over a larger-later reward as the delay occurs sooner rather than later in time”. dirksen gives some crystal-clear examples on explaining the relationship of attention and urgency. to paraphrase her example, if a person smokes cigarette and the doctor tells him/her to quit or you are going to die tomorrow, probably the person will quit smoking. on the other hand, if the doctor tells the smoker to quit smoking, or you are going to die in the near future, the person is probably not going to quit smoking because the elephant is going to think now (the elephant doesn’t care for the future). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 173 published by scholink inc. figure 1. talk to the elephant (november, 2014)—adventure in teaching and learning many researchers in education disagree on how long a students’ attention span lasts in the class. based on the article, the science of attention: capturing students’ attention: how to capture and hold the attention of easily distracted students, researchers did a study in 2010, in three chemistry classes taught by three different professors. they claim, “the study suggests that active learning methods may have ‘dual benefits’ engaging attention in one segment and refreshing attention in another segment” (brigs, 2014). in general, when a person reads a book, sometimes attention goes somewhere else. after a while, the attention refreshes and works actively for a certain time. attention is not active throughout reading a whole passage, a book, or participating in a session. attention is active on some segments of a learning process and it is passive on other segments. researchers of psychology employed numerous studies concerning the student’s attention; many studies resulted with evidence, which does not support the attention span during a lecture of ten to fifteen minutes. the article, “attention during lecture: beyond ten minutes highlights, the ability to maintain prolonged attention is closely tied to working memory” (wilson & korn 2017). they recognize attention as an activity that depends on short memory; students who have an effective short memory are more likely to be more alert during a session. in addition, there are other aspects, which have an influence on students’ attention such as content of the lesson and the process of delivering the lesson. another relevant contradicted research study deals with the relationship of students’ attention and addiction to playing video games. since all my students are a part of generation z who use digital technology massively and they use videogames, it is necessary to observe the negative side of videogames on students’ attention. despite the facts in the book “everything bad is good for you by steven johnson”, which supports the positive outcome of playing video games-another article video games and attention skills claims, “but the given implication of the swing study, which found that kids’ attention worsens over time if they played overtime more video games-the new research is worrying” (dewar, 2012). logically, the more students play video games, they become more addicted to playing games; therefore, their interest in education declines dramatically. a simple example, an addicted student www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 174 published by scholink inc. who loses a game gets extraordinarily upset; the same student who gets a low grade does not bother so much. the student knows he or she did not put enough effort, respectively attention in sessions (lessons); thus, the student embraces the bad grade. sustaining students’ attention requires many steps such as motivate students extrinsically, involve students by asking random questions, make them laugh, incorporate regularly in free play, make ideas clear and involve challenging questions, ask students at least one question at the end of the class (use it as an exit ticket) what did you learn from this lesson. most importantly, design the lesson plan that is based on the notion of the zone proximal development. the proximal zone development is the difference between what students know and what they do not know. this concept was developed by soviet psychologist lev vygotsky (1896-1934). connecting known with the unknown in the lesson belongs in a higher order thinking level. the ratio of known with unknown should be in proportion with student’s readiness. students ‘attention is in correlation with the gravity of a lesson and its elucidation. designing a lesson plan should be adequate and attracted to the audience’s interest. if the lesson is too easy, learners will not put enough effort into triggering their attention. if the lesson is too hard, learners will not put enough effort into triggering their attention. designing and interpreting the lesson plan has similarities with the blaise pascal expression, “if you read too slowly or too fast, you will understand nothing”. the optimal rate to analyze or understand a lesson thoroughly is working/analyzing with an average rate and systematically. 2. method 2.1 teaching a lesson by expressing main idea in five different ways based on the facts discussed above, there are many contradictions and reasons why students are not alert throughout a session. the paper will shed light on addressing the figure 2. attention effectiveness during a presentation (the figure is from the article how to write a speech to engage your audience) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 175 published by scholink inc. presentation/teaching extremely closer to the main idea. apparently, students’ focus will resemble an increasing-decreasing periodic function in different intervals, which has different continuity for different people. in general, there is a consensus between researchers that human concentration has a higher intensity in the start, and it weakens with respect to time. the article, how to write a speech to engage your audience states, “research shows that attention span is greatest at the beginning of a speech, reduces considerably during the middle of your speech and picks up again towards the end when your audience knows you are about to finish” (barnard, 2016). table 1. students prefer to pay attention during a presentation (beginning, middle, end) students: beginning of the presentation middle of the presentation end of the presentation total percentages/total # of students hs. class # 1 11 5 10 26 hs. class # 2 13 7 8 28 hs. class # 3 8 5 8 21 college students 6 5 7 18 total number of students 38 22 33 93 percentages 41% 24% 35% 100% in the table 1 are presented results from three high school classrooms consisting of 75 students at jsma union city board of education nj and a college math class at eic belleville nj. results are slightly similar with the data from the graph in the figure 2. figure 3. mathematical modeling of figure 2. a(t)=cos(t-n) let n = 1 spaces that signify every 10 minutes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 176 published by scholink inc. practically, it follows the rules of writing english composition in undergraduate courses. introduction contains the main idea, which has the core of content, the middle of the story is covered with lots of relevant, irrelevant details and unnecessary details (reader loses the interest to absorb all extraneous information), and by the end of the story, the lector rephrases the main idea—the reader’s interest goes back to capture the essence of the story with a greater focus in the beginning and at the end of the story. analyzing the model in figure 3 leads to similar mathematical models which are related with trigonometric functions illustrated in figure 3. let observe the graph in terms of the x-axis from zero to four, and let the number one signify ten minutes, number two twenty minutes etc. the purpose of the lesson is to deliver the main idea of the story in different versions. the main idea is usually delivered in the beginning of the story for at least ten minutes. because the point is to comprehend the main idea of the story, it is possible to rephrase the main idea in different versions. if a session in the high school lasts for forty minutes, let present the lesson plan in four versions. figure 4 shows the activity of the attention with the red line; when it starts to drop after ten minutes, after that starts rephrasing the main idea in a different version—the red line of the graph. again the attention elevates higher (the blue graph picks up the next version) and repeats the previous pattern. figure 4 shows the repeated pattern occurs four times differently; it represents a delivered lesson plan in high school class expressing main ideas in five versions with an active alertness during a period of the class or the session. figure 4. elaborating the main idea of figure 3 the attention activity during a class the maximum points of the graph are on the top of the turning points. the minimum points are on intersections points of the graphs on the upper side. if the straight line represents zero, points of intersections represent 50% while the maximum points represent 100%. then the average-attention of the graph would be aa=100%+50%2=75%. let 100% represent the maximum attention—the highest point in the blue graph. , and 50% highest points of intersections www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 177 published by scholink inc. between the blue graph and red graph. the formula for evaluating the percentage change (brigs, 2015): %change=final—initial final 100%=(100%-50%)100%100%=50%. the absolute change is equal to percentage change. apparently, by calculating the formula aa the attention-rate would be between 70% and 80%; students would maximize learning trajectory tremendously by implementing teaching method based on the model one by five 15which represent one-main idea, and interpretation of five-ways. figure 5. describing the students’ attention average the model is represented by changing the phase of the trigonometric function that describes active listening during a presentation; it has a similarity with videogames. the main idea in the video game is to win or defeat other players. the main idea (defeat the other player-win the game) keeps repeating in different stages of the game with different strategies for a long period of time; the player focus behaves extremely alert. video games have various content. according to the article the benefits of playing video games says “there are millions of video games, with vastly different themes and goals. these games can be played cooperatively or competitively, alone, with other physically present players, or with thousands of other online players, and they are played on various devices from consoles (e.g., nintendo wii, playstation) to computers to cell phones” (granic & lobel, 2014). clearly, video games are interactive and with different themes or goals on finishing the game. all video games have the same common goal, winning the game. the central main idea is to win the game; therefore, players are active throughout the frame time of a video game. while the audience follows the middle of the presentation, they will listen more closely to the central details and ignore peripheral details. central details are closely related to the main idea. and peripheral details have a minute relation to the main idea. “for example, if an instructor elevates students’ arousal before a lecture, there is a higher probability that relevant, central details of the lecture material will be attended to and retained in memory” (rosegard & wilson, 2013). the downside of mixing relevant details with irrelevant details decreases the interest of students in the lesson because the concentration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 178 published by scholink inc. students is off and on. during the peripheral details the alertness is off when details transits into central details alertness still will be off. until the attention sets up for a new start, there will be considerable material of the lesson unrecorded in the students’ minds; consequently, the audience will get out of the lesson’s current. attracting the students’ focus in the lesson involves several constituents; some of them play a greater role than others, nonetheless, each one plays a significant contribution in active listening. in order to narrow the topic, we gave valuable facts on interpreting the main idea in different versions and keeping the main idea crystal clear (the same) in all paragraphs. my concept on expressing the chief theme in various ways relies on george polya’s expression, “it is better to solve one problem in five ways than to solve five problems in one way”. in this case, we solve one problem in five ways means we deal with five different strategies. making a parallelism with the main topic, it means the lesson has a tremendous application in various scenarios and it is necessary to know it. therefore, students’ interest will function with a greater flux during a delivered lesson that demonstrates the model solving a problem in many different methods. 3. discussions 3.1 the role of video games in active attention and effective learning as i mentioned earlier in the introductory section, it is extremely hard to comprehend completely why students do not pay attention all the time during a class. the matter of fact is there are many factors that determine the students’ attention in the class such as: motivation, learning environment, solid foundation—prior knowledge, working habits, brain dysfunctions in attention, students’ interest in the subject, classroom management, school district policy, etc. each factor plays a crucial role in shaping the students’ engagement in the classroom; in general, interactive teaching and videogames maximize student engagement in the class. interactive teaching and videogames have a limited application in the real world. improvising elements resembling games may be implemented in any teaching scenario. the common denominator of all digital games or physical games is how to win the game. winning the game impacts on players emotionally (winning the game makes them happy losing the game they get upset). main idea of any game is win the game. every game has the same idea displayed in different levels with different rules. therefore, we will reflect our interest in delivering the lesson by expressing the main idea in different versions. electronic video games are good models for interactive teaching, but none-educational games diminish students’ academic success. according to the article, why can my inattentive child pay attention to video games, “ in short term, there is no evidence that using electronic media offers any superior educational benefits, and it may in fact cause harm in terms of attention and impulse control (among other things)—particularly in a child who already struggles with those issues” (dunckley, 2014). every human activity uses energy in order to be active during a period of time. learning, focusing, reading, watching tv, listening to the radio, singing, talking, makes us tired after a period of time because we www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 179 published by scholink inc. spend energy. when we are tired, we are inattentive in any intellectual activity until we regain energy. therefore, students who consume a long-time playing video games are inattentive in the classroom. a small group of students might be inattentive in the classroom as a result of brain dysfunction. students who suffer from add, they experience similar behaviors with attention deficiency. based on the article, students at risk,“dysfunctions in attention. dysfunctional brain mechanisms and/or chemical imbalances can lead to attention deficit disorder (add) and other attention-related problems such as retardation and schizophrenia” (sylwester & cho, 1992). in this group of students applies different rules, thus elaborated factors on attentiveness in this paper are not valid. the paper deals with alertness activity occurring in the general population of students who are average. generally speaking, listening is the first step of wisdom. even though, people pretend to listen to the conversation, they do not absorb all the information of a particular speech. the article, habits of mind, claims,” we spend 55 percent of our lives listening, yet it is one of the least taught skills in schools. we often say we are listening but in actuality, we are rehearsing in our head what we are going to say next when our partner is finished” (costa & kallick, 2000). usually, the listener is not interested in the whole conversation; consequently, he or she is going to dismiss a considerable part of the conversation. probably the listener is going to listen to what he or she likes to hear. another reason might be overwhelming discussion: the brain cannot process a long list of various topics. listening provides a great amount of information to the learning process, which might arise memorization, too. memorization and learning are two different concepts. the book, human learning and memory states, “learning and memory (lm) are two distinct, but interrelated processes. learning is associated with information acquisition and subsequent behavior change, and memory is responsible for encoding, storage, and recall of information” (liberman, 2011). listening (attention), learning and memorization are in correlation with each other. listening supplies learning with acquisitions and new experiences; furthermore, learning transmits those new experiences to the memory to process them and retain in the storage and make them available when they are recalled. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 180 published by scholink inc. figure 6. varieties of associative learning. associative learning involves the detection of relationships between events (e), where the events concerned can be responses ® or stimuli (s), and the stimuli can be positive (spos) or negative (sneg) (liberman, 2013) figure 7. coding, storage, and retrieval of an experience (liberman, 2013) consider the listener/student is interested in listening to the conversation respectively. during the participation in the class, students naturally pay attention outside their surroundings. the article, students at risk, writes, “the external-internal shift. in this active search, our brain frequently shifts its focus between external events and internal memories and interests” (costa & kallick, 2000). the internal thoughts often interfere with the external thoughts creating disconnection throughout a lesson. similarly, it happens when you read a book. you read a book for a while, then your mind explores somewhere else (in different places and events). afterward, you see that you feel like you are missing lots of information. you read again and you get in the truck shortly. this process repeats until you finish reading the book. regardless, you lost lots of peripheral information from the book, you still know what is going on because the main topic is repeated in numerous paragraphs—similarly with watching a movie. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 181 published by scholink inc. 4. conclusion 4.1 determining the central idea of video games/games through various levels and plays attentiveness is a crucial part of shaping students’ learning and their success. the paper described numerous factors, which plays a significant role in impacting on students' alertness. some relevant factors might be listed as follows: mind habits, motivation (extrinsic/intrinsic), school district, management, active teaching, etc. it is hard to identify the list order of relevance from the most important to the least important factor in determining attention. every class is different, and teachers /instructors have different preferences. therefore, the paper will narrow its theme as follows. the central idea of the paper is expressing a lesson plan by describing the main idea in several methods. analyzing the active teaching can be conveyed as an interpretation of the main idea in various versions. according to the article, why educational video games, states, “video games motivate learning by challenging, providing curiosity, beauty, fantasy, fun, and social recognition” (annetta & tzu-cheng). the article describes “winning” with different expressions. for instance, motivating learning by challenging means you challenge someone in the game with purpose to play the game and determine who wins the game. second, beauty and fantasy are related with the qualities of the winner. next, curiosity is related to finding out how good you are to win the game—challenge yourself (how much you are worth?). finally, social recognition is the quality that winners make known inside a social group that plays video games. we provided several arguments proving the main goal of the video game is to defeat your rivals—become better than others (effect of ego). active learning by using video games cannot be applied all the time because usually, lesson plans and subjects do not have relationships with video games. elements of active learning can be applied in teaching the lesson with a central topic in five different ways. based on the article, reclaim classroom attention with active learning, claims “researchers noted fewer attention lapses during times of active learning. they also found fewer lapses in attention during a lecture that immediately followed a demonstration or after a question was asked, compared to lectures that preceded active learning methods” (kim, n.d.). addressing the lesson with the main idea conveying in various versions allows asking questions to students and assessing their learning. teaching by asking questions increases attentiveness in class because students are interested to understand questions well and hopefully, they will answer the questions. asking questions during the delivering lesson is applicable in all teaching styles. in addition, asking questions is a supplementary factor on keeping students awake. let's elaborate on playing chess (physical game), between two players surrounded by a few friends. they might play ten different games with different strategies. all games have in common the main idea—who is the winner? all characters that follow the game will watch/play the game extremely concentrated all the time. likewise, teaching the lesson with the main topic distributed in various scenarios maximizes students’ learning trajectory tremendously. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 182 published by scholink inc. references annetta, l. a., & meng, t.-c. (2008). why educational video game, north arolina state university. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789087903817_002 barnard, d. (august 11, 2016). how to write a speech to engage your audience. retrieved from https://virtualspeech.com/blog/how-to-write-a-speech brigs, b. (2015). using and understanding mathematics: a quantitative reasoning approach (6th ed.). pearson inc. boston, ma. brigs, s. (jun 28, 2014). the science of attention: capturing students’ attention: how to capture and hold the attention of easily distracted students. retrieved from www.opencolleges.edu.au costa, a. l., & kallick, b. (2000). habits of mind. retrieved from https://mes.sccoe.org/resources/11th%20annual%20academic%20success%20cconference/s8-e vergreenteam/s8.3-part2.pdf dewar, g. (2017). video games and attention skills. retrieved from www.parentingscience.com dirksen, j. (n.d.). design for how people learn. retrieved from www.newriders.com granic, i., lobel, a., & engels, r. c. m. e. (january 2014). © 2013 american psychological association 0003-066x/14/$12.00, 69(1), 66-78. retrieved from, https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0034857.pdf hyperbolic discount. (n.d.). retrieved from www.behaviorlab.org kim, a. (n.d.). reclaim classroom attention with active learning. could active learning be the key to paying attention in class? lieberman, d. a. (2011). human learning and memory. new york: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139046978 rosegard, e., & wilson, j. (december, 2013). capturing students’ attention: an empirical study. journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning, 13(5), 1-20. retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1017063.pdf students at risk pages (pp. 71-75). (n.d.). retrieved from, http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec92/vol50/num04/what-brain-researc h-says-about-paying-attention.aspx sylwester, r., & cho, j.-y. (december 1992/january 1993). 50(4). talk to the elephant. (november 25, 2014). adventures in teaching and learning. retrieved from www.theedubaker.wordpress.com victoria, l., & dunckley, m. d. (2014). why can my inattentive child pay attention in videogames. why can my inattentive child pay attention to video games?! wilson, k., & korn, j. (2007). attention during lecture: beyond ten minutes. saint louis university, 4. retrieved fromhttps://oia.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/2016-08/beyond%20ten%20minutes.pdf http://www.newriders.com/ education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper learning to unlearn for transformative learning, an epistemological look jose manuel salum tome, phd1* 1 doctor in education, catholic university of temuco, temuco, chile * jose manuel salum tome, doctor in education, catholic university of temuco, temuco, chile received: march 11, 2020 accepted: march 21, 2020 online published: march 29, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n2p1 abstracts the present work corresponds to a reflection about several theories and approaches of the learning and their relevance in the training of social agents, reflection that emerges from the practice of the training, and attending to the fact that the meaning of what it implies to learn and how it is that is learned is not at the center of the discussion in universities in latin america, which emphasizes more what to teach rather than how to teach. objective create awareness in teachers of the importance of the processes of learning to unlearn and relearn as part of our educational responsibility and continuous training. summary this paper corresponds to a reflection on various theories and approaches to learning and their relevance in the training of social agents, a reflection that emerges from the practice of training, and taking into account the fact that the meaning of what learning implies and how it is you learn is not at the center of the discussion in latin american universities, in which what is taught is more emphasized than how to teach. keywords learning, social agents, learn, unlearn justification the present work corresponds a reflection on various theories and approaches to learning and their relevance in the training of social workers, reflection that emerges from the practice of training, and considering the fact that the sense of what is involved in learning and how what is learned is not at the center of the discussion in universities in latin america, in which more emphasis is placed on what to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 2 published by scholink inc. teach rather than how to teach. without pretending to analyze praxis or be a guide on how to implement the transition from the prevailing training model, called informational, to another with a transformational nature, the working hypothesis on the training of social agents and, in particular, leadership training, is based on the importance of understanding the concept of learning, of how to learn and, therefore, of how to teach, since adults require unlearning, at the same time as learning, to achieve transformational learning that allows them not only to acquire new knowledge but also stimulate behavior modification in light of reviewing their own frames of reference. to achieve this proposal, the learners and also the teachers must review not only what they do, but how they think and who they are. the process is not only cognitive; it is also emotional and bodily. therefore, a dynamic and integrated approach is proposed that works in the three fields and that in each one of them the concept of unlearning is the main idea. additionally, a series of approaches are suggested, such as first, second and third cycle learning and paradigm revision; among others. introduction it is almost incredible that, in higher education and training centers, more emphasis is placed on what is taught, content, and not on how it is taught, methodologies, and that more experts are hired in certain specialized areas of knowledge but not they have been trained in the methodological aspect. observations made in various educational centers in latin american countries show that the pedagogical process itself is downplayed, and that this limitation does not only occur at higher levels of education, but also at secondary and primary levels, although in the latter the symptom is less. that is, less attention is paid to pedagogical development in higher-level educational centers, generally focused on the search and transfer of knowledge as information, than in primary and secondary education centers, today, in chile, under the reform process, precisely in the review of their pedagogical approaches. and this does not happen due to a lack of theories and/or research in the field of epistemology, namely, authors such as humberto maturana and previously paulo freire, offer us a very reference point to understand that we should be concerned with how to teach from a knowledge of how is it that we learn, and, if learning is not adequate, how is it that we unlearn. this problem is approached, by way of reflection, and some conclusions that are reached from the premises implicit in an analysis of the dynamic and essential process in education such as learning are shared in this document. and it is approached from the deepening of what is understood by learning and the usefulness of unlearning, postulating that this dynamic gives greater light to the teaching process. the reflections that are presented are supported by more than a decade of experience in the training of young people in educational centers of different levels and of training carried out both for teachers and students, as well as exchange of ideas with colleagues in relation to the subject and specialized bibliographic review. everything that was most relevant and pertinent to the subject was pointed out to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 3 published by scholink inc. give way to a proposal that is offered not to be a practical guide, but as a reflection that invites us to continue investigating and raising awareness that the problem subsists and is rooted in the work of educational centers. so, the purpose of this work is, at the same time as a reflection, an invitation to educational agents to reconsider the concepts already mentioned: learn, how to learn, how to unlearn and therefore, how to teach. also, to consider the hypothesis that maintains that adults require unlearning at the same time as learning, to achieve transformational learning, and thus contribute to dynamic and meaningful learning. the document is organized in six sections. in the first, an attempt is made to analyze the approaches and concepts of traditional, informational education and learning, and why their permanence in current times and the need to move from this approach to one more in line with the rhythm of post-modern society, namely, a transformational approach. in turn, it leads to what is understood by education: object of analysis in the second section, which defines both transformative education and, as its variant, meaningful education. in light of the above, the third section opens a new key aspect for learning oriented to modify behavior, which for the author is the esence of education and training. likewise, it is carried out, in synthesis, the importance of the unlearning process and its link with vigorous learning. in the fifth section, some possible learning strategies are briefly indicated that would make it possible to dynamize the process, giving relevance to teaching practice in the processes of change. in the sixth and last section, a final reflection is made that synthesizes and makes explicit the main proposals of this document: from information to transformation. learning to unlearn for a transformative learning, an epistemological look 1) education and learning a stagnant process? “the most perfect image of the cosmos is the river...” this sentence expressed by heraclitus of ephesus in the 6th century bc, `to refer to the continuous evolution of what exists is today very applicable in the field of knowledge and therefore in relation to truths that sustain the human being. then, given that the truths are constantly changing, a sort of negotiation occurs regarding which ones will or will not be accepted in order to attribute meaning to things, to events and to the human being himself. if this is so, it is contradictory to try to make teaching a simple process of transferring information from a subject who teaches (teacher or trainer) to a subject who learns (student or apprentice), moreover, it is an epistemological claim of a dogmatic nature. , where the one who teaches pretends that knowledge is reduced to data and that he is the possessor of such knowledge. what could we say then of the master classes? as knowledge transfer they are valid, but if we consider that knowledge is not something given, but rather it is built, as suggested by the cognitive theories of learning, among which we can highlight piaget, ausubel, gagné, among others, we must conclude that all teacher-centered pedagogical practice is insufficient. hence, it is necessary to review and/or generate strategies that promote discussion on issues that promote a change in perspective, which does not mean in any way suppressing the flow of information, but rather changing the form, viewing education not as a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 4 published by scholink inc. product, but as a process. if we consider the approach of mezisow (2000) and kegan (1982, 1994, 2000) who, based on the approaches of piaget and freire, we can consider that a transformational approach is necessary, which implies looking at how it is learn, how it is thought, what we understand by education and what are the implications of transformative learning, aspects that will be considered below. as mezisow says “transformative learning refers to the process through which we transform established frames of reference (perspectives of meanings, habits of thought, mental frames…etc.) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, emotionally capable of changing and reflective, in such a way that they generate beliefs and opinions that prove to be more true and justified so that they generate action”. the permanence of the emphasis on the content or information seems to make sense if we take into account that the person who is capable of mastering a lot of information and transferring it is considered wise, either from european or north american authors, and who can cite these authors as support to their knowledge, without further analysis or discernment. it is taken for granted that, if someone whose fame has transcended, what is said is true, and so should proceed. there is a kind of dependence on thought, a denial of the possibility of being authentic and generating new proposals more in line with reality. for example, the education in finland is very good, its methodology, principles and values very pertinent, but for the finns, not for latin america. another reason for maintaining the tradition is the fear that teachers have of being confronted by students with questions that they may not be able to answer. they feel questioned in their wisdom and authority, since they assume the category of experts from the infallibility of their knowledge. thus, the concept “education” refers to various meanings and theories, as many as perspectives of what is intended when you want to teach. but what we do agree on is that there is no unintended educational process, and necessarily behind each acceptance of the concept, an idea of society, of being human, and of learning is implicit. if education is considered as a process of information transfer, a prevailing trend in the various educational fields, and in which this information is called by teachers “content” and by students “subject”, the emphasis is on what teaching, and the concept of the student is that of a passive subject in which a standardized level of mastery of the content established as mandatory must be achieved. this is so from a behavioral perspective of learning where the response must be expected, uniform and quantifiable, from which it necessarily derives that knowledge is oversized as a simple cognitive process, of a rational and memory nature, and other elements that are not considered they are also combined in the learning process, as are the emotional and physical. in this process focused on what to teach, the subject who learns in his capacity as a person is ignored, he is considered rather a passive entity that must be filled with information, this is what freire called banking education in his work “pedagogy of the oppressed” (1970) and from which i will take a fragment: “in banking education there are two different types of subjects, the educator and the student. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 5 published by scholink inc. educator is the one who knows, the only one who has knowledge. he is the one who transmits his knowledge to the learner. the learner receives this knowledge from the educator without participating in the process, let’s say it is like a filing cabinet...this education refers to reality as something static, detained, divided with contents totally alien to the learner”. it is also necessary to consider that the rationalist and categorizing heritage of the greco-roman culture exerts its millenary influences on the ways of thinking of our latin america, from aristotle and his consideration of the human being as a rational animal to hegel, (“everything rational is real”) descartes and kant, among others, have paid homage to reason and set aside the set of affective and bodily capacities that are also involved in the learning process. rational categorizations are useful, but they do not allow us to see reality in a complete way, not to understand ourselves in a changing world and in which we can dialogue from a holistic perspective. knowledge constitutes the main basis for the exercise of people, of their wealth and well-being and of society. the right to access knowledge gives the opportunity to participate in social, cultural and economic life, increasing any possibility of a true social inclusion, and at the same time increases the improvement of employability, through continuous education. now well, moving towards a knowledge society also implies inequalities and social exclusion reach. one effort that involves teaching is to bridge this gap and increase the educational level in adults and the incipient need for lifelong education. in this sense, the challenges for the training of people today are much more extensive and complex, which increasingly refer to how to develop human resources for the benefit of each and every student in the school system, having as a center what they are the competencies that have the greatest impact on the growth as a whole person of the students. knowledge about how cognitive processes work in the brain, allows: • develop the natural way in which the child’s brain learns. • understand how the physical, emotional and intellectual domains naturally integrate in the child and provide an appropriate learning environment for self-discovery. • create meaningful, engaging experiences for children to explore, evaluate, and learn. knowing the neurobiological principles that govern children’s cognitive and affective development provides the teacher with the tools to enrich and harmoniously enhance the talents of each student and thus allow learning to be a process that produces a relatively permanent change in the way of feeling, think and act of the student and teachers. from the foregoing we can affirm that teaching is facilitating the conditions for the expected changes in student behavior to occur. the question is: where do we start? for knowing the organ that allows us to be, learn, do, be, love, live and coexist, and that in our brain, which allows us to learn, unlearn and then relearn, from a young age and for continuing education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 6 published by scholink inc. education as a meaningful process our condition as social beings leads us to understand the educational process as a highly significant process, a process of encounter between two human realities with circumstances, beliefs, ideas and experiences: the subject who teaches and the subject who learns. these roles are not fixed, because it is an encounter between people, and people have a world that is their own and a world that is shared, and, in the shared one, today there is access to information in a fluid way through cyberspace. so, it is necessary to reaffirm the need to change the emphasis on education, and move it from the focus of what to teach, to how we learn, what are the factors that make effective and dynamic learning possible and what should be kept in mind when considering to the person of the learner. first, the concept of learning must be rejected as an exclusively rational process, and at least two theories must be considered, that of multiple intelligences, howard gardner, and that of emotional intelligence, daniel goleman. the first considered that for the development of life one needs or makes use of more than one type of intelligence, which is presented as a network of autonomous sets related to each other, and among which we can mention mathematical logic, linguistics, spatial etc. and the second, goleman, considers that the ability to recognize our emotions and those of others makes it possible to develop social skills, motivate ourselves, etc. both theories are very important to broaden the understanding of the learning process and that must be taken into account when teaching. add to this part of the message that humberto maturana, chilean biologist and epistemologist, gave to educators in the bío bío region, chile, at the ceremony to start the 2017 school year: “amar educa. if we create a space that welcomes, that listens, in which we tell the truth and answer the questions and give ourselves time to be there with the child, that child will become a thoughtful, serious, responsible person who will welcome from itself. being able to choose what to do, being able to choose if one wants what they chose or not… are some questions that appear”. consider also the physiological factor, or body factor very underrated from traditional paradigms where duality prevailing mind-body as two complementary dimensions, but the light of modern theories, including contributions from l to neuroscience , we can understand that there at least three perceptual modalities or ways of receiving the information that comes to us from the outside and that condition our interpretation of that information, modalities that are recognized with the acronym vak, to understand that there is different visual, auditory and kinesthetic modality in different types of subject. based on this, it is understandable that not all students interpret the content presented by the teacher in the same way, if the surrounding reality is not the same for everyone, with which the complexity and richness of learning becomes more interesting and never uniform. we can then consider that learning is, as the cognitive theories of piaget, vygotsky, and others propose it , a construction of meanings not only from one or more subjects, but also with interaction of the social and cultural environment , in which symbols, beliefs, expectations and ways of perceiving reality are combined to give meaning to what has been learned. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 7 published by scholink inc. considering learning in this way, the relationship between the subject who teaches, (or who intends to teach, in freire’s words), teacher or instructor, needs to be one of cooperation. both, active subjects of the process, owe respect to their being as persons, in the fullest sense of the word, and in which the one who teaches becomes facilitated of the student’s learning, who from the development of their potential and their own experiences give meaning to the experiences offered by the teacher for this purpose. this makes education a meaningful task, and with possibilities of a true social advance where each and every one can effectively learn to be, to know, to assert and assert. learning as behavior modification in the words of maturana, “to educate is to live together and, therefore, to agree to live together in a space of reciprocal acceptance in which the emotion and actions of those who live together are transformed according to the conversations that constitute that living together” (“the sense of the human”, 1992). from this quote, i allow myself to point out as an indispensable requirement to say that learning has taken place, that it is reflected in the work of the learner and the teacher, given the dynamics of this process that is not for life, it is life. the modification of behavior in any area in which it is required cannot be imposed, as it entails a value framework that is generated from the person as such, in their way of perceiving the environment and themselves. learning modifies behavior yes and only yes when the change occurs in the subject as such, and this is possible with an education and/or training that considers and respects him as a person. for this, it is necessary to learn to unlearn and learn again according to the requirements of the time and space in which the subject or subjects are a task that is difficult, but necessary (some reasons that generate resistance to change have already been exposed). unlearning as a dynamic strategy in a world of constant change, the task of learning to unlearn is imperative, as already mentioned, especially in the field of education and training. several authors have dealt with the subject, among others moreno olivos (2005) and cegarra and rodrigo (2004) who consider it necessary for teachers to learn to unlearn because they must prepare students to face the future. from its postulates, we can describe the sequence of steps necessary to unlearn: 1) situate oneself in the here and now (reality): recognize what happens and to whom it happens, assume that there are lessons from the past that are not valid in the present (now) and others that may be valid in another context , but not where it is located (here). 2) distinction between personal opinion (subjective) and a general principle or rule. all subjects have personal experiences, but they cannot be taken as valid criteria for situations in another context. to get caught up in personal judgment is to abandon the possibility of growth and knowledge. this is a step that requires humility, and every human being has the right to have an opinion, but must recognize that this is…opinion. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 8 published by scholink inc. 3) preparation of the personal and/or collective map. objectively evaluate learning from the contrast between the interpretation of reality (map) and reality itself, a step that is possible only in the exchange of opinions, experiences and knowledge. 4) search for new perspectives, understandings and solutions to evaluate if what is considered valid, what has been learned is still relevant, current and valid for the field to which it refers. if not, the next step is taken... 5) unlearn: it is convenient to make a list of what has been considered “invalid” and proceed to its elimination (this is the most difficult step, since the accumulation of knowledge is one of the most deeply rooted claims of wisdom in our western culture, and there is a lot of literature about it). if this step is taken, the reconstruction continues, or rather, with the possibility of new learning. 6) reconstruction of learning and sharing of these: this step needs to be done together, both in the generating phase and the installation or legitimation of them. let us remember that every learning process is generated in coexistence with the other or others, in exchange spaces full of affection. 7) return to transformed reality: new looks make new paths possible. once the most significant aspects are reconsidered, a broader perspective is acquired that allows generating more pertinent, but never definitive, knowledge, therefore many times it will be necessary to unlearn again. it is necessary to point out that, although the steps can be enumerated, this is not a mechanical process, as it is not a human process, it requires reflection on the subject and both individual and collective motivation, it is necessary to abandon the comfort of tradition to innovate, generating changes that bring us closer to the possibility of understanding our environment and ourselves. unlearning is a complex phenomenon that has at least three limitations: 1) the individual factor given by resistance to change. whether due to dogmatism, comfort, fear of innovation, there is, as has already been analyzed, a tendency to do the same and in the same way. 2) the biological factor: it is known, from neuroscience studies, that the brain has great plasticity, but this manifests itself more strongly in the first years of life, and decreases as one advances in age. however, if a constant activity of new neural connections, new learning is maintained, the brain responds adequately to changes even in adulthood, protecting itself from exercise and adequate nutrition. 3) the social factor: social influences that reinforce negative views of the changes exist and weigh, being more common to highlight the failures than the successes. this, added to a strong successful and competitive conception, obstructs the possibility of innovation, mainly in the field of secondary schools, where studying is identified with absorbing content that is then measured with standardized tests. changes are possible to the consider transformative learning it is to overturn the traditional concepts and acquire the ability to constantly transform and develop in our students the same capacity, processing involving cambar our frames of reference we had for sure, and be able to build new ones, more inclusive, demanding, open and flexible. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 9 published by scholink inc. strategies that dynamize the unlearning process the studies that have been carried out in this regard emphasize resistance to change, but realize that it is possible. there are models that can be applied, of which there are successful experiences at different levels of education, and some are described by way of example: 1) the inverted classroom or flipped classroom, which consists of changing the traditional method in which the teacher is the center of the class and whose task is to pass the contents to achieve learning in passive students who will have to incorporate them in a uniform way. the roles are reversed and now the students will be the protagonists of the process, and in an interactive process, they will learn dynamically. the characteristics of this model are more or less the following: a) the interaction of the students with the materials: this must be prepared in advance by the teacher and/or the students according to the objectives of the class. they can be cards, documentaries, videos, etc. b) use of icts (information and communication technologies), which are available to everyone and which, when used in a programmed manner and with a clear purpose, allows access to up-to-date, diverse and relevant information content to be treated. c) active learning: it has been said that the shortcomings of traditional methods are, among others, the emphasis on what to teach, by inverting the class, the emphasis goes to how to learn, and with this model a dynamic learning is generated, active and participative, since it is the student who is discovering, with the help of the teacher, who has now become a guide and facilitator, the various possibilities of building knowledge from their own experiences. d) it encourages dialogue, cooperation, autonomous thinking and the generation of ideas: being a participatory model, the student feels responsible for the process, not in an individualistic way, but with a team spirit, eliminating that competitive desire that so much damage has been done to the formation of people. the collaboration that is achieved generates in the students senses of responsibility in the processes, also developing other essential necessary values such as respect, tolerance, and, by generating their personal vision, they dare to exchange ideas and base them. e) it is a model that takes advantage of higher cognitive processes such as analysis, evaluation and application. once students begin to appreciate the freedom provided by an open and collaborative model such as the inverted classroom, they will be more motivated to take control and conduct learning outside of the classroom. 2) problem-based learning (pbl) is a strategy that arises from the previous model (ai) and whose purpose is for the student to build their learning, develop their skills and attitudes through real-life actions, which will allow the student to student will be able to analyze and face problems in the same way that they will in their professional development. the most relevant feature of pbl is the use of problems as a starting point for the acquisition of new knowledge, which entails a leading role for the student and not for the teacher, who will become a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 10 published by scholink inc. facilitator of the process, not a transmitter of information. the process begins with presenting a problem, then learning needs are identified, needed information is sought, and then back to the problem. it is a very valuable method because knowledge management is not based on the information given by the teacher, it focuses on the student's search for this knowledge, thus generating reflective practice, teamwork and adaptation to changes. 3) socratic dialogues: although it is true that today the use of icts is essential in teaching, so is discussion and thematic analysis. learning to argue with fundamentals, express ideas, learn to listen, and be tolerant are also necessary lessons, and learning by doing recovers a fundamental role in the development of these skills. in socratic dialogues, the role of the teacher is also secondary, and consists of guiding the discussion based on themes and readings given in advance. those who participate are the students, asking questions, giving opinions, highlighting the collected information. by opposing ideas, achieving consensus, students will form new judgments on the subject, giving rise to new learning built together, and if doubts and/or points of disagreement are generated, new discussions, new research and perhaps new ones are generated consensus. this methodology also dynamizes the educational process, and reinforces the possibility of unlearning and relearning, as it is worked methodically, it becomes an effective tool for the teacher. when presenting these strategies, the entire development process described in the relevant bibliography has not been detailed, only a succinct description has been made as a way to invite people to venture into these and other similar strategies, now available to everyone in cyberspace and, if the need for it has really been understood, then we can say that transformational learning will be a reality. reflection the topic of learning and learning to unlearn is a topic rooted in pedagogy and that runs through the entire educational process , and basically consists of daring to think and do things differently from how they have been thought and done previously, which requires having the audacity and courage to abandon security and dogmatism to enter the world of possibility. it is an essential concept in the process of but not only in education it is necessary to learn to unlearn, also in the business, environmental and social world in general, since the world is constantly changing and with it the sphere of knowledge. to learn to unlearn we need to consider that learning is not just a passive process of a rational nature, it is also emotional and bodily, and, as we get older, it is more difficult to unlearn, since beliefs are more ingrained and plasticity is lost brain, unless we get into the habit of constantly innovating. learning to unlearn is a transformation process that turns us into active subjects, capable of generating significant changes both on a personal and social level, which leads to appreciating our environment and community life, discarding competition and success to enter a idea of more sustainable progress. although transformational learning is complex, as learning to unlearn is complex, it is possible and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 2, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. necessary, it invites us to reflect on ourselves and our work as human beings in a world of which we are part, and that of our ability to understanding the processes of change and adapting to them creatively will depend neither more nor less on our survival. references https://www.eligeeducar.cl›howchildrenlearnconversingenpositivo.cl/.../index.php? https://www.monografias.com›education https://www.nubemia.com/aula-invertida-otra-forma-de-aprender/ https://www.goconqr.com/es/ensenar/inverted-aula https://educrea.cl/aprendizaje-basado-en-problemas-el-metodo-abp/ttps://www.cae.net/es/4-pilares-fund amentales-del-aula-invertida-o-flipped-classroom/sites.itesm.mx/va/dide2/tecnicas_didacticas/abp/ abp.pdf https://inclusioncalidadeducativa.wordpress.com/ education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 9 original paper ultra flexible nanocarrier for enhanced the ocular delivery of quercetin in management of macular edema sahu seema1, shah gulab chand2, manigauha ashish1, & gupta vandana1 1 mittal institute of pharmacy opposite to bhopal memorial hospital and research center (bmhrc) nbibagh, karond, bhopal-462038 (m.p) 2 school of biotechnology rgpv bhopal, 462033 (m.p) * sahu seema, mittal institute of pharmacy opposite to bhopal memorial hospital and research center (bmhrc) nbibagh, karond, bhopal-462038 (m.p) received: december 22, 2020 accepted: january 14, 2021 online published: december 14, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n1p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n1p9 abstract quercetin (que) and its derivatives are naturally taking place phytochemicals with promising bioactive belongings. the antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-alzheimer’s, antiarthritic, cardiovascular, and wound-healing possessions of que have been extensively investigated, as well as its anticancer commotion against different cancer cell lines has been newly reported. que and its derivatives are found predominantly in the western starve yourself, and people might benefit from their defensive effect just by taking them via diets or as a food enhancement. bioavailability-related drug-delivery systems of que have also been markedly exploited, and que nanoparticles become visible as a promising proposal to enhance their bioavailability. the present review aims to make available a brief overview of the therapeutic things, new insights, and forthcoming perspectives of que. plants and plant parts are used for its aroma, flavor, or therapeutic properties. there are a number of recompense associated with using plants and plant phytoconstituents as contrasting to pharmaceutical merchandise. keywords quercetin (que), ultraviolet(uv), thermogravimetric analysis (tga), solid lipid nanoparticle (sln), polyethylene oxide (peo), isotonic phosphate buffer saline (ipbs) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction with increased age comes declining health conditions and increased prevalence in diseases. included in this broad category is the deterioration of vision due to a variety of factors contributing to a number of ophthalmic diseases. these diseases can include age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. according to statistics by the national eye institute, several millions of people above the age of forty are affected by one of these conditions. from the total population of those above age forty in the 2010 u.s. census (n = 142,648,393), 36,883,997 adults suffered from vision impairment due to all of the ophthalmic diseases listed above combined (nei “prevalence”, 2016). this is approximately over a quarter (25.9%) of adults over age forty who are affected with vision impairment. as age increases, the prevalence rates of all vision impairment also increase, rising significantly around ages 75-79 in all ethnicities, as shown in figure 1. figure 1. 2010 u.s. prevalence rates: all vision impairment source: national eye institute. all vision impairment. available at: https://nei.nih.gov/eyedata/vision_impaired#1. accessed march 27, 2020 over the course of ten years, starting from the year 2000, the prevalence of vision impairment has increased by almost 130% (nei “vision”, 2016). these trends are expected to continue with each subsequent year so that by the year 2030, there will be almost a two-fold increase in prevalence of vision impairment compared to that in 2010, and by 2050, there will be more than a 3-fold increase in prevalence, as shown in table 1 and figure: 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. table 1. table projections for vision impairment (2010-2030-2050) year all white black hispanic other 2010 4,195,966 3,398,977 330,644 290,781 175,564 2030 7,169,680 5,277,689 618,110 840,497 433,383 2050 13,026,870 9,019,189 1,0470,986 2,000,853 958,842 total population 142,648393 103,846,437 15,190,777 14,901,369 8,709,810 source: national eye institute. vision impairment tables. available at: https://nei.nih.gov/ eyedata/vision_impaired/tables. accessed march 27, 2020 figure. 2 chart projections for vision impairment (2010-2030-2050) source: national eye institute. all vision impairment. available at: https://nei.nih.gov/eyedata/vision_impaired#1. accessed march 27, 2020 one cause of vision impairment is due to uncontrolled exposure to reactive oxidative species, or ros. these are species that are produced naturally in the body as a byproduct of adenosine triphosphate, or atp, production, the energy source that is used for every day function and processes (prunty, 2015). they are free radicals that contain oxygen and are the most common type produced in tissues (nci, 2014). they can affect cells by damaging important cellular components, such as dna, proteins, and membranes. the mitochondria, an efficient organelle found abundantly in the body’s cells and tissues, produce the largest quantities of ros as it is the largest contributor to atp synthesis (90% of the body’s energy) [umdf, 2017]. the body has natural antioxidant mechanisms to protect against ros, but when ros are overproduced, these mechanisms are overwhelmed (prunty, 2015). this leads to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. oxidative stress cascades on cells and tissues, which causes them to become damaged and eventually die off. in the eye, ros damage the cells of the retina, which plays an important role in converting visual images into electrical impulses for the brain to interpret. as the photoreceptor cells of the retina die off, vision worsens as the eye has less capability to convert those images to impulses. the longer the period of exposure to ros, the more damage is done to the retina. prolonged damage to the retina exacerbates retinal degradation and degeneration, further impairing vision and may even lead to permanent blindness. this is why as a person ages, their vision becomes progressively worse. a protective measure against ros is the use of antioxidant treatments. antioxidants can be used to slow the rate of retinal degradation by counteracting damage from the reactive oxidative species. the body produces some antioxidants endogenously, but they can also be obtained outside of the body. they can be found in a variety of antioxidant-rich foods, such as fruits, leafy green vegetables, and grains, and can also be obtained through dietary supplements. these include carotenoids like beta-carotene, lycopene, and vitamins a, c, and e (nci, 2014). there are a variety of substances that act as antioxidants, like the ones mentioned before, in addition to glutathione, coenzyme q10, lipoic acid, flavonoids, phenols, polyphenols, phytoestrogens, etc., all having different properties and roles against ros (harvard, 2017). in the case of preventing retinal degradation to improve outcomes in terms of vision integrity and function, antioxidants can be employed to protect against the damage from reactive oxidative species. however, because of physiological barriers, antioxidants cannot simply be taken orally and expected to be able to reach its target, i.e. the retina, to enact its protection. 2. quercetin quercetin, which has the chemical name of 2-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)-3,5,7-trihydroxy-4h-1-benzopyran-4-one, is a bioflavonoid aglycone, specifically of the flavonol subclass, meaning that it has a 3hydroxyflavone backbone and lacks attached sugars, as shown in figure 3 (kelly, 2011). figure 3. quercetin structure www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. it is a crystalline solid that has a bright citron yellow color. it is lipophilic and hydrophobic in nature so its solubility in water is poor to nonexistent (poor in hot water and entirely insoluble in cold water). a way to improve its solubility in water is to convert it to a glycoside. this can be done by replacing one of the hydroxyl groups, commonly the one at position 3, with a glycosyl group, which can be any sugar such as glucose, rhamnose, or rutinose (see figure 6). a glycoside group at position 3 is known as isoquercitin. the addition of a glycosyl group changes the chemical properties of the drug, including solubility, absorption, and in vivo effects. specifically, the addition of the glycosyl group increases the water solubility of quercetin. 3. materials quercetin was purchased from tocris bioscience. glycerol monostearate and compritol ato 888® were graciously donated by gattefossé. miglyol 812® was purchased from dr reddy lab hyderabad india. tween 80 and methyl-beta-cyclodextrin were purchased from acros organic. poloxamer 188 was purchased from spectrum. glycerin was purchased from pcca. acetonitrile and dimethyl sulfoxide were purchased from fisher chemical. whole rabbit eye globes were purchased from pel-freez biologics. the rabbit eye globes were dissected in lab to collect the corneas for use in the permeability studies. 4. methods a. solid lipid nanoparticles quercetin solid lipid nanoparticles, or slns, were prepared by probe sonication method. the lipid phase was prepared with a solid lipid (0.7% w/v glycerol monostearate) in combination with 1.3% w/v compritol ato 888® and heated on a hot plate at 80oc. quercetin was dissolved in 100 μl of dimethyl sulfoxide and added to 2.25% w/v glycerin. this mixture was added to the melted lipid phase. the aqueous phase was prepared using 0.75% w/v tween 80®, poloxomer 188®, and filtered water and heated on the hot plate at 80oc. the aqueous phase was then added to the lipid phase while stirring at 600 rpm for 2 minutes. the final concentration of quercetin was 0.1% w/v. the premix was homogenized with an ultra-turrax® at 16,000 rpm for 3 minutes to form a coarse emulsion. this coarse emulsion was then subjected to probe sonication at a 15-second pulse rate for 3 minutes. the final emulsion was allowed to cool to form the nanoparticles. b. nanostructured lipid carriers quercetin nanostructured lipid carriers, or nlcs, were also prepared by probe sonication method. the method is almost exactly the same as that for the sln formulation, except that the lipid phase was prepared with a liquid lipid (0.7% w/v miglyol 812®) in combination with 1.3% w/v compritol ato 888®, which was then heated on a hot plate at 80oc. quercetin was dissolved in 100 μl of dimethyl sulfoxide and added to 2.25% w/v glycerin. this mixture was then added to the melted lipid phase. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. aqueous phase was prepared using 0.75% w/v tween 80®, poloxomer 188®, and filtered water and heated on the hot plate at 80oc. the aqueous phase was added to the lipid phase while stirring at 600 rpm for 2 minutes. the final concentration of quercetin was 0.1% w/v. the premix was homogenized with an ultra-turrax® at 16,000 rpm for 3 minutes to form a coarse emulsion, which was then subjected to probe sonication at a 15-second pulse rate for 3 minutes. the final emulsion was allowed to cool to form the nanoparticles. c. hot melt cast films quercetin films were prepared by melt-cast method. polyethylene oxide n10 was used as the matrix forming polymer. quercetin and peo n10 were mixed via geometric dilution to prepare the physical mixture. the drug load in the film was 10% w/w. a 10 mm die was placed over a brass plate and heated on a hot plate at 75°c for at least one minute. the physical mixture was poured into the center of the die and compressed for a few seconds to form a flat matrix surface. the film was heated on the hot plate for an additional minute so that the mixture was completely melted and then removed to cool. when completely cooled, the film was cut to collect samples that weighed approximately 8 mg each. d. characterization of nanoparticles mobile phase of acetonitrile:water (acn:h2o, 40:60) was prepared. quercetin was dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso) to make a 1 mg/ml stock solution for the standards. varying volumes of the stock solution were diluted with the mobile phase to make standards of the following concentrations: 1 μg, 2 μg, 5 μg, 10 μg, and 20 μg. the standards were analyzed using uv analysis at a wavelength of 369 nm to determine the light absorbance trend, or calibration curve, of quercetin to which the nanoparticle emulsions will be compared. the sln and nlc formulations were diluted 500 times with purified water and analyzed using a zetasizer (malvern instruments, ltd.) to determine the size, polydispersity index, and zeta potential of the particles. the goal was to have small particle sizes, low polydispersity index, and high magnitude of zeta potential for the most stable and homogeneous formulation. entrapment efficiency, which is a measure of how much drug is entrapped in the nanoparticles, was performed by centrifuging 500 μl of each formulation with a filter for 15 minutes. 100 μl of the centrifuged filtrate was drawn, diluted with 900 μl of the mobile phase, and then vortexed to ensure thorough and homogeneous mixing. assay was performed to determine quercetin content in the nanoparticles. for each formulation, 100 μl of formulation were added to 900 μl of a mixture of dmso and methanol (50:50) and sonicated for 10 minutes. after sonication, the mixture was centrifuged for 15 minutes. from this, 100 μl of the supernatant was drawn and diluted with 900 μl of the mobile phase before being vortexed to ensure thorough and homogeneous mixing. all samples collected from entrapment efficiency and assays were analyzed in triplicates using hplc-uv method with a kinetex® 5 μm evo c18 100 å lc column (250 x 4.6 mm). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. e. characterization of films mobile phase of acetonitrile:water (acn:h2o, 40:60) was prepared. quercetin was dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso) to make a 1 mg/ml stock solution for the standards. varying volumes of the stock solution were diluted with acetonitrile to make standards of the following concentrations: 1 μg, 2 μg, 5 μg, 10 μg, and 20 μg. the standards were analyzed using uv analysis at a wavelength of 369 nm to determine the calibration curve of quercetin to which the film samples will be compared. samples of approximately 8 mg were cut from quercetin films and added to 2 ml of acetonitrile. this mixture was then sonicated for 5 minutes until the film was completely dissolved. after sonication, the stock was diluted by a factor of 20. all samples were collected and analyzed in triplicates using uv analysis at a wavelength of 369 nm. f. permeability studies release and permeability of quercetin from the nanoparticles were studied using a vertical dialysis cassette with a 10,000 dalton mwco membrane. isotonic phosphate buffer saline, or ipbs, was made with 5% methyl-beta-cyclodextrin. ipbs served as the receiver medium. 18 ml of ipbs was filled into the vial, and 1 ml of formulation was filled into the cassette. measurements were taken at 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180-minute time points, at which time 1 ml of the receiver medium was drawn and 1 ml of ipbs was added into the vial. all samples collected were analyzed in triplicates under hplc-uv method. permeability of quercetin from nlcs and films was studied using fresh rabbit cornea in a side-by-side diffusion apparatus, maintained at 34°c using a circulating water bath. ipbs with 5% methyl-beta-cyclodextrin was made. spectra/por® membrane (10,000 daltons mwco) were cut and soaked in ipbs for 30 minutes. side-by-side diffusion cells were set up so that the fresh rabbit cornea and spectra/por® membrane were sandwiched between the cells. for the film studies, the films were cut to approximately 45 mg and wetted with ipbs. they were then sandwiched between the rabbit cornea and spectra/por® membrane, in the following order: donor cell spectra/por® membrane quercetin film cornea recipient cell (see figure 4). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. figure 4. side-by-side diffusion apparatus setup source: adelli gr, hingorani t, punyamurthula n, et al. evaluation of topical hesperetin matrix film for back-of-the-eye delivery. european journal of pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics 2015; 92:74-82 both the donor and recipient cells for the film studies were filled with 3.2 ml of ipbs. for the nlc formulations and the control, which was 3 mg of pure quercetin mixed with ipbs, 3.2 ml of each formulation were added into their respective donor cells, and 3.2 ml of ipbs were added to the recipient cells. measurements were taken at 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180-minute time points. after flushing a few times to mix the receiver medium, 0.6 ml samples were drawn from the recipient cell, except for the films, for which samples were collected from both donor and recipient cells, and 0.6 ml of ipbs was added to the cells to replace the volume removed. the samples were analyzed in triplicates using uv analysis at a wavelength of 369 nm. 5. result and discussion 5.1 characterizations of nanoparticles and films the solid lipid nanoparticles demonstrated an average particle size of 65.4 r.nm, polydispersity index of 0.29, and zeta potential of -12.3 mv. assay and entrapment efficiency results were 78.4 ± 1.6% and 90.9 ± 0.3%, respectively. drug release across the spectra/por® membrane was 33.3 ± 1.5%. these parameters are summarized below in table 2. particle size distribution is shown in figure 5. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. table 2. physicochemical characterization of sln formulations parameters solid lipid nanoparticles particle size (r.nm) 65.4 polydispersity index 0.29 zeta potential (m v) -12.3 assay 78.4±1.6 entrapment efficiency 90.9±0.3 %release across spectra/por® membrane 33.3±1.5 figure 5. sln particle size distribution by intensity the nanostructured lipid carriers demonstrated an average particle size of 46.1 r.nm, polydispersity index of 0.18, and zeta potential of -16.2 mv. assay and entrapment efficiency results were 86.6 ± 0.2% and 93.4 ± 0.1%, respectively. drug release across the spectra/por® membrane was 47.1 ± 7.9%. these parameters are summarized below in table 3, and particle size distribution is shown below in figure 6. the comparison of the particle size distributions for the sln and nlc formulations is shown below in figure 7. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. table 3. physicochemical characterization of nlc formulations parameters solid lipid nanoparticles particle size (r.nm) 46.1 polydispersity index 0.18 zeta potential (m v) -16.2 assay 86.6±0.2 entrapment efficiency 93.4±0.1 %release across spectra/por® membrane 47.1±7.9 figure 6. nlc particle size distribution by intensity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. figure 7. sln vs. nlc size distributions by intensity hot melt cast films demonstrated assay results of 76.3 ± 4.1%. particle size, polydispersity index, zeta potential, and entrapment efficiency are parameters designed more for nanoparticle systems and were not evaluated with the hot melt cast films. drug release across spectra/por® membranes was also not evaluated with the films. 5.2 corneal permeability studies all samples were analyzed via uv analysis at a wavelength of 369 nm, at which the standard calibration curve had an r2 value of 0.9989. tga data indicated that physical mixtures were stable under the utilized processing temperature. permeability across the rabbit cornea for quercetin films, nlcs, and control are shown in figures 8, 9, and 10, respectively. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. figure 8. permeability of quercetin films figure 9. permeability of quercetin nlcs www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. figure 10. permeability of quercetin control the results from the permeability studies, in terms of rate, flux, and permeability, are summarized in table 4 and figure 11. transcorneal flux, which is the amount of drug that crosses the cornea per minute per area squared (in this case, the area of the cornea is 0.636 cm), of quercetin control, nlcs, and films were 0.026 ± 0.002, 0.036 ± 0.006, and 0.144 ± 0.009, respectively. permeability was calculated as flux normalized by assay. table 4. results for permeability studies (rate, flux, permeability) rate (µg/min) flux (µg/min/cm2) permeability x 106 (cm/sec) control 0.0165±0.002 0.0260±0.002 0.135±0.012 nlcs 0.0227±0.004 0.0357±0.006 0.186±0.030 films 0.1435±0.006 0.1435±0.009 0.747±0.047 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. figure 11. transcorneal permeability of quercetin in different formulations the goal parameters for the nanoparticle formulations were to have small particle sizes, low polydispersity index, and high magnitude of zeta potential. both the solid lipid nanoparticles and the nanostructured lipid carriers successfully met and fit well within these goal parameters. particle sizes for both formulations were well below 500 nm. the peak of the particle size distribution for the nlc formulation was higher and narrower compared to the peak for the sln formulation, as the intensity was noticeably greater and the particle sizes were less variable. polydispersity indices for both were close to zero (0), which is the most ideal polydispersity index in order to have a completely uniform formulation. zeta potentials for both were relatively high in magnitude as well (between -10 and -20 mv). both entrapment efficiencies were at least 90% or higher. drug releases across the spectra/por® membrane for both formulations, on the other hand, were relatively low (around 30-50%). when comparing assays for all three formulations (slns, nlcs, and films), film assay results were the lowest (by 2%), and nlcs were the highest (by about 8%), with slns in between the two. in all regards, the nlc formulation had better physicochemical characteristics compared to the sln formulation. this is due to the nature of the lipid matrix shells of the nanoparticles. because solid lipid nanoparticle formulations use only solid lipids, the matrix shells are completely solid and continuous, which has limited permeability. not only does this affect how much drug can be encapsulated in the nanoparticles, but it also affects how the drug diffuses out of the nanoparticles. specifically, this structure results in a relatively low drug load, limited drug release, and drug expulsion during storage. with nanostructured lipid carriers, on the other hand, the incorporation of a liquid lipid to the solid lipid www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. matrix results in a disrupted and highly permeable nanoparticle shell. this structure allows for a higher drug load, greater drug release, and long term drug stability. thus, from these differences (summarized in figure 12), we would expect to see that the nlc formulation would show better characteristics than the sln formulation, which it did. figure 12. advantages of nlc structure over sln structure source: beloqui a, solinis ma, rodríguez-gascón a, almeida aj, préat v. nanostructured lipid carriers: promising drug delivery systems for future clinics. nanomedicine: nanotechnology, biology and medicine 2016; 12:143-161 to compare how well quercetin permeates from the hot melt cast film across corneas as opposed to permeation from the nanoparticles, we used a control of pure quercetin in addition to the nlc formulation, which was chosen because it demonstrated better parameters and physicochemical characteristics compared to the slns. the three main parameters tested in the permeability studies were rate, flux, and permeability. rate was determined by how much drug, in micrograms (μg), crossed the cornea from the donor to the receiver cells, per minute, with concentrations extrapolated from the calibration curve based on the absorbance of the samples. the rate of drug release permeation for the control was the slowest, and the rate for the films was the highest by a significant margin (7-14x higher), with the rate of the nlcs in between the two. flux was calculated as the amount of drug in micrograms that crosses the cornea per minute per area squared (area = 0.636 cm). again, the flux for the control was the lowest, and the flux for the films was the highest by a good margin (4-5x higher). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. flux for nlcs was in between the other two flux values. lastly, permeability was calculated as flux normalized by assay and reported as centimeters per second. these results showed the same trends as with the other two parameters. the permeability of the control across the cornea was the lowest, the permeability of the drug from the nlcs was second highest, and the permeability of the drug from the films was the highest, once again by a good margin (4-6x higher). in total, both formulations (nlcs and films) were more successful compared to the control in drug permeability across the cornea. however, the hot melt cast film formulation showed significantly better parameters in all respects compared to both the control and the nlc formulation. references abraham, m., & acree, w. (2014). on the solubility of quercetin. journal of molecular liquids, 197, 157-159. adelli, g. r., balguri, s., & majumdar, s. (2015). effect of cyclodextrins on morphology and barrier characteristics of isolated rabbit corneas. aaps pharmscitech, 16, 1220-1226. adelli, g. r., hingorani, t., & punyamurthula, n. (2015). evaluation of topical hesperetin matrix film for back-ofthe-eye delivery. european journal of pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics, 92, 74-82. aditya, n. p., macedo, a. s., & doktorovova, s. (2014). development and evaluation of lipid nanocarriers for quercetin delivery: a comparative study of solid lipid nanoparticles (sln), nanostructured lipid carriers (nlc), and lipid nanoemulsions (lne). lwt—food science and technology, 59, 115-121. balguri, s. p., adelli, g. r., & majumdar, s. (2016). topical ophthalmic lipid nanoparticle formulations (sln,nlc) of indomethacin for delivery to the posterior segment ocular tissues. european journal of pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics, 109, 224-235. beloqui, a., solinis, m. a., rodríguez-gascón, a., almeida, a. j., & préat, v. (2016). nanostructured lipid carriers: promising drug delivery systems for future clinics. nanomedicine: nanotechnology, biology and medicine, 12, 143-161. bentz, a. b. (2009). review of quercetin: chemistry, antioxidant properties, and bioavailability. journal of young investigators. crowley, m., feng, z., & martin, c. (2007). pharmaceutical applications of hot-melt extrusion: part i. drug development & industrial pharmacy, 33(9), 909-926. business source complete, ipswich, ma. dan, n. (2016). compound release from nanostructured lipid carriers (nlcs). journal of food engineering, 171, 37-43. dhawan, s., kapil, r., & singh, b. (2011). formulation development and systematic optimization of solid lipid nanoparticles of quercetin for improved brain delivery. journal of pharmacy and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. pharmacology, 63, 342-351. douroumis d. (2012). hot-melt extrusion: pharmaceutical applications. oxford: john wiley & sons, incorporated. ehrlich, s. d. (2015). quercetin. university of maryland medical center. retrieved march 27, 2017, from http://umm.edu/ health/medical/altmed/supplement/quercetin flavonoids. (2017). wako laboratory chemicals. retrieved march 27, 2017, from http://www.wako-chem.co.jp/english/labchem/ product/life/flavonoid/index.htm gaudana, r., ananthula, h. k., parenky, a., & mitra, a, k. (2010). ocular drug delivery. the aaps journal, 12(3), 348-360. harvard, t. h. 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(2015). in vivo imaging of retinal oxidative stress using a reactive oxygen species—activated fluorescent probe. investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 56(10), 5862-5870. quercetin (ab120247). (2017). abcam. retrieved march 27, 2017, from http://www.abcam.com/quercetin-ab120247.html www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. quercetin [product insert]. (2016). ann arbor, mi: cayman chemical company. repka, m. a., battu, s. k., & upadhye, s. b. (2007). pharmaceutical applications of hot-melt extrusion: part ii. drug development & industrial pharmacy [serial online], 33(10),1043-1057. salunkhe, v. r., & patil, s. j. (n.d.). uv spectrophotometric and hplc method development of quercetin and curcumin in polyherbal churna and its validation. international journal of pharmaceutical and phytopharmacological research, 1-16. srirangam, r., hippalgaonkar, k., avula, b., khan, i., & majumdar, s. (2012). evaluation of the intravenous and topical routes for ocular delivery of hesperidin and hesperetin. journal of ocular pharmacology and therapeutics [serial online], 28(6), 618-627. united mitochondrial disease foundation. (2017). what is mitochondrial disease? retrieved march 27, 2017, from https://www.umdf.org/what-is-mitochondrial-disease/ weingerl, v. (2012). a comparative study of analytical methods for determination of polyphenols in wine by hplc/uv-vis, spectrophotometry and chemiluminometry. in macro to nano spectroscopy (pp. 357-370). croatia: intech. wu, t. h., yen, f. l., & lin, l.t. (2008). preparation, physicochemical characterization, and antioxidant effects of quercetin nanoparticles. international journal of pharmaceutics, 346, 160-168. http://www.umdf.org/what-is-mitochondrial-disease/ http://www.umdf.org/what-is-mitochondrial-disease/ d. characterization of nanoparticles f. permeability studies education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 6 original paper a study on teachers’ questioning strategies for the purpose of improving students’ thinking quality in senior high school english reading teaching wei yiyi1* 1 department of foreign languages, tai yuan normal university, jinzhong, china * wei yiyi, department of foreign languages, tai yuan normal university, jinzhong, china received: december 24, 2023 accepted: january 5, 2024 online published: january 15, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p6 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p6 abstract thinking quality is a key element in developing students’ creativity, critical thinking skills and critical thinking. in high school english teaching, questioning is an important means to develop students’ reading comprehension ability. however, the traditional way of teachers’ questioning is usually aimed at expressing the answers, neglecting the cultivation of thinking quality. the purpose of this paper is to explore the current situation and reasons of questioning in high school, and to explore the specific questioning strategies that can effectively train students’ thinking quality in high school english classes. keywords quality of thinking, english reading classroom, questioning strategy 1. introduction the curriculum development objectives of english in the 2022 version of the english curriculum standard for general senior secondary schools (referred to as the “new standard”) shift the focus of attention to the core qualities of students in the english subject, and incorporate the dimension of “quality of thinking” into the connotation of the core qualities of the english subject. the dimension of “quality of thinking” is included in the core quality of the english subject. reading teaching is an important part of english teaching, and english reading class has an outstanding advantage in the cultivation of students’ thinking quality because of its rich cultural connotation of english education and language appreciation value. as an important skill in english reading teaching, questioning is an important factor affecting the efficiency of reading teaching and an important means of cultivating www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. students’ thinking quality. in high school english reading teaching, the reading text is full of information and dispersed, and the quality of teachers’ questioning determines the depth and breadth of students’ reading text and affects the development and expansion of students’ thinking. in this paper, from the current high school english reading classroom questioning in the many problems and the status quo, explores the effective classroom questioning strategy, aimed at asking questions to lead to thinking, to promote the cultivation of students’ thinking quality. 2. the current situation of questioning in high school english classroom 2.1 a large proportion of the questions were low-level questions teachers in reading classrooms tend to refer to cognitive questions that focus on yes-or-no answers and close-ended questions that are easily found in textbooks and require little in-depth thinking. when it comes to open-ended and creative questions, given the limited time available, teachers may often provide students with hints, which can greatly affect students’ ability to think independently. the type of questioning tends to focus on words, vocabulary and sentence structure, with little textual understanding. 2.2 teachers give students less waiting time rowe (1986) divides the teacher’s waiting time for questions into two types; the first refers to the time between the teacher asking the question and the student giving the question. the length of time between answers, that is, post-question waiting time, which is the time given to students to think about the question, and the other kind of waiting time, which is the length of time between students’ answers to the question and the teacher’s or other classmates’ feedback, is also known as post-answer waiting time (i.e., the time for students to reconsider, expand, or revise their answers). the author found that most teachers want students to give answers immediately after they ask a question in order to give students more knowledge in the limited 45 minutes. when students are not able to answer immediately after a question is posed to them, the teacher will “quickly” direct the students to respond or call another student up to answer the question, rather than waiting for the student who is unable to answer the question immediately, which may not be understandable in the limited amount of time available. if this goes on for a long time, it is bound to dampen students’ motivation and their enthusiasm for answering questions, which is even more detrimental to the cultivation of students’ quality of thinking. 2.3 unequal opportunities for students to answer questions in the classroom observation, it is found that teachers tend to ask questions to more active students, so that other students have fewer opportunities to answer, their ability to answer questions and critical thinking is greatly affected, and they will only get worse and worse, forming a vicious circle: good students get better and better, poor students get worse and worse, students don’t like teachers, and the class discipline will not be good. students’ academic performance will not be good, which will also affect the enthusiasm of teachers and students in class. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. 3. reasons for inappropriate use of questioning strategies in english classroom 3.1 over-emphasis on language teaching on the one hand, in the background of exam-oriented education, many teachers in the process of teaching the phenomenon of only talking about the content of the test, not the irrelevant test content, the knowledge of the test focuses on vocabulary, words, grammar of the content and the content of the test, and involves creative questions, critical questions and other questions to cultivate the students’ creative thinking, critical thinking, logical thinking is less. according to the results of classroom observation and students’ questionnaires, teachers ask a large proportion of demonstrative questions, accounting for 85 percent, and referential questions account for 15 percent. on the other hand, teachers want to instill enough knowledge into their students in the limited 45 minutes, so if they do not have the patience to guide their students, then the quality of students’ thinking will not be developed. 3.2 underestimating students’ ability to “learn” in the process of lesson preparation, many teachers take themselves the leading role, students under the leadership of the teacher to review vocabulary, grammar and other basic knowledge, consolidate the foundation of the main teaching objectives, but do not go tap the students’ inner learning energy to stimulate students to think, and did not focus on the promotion of the development of the quality of thinking of the students. the root of the problem is the underestimation of students’ ability to “learn” and answer questions, and the failure to cultivate students’ ability in this area at the beginning of the process has resulted in the development of students’ quality of thinking lagging far behind the development of their language skills in the second and third years of high school. 3.3 teachers lack systematic training in professional development and quality of thinking teachers’ professional development refers to the process by which teachers, under the guidance of the concept of lifelong learning and continuous development, achieve an all-round improvement of their professional concepts, professional knowledge and abilities by reasonably planning their own professional development goals and mastering the knowledge and skills of teachers’ professional development with the help of diversified learning paths. teachers spend a lot of time and energy on their teaching work, and their free time is only available during the summer and winter holidays, so they receive training during the summer and winter holidays. in this case, teachers’ professional training is postponed, which ultimately hurts their development. training on the implementation of thinking quality accounts for a low percentage of all training, and most of the training are given to young teachers, and the group of old teachers seldom receives training on the quality of thinking in english and efficient classroom questioning strategies. teachers, in order to seek, have carried out self-study by themselves, taking into account their own teaching experiences. however, self-study is not systematic, and there is little high-quality online training on how to improve the effectiveness of the reading classroom. this is not conducive to improving the ability of teachers as a whole to use different questioning strategies based on core literacy. at the same time, many teachers are not in the habit of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. considering questioning when designing lesson plans, which means that questioning is not taken seriously and many teachers do not pay attention to it. 4. strategies for improving the efficiency of english language teaching 4.1 encourage students to think holistically during the questioning process, the teacher can design questions that can stimulate students’ ability to think comprehensively. these questions can guide students to connect the information in the article with their knowledge and experience to form a deeper understanding. for example, students can be asked to give their own or evaluate the ideas in the article based on the content of the article. 4.2 ask challenging questions to develop students’ thinking skills, in the reading classroom, the teacher can ask challenging questions to stimulate students’ thinking. these questions can involve more complex processes of reasoning and analysis and require students to think and discuss deeply in relation to the text. 4.3 teaching thinking skills teachers can introduce students to thinking skills in the classroom that will help improve their reasoning and analytical skills. these skills may include logical reasoning, problem decomposition, comparison and contrast, and so on. at the same time, teachers can guide students to use these skills in the problem-solving process to help them reason and analyze more effectively. 4.4 designing appropriate questioning strategies in the reading classroom, teachers should devise appropriate questioning strategies to encourage students to think and participate in discussions. for example, open-ended and contextual questions can be used to allow students to think and apply their knowledge on their own, while selective questions can also be provided to help students make choices and decisions. to sum up, high school english reading questioning teaching strategies based on the quality of thinking can be achieved by guiding students to use their reasoning skills, encouraging integrated thinking, asking challenging questions, teaching thinking skills, and designing appropriate questioning strategies. these strategies will help enhance students’ thinking skills and develop their reasoning and analytical abilities. references cui, r. h. (2022). a study on the effectiveness of classroom questioning by primary school english teachers. shanghai: shanghai normal university. guilford, j. p. (1973). characteristics of creativity [db/ol]. retrieved april 30, 2021 from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext he, e. p., & ma, r. (2021). research on the cultivation of learners’ higher order thinking ability based on knowledge progression. educational theory and practice, (7). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 10 published by scholink inc. liu, j. d. (2022). a study on teachers’ questioning in high school english reading classroom based on the cultivation of thinking quality. yusuf, i., widyaningsih, s. w., prasetyo, z. k., & istiyono, e. (2022). blended learning: its effect towards higher order thinking skills (hots). journal of physics: conference series, 1832(1). education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 38 original paper investigating the effect and role of documenting the inlay work of entrance doors with the aim of historical analysis and identifying the style of inlay work of the qajar period samira arab1* 1 research expert of the research institute of the ministry of cultural heritage and tourism, phd in art history, inlay worker, tehran, iran * samira arab, research expert of the research institute of the ministry of cultural heritage and tourism, phd in art history, inlay worker, tehran, iran received: november 15, 2023 accepted: january 20, 2024 online published: march 4, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n1p38 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n1p38 abstract aims: inlay is one of the methods of decorating the surface of wooden objects, which started from al-muzaffar. the qajar period was one of the most important historical periods that important role in the innovation of inlay. due to the closeness of the qajar to the contemporary period and as a result of the numerous works left from this period in comparison with the previous periods, there is more knowledge about this period. in this research, inlay work has been considered as a part of the architectural decorations and the entrance door of zeyd imam zadeh and the protected entrance door in the national museum of iran. the qajar period was the continuation of the safavid and many influences in the remaining works. many researches have been done on the qajar architectural decorations, but so far, no independent and comprehensive research has been done on inlay as a part of architectural decorations. methods: the method used is according to the practical purpose and the method of study is according to the descriptive-analytical. the method of collecting information was in the form of field and library research. findings: the studies conducted indicate that the identification of key components such as the marquetry-inlay and arrangement of inlay by gereh method that play a very important role in the expert analysis of the style of the work. also, documenting and analyzing the obtained specialized information helps to improve the knowledge of protection and preservation of works. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 39 published by scholink inc. conclusion: the present research has played an effective role in analysing the components of qajar inlay innovation and its place in the studied works, and also the documentation information obtained helps to improve the knowledge of preservation and preservation of works. keywords inlay, documentary, marquetry-inlay, arrangement of inlay by gereh method, inlay in the entrance decorations, the style of inlay artwork introduction due to the abundance of works left from the qajar period and the closeness of this period with the contemporary period, there is more knowledge of the works, especially the architectural decorations. architecture in the qajar period continued as in the past and in many cases special and unique features were created. in this period, as in the past, inlay work was also used in architectural decorations. in addition to decorative and practical objects, part of the architectural decorations decorated with inlay. among them, we can mention the entrance doors of the building, whose valuable examples can be seen in museums and some of them as part of the architectural decorations of the building. in iranian architecture, entrance spaces have a special importance, and the facilities, lifestyle and wishes of builders and users have influenced the decoration and shape of these spaces. in this regard, the entrances are considered a criterion for recognizing the identity of the residents of the buildings and indicating the authority and personality of their builders. the entrance door is one of the important elements of the architectural space, whose main function is to control the connection between the interior space of the building and the exterior space. the dimensions and proportions at the entrance of each building are proportional to the type of function of that building; of course, some of the first buildings did not have an entrance door in the beginning, and the entrance space included only one door (medina mosque). the material of the entrance door is often made of wood and most of the doors are rectangular. based on the importance of the building, the number of entrance doors may vary. sometimes a building like a school includes at least ten doors, and one of the prominent examples in this field is chahar bagh school in isfahan. sometimes it is small in terms of geographical area and it is less important that it is limited to only one door, usually each door has two hinges and a doorknob is installed on each door. the importance of privacy and maintaining sanctity and covering has caused two separate knockers with specific shapes to be installed on the door lintels for men and women. despite the importance and richness of the art of inlaying, no significant book and research has been written about qajar-style inlaying. in general, the study of documents and sources related to inlay work consists of two categories, one category includes the generalities of this art and the other category is related to the various patterns of inlay in recent periods. one of the useful published researches in the field of inlay work is the book “the art of inlaying in iran” and the book “the art of inlaying”, which includes general information in the first book and more specialized topics in the second. materials and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. finishing tools are mentioned. also, samira arab in her doctoral dissertation titled “visual analysis of the qajar inlay works in tehran” in the faculty of art and architecture, islamic azad university, under the guidance of ghulam ali hatem, has analyzed the qajar period inlay work. in this regard, more than 200 works in the artistic treasures of tehran city have been examined and historical information and its finishing have been recorded with the specialized analysis of each work. regarding the entrance of the buildings, some materials have been written in which the entrance doors are mentioned briefly. the types of entrances and their characteristics have been discussed in the book “entrance spaces of old tehran houses” and “looking at head patterns in the entrances of tehran from the qajar period”. also, in the comparative study of the joouk motifs of the tomb doors of sheikh safi al-din ardabil with the doors of the tomb of khwaja ahmad yesavi, he discussed the joouk work method of the mentioned doors and in this regard, its types in terms of technique, which is a lot; it is similar to inlay and has been mentioned to explain the differences and similarities. the decoration of the entrance doors, which are mostly wooden, is decorated by inlaying and etc. it is necessary to mention that if a person intends to leave a good impression, builds a door and dedicates it to a mosque or school, and in this case, the founder’s name is often seen on a part of the body. in this regard, there are many examples in which the name of the founder is included in the content of the inscriptions along with other information, and it is very important in the historical reading of the work. unfortunately, there are countless cases where the name of the founder or other historical information is not mentioned in the contents of the inscription, and in this case the historical reading of the work will be disrupted. most of the themes of the inscriptions include prayers and praises, verses from the quran, hadiths etc., which are usually read and spoken by a person when entering and leaving. this article deals with the study of two inlay entrance doors related to the qajar period, one of which can be seen as part of the architectural decorations and the other as a museum piece. the main question of the upcoming research is, what are the innovation components in these two works? another question of this research is, what is the effective role of documenting and specialized analysis of the studied works in preserving and preserving the works? the main goal of the authors is to analyze the components of innovation in both of the mentioned works, as well as the documentation and specialized analysis of the mentioned entrance doors. considering the necessity of the importance of inlay work, it is possible to analyze the entrance doors decorated with inlay as a part of the architectural decorations. the upcoming research is descriptive-analytical in terms of methodology and practical in terms of purpose. in this research, after examining the theoretical foundations, the studied samples are explained and analyzed based on the main criteria that have been determined. the findings of the present research have an effective role in the analysis of qajar period inlay work and its explanation in the works, and in this regard, the obtained information helps to improve the knowledge of preservation and conservation of works. studies have been conducted, they are documentary and at the same time combined, and contextual approaches have been used. mixed research is the result of qualitative and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. quantitative methods. based on this, different ideas have been collected based on library studies and documents from different books and databases; in this regard, among the analytical descriptive methods, the components of innovation in qajar period inlay work have been investigated and analyzed. then, the components of innovation in the studied works have been examined and analyzed, and finally, the obtained data have been measured by qualitative method. in a small part, the field method including photography and interviews with professors has been used. in this research, the study approach and the statistical community was based on three levels: temporal, spatial, and type. for the time domain, the qajar period; the place area, is tehran, and its type, the art of inlaying, have been considered. literature review inlay of the qajar period in the qajar period, the method of inlaying was used to decorate the surface of wooden works, as in previous periods. among the prominent works of inlay work in the qajar style, we can mention protected doors in the museum of the shrine of azim ray’s (as), protected tunbak in the world heritage collection of golestan palace, protected inlay pulpit in the world heritage collection of golestan palace and ... pointed out (pictures 1, 2, 3). in the 13th century a.h., the doors of abdul azim ray’s shrine were made by mohammad jaffar and mohammad karim, both of whom were in shiraz. figure 1. protected entrance door in the national museum of iran, source: authors www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. figure 2. protected tunbak in the world heritage collection of golestan palace, source: authors figure 3. protected pulpit in golestan palace world heritage collection, source: authors enumerating the unique features such as innovation is one of the most important things that is considered one of the urgent needs of the field of finishing. at the same time, dealing with these cases will reveal the hidden angles and an effective step will be taken in order to protect and preserve the works. the innovations introduced in the qajar period inlay method are valuable and are far from the issue of forgery and creating concentration to prevent this dynamic art from stopping. “according to the concept of value, this concept will be based on the physical health of the work over time, and the changes of time are effective in protecting values”. “documentation or documentation in one sense is the concept of documents and stored information; and in another sense, it is an action that is done to systematically collect and archive documents, in order to preserve them and with the purpose of referring them in the future; in other words, documenting today is considered as creating documents for tomorrow”. inlay work in wooden architectural decorations the entrance door is one of the important elements of the building, whose main function is to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. communicate with the outside and inside spaces of the building. in fact, it can be pointed out that this part of the building is an important element in religious and non-religious buildings by creating a pause factor or by retreating from the public passage. since the entrance door is exposed to the public, it must have a personality. usually, in a building, one of the entrance doors, which was the main one, was decorated to make it look more beautiful and also more unique, and these doors were made and decorated with more elegance and accuracy. depending on the function of the entrance door, its degree of strength is different. for example, the entrance doors of caravanserais are stronger than the entrance doors of houses in the city. in this case, it can be said that the entrance doors of houses are often proportional to human height, double-hung and wooden, with female and male knockers, and the entrance doors of caravanserais are often multi-hung and in accordance with the entrance space of the caravans and security issues. some are metal. in this regard, it is mentioned that the entrance doors of public buildings as well as religious buildings are usually bigger and more ornate in terms of proportions and decorations, and the entrance doors of non-religious buildings are often smaller, which are made in proportion to the building. before the qajar period, the entrance doors of some buildings were decorated with inlay. the seal in the common form today is made from the safavid period onwards and is used with the term gulbandi seal, but the seal that was introduced before the safavid period was mostly joouk and in rare cases on wooden works such as the chest of sheikh safi’s tomb. sheikh safiedin ardabil, in which both inlay and joouk techniques are observed. among others, we can mention the entrance doors of chahar bagh school in isfahan and the entrance doors of takht mar mar mansion in the world heritage complex of golestan palace in tehran (figures 4, 5). figure 4. at the entrance door of chaharbagh school in isfahan, source: authors www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 44 published by scholink inc. figure 5. the entrance door of the marble throne mansion, golestan palace world collection, source: authors the inlaid entrance doors left from this period have sometimes been moved to museums or treasures of historical monuments due to the destruction of the building or its change of use. among others, we can mention the entrance door of imam zadeh zayd (as) in tehran, which was built in the qajar period and is still in place. among the other works that can be mentioned are the entrance of protected inlay in the national museums and mustazafan foundation museum in tehran etc. (figures 6, 7). one of the most important reasons for choosing the entrance of imam zadeh zayd (as) and the entrance of door in the national museum is the presence of two components of innovation in qajar period inlay work in these two works. among the innovations in the finishing method of this period is the emergence of a new method called “ marquetryinlay “. this method has made a great contribution to the beauty of the work, and examples of it are among the most beautiful works of inlay work and have adorned museums and art treasures. also, one of the other innovations in the method of making seals of this period is related to knot seals. placing the seal inside the gereh field (loghat (note 1)) is a suitable method to fill the gereh field. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 45 published by scholink inc. figure 6. protected entrance door in the national museum of iran, source: authors figure 7. protected entrance door in the museum of mustazafan foundation, source: authors physical characteristics the entrance preserve in the national museum of iran the entrance door with property number is 26295 that by the national museum of iran and with dimensions of 210 cm length, 115 cm width and 10 cm diameter. it is reserved in the museum hall in the islamic section (figure 8). geometrical motifs, swirls and lines can be seen in each section. the calligraphy and inscription with the theme of praise and praise of the shah, the name of the maker and the year of construction (mohammed hossein shirazi, 1276) are in persian script and nastalik type, made of bone and on a background of dark wood (probably betel nut). the mentioned work was probably restored in the 1980s (figures 9, 10). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. figure 8. protected entrance door in the national museum of iran, source: authors figure 9. part of the entrance door preserved in the national museum of iran, inscription in persian script and nastalik type, source: authors figure 10. a part of the entrance door preserved in the national museum of iran, the name of the creator and the year of creation of the work, source: authors physical characteristics at the entrance door of the holy threshold of imam zadeh zayd (as) in tehran the entrance door with registration number 259 is owned by the organization of endowments and charitable affairs and with dimensions of 196 long, 165 wide and 10 cm in diameter, it is part of the architectural decorations of the holy threshold of imam zadeh zayd (as) (figure 11). geometric www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. patterns can be seen in the top, center and bottom parts of each scroll. in the upper and lower parts, oysters have been used in the gereh. also, there are inscriptions and inscriptions with the theme “sane ustad karim shirazi, resident of dar al-khalifah 1301” in persian script and nastalik type, made of bone and on a dark wood background (probably betel nut) (figure 12). parts of the inscription, the door frame and the left section are damaged, which may suffer irreparable damages due to neglect in the not-too-distant future; the mentioned work was probably restored unprincipledly in the 1970s. as a cultural and national heritage, this door is currently open to visitors every day, regardless of conservation issues. figure 11. at the entrance door of the holy shrine of imam zadeh zayd (as) in tehran, source: authors figure 12. the inscription related to the entrance door to the holy shrine of imam zadeh zayd (as) in tehran, source: authors analysis of the components of innovations in the studied works as mentioned before, qajar style inlay has innovative components and the doors studied in this research are among the works in which the characteristics of innovation can be observed while preserving the originality. one of the most important components of innovation in this period is the method of “marquetry-inlay”. in this method, decorative patterns of plants, lines, etc., made of bone, are placed on a background of inlay (the opposite of this case is also true the inlay is on a background of bone). on both works, there is an inlay with plant motifs, geometrical and calligraphy motifs (figures 13, 14). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. figure 13. at the entrance door of preserved in the national museum of iran, source: authors figure 14. a part of the entrance door of the holy shrine of imam zadeh zayd (as) in tehran, marquetry-inlay, source: authors another innovation that can be seen in both studied works is the use of inlays in the way arrangement of inlay by gereh method. the arrangement of the seal inside the context of the gereh (loghat) is a suitable way to fill the background of the work (figures 15, 16). “gereh consists of different geometrical shapes that are harmoniously placed together in a specific frame. every gereh field or so-called gereh alats is a set of geometric shapes, each of which is called a gereh alat. figure 15. part of the entrance door preserved in the national museum of iran, arrangement of inlay by gereh method, source: authors www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. figure 16. a part of the entrance door to the holy shrine of imam zadeh zayd (as) in tehran, inlay in the style of gereh arrangement, source: authors making gereh inlay requires high knowledge, skill and sharpness. the lack of expert people in the preparation and making of this seal caused its production to be limited after the qajar period. in the qajar period, it was customary to glue the gereh. on both doors, the inlay can be seen in arrangement of inlay by gereh method. in this way, there is no need to make a gereh seal anymore, and cuttings or gol that have been made in advance are used to fill the pattern. table 1. analysis of the entrance door preserved in the national museum of iran source: authors inlay style ornament & motifs condition & innovations qajar inlay geometric marquetry-inlay ostad mohammad hossein shirazi style calligraphy arrangement of inlay by gereh method shiraz inlay style plant table 2. analysis of the entrance door of the holy shrine of imam zadeh zayd (as) source: authors inlay style ornament & motifs condition & innovations qajar inlay geometric marquetry-inlay ostad karim shirazi style calligraphy arrangement of inlay by gereh method shiraz inlay style methodology “documentation or documentation in one sense is the concept of documents and stored information; and in another sense, it is an action that is done to systematically collect and archive documents, in order to preserve them and with the purpose of referring them in the future; in other words, documenting today is considered as creating documents for tomorrow”. documenting cultural works is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 50 published by scholink inc. recording and describing correct information about the physical condition, developments and conditions of an artwork at a certain point in time. in documenting, the characteristics of measurement criteria, such as the originality of works of art, are also examined. authenticity is considered as a valuable word with a semantic dimension in cultural heritage, as well as a key component in the process of protecting works. in authenticating artistic and historical works, their national values are considered. studies have been conducted, they are documentary and at the same time combined, and contextual approaches have been used. mixed studies are the result of qualitative and quantitative methods. based on this, various ideas have been collected based on library studies and documents from various books and information bases. in this regard, among the analytical descriptive methods, the components of innovation in qajar period inlay work have been investigated and analyzed. then, the components of innovation in the studied works have been examined and analyzed, and finally, the obtained data have been measured by qualitative method. in a small part, the field method including photography and interviews with professors has been used. in this research, the study approach and the statistical community was based on three levels: temporal, spatial, and type. for the time domain, the qajar period; the place area, the city of tehran, and its type, the art of inlaying, have been considered. case study/case studies the case study in this research are inlay work have been considered as a part of the architectural decorations and the entrance door of imam zadeh zayd (as) in tehran and the protected entrance door in the national museum of iran. results in the analysis carried out in this research, it was found that the style of the marquetry-inlay and arrangement of inlay by gereh method are two components of the style index in the qajar period, which were observed in the two works studied in this research. conclusion the investigations carried out regarding the specialized documentation of the inlay work of the entrance doors of imam zadeh zayd (as) and the preserved entrance in the national museum of iran indicate that the doors under study have the components of innovation in the inlay work of the qajar period. in every period, inlaying has had its ups and downs, and in this regard, the qajar period can be mentioned as a period in which not only innovations in inlaying appeared, but these innovations it has become so powerful and valuable that it has continued until the contemporary period. in the analysis carried out in this research, it was found that the style of the marquetry-inlay and arrangement of inlay by gereh method are two components of the style index in the qajar period, which were observed in the two works studied in this research. the achievements of this research and the analysis of the studied www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. samples led to the preparation of historical-specialized birth certificates and also the style of inlay work of the qajar period. the information obtained from the analysis of each work and its registration as specialized information that can be studied at the disposal of the museum and the researchers of the works and in any case helps to preserve and maintain the works and also according to the analysis of its finish. it is possible to create a suitable restoration platform for them. if the restorer of the work is aware of the inlay of the work, in the case of restoration, he tries to make the damaged inlay based on its specialized information and install it in the damaged place. unfortunately, there are innumerable cases of inlay works in private and government collections and museums, which due to lack of familiarity with inlay and lack of identification of the inlay work during restoration, irreparable damage to them. has entered it should be mentioned that the lack of specialized and historical information on the works of inlaying is one of the most important pathological cases in this field, which is hoped to be addressed in future researches. references arab, s. (2018). visual analysis of qajar period inlay works in tehran̏ (phd thesis). islamic azad university, central tehran branch. arab, s., hatam, g. h. a., & shahrodi, f. (2023). study and analysis of the execution method of marquetry inlay from the qajar period to the recent decade, granting scientific research credit to negareh quarterly. retrieved from http://negareh.shahed.ac.ir/?lang=en dilshad, t. (1986). the art of inlaying in iran. soroush, tehran. hanachi, p., kalaye, m., & gholamnejad, m. (2015). principles and methods of documenting historical buildings and sites. tehran, tehran university press. jokilehto, j. (2006). considerations on authenticity and integrity in world heritage context. city&time, 2, 70-83. mehrpoya. j. (2023). traditional architectural arrays in iranian mosques. art quarterly. retrieved from http://ensani.ir/fa/article/206972/ mohamad, m. (2000). a look at the motifs of the entrances of tehran in the qajar period. institute for authoring, translating and publishing works of art, tehran. muradyan, g. z., mohammad, z. m., shokrpour, s. h., & sheikh, b. o. (2022). comparative survey of jovak motifs of sheikh safi al-din ardebili monument’s doors and khoja ahmad yasawi mausoleum’s doors. granting scientific research credit to negareh quarterly. retrieved from http://negareh.shahed.ac.ir/article_3193.html rozi,t. g. h., & jalili, n. (2003). the art of inlay (1st ed.). samt, tehran. seyedsadr, s. a. (2002). encyclopedia of architecture and urban planning, azadeh (1st ed.). tehran. sharif zadeh, s. a. (2002). geometry of motifs 1, sarv (3rd ed.). tehran. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 1, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. simez, e. (2001). trade and tourism: bazaars and caravanserais in the architecture of the islamic world: the history of its social meaning (edited by george michel, translated by yaqub azhend, mola, tehran). sultan, z. h. (1992). entrance spaces of old tehran houses. cultural research office, tehran. sultan, z. h. (1993). entrance spaces in traditional iranian architecture. farhang, tehran. the interview with trustee of property by saeed muradzadeh was conducted on 10/01/2018. zamarshidi, h. (1986). the gereh chini in islamic architecture and handicrafts, markaz daneshgahi. tehran. note(s) note 1. the gereh or frame usually has geometric shapes, especially quadrangular and pentagonal, and its border is placed inside the tools; lught—at the node—is called the polygons enclosed by the device; tool: border lines or limiting frames of words (points) in gereh or drawings. [the same] writing of this word has different forms in different sources; in the book on the art of inlaying in iran loghat and in the book geometry of patterns 1 loqt. dealing with the most correct form of this word requires a lot of study and discussion, which is not within the scope of this research. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 18 original paper writing trauma: rita dove, willa cather, and toni morrison dr. maryann p. diedwardo1* 1 lehigh university, english, bethlehem, pa, usa; university of maryland global campus, english, adelphi, md, usa * maryann p. diedwardo, lehigh university, english, bethlehem, pa, usa; university of maryland global campus, english, adelphi, md, usa received: september 7, 2023 accepted: september 17, 2023 online published: september 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n3p18 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n3p18 abstract case study research cultural poetics identifies literature as a social text or discourse. my paper argues the significance of the works of cather, morrison and ehrenreich as models for cultural change. literature is a social text or discourse which dynamically interweaves multiple strands. my creative approach to teaching blends metacognition and hermeneutics with a concentration on social justice as a paradigm for the english classroom which resounds with tension and resolution dependent upon the silent resilience of the individual. through student-directed pedagogical model, writing class fuses into a learning community for reflection, discovery, and peer editing for student motivation and success. we actively engage students to explore archetypical universes created by current imaginative writers. mythological literary criticism and film theory as a lens into archetypes. we also engage in analysis of personal essays on identity. metacognition and a student-directed pedagogical model. through the paradigm of active learning, we engage in reading key articles by scholars in the field in blogs, wikis, web sites, books, pamphlets, newsletters, or journals or other material demonstrating techniques of close reading in order to explicate a text with terms of the literary scholar that apply to writing across the curriculum and differentiating among major literary genres to converse, to analyze, and to use cultural heritage. students possess qualities of memory based upon human every day experiences similar to those experiences within literary works they read. i play pod casts of sample student essays that show how students recall events or conditions based upon the relationship of reading to memory. one of my students recalls her own beliefs in mercy killing and relates her heritage based upon family and cultural beliefs in the right to life. students use life story writing next to recount experiences that may help them find thesis. we write for a global multiethnic and ageless audience. stories can indeed reach all readers. to write, we engage memories of readings, life experiences and imagination. accordingly, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. these three patterns compose voice on the written page. but, writing is an essential skill needed for human dignity. my claim emphasizes the importance of reading, writing, and analysis of short stories by toni morrison and willa cather as well as poetry by rita dove as a doorway to practicing social justice in your community and to developing a consciousness and awareness of social justice praxis. i perform case study research on a single subject, myself. dove was born in 1952. she is an american poet and fiction writer. my model in writing is hélène cixous. a visionary, hélène cixous (“the laugh of the medusa”) realized that we are writing to find ourselves. applicable to the study of willa cather, toni morrison, and barbara ehrenreich, the writing of oneself represents our search for words to describe situations. based on the study of aristotle’s poetics (free online text), a good companion work to interpret “art as imitation”, i argue that cather, morrison, and ehrenreich use language in specific modes of discourse, such as fiction, essay, and dialogue, for the purpose of reaching readers. in doing so, they absolutely attempt to motivate and to teach us. in fact, through the art of poetics as a practice, they capture emotions or actions. then they apply language as metaphors of our actions, ethics, and attitudes. the works portray the human condition. cather, morrison, and ehrenreich create the poetics of language essential to the significance of the messages. in this context, all three writers portray actions and indicators that are significant to us as readers first, the significance of the message of willa cather is suffering, in her book, my mortal enemy. my readings signify the message of cather as a writer who designs poetics as the cause of the work. recent research in the area of stylometrics…explores the ways in which the voice of cather, in her correspondence, differs from the voice she used in her public writing. conclusions point to similarities between cather’s novel, my mortal enemy, a work noted for both its economy of style and autobiographical features, and her recently published letters (dimmit et al.). the researchers acknowledge that cather was very private. she did not want her letters shared with the public. only recently have her letters finally been published. arguably, in the model of hélène cixous, we suggest that the writing of the work certainly brings a new voice that carries the message of the feminine myth. introduction cultural poetics, intersectionality, intertextuality, modernism and semiotics, function to decipher clues about multiple strands of complexity in the works of willa cather who migrated to nebraska from virginia as a child and toni morrison. my presentation focuses on a chapter from my new book entitled american women writers, poetics and the nature of gender study. i am editor and contributor as well. applicable to the study of cather and morrison, the writing of oneself, the lonely island of the self, represents our search for words to describe situations. based on the study of aristotle’s poetics (free online text), a good companion work to interpret “art as imitation”, i argue that cather and morrison apply poetics as a methodology to capture and apply feminine myth as an island of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. selfhood in creation of works of fiction and non-fiction to create the poetics of language, essential to the significance of the messages. first, the significance of the message of cather is suffering in her book my mortal enemy. my readings signify the message of cather as a writer who designs poetics as the cause of the work. island of lonely voice and female selfhood are components to the work of cather. recent research in the area of stylometrics…explore the ways in which the voice cather… in her correspondence differs from the voice she used in her public writing. morrison’s beloved is a signifier of the importance of the spiritual in writing and language. in fact, morrison creates the voice of a dead child to represent spirituality through myth. ultimately, writing is a personal journey determined by the baby sugg’s room becomes an island place of worship. through the lens of cultural poetics or new historicism, a text has meaning residing in a cultural system composed of interlocking discourses. cultural poetics and archival study of primary sources is the center of my research and argumentation technique. the philosophical theory of the functions of signs and symbols of literary texts gives meaning to the literary work and particularly to its least apparent and deepest significance, which would presumably be missed by most readers without the help from the critic, and which explains the work as a totality: a presentation that will be delivered to an international conference emphasizes the importance of reading and writing analysis of poetry as a doorway to practicing social justice in your community. moving forward toward the goal of praxis, i argue that hermeneutic arcs are useful to organize and to interpret information to prepare critiques. through the arc which employs case study methodology of research questions, record keeping, reading, writing reflections, and analysis, i offer my reader the chance to experience, with me, as i journey into the efforts of poetic literary space. method rita dove was the poet laureate of the united states. viewing the poet’s works as a social discourse, we attend to the ultimate vision of cultural poetics, which looks at cultural signs. arthur f. kinney suggests that to obtain the fullest possible reading “we first attend closely to all we can recover of the originary moment itself” (kinney, 221). this researcher intends to redefine herself through reading the poetry of rita dove. the goal of gender studies is to challenge and to reflect, to grow and to change. i apply gender studies, feminist theory, and cultural poetics as i build an argument based on case study research techniques. i argue that examination of social and historical conditions under which the reader lives also make understanding possible. considering the impact that researchers make on their readers, we can change the researcher by studying cultural landscape as praxis. place is essential to a cultural vision. poetry cracks through a mental block and revisits the past to bring new insight. dove is often home. she resides in a home that she builds for herself as a narrator. based on truth, the poet invites us to enter mythic imaginative imagery. she teaches us to live with ourselves and to be the social change we seek by sharing our www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. truths. she uses poetics of human dignity related to identity. the poet creates poetic language of truth and beauty. the poetics verify the melodious nature of poetics of social justice and integrate community and ancestral memory. presence of history, autobiography, and myth reveals poetics of respect for life. we gain hope from dove’s deep love that resides in her language and poetics. dove creates poetry of social change to bridge the common with the uncommon, the dead with the living, the past with the present. i’m seeking to share my writing during the pandemic that i shared with my students to inspire them. lack of socialization during a pandemic changes us. my studies include letters, documents, social media, and acknowledge a methodology to teach peace and to initiate hope for survival. teaching during a pandemic is also a suffering state, because humans need social contact. i begin to heal with the poetry of trauma. trauma. it was a sudden opening in a burst of spiritual awakening. this surge of healing only comes from insight, but the words of poets change us, offering us a way to focus on memory and metaphor that reminds us of all the years that we lived without a pandemic. case study the case study begins on march 8, 2020 upon finishing the nemla conference presentation in boston, massachusetts and ends on march 10, 2021. the one year case study on a single subject, myself, uses a journal to record my reflections. i anticipate healing and growth as this is my eighth case study during the period of high researches commencing with my doctor of education dissertation ‘pairing music and linguistic intelligences” in 2003. other case studies include healing from vertigo through the study and practice of qigong, studying works by thomas merton to heal, healing from grief through reading the works of emily dickinson, researching through case study research to prepare to write literary critiques for my monograph titled spatializing social justice, creating videos to practice blended learning pedagogy during the pandemic in 2020, and a year of case study research about teaching during a pandemic that results in a new monograph ebook published in the united kingdom in 2021 teaching radiantly. the reason we heal in the reading of poets such as rita dove centers within our own relationship with love; love comes in the heart through contemplation with the words of poet to respect life. crafting our own visions of telling our social justice stories through poetry may enhance our understanding of the concepts. using the poetry of rita dove has engaged my students in activities that create a context to allow issues of race, class gender, and sexuality to be freely questioned and affirmed. results i have been teaching poetry to my students k-12 weekly for the entire pandemic year where i have been teaching online for tutoring services to enhance english language arts curriculums. according www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. to david stovall, author of “urban poetics: poetry, social justice and critical pedagogy in education” young people need means to analyze and make changes in their realities. he studies four poetry educators to “encapsulate their philosophies through researcher observation and participation.” he also suggests that teaching social justice through poetry is conscious-raising and helps young people to develop understandings of their world to engage as agents of change. she creates tragic plots which are a reversal of situations and recognize human suffering. “in the old neighborhood” rita dove writes imagery of the “suds bath of worries” of her mother and the “reticent glory”of her father. we feel these metaphors which offer social commentary. going back with the poetic vision remains, because the poem was a sudden opening, a magnificent vision into a number of things about the house, the people of the past as metaphorical signs of our aging and our intimate personal pain that we gather from the memories similar to my own experience. i relate to the views of home as a baron wasteland of dissociated memories that are juxtaposed with scenes of home that are dissonant. investigating the useful social functionality of literature as well as the theoretical processes of the literary scholar regards the power of writing for cultural change. consider participants’ views and knowledge. we discuss civic values through the hermeneutic arc and prepare to study through metacognitive activities. the most important outcome of hermeneutics and metacognition in writing is cultural poetics which seeks to identify literary works as social discourse. what is metacognition? metacognition is thinking about thinking. flavell coined the term metacognition in the seventies of the last century (flavell). we combine hermeneutic and metacognitive models to ask how a particular effect is achieved or why an ending seems right but also what a particular line means and what a literary work tells us about the human condition. in 2017, i published her article titled “implementing learning strategies based on metacognition” in the journal of modern education review. i present strategies based on metacognition. to write, we engage memories of readings, life experiences, and imagination. accordingly, these three patterns compose voice. discussion as i approach the work of willa cather, i reveal the ways that she uses the poetics of mythic language patterns to share the pain of the main character in my mortal enemy. poetics in the context of myra’s last sentence: “why must i die like this alone with my mortal enemy!” we may envision a mimetic view of the language of cather. the final words of her main character, who dies alone, claim that she is her own enemy. death becomes the condition or quality that is transferred with aesthetic action and nature. from poetic theory, we find the words of cather as the signifier of the message of hopelessness. toni morrison’s beloved is a signifier of the importance of the spiritual in writing and language. in fact, morrison creates the voice of a dead child to represent spirituality through myth. ultimately, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. baby suggs’s room becomes a place of worship. therefore the writer’s mind is symbolic within the message of the words of the spirit. morrison has an emotional ability to find a voice and hear the inner voice and listen. writers listen to their own voices first. we touch upon different types of writing in the book. of course, the healing process comes through words. our poetics that generate the most healing are usually those coming from our inner core, which we think through in plain english or in our native language. the essence of the passages by baby suggs, who has been killed by her mother, is spiritual in nature. plus, in the nature of the creative methodology of morrison, we find the nature of gender study transcends time and space in context. as we learn from the analysis by weir-soley, the baby’s ghost disappears after an exorcism. baby suggs may be the representation of the mythic realization that words cannot make a baby come back; words are not enough. no matter how many words we write, we are always at a loss after death. so, the writings of morrison are a tribute to the poetic methodology that seems to give us a way to recall, remember, and never forget our tragedies. barbara ehrenreich’s article, “what a cute universe you have!” demonstrates the poetics of truth. through nonfiction, her prose uses poetics as a basic set of principles. we mythically create messages to imagine. writing about the poetics of myth may work with our imaginations. we may think that we are free or humanitarians on a mission of truth, but ehrenreich tells us to be cautious of myths. interestingly, let us apply the message of the work of susan levine, who offers us a lens into the past to re-create the future through analysis of language. levine’s literary criticism of the book, the feminine mystique, by betty friedan, discusses discontentment among middle-class american women, gender roles, and the author’s insights on looking at the past. we may not know that we make assumptions. i agree with levine. linguistic tone often manipulates us. we must be determined to find our own truths based on our own experiences. perhaps our overview of such second-wave feminists as zora neale hurston (the beginnings of second-wave feminism), marjorie shostak (second-wave feminist), and jean louise briggs (the ebb of second-wave feminism) connects the determination of cather, morrison, and hurston and ehrenreich to engage human dignity for all women. amy ahearn, for the willa cather archive, in a biographical sketch of willa cather, remarks that “most serious readers of cather will appreciate the judgment made of herby wallace stevens toward the end of her life: ‘we have nothing better than who she is. she takes so much pain to conceal her sophistication that it is easy to miss her quality. it is in this area of appreciation cather’s sophistication that current scholarship continues to develop” (ahearn). in fact, the willa cather archive also features pages such as the rediscovering serena’s album. “in february 1887, serena white of nuckolls county, nebraska, received a friendship album entitled mental portraits, probably as a 16th birthday gift. these books, also known as autograph albums or confession albums, were enduringly popular in the late 19th century, usually purchased in stationery stores rather than www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. bookstores, and widely given as gifts to women and girls. serena’s album has long been an object of curiosity because one of its more colorful entries was made by a precocious 14-year-old signing herself ‘wm. cather m.d’. this entry by serena’s classmate willa cather was first published in 1951 in the world of willa cather by mildred bennett, founder of the willa cather foundation. for its fascinating look at the writer in adolescence—and her world—serena’s album is a treasure; the full scope of that treasure grows clearer when we consider this extraordinary album in its entirety.” willa cather is remembered for her depiction of pioneer life in nebraska. she established a reputation for giving breath to the landscapes of her fiction. intersectionality as a scholar, my passionate devotion to the writing of zora neale hurston, for example, has driven me to share the importance of her works. i have presented papers on zora neale hurston for international conferences since 2000 and have used her works to teach freshman english at three major universities: penn state university lehigh valley campus during writing classes in 2006; university of maryland university college online classes from 2010 to the present, and lehigh university from 2007 to the present. i used the works of zora neale hurston, based on her studies in haiti, to teach civil rights ideas at the northampton community college (2003 to 2007) and lehigh carbon community college (2005 to 2007). zora neale hurston’s mythic representation of the second wave feminist and the theme of domestic abuse is the center of my newest work entitled: domestic abuse and the lonely island of the self, breaking down interior interpersonal borders through the study and practice of writing. zora was born on wednesday, january 7, 1891, in notasulga, alabama, and died on thursday, january 28, 1960, in fort pierce, florida. in the essay “characteristics of negro expression” (1934), she describes her rich and flexible uses of folk expression. my first paper on hurston—which i presented at the college english association conference in 2012 in richmond, virginia—featured a statement on her story, “magnolia flower,” in which i found the use of the river as redemptive. yet, i am now experiencing the third wave. however, in texts from third wave agenda to colonize this! grapples with women’s intersectional identities, and demands an end to all the forms of oppression that keep women from achieving their full humanity. post feminism and the third wave are entirely different entities. rebecca walker’s 1992 essay, “becoming the third wave,” articulates these differences powerfully; the essay documents the virulent and persistent sexism of the early 1990s and calls young feminists to rally to the cause. intersectionality has received increased attention in part due to the women’s march on washington. the march’s platform is called “unity principles” which include the belief that “gender justice is racial justice and economic justice” (dastagir, alia. usa today. january 19, 2017). modernity www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. “morrison is one of the great portraitists of the orphan in world literature” (conner). postcolonial theorist homi bhabha finds morrison as the epitome of the postnational, postcolonial, ethnic writer. modernity views the work of art as the new location of the sacred (conner). morrison crafts “theology of narrative” as conner points out in his chapter modernity and the homeless, toni morrison and fictions of modernism in the 2014 book toni morrison: memory and meaning, by seward, adrienne lanier, tally, justine, denard, carolyn, published by university of mississippi press august 2014. moreover, central to the study of modernism is “grasping the sacred in the work of art: morrison’s art brings the sacred into this world” (conner). modernism means that period of the early twentieth century connected to the first world war, when morrison states that “alienation is a definition of this century” (thesis 1-2). “her novels give eloquent and heartrending representations of this alienation…the figure of the outcast, the exile…” (conner). further, we find the writing of zandition-selassie, k. in her book entitled african spiritual traditions in the novels of toni morrison, as a support to the use of complexity and metanarratives in episodic installments useful to understanding the intricate portrait of self. my writing in the area of semiotics and intertextuality continues about the cultural poetics of zora neale hurston. the short story “black death” which pre-dates second wave feminism, is a prelude to zora neale hurston’s haitian folklore: mules and men (1935) and tell my horse (1938). hurston’s identity as a “literary anthropologist” and her thematic messages rooted in folklore are based in expressions of space and language. zora was writing about cultural contextual clues to decipher clues about multiple strands of complexity. imaginative literature uses often, the spirituality of the author. zora certainly used her powerful imaginative language to speak of cultural change. through my own writing and imagination, i seek to prove that concentration on the art of writing is a mirror into cultural changes necessary for all humanity. hermeneutics what is hermeneutics? hermeneutics is the practice and theory of interpretation and understanding of science, art, education, and philosophy. “a hermeneutic approach for conducting literature reviews and literature searches” by sebastian k. boeil and dubravka cecez-kecmnanoc inspires us to use the hermeneutic approach. the authors propose a hermeneutic framework that integrates analysis and interpretation of literature and the search for literature. furthermore, the authors explain two hermeneutic circles: the search and acquisition circle and analysis and interpretation circle (boeil et al.). moving toward the goal of poetic praxis, teaching tolerance, we incorporate hermeneutic arcs into the curriculum to organize and to interpret information. applying hermeneutical approaches constitutes a text, a respect for history of the author of the text and the significance of the text, and understanding approaches to writing about the text. the hermeneutic arc offers us methodology for interpretation. “hermeneutics, in france as elsewhere www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. abroad, is frequently associated with the work of paul ricer” (frey, viii.). in 2011, in world applied science journal 15(11): 1623-1629, ghasemi et al. defined hermeneutics as the science of interpretation. “in the field of education, hermeneutics has played a relatively important role in understanding text” (ghasemi et al.). the authors site the hermeneutic method according to paul ricoeur. we accomplish understanding by explanation, understanding, and appropriation which ricoeur called “hermeneutic arc”. explanation explores the nature of the text; understanding explores the question which the text presents; and appropriation expands knowledge and perception. jeff malpas and hans-helmuth gander, editors of the routledge companion to hermeneutics, establish hermeneutic origins, explain hermeneutic thinkers, ask hermeneutic questions, describe hermeneutic engagements, challenges and dialogues, and conclude with the future of hermeneutics. interpret literature as a social discourse. rooted in the principles of the aristotelian philosophy, she incorporates the theoretical basis of art as imitation. her pedagogy results in teaching themes that enliven the 21st century student to create imaginative meta-fiction and to enhance classes with projects that are alternatives to essay, to inspire students. she advocates readings the poetics by aristotle. in doing so, she sets criterion for interpretation which reflects and questions fundamental assumption. “poetry festival pedagogocial project” assigns a writing process journal format with drafting, reflections on music lyrics as poetry, and the three attributes of hermeneutical arc including text, explanation of the text, understanding in reflections, and her original musicality contextual framework based on her case study research. argument summary captures the use of the hermeneutic arc and metacognitive pedagogy. her students participated in think, pair, share in a blog to introduce a themed unit of writing. summary writing as a metacognitive writing pre-writing exercise allows students to use critical reading skills to enhance their next writing activity. reading to doubt or exploratory writing in separate blogs with one theme offers reflective writing practices to discover style and personal voice or alternative topics. thinking about literature through the lens of the hermeneutic arc and with metacognitive activities may enlighten us to better writing. in fact, we promote the use of metacognition to begin the outlines and purpose, hermeneutics to approach the research, and finally, cultural poetics to see the literary work as a social discourse. references ahearn, a. (n.d.). a longer biographical sketch. the willa cather archive. retrieved from http://cather.unl.edu/life.longbio.html cather, w. (2015). my mortal enemy. online. e-book. retrieved july 2, 2015, from http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500321h.html conner, m. c. (2014). modernity and the homeless, toni morrison and the fictions of modernism. part i. toni morison: memory and meaning. this is where i belong. university of mississippi press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. cixous, h. (1981). the laugh of the medusa. in e. marks & i. de courtivron (eds), new french feminisms (pp. 245-264). cambridge, ma: university of massachusetts press. dastagir, a. (2017). usa today. january 19, 2017. dimmit, k., warner, & wehrwein. (2015). digital scholarship in the humanities, 30, 36-42. the willa cather archive. university of nebraska-lincoln, 2004-2013. web. ehrenreich, b. (1997). what a cute universe you have! time international (canada edition), 150(8), 54. friedan, b. (1963). the feminine mystique. new york: norton. hutcheon, l. (1988). a poetics of postmodernism: history, theory, fiction. new york and london: routledge. levine, s. (2015). the feminine mystique at fifty. frontiers: a journal of women studies, 36(2), 41-46 (6 pages). database: socindex with full text. walker, r.(2002). becoming the third wave. ms. magazine. weir-soley, d. (2009). eroticism, spirituality, and resistance in black women’s writing. gainesville: university of florida press. zauditu-selassie, k. (2009). african spiritual traditions in the novels of toni morrison. gainesville: university press of florida. more references hermeneutics sebastian k. boeil and dubravka cecez-kecmanovic. “a hermeneutic approach for conducting literature reviews and literature searches” communications of the association for information systems. volume 34. article 12. pp. 57-286. january 2014. maryann diedwardo. diigo. https://www.diigo.com/user/diedwardo7 implementing learning strategies based on metacognition. (2017). journal of modern education review, 7(6), pp. 380-388. new york: academic start. a. ghasemi, m. taghinejad, a. kabriri & m. imani. ricoeur’s “theory of interpretation: a method for understanding text (course text)”. world applied science journal, 15(11), 1623-1629. idosi publications, 2011. j. h. flavell. and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. american psychologist, 34(10), 1987. 906-911. j. h. flavell. speculation about the nature and development of metacognition. chapter in f.e. weinert and r.h. kluwe (eds.) metacognition, motivation, and understanding. 1987 (pp. 21-22). daniel frey.” preface”. paul ricoeur. hermeneutics, writings and lectures, volume 2. trans. david pellauer. massachusetts: malden, 2016. kinney, arthur f. “cultural poetics.” ben jonson journal 2: 199-221. jeff malpas and hans-helmuth www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. gander, eds. the routledge companion to hermeneutics. new york: routledge, 2015. stoval, d. “urban poetics: poetry, social justice and critical pedagogy in education.” urban rev 38, 63-80 (2006). publications by maryann p. diedwardo 2021. ebook. diedwardo,maryann p. teaching radiantly. https://scholarpublishing.org/sse/eb116/ diedwardo, maryann. “case study research, critical learning to enhance maximum. retention through original videos.” scholink, 2021.http://www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/csm/article/view/3457 conferences chapter publication. 2020. “final admission confirmation of the chapter—human rights congressseville, spain. we confirm that your chapter will be part of the dykinson digital volume, having finally been approved after review.” ii international conference on human rights and globalization. ihttps://www.onlineconferencesevilla.comii international conference on human rights and globalization. your article was one of the works i selected due to its relevance and, of course, your professional-academic journey, published as a chapter in the book about the conference (email 2020) diedwardo. 2021. https://scholarpublishing.org/sse/eb116/. issue vol 7 no 7 (2020): advances in social sciences research journal published 2020-07-13 diedwardo, m. p. (2020). hermeneutics and metacognition. advances in social sciences research journal, 7(7), 12-16. more citation formats issue vol 7 no 7 (2020): advances in social sciences research journal section https://journals.scholarpublishing.org/index.php/assrj/article/view/8497 diedwardo, maryann. “student voices.” the educational forum. 27, june 2012. vol. 76. issue 3. july 2012, pages 398-399. diedwardo, maryann. department of english. lehigh university. the pocahontas archive, history on trial. “pocahontas as christy girl.” 2008. “http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/pocahontas/essays.php?id=2“http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/pocahon tas/essays.php?id=2 diedwardo maryann. “religion in schools.” book review. the educational forum. volume 74. diedwardo, maryann. “the need for redistribution of wealth.” book review. the educational forum. volume 74. number 2, 2010. diedwardo, maryann.”cultural diversity and the empowerment of minorities.” the educational forum. volume 73. number 3, 2009. book review. kappa delta pi, 2009. diedwardo. “pairing music and linguistic intelligences.” record, vol. 41, no. 3, spring 2005. kappa delta pi, international education honors society. books and e-books https://www.onlineconferencesevilla.com/ https://scholarpublishing.org/sse/eb116/ http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/pocahontas/essays.php?id=2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. diedwardo, maryann p. hermeneutics, metacognition, and writing. spain: vernon press, 2020. publications https://vernonpress.com/file/10663/f5f7fd1190b872a0094c5fe64b0cc205/1575540046.pdf ‘hermeneutics, metacognition, and writing’ by maryann pasda diedwardo (ed.) ‘hermeneutics, metacognition, and writing’ investigates the social functionality of actions as an essential criterion of study. it focuses on hermeneutics: interpretation through the lens of philosophy of metacognition. vital contributions to the book include several chapters by dr. maryann p. diedwardo herself, which explore various facets of the central topic, including the intersectionality of hermeneutics, metacognition, and semiotics, as well as social movements. this collection of critiques and case studies examines the imagined cultural landscape of specific works and associated activities such as fine art, music, poetry, and digital humanities, which aim to initiate self-monitoring as metacognition, or meta-reflection, by creating interior interpersonal space to overcome adversity. this edited volume will be of particular interest to scholars and students of textual hermeneutics as it relates to prose writing and artistic works in non-verbal media. isbn: 9781622738229 diedwardo, maryann p. spatializing social justice: literary critiques maryland: hamilton publishing, 2019. diedwardo, maryann p. the significance of the writing of thomas merton, cultivating peace. philadelphia: fastpencil, 2018. the significance of the writing of thomas merton, cultivating peace https://www.amazon.com/dp/1499905289/ref=cm_sw_r_oth_api_i_0k0pdby4sm7y0 the significance of the writing of thomas merton, cultivating peace diedwardo, maryann. transcending domestic abuse through the study and practice of writing. germany: lambert academic publishing, 2017. diedwardo, maryann. editor and contributor. american women writers, poetics and the nature of gender study. england: cambridge scholars press, 2016. forgotten. amazon kindle. ebook, 2016; teaching writing based on journaling concepts of thoreau. amazon. kindle. ebook, 2015; rhetorical analysis and metacognitive pedagogy. amazon. kindle. e-book. 2014; the white curtain. amazon. kindle. e-book. 2014; adjunct life. amazon. kindle e-book. 2014; the poetry of landscape after war and death. amazon. e-book. kindle. 2013; restorative yoga, qigong, and tai chi. amazon. e-book. kindle. 2013; the fourth “r” a book to promote the journey through hispanic american literary history to develop language skills. bloomington, indiana: authorhouse, 2008. hard copy and e-book; music transforms the college english classroom. hard copy and e-book; the legacy of katharine hepburn, fine art as a way of life. hard copy and e-book; pennsylvania voices book ix journaling, blog, wiki, tools for writers; pennsylvania voices book x writing based on history: techniques to teach writing through history. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 20 original paper “little glass slippers” on the american silver screen: an inquiry into hollywood adaptations of charles perrault’s “cinderella” minu susan koshy1* 1 assistant professor, dept. of english, mar thoma college for women (affl. to mahatma gandhi university), perumbavoor, kerala, india * minu susan koshy, assistant professor, dept. of english, mar thoma college for women (affl. to mahatma gandhi university), perumbavoor, kerala, india received: april 17, 2020 accepted: april 28, 2020 online published: may 7, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p20 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p20 abstract considered as a form of translation, adaptations involve intersemiotic transfers of stories, novels and poems into the symbolic system of the cinema. this process could be construed as an attempt on the part of the “translators” to “consume and erase the memory of the adapted text or to call it into question” as also “pay tribute by copying” (hutcheon, p. 7). adaptations of folktales present a particularly challenging and at the same time, interesting task in that unlike novels or short stories, which are mostly in the written form and hence possess a fixed plot, folktales are mostly in the oral tradition and thus present regional and chronological variations. this accounts for the multiple adaptations of “cinderella” or “the little glass slipper”, one of the most popular tales by charles perrault, across and more importantly, within cultures, during different historical periods. in this paper, i attempt a diachronic comparative study of multiple adaptations of “cinderella”, focusing on different ‘versions’ of the tale embodied in films produced in the usa, from the early 20th century to the contemporary times. the study would take into account the issues of race, gender, class as also the varying themes, keeping in mind the historical conditions under which the films were produced. keywords adaptations, semiotic system, multiple translations, film studies, gender roles, race, intertextuality www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction cinematic adaptations, involving intersemiotic transfers into the symbolic system of cinema from that of the written or oral text, is an attempt on the part of the ‘translators’ to “consume and erase the memory of the adapted text or to call it into question” as also “pay tribute by copying” (hutcheon, p. 7). linda hutcheon, in a theory of adaptation asserts that “adaptation is repetition, but repetition without replication” (p. 7), which perhaps accounts for multiple translations, or rather, adaptations of literary works. adaptations of folktales present a particularly challenging and at the same time, interesting task in that unlike novels or short stories, which are mostly in the written form and hence possess a fixed plot, folktales are mostly in the oral tradition and thus present regional and chronological variations. this makes it imperative for the translator/film-maker to present the story in a way that appeals to diverse audiences and at the same time produce a work of art that can be seen as a text in its own right. this accounts for the multiple adaptations of “cinderella” or “the little glass slipper”, one of the most popular tales by charles perrault, across and more importantly, within cultures, during different historical periods. multiple translations/ adaptations may mean either: 1) translations/adaptations of literary works into (films in) more than two languages, or 2) translations/adaptations of works into the same language more than twice, during different chronological eras. 2. method in this paper, i attempt a diachronic comparative study of multiple adaptations of “cinderella”, engaging with the different “versions” of the tale embodied in films produced in the usa, from the early 20th century to the contemporary times. cinderella (1914) by james kirkwood, cinderella (1950) by walt disney television, the glass slipper (1955) by charles walters, cinderfella (1960) by frank tashlin, cindy (1978) by william graham, cinderella (1997) by robert iscove, ever after (1998) by andy tennant, another cinderella story (2008) by damon santostefano and rags (2012) by billie woodruff have been taken into consideration for the purpose of the study. the major reason for the exclusive focus on adaptations produced in america is the fact that the country accounts for the largest number of adaptations of the story from any single country over different time-periods. the relative higher mass appeal of hollywood to international audiences and the effect this has on the plot of the film is another reason. the study would take into account the issues of race, gender, class as also the varying themes, keeping in mind the historical conditions under which the films were produced. 3. a thematological approach to cinderella movies 3.1 moral dimensions, religion and family dynamics across time in “cinderella movies” one among the first american adaptations of the cinderella story was the 1914 silent film cinderella, directed by james kirkwood. the most interesting aspect of this film was the attempt to impart moral values, especially through the use of intertitles which were necessary, since it was produced during the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. “silent era” (1894-1929) of motion pictures. the story is divided into several segments, each part preceded by an intertitle, often imparting a moral dimension to the story. the intertitles attempting to inculcate moral values in the audience read as follows: 1) “love of one’s neighbor and friendliness” (preceding the segment where cinderella gives food to the fairy godmother disguised as a beggar woman), 2) “ignorance and superstition” (when the step-sisters go to a fortune-teller), 3) “faith and prayer” (of cinderella), 4) “peace of mind for cinderella” (because she prays), 5) “guilty conscience” (for the stepsisters since they went to heathens), 6) “the consequences of disobedience” (when cinderella forgets about her godmother’s warning and stays in the palace till midnight), 7) “the blessings of prosperity and happiness are always to be bestowed on the good and noble. and they lived happily ever after”, when prince charming marries cinderella (kirkwood). we can see an explicit attempt at inculcating values in the audience, which is significant when we take into consideration, the fact that it was produced in the same year the first world war began and it was necessary for the state to ensure the unchallenging support and obedience of the people. the ‘faith’ and ‘obedience’ kirkwood includes in the intertitles are essentially exhortations to the people to have faith in the government and ready themselves for service to the nation. such explicit statements about the importance of values and morality cannot be seen in any of the later adaptations (although they do contain inspiring songs such as “if you keep on believing” in the 1950 walt disney adaptation and “someday” in rags). this can be attributed to the increasing adherence of the united states to the laissez faire theory in the light of globalization and the emergence of the nation as the global power-center in later years. the individual was considered self-sufficient and the concept of the free individual who could take care of himself/herself even in the absence of state control became rooted and his explains why the adaptations of “cinderella” undertaken during and after the second half of the 20th century do not state explicit morals for the audience. the significance of religion in america and the transitions the sphere underwent over time also gets depicted in the movies under consideration. as mentioned before, the 1914 silent movie cinderella, places great emphasis on religion, with cinderella being a devout christian. in the other movies set in america with white american characters, we do not see much importance accorded to religion. it seems to have receded to the background—to the “private sphere” of the individual. this is true especially in the case of the two movies produced in the twenty-first century, another cinderella story and rags, where it is the public lives of the characters—that is, their performance in music and dance contests—that is highlighted. as such, religion is never brought to the fore. in cindy, on the other hand, it assumes significance. cindy prays every day and goes to mass regularly. in fact, she earns her step mama’s wrath when she prays according to the traditional african system (which was followed in the south, where she had previously been) in the church at harlem. religion becomes a definitive marker of identity for the african-american cinderella. in ever after also, the church as an institution becomes prominent. here, it should be noted that the movie is a kind of historical fiction, set in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. renaissance france, the reason for which, may be the fact that france has been of the oldest allies of america from the 1770s to the contemporary times. in the movie, the church becomes the site where franco-spain relations get played out in splendor. the prince is forced by the king to marry the spanish princess due to political reasons and in the church the latter starts weeping in a hysteric and very ridiculous way since she is in love with a courtier and finally, the prince laughs and says: “madame, i know exactly how you feel” and lets her go to her lover, in much the same way that pierre le pieu, who bought danielle (the cinderella figure) as a slave, gives her her freedom. the french king and queen laugh at the spanish royal couple bickering, blaming each other for what transpired, once again, in a ridiculous way in the church. the church becomes a venue for the playing out of political dramas. it is also interesting to note how the spaniards are represented as totally ridiculous, in the movie. this may be a reflection of america’s support of france and consequent contempt for the latter’s long-term enemy, spain. the reflection of political turbulence in the cultural media once again becomes evident here. another aspect of the film that deserves attention is the way the cinderella figure is treated by the step-mother and step-sisters. while in the 1914 movie, they beat and impose physical violence on her, this tendency disappears in the later versions, thanks to the increasing concern of the state regarding corporeal punishment of children. verbal abuse and emotional harassment become the major means through which the cinderella figure is “brought under control”. it is interesting to note that none of the movies present an alternate version of the movie, subverting the power dynamics. the step-parents are depicted as cruel and ruthless, thereby reinforcing the prevalent stereotypes, which may be a reflection of the general resistance of both children and adults to second marriages. despite radical changes in the family set-up and the institution of marriage over the years, all the adaptations of the cinderella story show the step-parent as being a monster-figure, usurping the (orphaned) child’s right to the deceased parents’ property and ill-treating them without reason. the films thus do play a role in reinforcing stereotypes about step-parents. it is to be noted that in all the movies, except rags, the oppressor is the step-mother—a reflection of the widespread belief in the unresolved oedipal complex. and except for the two movies where the cinderella figures are male-rags (where charlie has a step-father and step-brothers) and cinderfella (where fella has a step-mother and step-brothers)—in all the movies, the monster-figures are female. the step-mother becomes a rival when she snatches away the father’s attention from the cinderella figure, while the sisters become a threat when the prince figure comes into the picture. the rifts thus become explicit in the plane of an established or potential relationship with a male figure. but the situation changes in cinderfella, produced in 1960 and rags, produced in 2012—both films where the cinderella figure is a male. in the former, fella (the cinderella figure) craves for the step-mother’s attention, which she finally provides him with, albeit in a very indifferent manner—another way in which the oedipal complex (myth?) is propagated. the step-brothers are not real threats to him in his desire for the princess, since they are interested more in fella’s hidden www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. treasure than in marrying the princess. in rags, the rivalry between charlie and andrew (the elder brother) surfaces basically when the music competition is announced. the rivalry was initially in the sphere of talent and later it shifts to the potential relationship with the singer, kadee. in a way, charlie sees in kadee a version of his deceased mother, in that both were interested in music, pointing to a latent mother-fixation. but such a fixation cannot be seen in the movies where the cinderella figure is a female. the prince is attractive to her, because he is handsome and dances with her and she does not make any explicit identification between him and her father. the depiction of the step-brothers/sisters in the later movies is slightly different in that one of the siblings is sympathetic to the cinderella figure. in ever after, the younger sister, jacqueline stands up for cinderella; in another cinderella story, bree does not grudge mary as much as her twin sister; and in rags, lloyd supports and encourages charlie. the increasing rate of second marriages in america may be a reason for this tendency. a weak attempt at subverting stereotypes takes place here. 3.2 sound, setting, color and technology in “cinderella movies” music and dance assume prominent roles in the movies, in different ways. the 1914 movie does not give much importance to dance as an art-form. the only time the characters dance is at the prince’s ball. and since it was produced at a time when sound-technology was not yet developed, music does not play any significant role. but in the later movies, there is an increasing importance attached to music and dance, the primacy progressing with the years. the 1950 walt disney movie begins with cinderella’s song and the ballroom song is also heard. besides, there is background music to suit every occasion, as when the animals modify her dress, when the fairy godmother performs her magic etc. in the glass slipper, the intimacy between the prince and cinderella develops when the former teaches her to dance. cinderella also dreams of ballet performances and finally, there is the ballroom dance with the prince. the movie seems to be set in victorian england, with the waltz as the predominant form performed at the ball. the dance and songs in cinderfella (1960) are much in the same vein, but with slightly comical touches to them. in cindy (1978), in keeping with the african-american backdrop, the music played has jazz and pop music elements. dance and music assume central role in the two movies produced in the two decades of the twenty-first centuryanother cinderella story (2008) and rags (2012). damon santostefano’s another cinderella story has music and dance as the central motifs. the film starts with mary, the cinderella figure, dancing to her own song. the prince figure is joey parker and his celebrity comes from his status as an extremely popular singer and dancer. the ball is replaced by a school masque party, where, for the first time, mary’s dancing skills get recognized and she dances with joey. it is the zune that she drops that serves the function of the glass slippers in the movie. joey tries to find her by the “most played songs” in the zune. again, after the break-up, joey and mary reunite at a music-dance contest organized by the former in order to ensure mary’s admission into the manhattan academy of performing arts. music and dance seem to drive the plot forward. as different from the older films, another cinderella story features modern dances and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. not just waltzes. the case is the same with rags as well, where kadee (the prince figure) and charlie (the cinderella figure) sing and dance to popular tunes, mostly those composed by kadee. the function of the glass slipper is served by the cd in which charlie’s song is recorded. the song becomes a hit not just because of the lyrics, but also because of the high beat and rhythm, appealing to audiences of the 21st century, especially the younger generation. the rapid developments in the music industry, especially with the widespread use of computers and cds in america get reflected in the two movies. the advent and advancement of modernity and technology in america also gets reflected in the movies under consideration. while in the 1914 movie, cinderella has to go to the forest to fetch wood for lighting fire in the kitchen to cook, and ella, in the glass slipper is perpetually covered in charcoal powder, the later day cinderella figures like fella, mary and charlie, have stoves to cook upon and also toasters, dishwashers etc. cinder becomes an archaic object for them. only the empty signifier of the name “cinderella” persists. mops and rags used to clean the floor in the silent movie cinderella, the animated version, the glass slipper, etc., are replaced by vacuum cleaners and indeed, cleaning agencies in another cinderella story. the function of the shoes is served by technology in the form of cds and zunes. there are also intercoms and computers and mobiles in the modern day cinderella stories. color becomes a motif in all the nine movies. the color of cinderella’s dress is often what makes her stand out in the ballroom. in the glass slipper, while everyone else in the room wears dark colored gowns, ella wears a white one. in another cinderella story, everyone in the room is dressed in black and/or white, while mary wears red. the case is the same with fella in cinderfella. the shoes/slipper is another motif. the role shoes played in identifying the social status of a person becomes evident in all the movies, and especially so in ever after, where da vinci notices that danielle, who pretends to be a countess to save a servant, is wearing shoes of cheap material which immediately identifies her as a maidservant. but later, her ballroom shoes become the point from where the grand dame of france begins telling her story to the brothers grimm. what becomes important here is the fact that despite the eulogization of danielle as a defender of the rights of the downtrodden and a noble woman, it is only her grandeur that is highlighted. the shoes made of cheap material is not worthy of attention. the story can begin only with the expensive glass slippers! in the glass slipper, cinderella (1997) , ever after and the walt disney animated version of cinderella, the shoes are made of glass, and in the 1914 version, they are made of leather, while in cindy it is a plain canvas shoe. this, in a way, points to the unequal distribution of wealth between the whites and the blacks of america. it can also be indicative of the prejudice that african-americans are less polished and much less stylish than the white americans, who wear colored, high-heeled expensive shoes like mary in another cinderella story. in the two movies where the cinderella figure is played by men-cinderfella and rags—the shoes are significant only in terms of their function. the aesthetic appeal is not very important. in cinderfella, the princess already knows who fella is and persuades him to try on the shoes just to make him www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. understand that she knows that it was he who danced with her. in rags, the step-brother identifies charlie by his shoes. in both cases, the shoes are no different from those worn by the others in the room. 3.3 cinematic representations of shifting gender roles in america gender roles and the perception of the categories of “woman” and “man” by the society also show significant transformation across the years in film adaptations of “cinderella”. in the 1914 movie, cinderella is depicted as a shy girl with little exposure with the outside world. but the glass slipper has ella going out into the streets and arguing with people. she is shunned by the society for her “anti-social behavior”, which must have meant, her “unfemininity”—both in terms of appearance (in that she has short hair) and in terms of her behavior (in that she dares to come out of the confines of her home, out into the street). ever after portrays danielle as a well-educated girl, unlike most girls of her time. she dares to speak her mind because of her education and is not reluctant to confront the prince to secure the release of a servant. she quotes from more’s utopia and tells the prince: “a servant is not a thief, your highness, and those who are, cannot help themselves. …if you suffer your people to be ill-educated and then make them corrupt from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sir, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?” and this is what makes the prince fall in love with her. she is not a meek woman, ready to suffer, but rather, one in charge of herself. this is proved when she threatens pierre le pieu when he makes advances towards her and gains her freedom from slavery. but it is to be noted that despite the fact that the prince insults her at the ball when the fact that she is a servant is revealed, she does not hesitate to accept him back as soon as he comes to “rescue” her. although educated and in charge of herself, and capable of gaining her freedom, she finally succumbs to the male figure, which must have appeased the predominantly male audiences. and cinderfella shows the princess pleading with fella to marry her. he condescends only when she throws away all the markers of royalty and cries in front of him. it seems to convey the message that for a woman, power and prestige is of no use and whatever she achieves, she can achieve only through meekness and pleading with the man, even if he is much inferior to her. in another cinderella story, mary does conform to the standards set for women by the patriarchal social order. she does not rebel, and often is the angel in the house. the only instance of rebellion is when she leaves for the manhattan academy against her stepmother’s wishes. and she is capable of doing it, because she has joey’s support. we see stereotypes of the woman as a subject without agency enforced once again. the agency of the woman is asserted in unequivocal terms only in cindy. despite being ‘chosen’ by prince, she decides to marry michael, thereby making her independence felt. in the movies of the first half of the 20th century with a female in the cinderella role, we see attempts on the part of the women, (sometimes the cinderella figure as well) to impress the prince figure with their beauty. this is especially so in the case of cindy, cinderella and the walt disney version of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. story. in the glass slipper, it is the woman’s physical attribute that makes the prince fall in love with her—her “sad eyes” (walters). the popular notion that beauty and the body are the only assets that a woman possesses becomes evident here. the not-so-dangerous feminine quality of being beautiful does not pose any threat to male superiority and hence can be glorified in movies. but this changes by the latter half of the century. in ever after, for example, the prince is impressed by danielle’s education and behavior rather than her beauty (although the other women still pose and preen to get his attention). in another cinderella story, mary’s skill in dancing is highlighted and not her beauty. the gradual acceptance by society of women as subjects in no way lesser than men becomes evident through this change in (the reasons for) cinderella’s appeal in the movies produced over a century. now let us consider the movies where male figures play the role of cinderella. both fella and charlie attract the princesses’ attention through their talents and/or behavior and not their beauty. a man, unlike a woman, does not need beauty or style to gain the princess figure’s attention—this seems to be the message that these movies convey. in fact, in rags, charlie becomes close to kadee because it is through him that kadee can be “herself”. he becomes a savior figure for her. the popular notion of man as the “knight in armor” gets reflected in these movies as well. the constraints imposed on men due to these stereotypes also find space in the movies. in ever after, danielle rescues the prince from the gypsies and carries him away on her back, thereby subverting the established gender roles. this leads to laughter and the prince has to bear the brunt of the insult. it need not be mentioned that if it had happened the other way round, i.e., if the prince had rescued danielle—there would not have been any kind of ridicule. a strong case is made for masculism, a movement which emerged at around the same time the movie was produced (in the 1960s), by fella’s godfather in cinderfella when he says: fella, you have been chosen to correct the wrongs brought about by the original cinderella story. through the centuries, the women of the world, influenced by cinderella, have waited. waited for their prince charming galloping out of the wide blue yonder on their white horses, to claim their hands in marriage. but there was only one prince charming. and when he didn’t appear, these women married the closest available man. and their lives were ever after miserable. because, they all regretted and they felt that, well, that they had taken the second best. but what is worse, they made their poor husbands miserable because the poor fellow wasn’t a prince. …oh, the cinderella legend has brought nothing but dissatisfaction to the hearts of women. and their husbands have taken the brunt of it. …the unhappy husbands of the world are crying for help. they are crying for a chance to get even. it’s time www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. for a change. and you have been chosen to bring about that change (tashlin). fella has been chosen by the board of directors of all fairy godfathers, committee for the preservation of sanity to married men etc., in order to put an end to “centuries of female abuse” (tashlin). there is a strong criticism of the stereotypical images of men propagated over the centuries and the pressure it has on the man as an individual. despite multiple adaptations of “cinderella” in the united states over the years, featuring female and male cinderellas, african-american cinderellas, modern-day and olden-day cinderellas, no attempt has been made till date to accommodate homosexuality in the cinderella story. this may be due to the fact that many states in the us have still not passed the same-sex marriage bill, although homosexuality was legalized in america in 2003. 3.4 the dynamics of race in multiple film adaptations of “cinderella” racial factors also surface in a significant way in the movies. the harlem renaissance of the 1920s and the african-american civil rights’ movement (1955-1968) had had a significant impact on the cultural and social life of america. the movement of african-americans from the south to harlem, in the aftermath of the world war ii, the living conditions of the blacks in america, their institutions, the impact of the war with the japanese and the ensuing political turbulence on their lives…all get represented in several of the cinderella movies under consideration. set in harlem, cindy (1978) has as the central character, an african-american girl who moved to harlem from south carolina, after the world war. the drafting of soldiers for the american army, in order to fight the japanese, becomes a theme in cindy, with the second prince figure, michael, being a draft-dodger in the beginning and later getting enlisted. in the 1997 film cinderella, by walt disney television, the impact of the emancipation proclamation of 1863, as an indirect result of which many interracial marriages took place, especially between chinese american men and african american women, becomes evident. the king is a chinese american man and the queen an african-american. their son, with explicit mongoloid features, marries the cinderella figure, who is an african american woman. the rise to prominence of many african-americans is represented by the popularity of kadee, the prince figure, in rags. it is interesting that this movie was shot during the reign of barak obama, who has become iconic of african-americans’ becoming success stories in the usa, where they had previously been considered as secondary citizens. thus, an alternate history of the united states of america, through the representation of non-white races also gets reflected in film adaptations of “cinderella”. but racial prejudices abound in these the movies, especially cindy. although all the actors are african-americans, the underlying racial prejudices of the writers, directors and producers—all of whom are whites-do get reflected in the film. although harlem was mostly populated by african-americans who were well-educated and more or less affluent, the movie depicts cindy’s street (harlem, 135th street) as poverty-stricken and consisting of the families of unskilled laborers. in fact, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. the film begins with cindy’s travel from south carolina, a rustic countryside, to new york, which is depicted as a posh urban area with skyscrapers and educated people and then to harlem, which is also in new york, but entirely different from the rest of it in that the inhabitants are mostly from the lower sections of the society and the streets are represented as ugly and crowded. not a single inhabitant of harlem is depicted as educated. cindy’s father is a service-boy in a restaurant owned by the whites and we see him doing menial work for them in order to buy cindy a dress for the party. again, cindy becomes a laughing stock when she prays in the traditional way of the blacks of the south, singing and clapping and saying halleluiah out loud at the church in harlem. it is to be noted that the blacks residing in harlem were expected to conform to european standards of propriety, with very controlled body movements in the church. when cindy asserts her racial identity, it becomes an issue to be laughed at and an indication of “being uncultured”. also, as different from the father figures in other cinderella films (which feature white characters), cindy’s father married her step-mother through deceit. he hid from her the fact that he had been married once before and also had a daughter in that marriage. the white father-figures in ever after, cinderfella, the glass slipper etc., on the other hand, are depicted as straight-forward men, honest and faithful. again, there are two prince figures in the movie. one is captain joe prince, a mulatto and the other, whom cindy ultimately marries, is a black man called michael. the former is depicted as the character women swoon over, while the latter is an ordinary man, with nothing remarkable about him. although the reason for prince’s primacy is his status as an army officer of great merit, the question remains as to why a mulatto, with white blood in him has been chosen to take that role and not a black man. when cindy chooses michael to prince, despite her father’s disapproval, it is a kind of condescension that can be seenthe condescension of the black woman “chosen” by the half-white man towards the “unfortunate”, “ordinary” black man. the movie becomes a message of the american condescension towards the african-american, and also a way of asserting american supremacy, as proved when the american flag flutters high with a white officer dictating the oath (pledging support to the american army) to michael. in another cinderella story as well, there are subtle elements of racism. dustin, a black american, is joey parker’s side-kick and “manager”. he often has to do the unpleasant tasks for joey. the racial prejudices underlying the movies cannot go ignored. 4. degrees of intertextuality in adaptations the degree of intertexuality and the degree to which the movies acknowledge their indebtedness to the original cinderella story also vary. although all the movies are intertextual in that they draw from perrault’s “cinderella”, the plot structures vary greatly, with some movies involving magic and others avoiding that aspect, roles getting reversed, new episodes added and old ones deleted as per the expectations of the audience. six of the nine movies under consideration have either the name “cinderella” or “the little glass slipper” (or their variations) as the title. again the 1914 silent movie www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. begins with the intertitles—“cinderella—a play in four acts” (kirkwood); walt disney’s animated version opens with the picture of a book titled cinderella and as the narration begins with “once upon a time” (geronimi), the camera focuses on the pictures in the book and it concludes with the last page of the book where it is written: “and they lived happily ever after” (geronimi); again, cinderfella ends with “and they lived happily ever after” (tashlin), the typical ending of the cinderella story; cindy begins with the intertitle: “once upon a time, in a faraway country, there lived a girl whose name was cinderella. this is a rip off that story” (graham), and concludes with an african-american man saying: “and everybody, i mean, everybody, lived happily ever after” (graham); as for ever after, the story begins with the grand dame summoning the grimm’s brothers and showing them danielle’s glass slippers. thus, almost all the texts, irrespective of their historical spatial location, explicitly acknowledge the fact that they are derived from the fairy tale, thereby avoiding copyright issues. 5. conclusion the multiple hollywood adaptations of “cinderella” help trace an alternate history of the country and its people through the lens of gender, race, class, modernity, social institutions etc. the original cinderella tale has been modified at multiple levels during the process of translation/ adaptation, in order to fit it into the target culture or rather, the target age. the adaptations vary according to the zeitgeist, historiological conditions and the subjectivity(ies) of the translator/film-maker. despite major differences between the various versions highlighted by this diachronic comparative study of the multiple adaptations, the basic human essences remain constant in the films—dispossession, cruelty, love, grief, good and evil, punishment and reward, the desire for happiness... the emotions and essences common to human beings, irrespective of class, race, gender or nationality, are not variables in the adaptations. a diachronic comparison of the multiple adaptations of cinderella thus proves the american comparatists right in their argument that comparative literature is essentially a study of humanistic essences which are the same throughout the world, throughout the ages, irrespective of class, race and gender. references geronimi, c. (1950). cinderella. dir. hamilton luske, and wilfred jackson. rko radio pictures, inc. graham, w. a. (1978). cindy. writ. james l brooks, stan daniels, david davis, and ed weinberger. paramount television. guillen, c. (1993). the challenge of comparative literature (c. franzen, trans.). massachusetts: harvard university press. hutcheon, l. (2006). a theory of adaptation. new york: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203957721 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. iscove, r. (1997). cinderella. prod. debra chase, robyn crawford, david ginsburg, and whitney houston. walt disney television. kirkwood, j. (1914).cinderella. prod. daniel frohman, and adolph zukor. famous players film company. perrault, c. (2009). the complete fairy tales. london: oxford university press. raengo, a., & robert, s. (eds.). (2004). a companion to literature and film. oxford: blackwell publishing ltd. santostefano, d. (2008). another cinderella story. writ. erik patterson, and jessica scott. warner premiere. tashlin, f. (1960). cinderfella. prod. jerry lewis. paramount pictures. tennant, a. (1998). ever after. prod. mireille soria, and tracey trench. 20th century fox. walters, charles, dir. (1955). the glass slipper. prod. edwin knopf. metro-goldwyn-mayer. wellek, r. (1970). discriminations: further concepts of criticism. london: yale university press. woodruff, b. (2012). rags. writ. jason fuchs, hilary galanoy, and elizabeth hackett. nickelodeon network. declaration i hereby certify that the paper titled “‘little glass slippers’ on the american silver screen: an inquiry into hollywood adaptations of charles perrault’s ‘cinderella’” is an original work and that it has not been published previously. bio note dr. minu susan koshy is currently working as assistant professor in the department of english, marthoma college for women, kerala, india. she was awarded ph.d in english (comparative literature) by the english and foreign languages university, hyderabad in 2017. she has published extensively in national and international journals and presented papers at international conferences. she has served as the resource person at several conferences and has conducted workshops on cultural and critical theory. her areas of interest include cultural studies, postcolonial studies and comparative and world literatures. she has also been a member of the editorial board of the 17th international film festival of kerala (iffk). her book titled narrating childhood trauma: the quest for catharsis and a translation of the malayalam anthology tattoo by jacob abraham, the winner of the kerala sahitya akademi geetha hiranyan award, were published in 2015. an edited volume titled when objects write back: reconceptualizing material culture in the tricontinent is scheduled to be published by cambridge scholars publishing in 2020. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 39 original paper a research on the use of pause and lengthening for turn organization in chinese efl students’ conversations zhihua xia1* 1 the school of foreign studies, jiangsu normal university, xuzhou, jiangsu province, china * zhihua xia, the school of foreign studies, jiangsu normal university, xuzhou, jiangsu province, china received: november 1, 2023 accepted: november 12, 2023 online published: november 19, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n3p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n3p39 abstract pause and lengthening are used frequently for turn organization in english interactions. but, for chinese efl learners, these two prosodic mechanisms are not used efficiently. this study analyzed the use of pause and lengthening for turn organization in chinese efl learners’ english conversations. the results show the excessive dependence on the pause to show the turn yielding intentions in chinese learners’ conversations, and chinese learners probably cannot distinguish the uses of final lengthening within turns and the lengthening before turn changes. keywords pause, lengthening, turn organization, chinese efl learners 1. introduction successful communications involve comprehensive uses of language, which include not only the proper use of words, but also the contributions of prosody, the non-verbal factors, such as body language, paralinguistic means etc. the organization and management of interactions depend greatly on the prosodic features. for instance, in terms of turn taking in conversations, interlocutors make use of prosodic features to signal their intentions of turn yielding or holding; on the other side, the listeners recognize these intentions and gain or await the floor by the use of prosodic features. therefore, the proper usage of prosodic features, as the conversational strategies or skills, plays essential roles in human interactions. in second language acquisition, it is necessary to investigate the language leaners’ use of prosodic features in turn-taking, because it can help to reveal not only the language learners’ competence but also their acquisition mechanisms of conversational skills. this study aims to assess chinese efl www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. learners’ use of pause and lengthening for turn organization, and attempts to answer the following questions: 1) what are the characteristics of pause and lengthening used by chinese efl learners during the process of turn taking? 2) what are the differences in the use of pause and lengthening in turn taking between chinese efl learners and english native speakers? 2. the two variables two prosodic features are set as the key variables of the present research: pauses and lengthening of the final syllable. as is known, there are numerous prosodic factors functioning in turn taking: boundary tones, rhythm, pitch peak, key shift, pause, lengthening etc. (truckenbrodt, 2015; féry, 2016; ludusn & schuppler, 2022; xia et al., 2004, 2023; xia, 2013; xia & ma, 2016a, 2016b, 2019). the present work focuses on two of them, which are related to the rhythm of speech, because these two variables play crucial roles in turn-taking, and they are well studied in l1 spontaneous speech, which offer a reliable reference to the study of l2 learners’ language, for example, petrone et al. (2017) analyzed the three acoustic prosodic features: pauses, phrase-final lengthening and f0 in german speech production and how these cues affect boundary perception. they found that pauses are often used to signal intonation phrase boundaries, while final lengthening and f0 are employed across different levels of the prosodic hierarchy. 2.1 pause the pause usually occurs at the position of trp (transition-relevance place, sacks et al., 1974), where the speaker relinquishes the floor, and the listener takes the floor, although there is a “smooth transition in which transition pauses are perceptually absent” (walker, 1982). moreover, the internal pauses within a turn play the crucial roles for showing speakers’ intention of turn-holding. the studies on the manner of pause in turn-taking are concerned with the categorization of pauses. local and kelly (1986) distinguished two types of pauses: “trail-off silence” and “holding silence” (pp. 185-204). the former one indicates the end of a turn; the latter one indicates the speakers’ intention to keep the turns. in bosh et al.’s (2005) study of temporal aspects of turn taking, pauses involved in turn taking are classified into three categories: the utterance internal pause (uip), the pause between utterances in one turn (put), and pauses at turn changes (ptc). they find that “pauses between utterances in one turn appear significantly are longer than utterance internal pauses and pauses at the turn changes” (p. 82). this finding is in agreement with earlier findings of jefferson (1989); campione and verones (2002) (as cited in bosh et al., 2005, p. 82). ludusn and schuppler (2022) analyzed four acoustic cues, representing durational and fundamental frequency (f0) measures, and observed that pause duration was the strongest cue to prosodic boundaries. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. the studies on duration of pause in turn-taking are traditional, yet important. they are carried out mainly in two fields. one field focuses on the length of pause in turn transition. the following four studies have obtained similar findings: the length of pause in turn transition is not less than 200ms. welford (1968) divided the interval between speaker a and b into three parts: the viewing time v, decision time d, and a movement time m. he finds that the simple decision of the speakers in turn taking requires a reaction time v+d+m, which is not less than 200ms (as cited in walker, 1982. p. 33). bosh et al. (2005) studied the temporal aspects of turn taking in conversational dialogues. they find that the mean length of pause between speakers is 380 ms by examining the 6790 transitions in telephone dialogues (p. 83). liang’s (2001) study focused on the temporal characteristics of turn taking in chinese. he finds that the length of pause interval in chinese as the normal turn transition is between 250ms and 1000ms (p. 43). therefore, although these studies are undertaken from different perspectives, the length of pause in turn-taking is proved to be not less 200ms. krivokapic (2007) tested the prosodic planning, and found the effects of phrasal length and complexity on pause duration. the other field focuses on the relationship between pause duration and the probability of turn shift. wennerstrom and siegel (2003) researched on it. they find that although pause duration is positively related to the probability of turn shift, “it appears that the probability of turn shift declines slightly within the first 500ms of pause duration, and then increases for longer pauses (p. 93)”. wennerstrom (2001, p. 171) points out that pauses are not the reliable cues for turn finality, although they are positively correlated with the probability of turn shift. speakers may pause in the middle of turn for breath, brief thinking, listeners’ better reception, or strategic reasons such as to catch an interlocutor’s gaze and, hence, attention (goodwin, 1981), or to “generate the impression of thoughtfulness” (good & buter-worth, 1980, p. 51). to sum up, pauses related to turn-taking exhibit special characteristics in the placement, manner and duration. in the studies on pause in turn taking, two characteristics are worthy of attention for chinese efl learners. one is the difference in three kinds of pauses: utterance internal pause (uip), the pause between utterances in one turn (put) and the pause at turn changes (ptc), which have a close relation to turn-holding or turn-yielding; the other is that the different length of pause has a different relation to the probability of turn shift. it is necessary to investigate whether they efl learners can master these subtle yet crucial features of pause in turn taking. therefore, in the present study, two questions are examined regarding the second variable: what are the relationships between the length of pauses and the probability of turn shift in chinese learners’ conversations? what are the differences or similarities of using pauses in turn taking between chinese efl learners and english natives? in order to answer these two questions, two measurements on pause are undertaken. one is the comparison of three types of pauses in the chinese efl learners’ corpus. then this result is compared with the use of english native speakers. the other is the comparison of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. relationship between the length of pauses and their probability of turn shift in chinese learners’ conversations with that in english natives’. through these comparisons, the similarities or differences of using pauses in turn taking between chinese learners and english natives are described. additionally, in order to simplify the operation, filled pauses like ehm, eh, um etc., are considered as words in this study. the reasons are as follows: the speaker use filled pauses, this is most likely a signal that the current turn is not yet over and they indicate the expectation of upcoming delays; even if the filled pause appears to be the first word of a turn, this can be considered to be the start of the turn. so, in this research, only silent pauses will be taken into consideration as pauses, which is in agreement with choices in previous researches, such as bosch et al. (2005), camione and veronis, (2002), weilhammer and rabold (2003) (as cited in bosch et al., 2005, p. 81). 2.2 lengthening of the final syllable lengthening of the syllable belongs to rhythmic features of intonation (buxo-lugo et al., 2020; paschen et al., 2022), and play critical roles in turn transitions. the previous studies are carried out mainly from two perspectives. from the perspective of the acoustic descriptions of lengthening, the studies mainly focus on the accentual lengthening (turk, 1997; turk & white, 1999), and boundary-adjacent lengthening. the studies of boundary-adjacent lengthening are classified into three subcategories: prosodic boundary lengthening (byrd & saltzman, 1998), word boundary lengthening (turk & shattuck-hufngel, 2000) and phrase boundary lengthening (byrd & saltzman, 2003). the findings of these studies are consistent that the differences in lengthening in conversations are related to the positions where lengthening happens. from the perspective of lengthening at discourse level, the researches emphasize the functions of lengthening in communication. these studies focus on two aspects. one is the lengthening in topic transitions in conversations, and the other is the lengthening in turn taking. the studies of lengthening in topic transition focus on the relationship of topic transitions and prosodic duration. for example, in smith caroline’s (2004) research, the measurement of two american speakers’ recorded reading on 10 separate occasions indicates that the type of transition in topic between two successive sentences have a significant effect on the amount of sentence-final lengthening, the duration of the pause between sentences, and the speech rate at the end of a sentence and the beginning of the following sentences. studies on the aspect of lengthening in turn taking focus on two points: the position where lengthening in turn taking happens, and the relationship between turn final lengthening and turn internal lengthening. in terms of the position where lengthening in turn taking happens, several researchers find that lengthening on the final syllable before the turn change is recognized as one of the important projectability cues of turn taking. for example, according to duncan et al.’s opinion (1985, p. 54), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. lengthening on the final syllable is one of the important prosodic turns yielding cues; beckman and edwards (1990) found the function of lengthening in the nature of prosodic constituency; wennerstrom (2001, p. 169) points out final lengthening of the syllables before the boundary of tcu is considered as an important cue for turn transition; john-lewis (1986, pp. xxi-xxii) points out segmental lengthening is associated with the turn finality. in terms of the relationship between turn final lengthening and turn internal lengthening, studies investigate the differences and similarities between these two lengthening. in english, at the turn-transition, the utterance final segments are lengthened in order to signal the turn-finality, while within the speaker’s turns, at the end of any intonation group, segmental lengthening also would be expected. just as cruttenden (2002, p. 2) points out, “the last syllable before a pause is often lengthened”. what are the differences between these two kinds of lengthening? how can the turn final lengthening be differentiated from the turn internal lengthening? culter et al. (1986, p. 140) point out: prosodic turn-yielding cues would have to be overlaid upon the utterance-final prosodic pattern within the turn. it can be deduced from this statement that the turn-yielding lengthening should be more prominent or longer in duration than internal final lengthening in the turns so as to indicate or identify effectively the turn-yielding intention of the conversants. culter et al. (1986) investigated the lengthening in turn taking in a perception study on the prosodic turn-taking cues. they find the slight tendency for longer utterances to be judged as a turn-final cue, although this result failed to reach the criterion of statistical significance. although the studies on the relationship of these two lengthening are limited, the importance and value of this issue cannot be denied, and the further investigations into this matter are of great necessity. the investigations into the relationship between turn final lengthening and turn internal lengthening in language learners’ conversations are necessary. it is because the difference between these two kinds of lengthening in english natives’ conversations is easy to be neglected by second language learners. in summary, the studies of lengthening have been carried out from two perspectives—acoustic description of lengthening in turn taking and the studies of lengthening at discourse level. from these two perspectives, the contexts in which the lengthening occurs are different. the context from the first perspective is intonation groups, words or phrases, while the context from the latter perspective is topics or turns in conversations. as for the studies of lengthening in turn taking, the difference between turn final lengthening and turn internal lengthening is proved to be significant in english. hence, for efl learners, it is necessary to investigate whether they can make appropriate use of these two kinds of lengthening in turn taking. this question is investigated in the present research. as the measurement of the second variable: segmental lengthening at the turn transition is compared with those final segmental lengthening within a turn in chinese learners’ conversations. and then this result is compared with that of english natives. through the comparison, the similarities or differences of using lengthening in turn taking between www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. chinese learners and english natives are illuminated. 3. methods 3.1 corpus the conversations in the corpus are elicited by the discussions of 16 groups (4 subjects/group), and the discussions are made on a given topic: “should we promote the use of private cars in china? if you can afford it, will you buy one? why or why not?” all of the subjects consist of 64 sophomores, majoring in english, which were randomly chosen from the school of foreign studies in jiangsu normal university, jiangsu province, china, and they did not know the research purposes. each student in the group wore one head-mounted microphone, which was connected to a computer for recording their voices (four computers and four microphones for each group). all the computers were put behind the subjects in order to avoid disturbance. the software cool edit pro 2.0 have been used for recording (the parameters in cool edit have been set as 44100hz, 16, single track). all of the recording process was carried out in a phonetic lab in the school of foreign studies in jiangsu normal university. before recording, each group was given 2 minutes for preparation. four trained recorders (the author and three assistants) were in charge of four computers respectively. the data recording was accomplished on two weekends in the last week of april and the beginning week of may in 2020. during the course of discussions, nobody interrupted the subjects. they discussed the given topic freely. the discussions ended whenever subjects wanted to stop. the recording time for each group was less than 10 minutes. when the discussions were longer than 10 minutes, they were stopped by the recorder. after data checking, 70 minutes’ recording of 10 groups was chosen as the corpus for further annotation. 3.2 data annotation the entire corpus was transcribed on the software praat 4.2. three important aspects in data annotation are mentioned in this section: the choice of minimal analysis units, the identification of turns in spontaneous conversations, and the tiers in praat. 3.2.1 minimal analysis units: ipus inter-pausal units (ipus) are used as the minimal analysis units in this study. koiso et al. (1998) utilized inter-pausal units (ipus) as the minimal analysis units in the research of intonation roles in the turn taking in japanese. inter-pausal unit is the stretch of a single speaker’s speech bounded by pauses longer than 100 ms and it is used as an approximation of the notion of tcu. caspers (2003) also employed this unit in studying local speech melody in turn taking system in dutch. in previous studies, some researchers choose the turn units or complete grammatical units as the minimal analysis units. but they are not suitable for this study. the reasons are: 1) turn units are too general. if the minimal analysis unit is chosen as one turn in the present research, the relationship between turn units will become prominent while the features within one turn cannot be described. thus, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. the use of intonation features will not be depicted thoroughly; 2) the present research focuses on the relationship between prosodic features and turn-taking instead of the grammatical factors in turn-taking. choosing grammatical unit as the minimal analysis unit will make the investigation more complicated and will divert the researching focus. the ipus are adopted in present study for four reasons: 1) these units can be determined objectively; 2) one ipu is not larger than one turn. ipus may occur within turns or at turn transitions. thus, the prosodic features can be described in detail by cutting the corpus into small ipus; 3) these units eliminate syntactic disturbances, and make the role of intonation prominent; 4) there is evidence for the decision on intervals of 100 milliseconds. hieke et al. (1983) point out that a pause which is not shorter than.13 sec has psychological relevance. wennerstrom and siegel (2003) point out: “pauses were considered any length of time of .1 sec and up where there was no speech-related amplitude (p. 86)”. 3.2.2 identification of turns in spontaneous conversations spontaneous speech is dynamic yet complex. the complexity mainly exist in the occurrence of conversation features such as repair, back-channel, overlapping, interruptions, which happen frequently in spontaneous conversations. it is necessary to identify these conversational features as one turn or more than one turn. the present research adopted the principles of caspers (2003) and liu (2004) for judgment. figure 1 shows caspers’ (2003, p. 261) methods, in which “hold” means that the same speaker continues after a pause of 100 ms or more, while “change” means that a turn change has happened, with or without an intervening pause. figure 1. schematic representation of the five turn transition types figure 1 the boxes following s1 depict stretches of speech uttered by speaker 1, s2 indicates the speech by speaker 2, the dotted line marks the time course, and the arrow indicates the relevant ipu boundary. 3.2.3 tiers on praat the data was cut into 2404 ipus, and presented by 532 interfaces in praat, each of which was not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. longer than 20 seconds. every interface of praat was labeled by five tiers. figure 2 is an example of the annotation on praat. pause tier: pauses longer than 100ms were labeled in this tier, and the ipus bounded by the pauses were identified. orthographic tier: what the subjects talked was transcribed word by word in this tier. boundary tone tier: boundary tone of the last intonation group at the end of every ipu was labeled in this tier. lengthening tier: duration of final syllable of every ipu was labeled at the end of every ipu in this tier. transition type tier: the transition type was labeled at the end of every ipu in this tier for turn changing and holding (“c” for change, and “h” for hold). figure 2. one example of annotation 3.3 data analyses two key variables (pauses and lengthening) were measured in the recorded corpus. the detailed measurements presented are summarized: the measurement of pause was also undertaken in two aspects. one was the comparison in the duration of three pauses: utterance internal pause (uip), pause between utterances in one turn (pbu), and pauses at turn changes (ptc) in the recorded chinese efl learners’ corpus. the other was the measurement on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. the relationship between the length of pause and probability of turn shift in chinese learners’ conversations. these results were compared with the use of english natives. through these comparisons, the similarities or differences of using pause in turn taking between chinese learners and english natives were illustrated. the measurement of the lengthening was undertaken in the comparison of segmental lengthening at the turn transition with those final segmental lengthening within a turn in chinese learners’ conversations. this result was compared with the use of english natives. through the comparison, the similarities or differences of using lengthening in turn taking between chinese learners and english natives were described. 4. results and discussion 4.1 the results of pauses 4.1.1 pause duration and the probability of turn shift figure 3 shows the relationship of pause duration and the probability of turn shift. although there are slight reductions in the probabilities of turn shift happening on the pauses between 200-299 milliseconds, 500-599 milliseconds, and 800-899, there is a tendency that the longer the pause durations are, the higher probabilities of turn shift. this relationship of pause duration and probability of turn shift is statistically significant (x2=162.079, p<0.05). 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 10 019 9 20 029 9 30 039 9 40 049 9 50 059 9 60 069 9 70 079 9 80 089 9 90 099 9 10 00 -1 50 0 15 00 -2 00 0 figure 3. pause duration and the probability of turn shift *all the pause durations are in milliseconds it is necessary to compare this use of pause in chinese learners’ conversations with the use in english native’s conversations. the comparison between this research and the study of wennerstrom and siegel (2003) is valid. in addition to the variable of boundary tones, pause in turn taking has been investigated www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. as another variable in the research of wennerstrom and siegel (2003). the validity of the comparison of two researches is also attributed to two facts: both researches use spontaneous conversations, and the conversational form is chat instead of formal discussions. through the comparison, it is found that the relationship of pause duration and the probability of turn shift in english native speakers’ conversations is different from that in chinese learners: in english natives’ conversations, “it appears that the probability of turn shift declines slightly within the first .5 sec of pause duration, and then increases for longer pauses” (wennerstrom & siegel, 2003, p. 93). that is to say, there is a critical point—500 milliseconds, where the probability of turn shift is the lowest. before this point, the likelihood of turn shift reduces as the pause become longer. after this point, the probability of turn shift rises again with the increase of the pause duration. in figure 3, the similar critical point cannot be found at all. in chinese learners’ conversations, the probability in turn shift increases as the pause duration becomes longer. this indicates that chinese learners connect directly and simply the probability of turn shift with the length of pause. then they would use longer and frequent pauses in their conversations to show the intentions of turn yielding. actually, speakers’ intentions of turn-keeping or turn-yielding can be implied by other intonational cues instead of excessive pauses in english natives’ conversations. excessive pauses easily cause disfluency and breaks in communication, which would bring disturbances in information transmission. 4.1.2 the relationship among three kinds of pauses table 1 shows the relationship of utterance internal pauses (uip), pause between utterances in one turn (pbu), and pauses at the turn changes (ptc). table 1. the duration of three kinds of pauses in turn-taking pause number mean median mode std. dev. uip 1241 370.8815 312 274 265.0209 pbu 1161 466.528 378 320 337.8922 ptc 317 713.4795 585 353 511.9673 *means, median, mode, and standard deviations (std. dev.) are in milliseconds it is easy to see from table 1 that the mean duration of ptc is the longest, that of uip is the shortest, and that of pbu is in the middle. in other words, during the process of turn taking in chinese conversations, pauses at the turn changes are longer than utterance internal pauses and pause between utterances in one turn. this relationship in duration of the three kinds of pauses is statistically significant by the anova test (f=135.121, p<0.05). the comparison in terms of the relationship among three kinds of pauses between chinese efl learners’ use and the english native’s use is of necessity. bosh et al. (2005) studied the use of pauses involved in turn-taking in english natives’ conversations by using the 93 spontaneous telephone www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. dialogues about 15.1hours. they found that “pauses between utterances in one turn (put) appear significantly are longer than utterance internal pauses (uip) and pauses at the turn changes (ptc)” (bosch et al. 2005; jefferson, 1989; campione & veronis, 2002 as cited in bosch et al., 2005, p. 83). comparing chinese efl learners’ use and the english native’s use in terms of the relationship among three kinds of pauses, it is easy to find out that the use of chinese efl learners is quite different from that of english native speakers. the comparison between this research and bosh et al.’s (2005) study is also valid. the reasons for the validity are similar to those for feasible comparisons between the present research and wennerstrom and siegel (2003) study in terms of the use of boundary tones and pauses. one of the reasons is that both researches use the spontaneous conversations, and the other is that both researches use the conversational form of chat. however, the difference between face-to-face conversations in the present research and telephone dialogues in bosh et al.’s (2005) study has to be mentioned. speakers in telephone dialogues make greater use of prosodic means to manage turn-taking than they do in face-to-face conversations. this difference might be one of the possible reasons for the distinct relationship of three kinds of pauses between chinese efl learners and english natives. there are other factors which could cause such difference, for example, the cooperation between the interlocuters, the psychological state of the speakers, etc. it is suggested that all of these factors would be further researched in the future studies. the two results of investigations on pauses in turn taking above indicate that chinese learners depend mostly on the increase in duration of pauses to imply the intention of turn yielding. actually, for english native speakers, pause is only one of the cues. however, it is not a reliable cue of turn changing. english native speakers may pause in the middle of one turn for strategic reasons such as to secure the interlocutors’ attention or to show the impression of thoughtfulness (wennerstrom, 2001, p. 171). local and kelly (1986) point out that it is phonetic cues directly before a pause, rather than the presence of the pause itself, that can show the speaker’s turn-taking intentions. chinese learners probably have no idea about the difference among these three types of pauses and their functions in turn-taking. besides, they are not able to make abundant use of various intonation cues but only employ too many pauses to show the intentions of turn yielding. it is also the problem of shortage in prosodic knowledge and the deficiency of chinese learners in using turn-taking strategies. 4.1.3 summary of the results in pauses through the description of pause duration used in the process of turn-taking in chinese efl learners’ conversations, it is found that there is a tendency that the longer the pause durations are, the higher probabilities of turn shift. pauses at the turn changes are longer than utterance internal pauses and pause between utterances in one turn. these results indicate the excessive dependence on the pause to show the turn yielding intentions in chinese learners’ conversations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. 4.2 lengthening of the final syllable table 2 shows the relationship of final lengthening before turn changes and within turns. it is easy to see that in chinese learners’ conversations, final lengthening within turns is longer than that before turn changes. the difference between these two kinds of lengthening is statistically significant (t=2.217, p<0.05). table 2. final lengthening before turn changes and within turns final lengthening number mean std. deviation within turns 2186 345.0366 140.460213 before turn changes 349 329.8138 115.3547862 *mean and std. deviation are in milliseconds this pattern is different from that of english native speakers. according to the findings of culter et al. (1986, p. 140), in english conversations, the turn-yielding lengthening should be more prominent or greater in duration than utterance final lengthening within turns so as to effectively signal or identify the turn-yielding intention of the speakers. the longer final lengthening within turns in chinese learners’ conversations will easily cause the wrong implication of giving up the turn to the listeners. this indicates that chinese learners probably cannot distinguish the uses of final lengthening within turns and the lengthening before turn changes. additionally, the deficiency in using final lengthening before turn changes also indicates the weakness in chinese learners’ ability of using conversational strategies. in summary, through the investigation of three variables—boundary tones, pause, and lengthening of the final syllable, the present research described and assessed chinese learners’ use of intonation features during the process of turn-taking in their english conversations. the results of the investigation have been reported in this chapter with some tentative interpretation and discussion followed. 5. conclusions 5.1 major findings this research aims to accomplish two tasks in answering the two research questions. one is describing chinese efl learners’ use of pause and lengthening in turn taking. the other one is comparing chinese learners’ characteristics with that of english natives. the major findings are presented as follows: in terms of pause, there is a tendency in chinese learners’ conversations that the longer the pause durations are, the higher probabilities of turn shift; during the process of turn taking in chinese learners’ conversations, pauses at the turn changes are longer than utterance internal pauses and pause between utterances in one turn. these results indicate the excessive dependence on the pause to show the turn yielding intentions in chinese learners’ conversations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. in terms of lengthening of the final syllable, in chinese learners’ conversations, final lengthening within turns is significantly longer than that before turn changes. this indicates that chinese learners probably cannot distinguish the uses of final lengthening within turns and the lengthening before turn changes. 5.2 implications this research is expected to have implications in three areas. theoretically, the results of this study are expected to assist second language learners to understand the use of english intonation features as communicative strategies and to avoid the misuse in the prosodic aspect of their interlanguage. because these results depict chinese efl learners’ use of intonation features in conversation organization rather than in their individual use, the description of the use of intonation features are prompted at the discourse level. with the assistance of these results, the second language learners’ understanding of the prosodic function would be promoted at discourse level. besides, the results of this research have provided a rough description of the prosodic aspect of chinese efl learners’ interlanguage. these results can be used as references to correct the inappropriate use of prosodic means in chinese learners’ interlanguage. methodologically, the combined and scientific methods would provide references to future researches on the prosodic features used in second efl learners’ spontaneous conversations. because these results are obtained by using the combined methods from phonology, conversation analysis, and second language acquisition, the complex analysis of the prosodic features in second efl learners’ spontaneous conversations proves to be feasible by the employment of the approaches from these linguistic fields. in addition, the advanced software such as cool edit and praat, and the transcription system of tobi have been used in order to make the present research precise and scientific. practically, the results would be expected to bring benefits to intonation acquisition and teaching. practical implications drawn from the findings of this study are in two areas. first of all, in terms of second language acquisition, it is suggested to strengthen the acquisition of the supra-segmental features’ differences between chinese and english. according to the tentative discussion in chapter 4, negative l1 transfer may have caused insufficiency and misuse of intonation features. intonation features play different roles in conversations under different language backgrounds. the english intonation features, which imply subtle and crucial meanings in conversations, might cause difficulties for chinese learners. therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the learning of differences and similarities in supra-segmental features between chinese and english. it is also necessary to increase the knowledge of intonation features, especially those features used as communicative strategies or skills. if chinese learners have not abundant knowledge of intonation features, they won’t have foundations to use them sufficiently and appropriately. attention should be given not only to the learning of individual super-segments but also to the acquisition of their functions in discourse. just as chun (1988) points out, “intonation is fundamental to genuine communication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. because communicative competence is the ability not only to formulate grammatically correct utterance, but also to signal interactive strategies, such as interrupting, asking for clarification, taking the floor, changing the subject, concluding an argument, or constraining a hearer to reply” (pp. 295-303). accordingly, it is of necessity for chinese efl learners to learn intonation features as communicative strategies or skills in language acquisition. secondly, the results of this study would bring some insight to the teaching of english intonation in conversation organization. first of all, it is suggested that the awareness of using prosodic features in conversations need to be strengthened despite the increasing recognition of the importance in teaching prosodic functions. as le and han (2006, pp. 20-21) point out, teaching in english pronunciations has developed from the style focusing on teaching segmental elements or phonemes, to the style focusing on teaching the combination of supra-segmental features and segmental ones. nevertheless, the teaching in english intonation still needs to be improved. instead of the superficial replication of english natives’ use in intonation features, the aim of teaching intonation should be rational. chinese learners need to master not only the separated forms of prosodic features but also their functions in discourse. besides, this study suggests that those methods which emphasize the connections with the training of language and communication competence should be increased in english intonation teaching. some practical methods of this kind do exist in current teaching, but they are not systematic or abundant. more effective approaches are expected to be found in practical teaching activities and future pedagogic researches. 5.3 limitations of this study and suggestions for further research this study focuses on two rhythmic features (pauses and lengthening) over the corpus elicited by spontaneous interactions of 64 efl learners. it is suggested that other intonation features such as rhythm, key shift, etc., will be researched, and the number of subjects would be enlarged in the future studies. moreover, although some similarities and differences between chinese learners and english natives are found out in the use of pauses and lengthening for turn organization, the reasons causing the differences are not analyzed systematically. the reasons for the differences and similarities are worthy to be explored from cognitive, physiological and other perspectives. additionally, this study puts emphasis on the speakers’ production activity in turn taking. future studies would turn to the perceptional side and see profoundly how the listeners perceive and identify the prosodic cues in turn taking. in summary, thorough and systematical investigations into chinese efl learners’ use of prosodic features in conversation organization are suggested for the future research in order to obtain detailed descriptions of the supra-segmental aspect of chinese learners’ interlanguage. thus, more references to language acquisition and teaching could be made for improving the chinese efl learners’ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. communicative proficiency. acknowledgments this work was supported by the national social science fund of china (nssf grant no. 20byy099), the fund for english teaching from jiangsu higher education association (2022wjzd006), and the fund for english lesson construction from the school of foreign studies in jiangsu normal university (2022yykc3, 2022yykc6). references beckman, m. e., & edwards, j. (1990). lengthening and shortening and the nature of. prosodic constituency. in j. kingston, & m. e. beckman (eds.), papers in laboratory phonology i (pp. 152-178). cambridge: cambridge university press. bosch, l., oostdijk, n. & boves, l. (2005). on temporal aspects of turn taking in conversational dialogues. speech communication, 47, 80-86. buxo-lugo, a., jacobs, c. l., & watson, d. (2020). the world is not enough to explain lengthening of phonological competitors. journal of memory and language, 110. byrd, d. & saltzman, e. (2003). the elastic phrase: modeling the dynamics of boundary-adjacent lengthening. journal of phonetics, 31, 149-180. carspers, j. (2003). local speech melody as a limiting factor in the turn-taking system in dutch. journal of phonetics, 31, 251-276. chun, d. m. (1988). the neglected role of intonation in communicative competence and proficiency. modern language journal, 72(3), 295-303. cruttenden, a. (2002). intonation (2nd ed.). beijing: peiking university press & cambridge university press. culter, a., & person, m. (1986). on the analysis of prosodic turn-taking cues. in c. johns-lewis (ed.), intonation in discourse (pp. 139-156). college-hill press, inc. duncan jr., s., fiske, d. w., denny, r., barbara, g., k., & hartmut, b., m. (1985). interaction structure and strategy. maison des sciences de l’homme and cambridge university press. féry, c. (2016). intonation and prosodic structure. cambridge: cambridge university press. good, d., & butterworth. b. (1980). hesitancy as a conversational resource: some methodological implications. in h. dechert, & m. raupach (eds.), temporal variables in speech: studies in honour of frieda goldman-eisler (pp. 145-152). the hague:mouton. goodwin. c. (1981). conversational organization: interaction between speakers and hearers. new york: academic press. hieke, a., kowal, s., & o’connell, m. (1983). the trouble with “articulatory” pauses. language and speech, 26(3), 203-214. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. john-lewis, c. (ed.) (1986). intonation in discourse. college-hill press, inc. koiso, h., horiuchi, y., tutiya, s., ichikawa, a., & den, y. (1998). an analysis of turn-taking and backchannels based on prosodic and syntactic features in japanese map task dialogs. language and speech, 41, 295-321. krivokapic, j. (2007). prosodic planning: effects of phrasal length and complexity on pause duration. journal of phonetics, 35(2)162-179. liang, y. (2001). the temporal analysis of turn-taking in chinese conversations. a dissertation in hunan normal university, hunan, china. liu, h. (2004). the analysis of conversation structure. beijing university press. beijing. china. local, j., & kelly, j. (1986). projection and “silence”: notes on phonetic and conversational structure. human studies, 9, 185-204. ludusn, b., & schuppler b. (2022). an analysis of prosodic boundaries across speaking styles in two varieties of german. speech communication, 141, 93-106. petrone, c., truckenbrodt, h., wellmann, c., holzgrefe-lange, j., wartenburger, i., &. hohle, b. (2017). prosodic boundary cues in german: evidence from the production and perception of bracketed lists. journal of phonetics, 61, 71-92. paschen, l., fuchs, s., & seifart, f. (2022). final lengthening and vowel length in 25 languages. journal of phonetics, 94. sacks, h., schegloff, e. a., & jefferson, g. (1974). a simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. language, 50(4), 696-735. smith, l. c. (2004). topic transitions and durational prosody in reading aloud: production and modeling. speech communication, 42, 247-270. truckenbrodt, h. (2015). intonation phrases and speech acts. in m. kluck, d. ott, & m. de vrieds (eds.), parenthesis and ellipsis. cross-linguistic and theoretical perspectives (pp. 301-349). berlin: walter de gruyter. turk, e. a., & white, l. (1999). structural influences on accentual lengthening in english. journal of phonetics, 27, 171-206. turk, e. a., & shattuck-hufnagel, s. (2000). word-boundary-related duration patterns in english. journal of phonetics, 28, 397-440. turk, e. a., & sawusch, r. j. (1997). the domain of accentual lengthening in american english. journal of phonetics, 25, 25-41. walker, m. b. (1982). smooth transitions in conversational turn-taking: implications for theory. the journal of psychology, 110, 31-37. welford, a. t. (1968). fundamentals of skill. london: methuen. wennerstrom, a. (2001). the music of everyday speech. oxford: oxford university press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 3, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. wennerstrom, a., & siegel, a. (2003). keeping the floor in multiparty conversations: intonation, syntax, and pause. discourse processes, 36(2), 77-107. xia, z. h. (2013). prosodic realization of topic structure in chinese efl learners’ speaking—an empirical research based on spontaneous speeches. foreign language teaching and research, 45(3), 398-410. xia, z. h., hirschberg, j., & levitan, r. (2023). investigating prosodic entrainment from global conversations to local turns and tones in mandarin conversations. speech communication, 153. xia, z. h., levitan, r., & hirschberg, j. (2014). prosodic entrainment in mandarin and english: a cross-linguistic comparison. in proceedings of speech prosody, dublin, ireland, 65-69. xia, z. h., & ma, q. w. (2019). prosodic entrainment in mandarin chinese conversations: an experimental study. tongji university press, shanghai, china. xia, z. h., & ma, q. w. (2016a). the influence of gender on prosodic entrainment in mandarin conversations. journal of phonetics in china, 118-128. xia, z. h., & ma, q. w. (2016b). gender and prosodic entrainment in mandarin conversations. in proceedings of 2016 10th international symposium on chinese spoken language processing (iscslp 2016), tianjin, china. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper developing poetic writing skills: a teaching technique for advanced esl/efl learners mamadou dieng (ph.d.)1* 1 gaston berger university, saint-louis, senegal * mamadoudieng, gaston berger university, saint-louis, senegal received: november 30, 2021 accepted: december 7, 2021 online published: december 13, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v3n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v3n1p1 abstract this article attempts to showcase a number of techniques to teach poetic writing skills in efl settings. first and foremost, we have tried to identify and propose corrective attitudes to work out the psychological obstacles that impede the practice of poetry in many efl classrooms. then, we have selected some basic characteristics of poetic discourse through lyric songs to increase learners’ awareness of the specificities of poetry. the mastery of the structure and functioning of figurative language has been the essential skill to develop. furthermore, the technique privileges the process-oriented approach which is based on well-structured, harmonious and interrelated phases to help learners start composing simple verses and poems. keywords poem, verse, discourse, figurative, process 1. introduction a review of literature on poetry in language learning reveals a unilateral orientation from the part of educationalists and researchers in general. almost all of them agree upon the crucial role poetry and songs play in language learning in general and esl/efl learning in particular. according to caroline linse, poems and songs are part and parcel of early childhood education in the united states which families and teachers systemically integrate as essential tools in the linguistic behaviour and development of kids. she goes on to contend that the genre is extremely resourceful and effective in second and foreign language acquisition. other researchers are rather obsessed with the principles or mechanisms of poetic perception which requires a profound knowledge of poetic language, rhythm and structural patterns. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. the historicity related to the traditional value of poetry has captured the interest of researchers. the genre is, in this perspective, described as one of the oldest in view of its nascence quite before the advent of literacy (okpewho, 1992). senghor (1977), one of the pioneers of the negritude movement, tags along with the same perspective as he sustains that poetry in africa is a very ancient art form that would enliven several kinds of events and ceremonies. kitty johnson’s study (2006) stands as an exception among a global tendency to analyse poetry from the point of view of historicity, social function, structural and linguistic patterns and role in language acquisition.the article is a sustained attempt to delineate the role of poetry in language learning and the development of poetic writing skills. still activities and procedures remain too sophisticated to be within the reach of all categories of learners including second and foreign language learners. the author looks and sounds to have chosen native speakers as a target. this paper is attempting to fill in this gap by focussing on efl/esl learners’ needs. the approach is based on simple procedures that place the learning of poetic writing skills within the reach of advanced esl/efl learners.what is more, the objective is not overambitious to pursue unrealistic goals that would consist in ensuring a thorough command of poetic writing skill forthwith. the paper essentially aims at initiating learners to basic poetic language. to reach the set goals, it is crucial to raise learners’ awareness and build confidence by debunking the poetic language. an exposition of the nature and structure of poetic language patterns combined with appropriate and sustainable training activities will enhance the initiation project and arm learners with basic tools to integrate the language of poetry not only as interpreters but also as creators. 2. the psychological challenge to meet the demystification of poetry must be a prior concern for the efl teacher.it isa psychological work to be absolutely done as perceptions both at the level of the teacher and the learners are generally negative and therefore impede any effort or project to deal with poetry. indeed, the attitude of efl teachers towards poetic language is generally pessimistic. many teachers often believe that learners’ general english language proficiency is not apposite enough to response to the requirements of poetry which is perceived as too hermetical and elaborate. my belief is that a process-oriented and well-structured approach can enclose an enormous potential forpoetic consciousness raising and poetic writing skills development even among the weakest learners. teachers should bear in mind that the most important aspect of efl teaching is first and foremost the approach that sets out to pursue a remote objective, a final product. besides, the senegalese context represents an appropriate ground as advanced learners startdissecting and exploiting poetic language in french as early as their first year in high school. therefore, it is often the language that changes rather than the linguistic realities and patterns which remain generally the same in english. i do admit that the teaching and learning of english accents and meters may be complex and even daunting in efl settings and should therefore be discarded in an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. initiation project. instead, the structure of poetry remains the same across many languages. it is crucial, from start, to debunk a set of myths or perceptions that lay as ice to break between teachers/learners and poetry. another hindrance in the achievement of such a project might be related to the general sidelining of poetry which is regarded as a gift in the hands of “happy few” geniuses, prophetic people and supernatural writers. the interconnection between poetic discourse and social discourse must be established. learners should realise that poetic language is nothing but a refined reduplication of social language. besides, in this paper, i use a lyric song (i’m alive by celin dion) to plunge the learners in the language of poetry. the choice of a song is meant to ensure motivation and attention as learners, irrespective of their age or level, are generally focused and motivated when music is around. starting with pure poetry may negatively contaminate the process as learners will precociously put forward their habitual negative perception about poetry. the song is, therefore, a pretext that should lead to a pleasant expedition inside the linguistic realm of poetry. 3. the reasonable and the unreasonable in poetic discourse poets are among the most imaginative writers. while novelists and playwrights are often social-oriented in their fictionality, poets love embarking on journeysto totally imaginary worlds. the readers are impressed by the imaginative capacity backed up with a type of language that is extremely beautiful and captivating. the impression that poets are unrealistic and unreasonable is certainly the most shared feeling among readers. it is because poems, like lyric songs, aremore often than notfraught with exaggerations and extrapolations. learners should therefore be sensitized about those linguistic specificities and the freedom of the poets to express out feelings and ideas according to their desires. the teacher should, through a task-based approach, expose the language game poets have the right and freedom to play. task: read and decide whether these statements are reasonable or unreasonable. discuss your decision with your partner. table 1. reasonable vs unreasonable discourse discourse reasonable unreasonable/hyperbole when i hear you breath i got wings to fly when you look at me i can touch the sky all my world is right you set my heart on fire filled me with love www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. made me a woman my spirit takes flight the decision of learners should be free and subjective. furthermore, learners will be invited, in the process, to voice out the reasons of their choices. the identification between reasonable and unreasonable discourses is a basic point in the discovery process. on top of that, it paves the way to unprecedented communicative situations and interactions between learners and the intermittent arbitrage and verdict of the teacher is sometimes not enough to reconcile learners. but, in any case, the teacher should calm down the communication atmosphere at a given moment bydelineating the initial rationale behind the task which consists in exposing the complex and figurative character of poetic language. learners should be aware of the inability of ordinary language to embody poetic dimensions. the expression of inner feelings in their fullest scope is always the making of unordinary language that relies on tropes, symbols and imageries. by the way, this unordinary feature is the main hallmark of poetic language. 4. on similes similes are often pervasive throughout poems and poetic discourses in general. learners should be awaken about people’s tendency to resort to comparison, even in social discourse, to better expose the scope of qualities, characteristics, states and feelings. it is just like situations, objects and people possess their immediate or remote doubles and are likely to be interchangeable and substitutive. those doubles might belong to different categories or species which does not prevent them from epitomising the similar essential values. for example, a person might be compared to a tree as both elements live, grow, produce and die. therefore, similes allow a fuller characterisation. developing simile building skills can rely on activities inspired by specific materials and themes. the theme of love in celin dion’s song can lay the foundation of this poetic skill. the teacher may ask the learners to find out hyperbolic comparisons to the feeling of love as in the activity below. step 1: find out elements of comparison to the feeling of love table 2. comparison building theme some elements of comparison suggested by learners love ocean forest fire tree www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. step 2: discussing, justifying and interpreting comparisons the relevance of this phase lies mainly in the integration of the cognitive approach in the process of poetic creation. the capacity to build parallels is highly valued when it comes to interpret the semantic connexion between the chosen elements to compare. the first moment consists in involving learners in the search for elements that are comparable at the surface structure level. the second and perhaps more challenging moment consist in requiring from learners to provide justifying evidence at the deep structure level. that is why this stageof the process is extremely communicative. better still, it calls for learners’ interpretive skills and critical thinking competences. the teacher will unavoidably be astonished by learners’ capacity to build comparisons. the positive surprise of the teacher stems from the ability of learners to interpret comparisons which is a crucial dimension in poetry. i must confess my amazement due to students’profound interpretative insightswhich are informative enough about their enormous poetic potential. the activity is consequently very effective in communication practice for efl/esl learners. it also enhances critical thinking as learners engage in reasonable linking of concepts and elements that superficially might appear different and opposed. still, the ultimate target of the lesson is the building of poetic comparisons. the teacher should therefore provide with grammatical tools to allow learners to achieve the set goal not only in oral discourse but in written poetic discourse. step 3: the use of “to be like” and “as” forcomparison building the development of poetic skills among esl/efl learners can tap from grammar resources to be successful. the teaching of hyperboles, for example, is an apposite moment to raise learners’ awareness of the grammatical instruments that are used in the building of comparisons. students should know that the making of comparisons in english basically resorts to phrases such as “to be like”, “to look like”, “as...as”, “as” or “akin to”. as a result, the previous activity can be turned into poetic hyperboles using “to be like” or “as”. love is like a forest love looks like a tree love acts as fire/love is like fire love is akin to a tree 5. the metaphorical discourse construction in efl/esl settings metaphors are part and parcel of human discourse which all mature speakers tend to call for to be more communicative. it is as if figures of speech and figurative language in general conjure up a sort of inability in ordinary language to fully express out feelings and ideas. the figurative language is therefore a sort of makeshift linguistic tool for humans to be more expressive. so, tropes, contrary to the postulate of anthony burgess, are not linguistic tools used by poets to tell lies (mathiam, 13). i would rather defend the position that metaphors are perhaps only superficial lies if they are to be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. regarded as lies. indeed, like all other figures of speech, they result from a real communication need that does not find satisfaction in ordinary language. they are, as such, ways and means, to fill in the gaps and voids. denise lowery almost tags along with this perspective when he argues:“all languages rely heavily on metaphor because human beings use metaphor to make sense of abstract ideas” (2013, p. 17). producing figurative language like metaphors may, at first sight, be perceived by non-native speakers as herculean and difficult to achieve. the role of the teacher consists in taking off this negative perception from esl learners’ mindset. in my teaching, i often try to build the relation between real-life communication patterns and classroom language, which is even a strong principle in communicative language teaching. the classroom should be transformed into a society at the microcosmic level. it is only in this way teachers can trivialise communication in the mind of the efl learner and increase motivation. resorting to learners’ l1 to provide illustrative examples can be a praiseworthy strategy to raise awareness and build confidence. this is all the more important that learners often call for elements of comparison from their surrounding environment. the compared elements in the activity dealing with simile building are all derived from learners’ realities. one of the specificities of the region (casamance, southern part of senegal) is the existence of dense forests and heavy rains. there is then no wonder when all elements are derived from nature which represents a lot in the life of the community. if the phase about simile building is successfully achieved, the teaching and learning of metaphorical discourse construction should not be that challenging for the learners. technically, and in a simple way, a metaphor creates confusion between elements. while similes create parallels, metaphors build confusion and oneness between similar elements. the comparative grammar tool is to be taken off to pave the way to a sort of equality. the activity in the comparison building phase can serve as a springboard. table 3. from simile to metaphor similes metaphors love is like a forest love is a forest love looks like a tree love is a tree love acts as fire/love is like fire love is fire love is like the ocean love is an ocean 6. examples of activities for poem composition practice the approach i have implemented, as you can notice it, is process-oriented and functions like a chain. the tasks assigned to the learners are interdependent and the phases are graded as far as the process goes on. we believe that an exposition of the poetic and figurative discourse patterns combined with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. practical activities is necessary for learners to start struggling with poetic composition. even here, the process-oriented approach should be privileged. step 1: composing verses in this phase, i ask students to choose a person they cherish a lot. the chosen person may be a family member, a friend, a lover or even a historical figure they would like to pay homage to by dedicating them a couple of verses (3 or 4 verses). student will have the freedom and the challenge to compose verses using figurative language such as similes, hyperboles or metaphors. the teacher can try to list all the students who have chosen the same persons for the dedication. for example, those working on the mother will form a group. at this stage, students will have to work individually in order to compose their verses. step 2: exposition and feedback learners will individually be asked to expose their verses on the chalkboard or by reading them aloud. the role of the teacher and the peers will consist in providing feedback related to grammar, word choice, spelling, etc. step 3:the collective poem the collective poem is the gathering of all the verses composed by students working on the same person. student will group their verses to form one poem dedicated to the mother, the friend, the lover or the historical figure. teacher and students will work cooperatively to arrange verses in order to have a certain poetic harmony especially by paying heed to the rhymes that can go together. the teacher can help students propose titles depending on the person they chose. the collective poems may be exposed somewhere in the school or recited during english club activities. step 4: the individual poem for more practice, the teacher, under the form of a home assignment, may ask students to complete the verses they composed in classes into full individual poems. 7. conclusion the paper has explored a relatively simple approach to the development of poetic writing skills in efl contexts. we finally come up with the conclusion that teaching and learning have lots of chances to be successful when the appropriate approach is implemented in a comprehensive layout based upon well-organised steps. in the approach under consideration each phase is essential in the process. a reading of the article bears witness to the existence of a chain of phases that are interdependent and interrelated. each phase in the process represents a foundation that clearly propels learners forward. they are all prerequisites whose combination forms a wide way out towards the achievement of the lesson’s final objective. the approach is interesting in many ways. first, it takes off the belief that generally positions poetry as a reserved domain, and subsequently equips efl learners with basic tools to produces verses and poems. secondly, teaching the functioning of poetic language patterns enhances www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 3, no. 1, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. efl learners’ cognitive reading abilities in general. learners realise on the way that meaning is not only always sailing on the lines and surfaces. it can rather be hidden out of the lines. third, learners are armed with “new” tools they can make use of for more expressiveness or rhetorical purposes in daily communication situations. finally, the teaching of figures of speech boosts learners’ communicative skills and literary sensitivity. references he, j. s. (2000).a cognitive model for teaching reading comprehension. forum, 38(4), 12-17. johnson, k. (2006). reading, writing and performing poetry. english teaching forum, 1, 44-52. linse, c. (2006). using favorite songs and poems with learners. english teaching forum, 38, 38-42. lowery, d. (2013). helping metaphors take root in the efl classroom. english teaching forum, 1, 12-17. okpewho, i. (1992). african oral literature: backgrounds, character, and continuity.indianapolis: indiana university press. senghor, l. s. (1977). négritude et modernité, négritude et civilisation de l’universel. paris: le seuil. thiam, m. (2011).issues in teacher training in efl: from theory to practice. diaspora academy press, dakar. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 59 original paper do gender and age moderate the association between self-esteem and fear of success? kalu t. u. ogba 1 , adebisi victory okere 2 , daniel oluwasanmi kumuyi 3 , miracle oluchi ogba 4 , genevieve chimaoge ebulum 5,6,7 , & johnbosco chika chukwuorji *1,8,9 1 department of psychology, university of nigeria, nsukka 410001, enugu state, nigeria 2 department of psychology, nile university of nigeria, abuja nigeria 3 department of behavioural science and ethics, st mathew‘s university, west bay, cayman islands 4 faculty of law, abia state university, uturu, abia state, nigeria 5 department of community medicine, david umahi federal university of health sciences, uburu, ebonyi state 6 international institute for sports research, development & rehabilitation, david umahi federal university of health sciences uburu, ebonyi state, nigeria 7 international institute for neurological & brain health research, david umahi federal university of health sciences uburu, ebonyi state, nigeria 8 charles stewart mott department of public health, college of human medicine, michigan state university, flint, michigan, usa 9 promotion of health and innovation lab, international network for well-being, nigeria * johnbosco chika chukwuorji, email: johnbosco.chukwuorji@unn.edu.ng received: may 24, 2024 accepted: july 6, 2024 online published: august 23, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n3p59 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n3p59 abstract fear of success is a negative experience which influences satisfaction with life and overall wellbeing. socio-demographic factors (e.g., age and gender) and self-esteem have been found to be associated with fear of success. however, whether gender and age influence how self-esteem is liked to fear of success has received little attention. we examined the moderating roles of gender and age moderate in the relationship between self-esteem and fear of success. participants were 350 nigerian adults who completed the index of self-esteem and the fear of success scale. hayes regression-based process macro results indicated that those with low self-esteem reported higher fear of success. neither age nor gender was associated with fear of success. gender and age did not moderate the association between self-esteem and fear of success. interventions to boost people’s self-esteem should be considered in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. efforts to reduce fear of success. keywords academic engagement, achievement motivation, adulthood, attention, life satisfaction, sociodemographic determinants of health 1. introduction human beings desire to succeed in most of the things they do. however, there are several factors that may hinder people from taking the steps towards success. one of such factors is the fear of success. for more than half a century, this paradox that there are individuals who are afraid of achievement has generated significant research interests (pappo, 1972; canavan, 1989; miller, 1994; stanculescu, 2013). those who fear success do so because they perceived the aftermath of success to be threatening (miller, 1994); and the avoid success due to the anxiety to manage the impending challenge that comes with sustaining the achievement of something new. fear of success predicts anxiety, depression, fear of being different, fear of failure, self-defeating behaviour and dissatisfaction with life (bramante, 2015; faturahman & dwiyanti, 2021; helms, 1981; yilamz, 2018). among students, fear of success leads to rejection sensitivity and poor academic performance (ekler & yalçın tılfarlıoğlu, 2020). it is also a formidable barrier to career development due to its implications in imposter syndrome (neureiter & traut-mattausch, 2016; tsatiris, 2021). there are two dominant historical perspectives in the fear of success literature. the first is grounded in the psychoanalytic view in which irrational thoughts emanating from the unconscious results to powerful and quite predictable negative consequences for those who hold them. this is the neurotic fear of success (freud, 1959; horney, 1937, menninger, 1938). the second view of fear of success is represented by horner‘s (1969, 1972) elaboration of the mcclelland-atkinson model of achievement motivation (atkinson, 1957; atkinson & feather, 1966; mclelland et al., 1976). the basic tenet of mcclelland-atkinson model of achievement motivation is that everyone has an inherent motive to achieve success and some motive to avoid failure. the model delineated three major influences on the determinants of a person‘s ―tendency to approach success‖, namely, motive to achieve success, the probability of success and the incentive value of the success. given that efforts to attain career success is assumed to require the personal characteristics of aggressiveness and competitiveness, which are typically considered to be masculine attributes, horner (1969, 1972) suggested that most women have a motive to avoid success. essentially, the motive to avoid success is what horner regarded as fear of success. our aim in the present study is to examine the association between self-esteem and fear of success, as well as whether gender and age influences such association. 1.1 self-esteem and fear of success while suggesting that fear of success is more of a manifestation of psychological-developmental deficits rather than a person‘s social situation, miller (1994) highlighted the profound impact of self-esteem. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 61 published by scholink inc. self-esteem refers to one‘s positive and negative attitude in connection to oneself and the overall evaluation of one‘s own thoughts and feelings in relation to oneself (rosenberg, 1979). it is the extent to which people feel valuable, satisfied with themselves, and worthy of respect (american psychological association, apa, 2021). those with low self-esteem may doubt their ability to succeed, thereby becoming hesitant to engage in learning tasks or take the right academic growth risks (apa, 2021). empirical studies have demonstrated that self-esteem was associated with fear of success among adults in iran (honarmand et al., 2005) and romania (stanculescu, 2013), as well as managers in a multinational company in india (kaur & kaur, 2018). persons with lower self-esteem also have lower self-efficacy—which have been found to be associated with fear of success in a kyrgyzstan mixed sample (yilmaz, 2018). research on fear of success in the african socio-cultural setting is scarce and there is even more limited attention to the contributions of self-esteem in fear of success among adults in the sub-saharan african educational setting. the present study aims to fill this gap in knowledge. we hypothesize that adults with high self-esteem will have reduced levels of fear of success. 1.2 gender, age, and fear of success gore et al. (2016) stressed the need to recognize a person‘s gender and other social factors when investigating fear of success. several years ago, horner (1969) concluded that women have a higher level of fear of success than men, which impedes the motivation and performance of women under competitive conditions. college female students exhibit higher levels of fear of success than male college students (pedersen & conlin, 1987). similar reports of higher fear of success in women than men also exist in other studies (andré & metzler, 2011; forbes & king, 1983), kaur & kaur, 2018). this fear of success hinders the career development of women as most women believed that fear of success will make them loose their femininity and social self-esteem or even experience social rejection (faturahman & dwiyanti, 2021). these findings have not remained entirely consistent, with some either finding that men had higher fear of success than women (hyland & mancini, 1985) while other studies showed no gender difference (e.g., brenner & tomkiewicz, 1982). these inconsistent findings may be due to differences in settings. thus, the association of fear of success and gender is relative to the cultural background of study (gore et al., 2016; faturahman & dwiyanti, 2021; kuh et al., 2018). although things are changing, there is a general societal assumption in africa that the female gender predisposes them to home care, even when they may occupy responsibilities in their place of work (dogo, 2014; ifeagwazi et al., 2019; kobayashi & fukushima, 2012). in the african context, the struggle for the survival of the family rests more squarely on the male child. for instance, african families prefer to invest more in formal academic training their male children than the female, especially where there are limited resources (glick & sahn, 2000; santos & rubiano-matulevich, 2019). such traditional preferential treatment orchestrates two developmental trajectories for males and females, and thus male children may be more oriented to success than females (ezeliora & ezeokana, 2011). however, there are some shreds of evidence supporting the idea that women and men have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 62 published by scholink inc. success-driven motives, especially when given equal opportunities (yoder, 1999; deeter-schmelz, & ramsey, 2014). in non-western cultures, regardless of any achievements that women have in their occupation, their effort is downplayed if they are not successful in the home front (kandiyoti, 1988). the teachings of the dominant religious groups in africa (christianity and islam) also preaches subservience and submission thereby reinforcing the characteristic patriarchy in the society. this patriarchal system may wield great influence on african (nigerian) women to the point that women may be scared of developing or optimizing their potential. the present researchers have seen some ladies who have master‘s degrees but were reluctant to enroll for doctorate degrees because they were not married yet. they have the fear that climbing higher in the academic ladder would be intimidating to potential suitors (men). thus, an empirical evaluation of gender differences in fear of success in the sub-saharan african socio-cultural context is very germane to the advancement of knowledge on the construct. we expect that women will report higher fear of success than men. beyond the direct association of gender and fear of success, we also considered whether being a male or female would strengthen or weaken the association between fear of success and self-esteem. extant research has shown that there are more positive extrinsic incentives of a self-esteem nature for success at male-oriented than at female-oriented activities, and that women who score highly in the motive to avoid success are more likely to pursue these additional incentives than women who score low in the motive (sorrentino & short, 1974). likewise, self-esteem and sex-role identification interact in a mutually reinforcing way to predict outcomes (stericker & johnson, 1975). although self-esteem was significantly associated with fear of success in male and female americans (stericker, 1976), self-efficacy, which is related to self-esteem, has been found to be more strongly associated with performance for kenyan boys than girls (gor et al., 2020). a closer observation shows that the earlier exploration of this gender influence on self-esteem and fear of success was conducted in the western cultural setting. there is need for re-examination of the moderating role of gender in the association of self-esteem and fear of success as the current modernization may, to a large extent, have impacted on the fear of success syndrome among adults. we hypothesize that self-esteem will be more strongly associated with fear of success for men compared to women. several studies have shown that younger persons were more likely to fear success than older people (froelich, 1996; hoffman, 1977; ishiyama et al., 1985; orpen, 1989; popp & muhs, 1982). among canadian adolescents, younger age was also associated with fear of success (ishiyama & charassol, 1984). even though the type of success may become the bone of contention, fear of success may likely reduce with age. zuckerman and wheeler (1975) hypothesized that age differences should exist if fear of success is a learned disposition and should, therefore, increase with age. however, their results revealed no age differences in fear of success. given that exposure to a new task at an early age will incite anxiety due to inexperience and eventual fear of success unlike exposure to (perhaps) the same www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 63 published by scholink inc. tasks at an older age, we hypothesize that younger people would report greater fear of success than older people. there is dearth of empirical studies on moderating role of age in the relationship between self-esteem and fear of success. more empirical inquiry into this relationship is very germane, as further studies will strengthen the evidence base. for prevention and intervention programs to ameliorate fear of success, understanding critical moderators of the association between self-esteem and fear of success has the potential to help direct limited resources to groups of individuals who are most likely to benefit from them. this direction offers tremendous potential to yield important information relevant to the advancement of theory and interventions to ameliorate fear of success. we expect that the relationship between self-esteem and age will be stronger for younger people compared to older people. 2. method 2.1 participants and procedure we adopted a cross-sectional design to recruit 350 staff (34.3% men and 65.7% women) from a nigerian university. demographic characteristics of the participants were presented in table 1. approval for the study was obtained from the psychology research ethics committee of the university of nigeria nsukka. participants were approached in their offices by trained research assistants. the research assistants explained the nature of the study to the participants and what they were required to do. those who accepted to take part in the study were given the questionnaire for completion. all participants provided written informed consent prior to enrolment in the study. there was no incentive for participation in the study. the research assistants thanked those who completed the survey. 2.2 instruments 2.2.1 the index of self-esteem (ise) the ise (hudson, 1982) is a 25-item scale consisting of 12 negatively and 13 positively worded items, with the negative wordings designed to offset response set bias. the negatively worded items are reverse scored, then added to the total of the positively worded items, and a value of 25 is then subtracted from the total score to produce the participant‘s true ise self-esteem score. each item is answered using a 5-point likert-type response anchor numbered: 1= rarely or none of the time, 2 = a little of the time, 3 = some of the time, 4 = a good part of the time, 5 = most of the time. sample items included: ―on the whole, i am satisfied with myself‖, ―i am able to do things as well as most other people‖, ―i wish i could have more respect for myself‖. hudson (1982) obtained a coefficient of .92. higher scores indicate low self-esteem (hudson, 1982). for the current study, we obtained a cronbach alpha of .79 which is an acceptable reliability coefficient. 2.2.2 fear of success scale (foss) the 15-item foss was adapted from the scales of canavan-gumpert et al. (1978). the response options were: 5 = definitely yes, 4 = yes, 3 = not sure, 2 = no, 1 = definitely no. an example of items www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 64 published by scholink inc. on the scale are: ‗‗do you feel uneasy being the center of attraction in a group‘‘, ―instead of celebrating, do you often feel let down after completing an important task or project‘‘. we conducted a principal component factor analysis and found that a unifactorial structure was best suited for the scale. the cronbach alpha of the selected foss items was .80, which suggested that the item had good internal consistency reliability. 2.3 statistical analyses pearson‘s correlation and the hayes process macro on spss were used for data analysis. due to its robustness, process macro is preferable to ordinary regression analysis in tests of moderation hypotheses. it conducts regression-based path analysis and creates product terms to analyze interaction effects, automatically centering the predictor variables prior to analysis (hayes, 2022). the hayes process is presently recognized as the most suitable approach for moderation tests in the fields of psychological research and management sciences (chukwuorji et al. 2024; nwufo et al., 2023). the significance of a product term, which is the interaction of the predictor and moderator, indicates that the relationship between the predictor variable (self-esteem) and the criterion variable (fear of success) can either intensify or diminish when any of the moderators (age and gender) is present. 3. results table 1. demographic characteristics of study participants (n = 350) gender, n (%) men 176 (50.4) women 174 (49.7) age, n (%) emerging adults 155 (44.3) middle age 195 (55.9) educational status, n (%) primary school completed 24 (6.8) secondary school completed 57 (16.6) higher education 269 (77.1) marital status, n (%) never married 232 (66.3) married 118 (33.8) self-esteem, m (sd) 79.5 (9.37) fear of success, m (sd) 44.48 (6.45) in table 1, it was shown that men and women were almost equally represented in the sample. participants in middle age were slightly more in number compared to the emerging adults. by education, most of the participants were graduates from higher institutions. many of them were unmarried. the mean score for self-esteem was very high, above the norm of 30.89, which indicates that most of them, had lower self-esteem. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 65 published by scholink inc. table 2. pearson’s correlations for demographic variables, self-esteem, and fear of success variables 1 2 3 4 1 gender 2 age -.25 *** 3 educational status -.08 .19 *** 4 self-esteem .01 .01 -.02 5 fear of success .03 -.07 -.12 * .22 *** pearson‘s correlations in table 2 showed that gender was neither associated with self-esteem nor fear of success. age correlated positively with educational status but was not significantly related to any of the major variables of interest in this study. educational level was not significantly related to self-esteem, but it correlated negatively with fear of success, indicating higher fear of success for those who have a lower level of education. to further clarify the influence of the demographic factors on self-esteem and fear of success, we conducted manova tests of between-subjects effects for gender and age. result showed that men did not significantly differ from women on self-esteem, {f(1, 345) = .04, p = .851, eta 2 = .00}, and fear of success {f(1, 345) = .00, p = .953, eta 2 = .00. self-esteem mean score was 79.68 (sd = 9.37) for men and 79.75 (sd = 9.39) for women. similarly, the fear of success mean score was 44.32 (sd = 6.82) for men and 44.64 (sd = 9.39) for women. for the effect of age, emerging adults did not significantly differ from middle adults {f(1, 345) = .06, p = .803, eta 2 = .00}, and fear of success {f(1, 345) = 1.78, p = .184, eta 2 = .01}. the self-esteem mean score was 79.63 (sd = 8.97) for emerging adults and 79.84 (sd = 9.70) for middle-aged adults. similarly, the fear of success mean score was 45.02 (sd = 6.02) for emerging adults and 44.06 (sd = 6.75) for middle-aged adults. married persons (m = 80.71, sd = 9.11) did not differ from unmarried persons (m = 79.22, sd = 9.48) on self-esteem, t(347) = 1.42, p<.157. for fear of success, married persons (m = 45.31, sd = 6.35) did not differ from unmarried persons (m = 44.06, sd = 6.46) on fear of success, t(347) = -1.84, p = .047. table 3. hayes process macro results for testing the moderating role of gender on self-esteem and fear of success variables b se t p 95%ci self-esteem .15 .04 3.91 .000 [.07, .22] gender .17 .68 .25 .801 [-1.16, 1.51] self-esteem x gender -.04 .08 -.47 .638 [-.19, .11] educational status -.62 .28 -2.20 .029 [-1.18, -.07] note. se = standard error of b www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 66 published by scholink inc. in table 3, it was shown that self-esteem was significantly associated with fear of success. given that higher scores on the index of self-esteem (which was the measure of self-esteem in this study) indicate low self-esteem, the b indicated that for each unit rise in low self-esteem, fear of success increases by .15 units. gender was not significantly associated with fear of success. the association between self-esteem and fear of success was not moderated by gender as the interaction effect of the two variables was not significant. the association of self-esteem and fear of success was significant for men (b = .17, p = .007) and women (b = .13, p = .004). educational status was included in the regression model as a control variable due to its significant relationship with fear of success in the correlations. it was found confirmed that higher educational status was associated with reductions in fear of success. table 4. hayes process macro results for testing the moderating role of age on self-esteem and fear of success variables b se t p 95%ci self-esteem .15 .04 4.02 .000 [.08, .23] age -.74 .67 -1.09 .275 [-2.06, .59] self-esteem x age -.06 .08 -.79 .432 [-.21, .09] educational status -.56 .29 -1.95 .052 [-1.12, .01] note. se = standard error of b in table 4, age did not moderate the association between self-esteem and fear of success as the interaction effect of the two variables was not significant. the association of self-esteem and fear of success was significant for both emerging adults (b = .19, p = .002) and midlife adults (b = .13, p = .011). 4. discussion our study investigated the association between self-esteem and fear of success as well as the moderating roles of gender and age in the relationship between self-esteem and fear of success among workers in a nigerian university. consistent with our earlier hypothesis, result showed that participants with low self-esteem reported higher fear of success. this result corroborates previous findings that those with low self-esteem may doubt their ability to succeed, thereby becoming hesitant to engage in learning tasks or take the right academic growth risks (apa, 2021; honarmand et al., 2005; kaur & kaur, 2018; stanculescu, 2013). people must feel appreciated to develop a healthy, aspiring, accomplishing, sense of self (i.e., high self-esteem) to be able to surmount fear of success. since self-esteem is a global, personal judgment of worthiness that is characterized by an evaluative component of the self, those high in esteem do not usually fear success because success has been positively evaluated in line with their esteem (carl & rabstejnek, 2015; crocker & major, 2009). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 67 published by scholink inc. we expected that women would report higher fear of success than men. this hypothesis was not supported as our result showed that mean did not differ from women in fear of success. this finding is inconsistent with findings of extant research showing that women reported higher fear of success than men (andré & metzler, 2011; forbes & king, 1983; pedersen & conlin, 1987), kaur & kaur, 2018). however, some other findings support the lack of gender differences in fear of success (brenner & tomkiewicz, 1982). perhaps, the recent developments in women empowerment and support for career development of female folks may have helped to reduce the tendency of women to be afraid of success. moreso, the contemporary nigerian society does not seem to provide ample opportunities for the realization of personal goals by many people who live in the country. hence, no gender may be favoured to climb higher than the other in such difficult and highly challenging situation. we hypothesized that younger people would report greater fear of success than older people, but this hypothesis was not supported. there were no age differences in fear of success. past research in western cultures reported that younger persons were more likely to fear success than older people (froelich, 1996; hoffman, 1977; ishiyama & charassol, 1984; ishiyama et al., 1985; orpen, 1989; popp & muhs, 1982). ordinarily, exposure to a particular task at an early age will incite anxiety due to inexperience and eventual fear of success unlike exposure to the same tasks at an older age. however, our research agrees with zuckerman and wheeler‘s (1975) finding that there were no age differences in fear of success. advancements in modern technology may have helped to provide the younger generation with some advantages that would help them feel well placed to attain their goals. while the older people may have more experiences in life, their limitations in the use of the pervasive modern technology in their daily lives may limit their sense of having an edge over the young people. hence there may be equality in the fear of success for the age groups. gender did not moderate the association between self-esteem and fear of success. specifically, low self-esteem was almost equally associated with fear of success in both men and women. we anticipated that self-esteem would be more strongly associated with fear of success for men compared to women. this finding is consistent with extant research showing that self-esteem was significantly associated with fear of success in male and female americans (stericker, 1976), but does not align with evidence that self-efficacy, which is related to self-esteem, was more strongly associated with performance for boys than girls (gor et al., 2020). we earlier reported the lack of gender differences in fear of success, and this may be one of the reasons for the lack of differences in how self-esteem influences fear of success. age did not moderate the association between self-esteem and fear of success such that the association between self-esteem and fear of success was significant for the age groups. we anticipated that the relationship between self-esteem and age would be stronger for younger people compared to older people. this hypothesis was not supported. hence the influence of low self-esteem on fear of success is potent for all age groups. this area requires further research explorations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 68 published by scholink inc. 4.1 limitations and suggestions for future research our study is not without limitations. for instance, the sample size of our study does not permit generalizations across cultures. in the same vein, individual differences and interests in terms of an aspect of success and socioeconomic status, which definitely would have ensured a more homogenous population, were not factored into the sampling process. subsequent studies should consider such differences and perhaps capture other diversities that might impact fear of success. again, being a cross-sectional study, our data did not allow for full inferences about causal directionality. as self-report measures were adopted in the study, there is the possibility of response biases as participants may either have made socially acceptable answers rather than being truthful or be unable to accurately assess themselves. equally, the tools employed in this study, like the index of self-esteem and fear of success are merely screening tests to identify members of groups thought to have been predisposed to low self-esteem and fear of success but are not necessarily diagnostic tools. therefore, future studies should consider making more causal inferences, perhaps from a more controlled experimental investigation as well as cross-cultural variances. we did not also take into account several ways people view successes as success seems to be relative and subjective. this area should be explored further. finally, selection bias could have undermined the internal validity of the study. nonetheless, this can only be ascertained when further studies are conducted while taking into consideration the issues raised. we acknowledge this as a limitation of the sampling technique adopted and advise the exercise of caution in making generalizations from these findings. as a result of these limitations stated above, it is recommended that future studies ensure adequate representativeness and increased homogeneity to enhances generalizations of the findings. 4.2 conclusion the present study provided explored moderation effects for the association between self-esteem and fear of success. gender and age did not moderate the association between self-esteem and fear of success as the interaction of the two moderator variables were not significant. however, it is important to note that the associations between self-esteem and fear of success were significant for males and females as well as emerging adults and midlife adults respectively. hence, our study recommended that boosting people‘s sense of esteem will help overcome fear of success. acknowledgement we thank the dean, faculty of law, abia state university uturu for their support in the data collection for this study. declarations: all authors declare that they have no potential competing interests. ethics approval and informed consent: this study was approved by the psychology research ethics committee of the university of nigeria nsukka. all participants provided written informed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 69 published by scholink inc. consent prior to enrolment in the study. data availability statement: the data that support the findings of this study are available from the first author, [ktuo], upon request. funding: authors did not receive any funding for the present study. references andré, n., & metzler, j. n. 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(1975). to dispel fantasies about the fantasy-based the measure of fear of success. psychological bulletin, 82(6), 932-946. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 10 original paper academic collaborative efforts to promote stem equity in high needs schools nancy k. dejarnette1*, ruba s. deeb1 & jani pallis1 1 university of bridgeport, college of engineering, business, and education, bridgeport, ct, usa * nancy k. dejarnette, university of bridgeport, college of engineering, business, and education, bridgeport, ct, usa received: june 29, 2021 accepted: july 9, 2021 online published: july 21, 2021 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n3p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n3p10 abstract america is at risk of facing a shortage of workers in stem fields in the near future because lack of interest by its youth. it is well known that providing early exposure for p-12 students to engaging science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) experiences can lead to lifelong learning and positively impact future career decisions. this manuscript describes one university’s collective efforts to bring equity to stem education for an urban high needs school district in the northeastern part of the united states through various stem initiatives over a five-year period. through multiple projects and initiatives targeting both p-12 students and their teachers, descriptive results revealed a positive impact while pinpointing areas that still require attention. p-12 students indicated an increase in stem knowledge and an increased interest in stem careers following exposure to various stem lessons and interactive experiences. p-12 teachers specified that professional development (pd) they received from university faculty as well as engaging in stem experiences with their students enhanced their confidence in their ability to incorporate stem lessons within their classrooms. an urban partner administrator viewed these various stem initiatives as vital in their quest to bring equity for stem education to their diverse student population. keywords stem initiatives, stem education, high needs schools, urban education, stem equity 1. introduction over the past decade, much has changed in the united states regarding stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. in 2010, the president’s council of advisors on science and technology report stated that the united states fell behind other developed nations in stem education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 11 published by scholink inc. in k-12 schools with american students underperforming. concurrently, the national center for education statistics (2009) and the national science board (2010) also reported on how european and asian global competitors in developed countries were surpassing the american workforce in stem careers. the stem education fire was fueled in 2009 by president obama launching the “educate to innovate” campaign (obama, 2013) to stimulate american k-12 students’ performance in math and science. this article describes multiple strategies that a small urban university in the northeast strategically implemented in stem and steam (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) initiatives that targeted high-needs p-12 students as well as provided professional development (pd) for their teachers in efforts to stimulate stem education in their small corner of america. results herein highlight both successes and struggles in p-12 stem education efforts and present recommendations for alleviating some of the burdens. 2. literature review 2.1 importance of p-12 stem education a great emphasis has been placed on increasing stem education and the production of stem workers in the united states (obama 2016). it has been stated that the future of the american economy rests largely in the ability of our country to keep up with the demand for stem professionals (al salami et al., 2017). even with the increased attention on stem over the past decade, a projected shortage remains for stem workers to fill the job demands of the future (national center for science and engineering statistics [ncses], 2017; national science board, 2018). in the digital world that we have become, the near future forecasts the need for highly trained professional stem workers, particularly in math and computer science (fees et al., 2018). as our global society continues to advance technologically, consumer demands increase the growing need for stem professionals in these highly trained areas. fees et al. (2018) also state, that although many high school age students enjoy technology and computers, there tends to be a lack of interest in these same careers stating, “there are more computer science related jobs than there are graduates qualified to fill these positions” (p. 1). the need for these highly trained stem professionals is well known and acknowledged. however, an important question remains: what initiatives are undertaken in american p-12 schools to address these deficits? while much progress has been made over the past decade to reach and motivate american school children in the areas of stem, more work remains to fill the gaps. this attention to stem has changed instruction in p-12 schools, although not equally across all schools. schools have begun to create unofficial academic and curricular pipelines to encourage students to pursue stem disciplines (lyon et al., 2012; ralston et al., 2013). this pipeline begins with more stem course offerings to students in high schools, although the challenge remains to find teachers qualified to teach these stem courses as many professionals choose fields in industry over education (fees et al., 2018). in order to prepare students for advanced math, science, and technology courses in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 12 published by scholink inc. high school, students also need to take advanced courses in middle school. the pipeline extends to the elementary and early childhood levels as well. the need exists to expose young children to stem in order to spark their interest so that they will have the desire during their middle school and high school years to engage in and perform well in math and science. this early exposure to stem for young children helps to develop and prepare their 21st century skill set (dejarnette, 2018a). within the past decade, this new awareness for stem education has led many states to adopt new k-12 standards such as the common core state standards (ccss) in reading and math, and the next generation science standards (ncss). these standards are tied to 21st century competencies (pearson, 2017). 2.2 struggles with k-12 stem implementation while there is an increased awareness regarding the need for enhanced stem education and workforce in america, there are numerous challenges for p-12 schools in meeting those needs. according to proudfoot et al. (2018), “among the challenges of fully teaching stem are limitations in teacher education, efficacy, and skill in stem topics” (p. 20). as teachers are the driving force in any educational setting, they also hold the working keys to enhance student learning. one of the challenges that came with the introduction of stem and the ngss framework was the integrated curriculum of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, coupled with teachers’ lack of training in disciplines outside of their certification area (ring-whalen et al., 2018). as a result, professional development is necessary in order to assist teachers with the nature of integrated curricular models and connected subjects that they are less familiar with, such as engineering (neebel, 2015). pearson (2017) states that, “one limiting factor to teacher effectiveness is teachers’ content knowledge in the subjects being taught” (p. 225). in order to be truly effective in teaching the integrated stem curriculum, teachers need support in building their stem content knowledge, teaching practices, and resources. guiterrez (2016) states, “we must have science teachers who are not only on the cutting edge of content and pedagogy, but also passionate and dedicated to engaging all children, regardless of their zip codes”. teachers of stem need to be passionate about the content they are teaching in order to inspire kids to pursue stem career paths. according to the president’s council of advisors on science and technology 2010, “the problem is not just a lack of proficiency, there is also a lack of interest in stem fields among many students” (prepare & inspire, 2010). young students often fear math and science because of a personal struggle with the content or the apathetic approach to instruction from their teachers. many teachers lack pedagogical skills to teaching stem which results in either shying away from it or heavily relying on textbooks to teach the content. when teachers lack confidence in teaching the integrated curriculum, they can impart to their students their same feelings of negativity, fear, lack of confidence, and apathy for stem subjects. in order for students’ perceptions and interests towards stem to be sparked, teachers need professional development to help them build self-efficacy, positive attitudes, collaborative environments with peers, and the ability to develop engaging instructional strategies (al salami et al., 2017; knight et al., 2015). dejarnette (2018b) previously www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 13 published by scholink inc. stated: “if children do not receive exposure to engaging activities in stem during their k-12 years, they are much less likely to pursue it during their undergraduate university years. the lack of science exposure for elementary students can be detrimental to building positive attitudes as well as their own perceived abilities (self-efficacy)” (p. 107). an additional road block that often inhibits the development of stem education in american schools is the lack of funding. budget cuts in american education over the past several years have greatly diminished the enhancement of stem education in p-12 schools. financial resources are needed in order to successfully implement the integrated stem curriculum in schools through teacher training, classroom materials, teacher collaborative planning time and the availability of technology (pearson, 2017). 2.3 the “e” in stem common problem-based-learning (pbl) activities in stem classrooms today reflect the cognitive thought processes of engineers and are referred to as engineering design challenges (grubbs et al., 2018; alemdar et al., 2018). design challenge integrated learning experiences are now the preferred method of teaching stem as these problem-solving practices are critical features of engineering education (bartholomew et al., 2018). thornburg (2009) believes that engineering is the glue that holds stem together. oftentimes in schools, an attempt to focus on stem can sometimes lead to “siloing” science and math as separate entities. it is the engineering piece that often brings everything together making stem truly interdisciplinary. engineering design challenges require the integration of the stem subjects, and now teachers oftentimes include art in the design concepts and refer to it as “steam”. the engineering piece however is what teachers struggle with the most when implementing stem into their curriculum (wang & nam, 2015). previously, engineering education was not part of preservice teacher training at any level, however, now that it is part of the ngss framework, it has become more commonplace, but much work still needs to be done. the ngss framework focuses on three core ideas within the engineering component for k-12 students which are: defining and delimiting engineering problems, designing solutions to engineering problems, and optimizing the design solution (ngss lead states, 2013). these components of the engineering design challenge at the kindergarten level is very similar to the components at the high school level. the engineering design process of ask, imagine, plan, create, and improve sets the stage for an engineering design challenge that is aligned to the ngss components (jackson et al., 2011). what makes the engineering design challenge learning segment unique is that it teaches students to work within certain identified constraints and limitations just as engineers do. these constraints could be materials, budget, or even time. these processes give k-12 students the opportunity to innovate and to operate within the realm of stem in order to understand real world problem solving. alemdar et al. (2018) share their hypotheses that “applied engineering experiences that require active engagement with foundational mathematics and science www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 14 published by scholink inc. practices will lead to increased student engagement, self-efficacy, persistence, and academic achievement in stem” (p. 364). 2.4 urban education and stem it is no secret that not only does the united states struggle to keep up with the demand for skilled stem workers, but there is an underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities as well as females in stem fields (ncses, 2017). despite the development of many programs and initiatives to increase stem education, underrepresented minorities, constituting 40% of the u.s. population, remain alarmingly underserved in stem fields (nacme, 2017; prepare and inspire, 2010). it has been determined that stem education can bring social equity by providing engaging experiences for all students to increase students’ competencies in math and science (peters, 2018). however, even with the best intentions at hand, school districts that serve low-income families receive fewer stem initiatives than wealthier districts (khan & rodrigues, 2017). gutierrez (2016) writes “and yet, in spite of all this attention [to stem], we continue to struggle when it comes to getting excellent, well-trained science teachers in front of all children—not just those who live in our wealthiest districts or attend private schools”. quality stem instruction embodies all students with an emphasis on problem solving and engagement with the integrated subjects. providing quality stem instruction for all students enhances stem literacy through increased academic achievement, collaboration, and critical thinking resulting in more inclusive classrooms (powell et al., 2018; alemdar et al., 2018; fees et al., 2018). 3. stem outreach initiatives in light of the american struggles to attract and produce quality stem professionals from our youth, there has been a surge in stem outreach initiatives across all levels. as mentioned previously, stem education within the p-12 schools has increased over the past decade in order to create pipelines for students to pursue stem careers. in addition, there has also been a push for universities, scientists, and corporate america to create stem outreach initiatives to attract american youth as well. boone and marsteller (2011) state that while recruiting stem professionals and university students to provide engaging stem outreach activities for young students, they often do not have the training and the skills to reach this population. other entities have also provided strong stem and engineering initiatives for youth through after school programs, coding robotics competitions, and mobile laboratories. robelen (2013) advocates for engineering design activities in schools stating, “a top pitch is the power of the engineering-design process to engage young people and bring math and science concepts to life with practical, real-world applications…” while engineering design challenges provide engaging stem experiences for p-12 students, its presence is not consistently spread across all schools and levels. many students go through their entire p-12 years without having experienced a single engineering lesson, even with today’s heightened attention to stem education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. 3.1 teacher professional development (pd) in stem one goal for university faculty is to provide much needed professional development (pd) for p-12 teachers in local urban centers as well as in high needs schools state-wide. with the state adoption of the ngss in late november 2015, it was anticipated that pd would be needed for teachers on how to navigate the new standards, integrate the stem disciplines, and provide instruction in engineering at the various grade levels (ngss lead states, 2013). research has shown that pd can help fill the gaps for teachers regarding content knowledge, teaching strategies, and identifying valuable resources (nadelson et al., 2013). engineering education is a new piece of the puzzle within the ngss framework that requires teachers to implement engineering concepts and practices into the curricula in all grades, from primary grades through high school (nrc, 2012). engineering education can be intimidating to many teachers, particularly at the elementary level, who feel unprepared to teach the newest stem concepts represented in the ngss standards (goffin & clegg, 2014; duncan et al., 2011). teachers unpreparedness to teach engineering education often negatively impacts their self-efficacy and dispositions towards stem, which in turn can negatively influence their students (wang & nam, 2015). nugent et al. (2010) report that pd in truly integrated stem experiences resulted in a positive increase in teachers’ self-efficacy and dispositions towards stem. providing quality pd for k-12 teachers can therefore serve as a catalyst for improving student learning and achievement in the areas of engineering education and stem (thornburg, 2009; dejarnette, 2012). 3.2 theoretical framework the framework behind the stem initiatives described herein by a small university in the northeastern part of the united states incorporates both vygotsky’s constructivist learning theory and sociocultural theory, as well as bandura’s social learning theory. 3.2.1 constructivism lev vygotsky (1978) presented that learning is student-centered and the instructional focus is on students working together to find solutions to problems. the constructivist theory proposes that people learn best by doing, and they actively construct knowledge by interacting with their surroundings, other learners, and facilitators (schunk, 2016). vygotsky’s sociocultural theory poses that people learn best in a social environment through hands-on activities, where students interact with each other to grapple for solutions to learning challenges. this pedagogical approach to collaborative learning aligns both with the piagetian constructivism model and the vygotskian constructivism model (schunk, 2016). 3.2.2 social learning theory albert bandura (1971) presented that learners develop understanding through interaction with and observation of their environment. bandura posed that people learn from models where the processes of attention, retention, production, and motivation are involved to produce new behaviors (schunk, 2016). by working collaboratively with peers and receiving guidance from a facilitator (teacher), this theory posits that students learn through active engagement with a problem. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. these theories fully represent the advocacy of engaging, hands-on, collaborative, authentic problem-based learning of truly integrated stem lessons described in this paper. not only do p-12 students grow and develop through experiences with such integrated stem curricula, but thrive and are successful. 4. methodology 4.1 demographics and populations targeted the university resides in the northeastern part of the united states and is situated within an urban setting, with both undergraduate and graduate populations in 125 different majors. the university has an estimated 5,000 students enrolled each year. a group of faculty and staff members have collaborated on various stem outreach projects over the past five years and are represented by the school of education, school of engineering, and the school of arts and sciences. this university collaborative effort provided stem outreach to urban high-needs schools where p-12 students are largely minorities and represent underserved populations. the goal was to reach p-12 students through early exposure to stem content and disciplines with hopes to attract these minority youths to future careers in stem. throughout this manuscript, stem and steam are used interchangeably where some projects had a stem focus without highlighting the arts, but the arts were still present and played an equally important role in design and creativity. 4.1.1 urban city demographics the urban location for this high-needs school district is a city with approximately 150,000 people. the median household income in 2017 was around $45,000 per year, which is well below the state average (city-data, 2020). ethnicities of the city population included 40% hispanic, 35% african american, and 19% caucasian. the crime index of this city is 341.6, which is well above the u.s. average of 274.0. the difficult urban issues which surround this city are similar to other urban centers around the united states with 20.4% of residents living in poverty (city-data, 2020). 4.2 description of stem initiatives and results all the studies and projects described below, which include data collection methods from human subjects, were approved by the university’s institutional review board (irb) and were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the irb committee and “with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards”. the variety of stem initiative projects and those impacted by each are described below and listed in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. table 1. stem projects and initiatives with the number of p-12 students, teachers, and administrator participants projects and initiatives p-12 students p-12 teachers university faculty p-12 administrators preschool steam pd 45 50 1 1 stem pd for k-12 urban science teachers 49 4 steam pd and push-in project ~285 15 1 2 family engineering events ~450 25 1 4 student spaceflight experiments project, 2017 ~300 3 1 3 student spaceflight experiments project, 2018 ~400 4 1 4 stem-on-wheels mobile laboratory ~3,500 200 5 10 university’s engineers week ~300 2 10 cyber robotics coding competition 126 30 6 4.3 preschool steam professional development (pd) this qualitative survey-based research study provided pd for all preschool teachers in the local urban center on the integration of steam into their curriculum during the 2015-16 academic year. the preschool teachers received two full days of professional development (pd) that were three months apart. these pd workshops involved 50 in-service preschool teachers instructing children ages three to five. ninety percent of the teachers were female with the majority of them being african-american. data collection for the study consisted of a pre-survey and a post-survey with a 5-point likert scale related to their comfort level in teaching steam lessons with their preschoolers. some teacher participants were interviewed and the researcher recorded field observations to round out the methodology for the triangulated data collection as recommended by fraenkel and wallen (2003). this research was funded by a university seed grant initiative. the workshops included an overview of the ngss, early engineering education, modeled hands-on steam lessons incorporating the children’s engineering design loop (jackson et al., 2011), and stem learning centers. the modeled whole-class steam lessons utilized children’s literature and everyday recyclable materials. during the final pd workshop, the researcher conducted several random teacher interviews which were recorded to ensure transcription accuracy with member checks as recommended by fraenkel and wallen (2003). the findings of this study revealed that six out of the twelve survey questions indicated a statistically significant positive change from the pre-survey to the post-survey as indicated by the teachers’ levels of efficacy in their ability to plan and implement steam lessons with their preschool students (dejarnette, 2018a). findings also demonstrated an increase in the preschool teachers’ levels of self-efficacy in teaching steam, as well as an increase in their dispositions towards stem. it was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. determined that additional research was needed for determining the rate of implementation of steam activities after such pd as many teachers indicated that although they enjoyed and valued the pd, they did not actually implement steam activities within their classrooms. albeit, the two projects described directly below were designed to further probe how pd can be enhanced so that teachers feel more confident and empowered to implement stem activities in their classrooms. 4.4 stem pd for k-12 urban science teachers this qualitative case study was designed to fill the need for pd for urban science teachers in implementing the newly adopted ngss and engineering education (dejarnette, mcculloch, ngoh, & badara, 2020). the research project was funded by the nasa connecticut space grant consortium and consisted of a three-day pd workshop that ran consecutively for two summers, 2016 and 2017. the workshops were offered in two large urban centers and served 49 teachers overall, with 26 agreeing to participate in the study. the qualitative data collection methods consisted of focus groups, random teacher interviews, and researcher field observations during the pd workshops regarding the teachers’ self-efficacy and dispositions regarding stem teaching. the researchers served as participant observers (dewalt & dewalt, 2011) as they were directly involved in the pd workshops serving as facilitators. this case study revealed an increase in teachers’ self-efficacy and dispositions regarding integrated stem teaching. the greatest increases as reported by the participants manifested in the area of teacher self-efficacy in their ability to plan and implement stem lessons as a result of the pd. in addition, teachers also indicated continued challenges to stem implementation such as lack of funding, limited pd, and limited instructional time. one limitation to this research is that the teachers self-selected themselves for the pd offering, thus indicating a possible pre-disposition toward stem learning (dejarnette et al., 2020). 4.5 steam pd and push-in project previous research studies revealed that although pd had a positive effect on teachers’ dispositions and self-efficacy towards steam teaching, the teachers were still reluctant to fully implement the instruction within their classrooms (dejarnette, 2018a). in response to this dilemma, a new project was designed whereby in addition to providing pd for the teachers on steam, resources were made available through a grant, and instructional modeling was provided by the researcher (pushed-in) within the classrooms to facilitate the steam lessons with students. the project was funded by the nasa connecticut space grant consortium over a two-year academic period from 2016 to 2018. data collection was similar to the aforementioned project involving pre/post teacher surveys, teacher interviews, and field observations where the researcher was a participant observer. therefore, the researcher worked with grade level teams in an urban k-8 school to provide pd instruction, resources and the modeling with students of steam engineering design lessons that were literature-based. each steam lesson was grade level appropriate, ngss aligned, initiated through children’s literature, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. followed the engineering design loop (jackson et al., 2011). results of this project also showed an increase in teachers’ self-efficacy and dispositions towards steam instruction, but more importantly, many of the teachers that received hands-on pd are now regularly implementing stem lessons in their classrooms on their own. the school principal recently reported that 70% of teachers from this study are regularly implementing steam lessons at least 1-2 times per month. 4.6 family engineering events according to jackson et al. (2011), “family engineering is an informal engineering educational program that actively engages elementary-aged children and their families in fun, hands-on, engineering activities” (p. 1). as such, these family events were organized and facilitated in two area schools. the first event was part of the “push-in” research project described above and was provided for students in grades 3-5 in this urban school in spring 2018. the event drew approximately 100 participants including the students and their families. the second event was offered later that spring in a suburban elementary school for students in grades 4-5 and drew approximately 350 students with their families. during these events, both students and their parents experienced positive and engaging engineering challenges which incorporated their collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. 4.7 student spaceflight experiments program (ssep) faculty members at the university had the opportunity to facilitate two sseps, in 2017 with area urban high school students and in 2018 with undergraduate students. these ssep projects were funded by grants from the nasa connecticut space grant consortium, the university, and the supporting high school. the ssep immerses students and faculty in real science where students work in teams of 3-5 to competitively design science experiments to be conducted in microgravity onboard the international space station (iss) (national center for earth and space science education (ncesse), 2019). another focus of the ssep is to engage younger students in the projects as well. for both years of involvement, a university faculty team member worked with five k-12 schools in the same urban school district where students competitively designed (3.5 x 3.5 inch) mission patches, with two winning patches flown onboard the iss along with the selected ssep microgravity experiment. each year, over 300 k-12 students designed mission patches for the competition, with the university faculty and community partners judging and awarding the two patches selected for actual space flight. these patches were later framed and returned to the schools with an official “flown in space” certificate. the ssep experience had a phenomenal impact on a large number of k-16 students providing authentic real world stem exposure. 4.8 stem-on-wheels mobile laboratory project the stem-on-wheels mobile laboratory project is an ongoing multi-grant-funded collaborative project between the university and a local science museum. the team received a donated city bus that was then www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. modified and retrofitted to resemble a science laboratory. the ultimate goals of this project are to provide exposure to rich technology and hands-on lessons that are ngss aligned for k-12 grade students in this large high-needs urban district. the team designed inquiry-based stem lessons to be conducted in and around the stem-on-wheels mobile laboratory. facilitation of lesson instruction is provided by university engineering, science, math, and education students. stem lesson emphasis is on providing engaging stem technology that urban school children would not otherwise have access to while at the same time support integration of ngss science content standards. it was hypothesized that through the provision of resources, hands-on stem lessons, and unique lesson delivery using the mobile stem laboratory, there would be an increase in the k-12 students’ knowledge, skills, and dispositions regarding stem content and disciplines. it was also hypothesized that the k-12 classroom teachers would welcome the much-needed incorporation of ngss-aligned hands-on stem activities into their curriculum and that they would show an increase in their knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy regarding stem content and lesson delivery. this would then result in an increase in the rate of implementation of stem lessons within their classrooms. data collection for this project included electronic student preand post-surveys, teacher preand post-surveys, teacher interviews and/or focus groups, and field observations. after utilization of the stem-on-wheels lessons with their students, survey results shown in figure 1a reveal a 25% increase in teachers expressing confidence in their ability to incorporate stem activities for their students and a proportional decrease in their apprehension towards stem activities in the classroom. albeit none of teachers felt that they have received adequate training and/or professional development on how to implement integrated stem instruction with their students. survey results also indicated an increase in student knowledge and positive dispositions towards stem. a key finding shown in figure 1b was that student interest in considering stem careers when they grew older increased post-exposure to stem-on-wheels lesson activities. figure 1. (a) confidence of p-12 teachers in their ability to incorporate stem activities for students, (b) p-12 student interest in pursuing stem careers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. 4.9 university’s engineers week the university’s school of engineering held its first engineer’s week formal event targeting k-12 students and the urban community in spring 2018, and then again in 2019. this was a collaborative event which involved both undergraduate and graduate engineering students from various student engineering organizations as well as faculty from the school of engineering and the school of education. this event targeted k-12 students in the same local urban school district mentioned in earlier initiatives and provided attendees with hands-on engineering activities in an informal exposition-type setting. during this event, students had the opportunity to visit and explore different stations such as a 3-d printer in action, a robot that walks and talks, an interactive digital mirror, make-it and take-it activities, and some brief stem challenges just to name a few. k-12 students and families enjoyed engaging in conversation with university students and faculty at both events. 4.10 cyber robotics coding competition (crcc) the university’s college of engineering, business, and education started hosting the crcc connecticut state finals competition in december 2018 and again in 2019. this annual crcc event involves middle school students in grades 5-8 where they have an opportunity to code a virtual robot on a computer using a cloud-based platform. this innovative virtual competition brings equity and exposure to stem and computer programming in a fun environment while introducing students to the college campus. students work in teams of 1-2 to “complete missions that introduce them to mechanics, physics and programming accompanied by math, science, and engineering principals” (cyber robotics coding competition, 2019). the university partners with crcc and awards each first, second and third place finishers with a $1000 college scholarship to the university. 5. discussion with an underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in stem fields in america, urban youth exposure is of utmost importance (ncses, 2017). despite great efforts in recent past, school districts that serve low-income families continue to receive fewer stem initiatives than wealthier districts (khan & rodrigues, 2017). these same urban schools struggle to recruit and maintain talented diverse science teachers for all students, thus presenting a gap of quality stem experiences for urban youth (gutierrez, 2016). this paper describes numerous stem outreach efforts that one university has initiated within its local urban school district. through the initiatives described herein, this university has provided stem exposure for an estimated 5,400 p-12 students and nearly 200 urban teachers over the past five years. through the analysis of multiple outcomes from the described initiatives, this manuscript brings to the foreground a critical problem that limits p-12 stem exposure. 5.1 impact of early exposure of stem/steam initiatives the overall data from these early stem exposures and initiatives indicate positive effects on both students and their teachers’ dispositions regarding stem. table 1 showed the populations impacted by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. these stem initiatives. the largest population receiving exposure were k-12 students at > 80 %. the limited but consistent findings of the various stem initiatives described here demonstrate a positive impact on all involved in the early exposure experiences. p-12 students indicated positive experiences with the stem outreach activities and p-12 teachers indicated feeling slightly more confident in their abilities to plan stem instruction for their students as a result of experiencing the various stem initiatives. nevertheless, p-12 teachers continue to display apprehension in the implementation of stem activities. it is noteworthy that in all events described here that required student and teacher involvement, when p-12 teachers displayed apprehension and disengagement, students displayed similar tendencies. conversely, when p-12 teachers displayed excitement and were engaged in the activities with their students, outcomes were very positive. therefore, p-12 teacher’s positive disposition towards stem is concomitant with successful implementation of stem in the classroom. 5.2 limitations limitations of these stem initiatives include that the activities were largely conducted within one urban school district in the northeastern part of the united states by one local university’s efforts. these limitations evolved due to the nature of working in high-needs schools as cooperation from parents and teachers was inconsistent. these inconsistencies impacted the ability to collect large numbers of consistent data from these schools. it is also noted that data collection was not necessary for every initiative described in this paper. that being said, the purpose of this paper is to describe the stem outreach initiatives between one university and a local urban school district with an attempt at measuring the impact of early exposure to stem experiences of p-12 students and their teachers. 6. conclusion and recommendations the development of our own stem professionals in america translates to motivating our youth to pursue these careers. that motivation comes through positive engaging experiences with science, technology, engineering and math, (stem). one way to ensure that p-12 students have these positive experiences with stem is to provide quality pre-service and in-service training for teachers in both pedagogy as well as content knowledge. this is in agreement with the literature as gutierrez (2016) states, “a high-quality science and engineering education for every child would have a positive impact on our nation, ensuring that all students are prepared to face the science and engineering challenges of the 21st century”. there are many lessons learned during these experiences that will help overcome challenges to stem implementation in p-12 high needs schools and the broader community. we have identified several criteria that have positively impacted the stem initiatives described, such as the importance of collaborative hands-on learning for students. when engaging hands-on stem activities are relevant and connected to their current instruction, it becomes even more impactful. these collaborative authentic stem learning experiences not only engage today’s youth, but also inspires them to achieve www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. a level of stem knowledge that they never even imagined or conceived for themselves. one goal is to jump-start students’ interest in stem through offering a variety of stem experiences and exposures through real-world projects. a secondary goal is to positively impact students’ dispositions towards stem through interactions with scientists and other stem professionals on a personal level. umali (2020) had a similar goal and stated, “in this way, students can hopefully begin to see stem as a career path not just limited to those who have already been labeled as “smart””. it is important to foster this type of learning environment, particularly for students in high needs urban settings such as the one described in this paper where more than 90% are students of color and significantly underrepresented in today’s stem career professionals. with an increased attention to stem education over the past decade, a projected shortage remains for stem workers to fill the job demands of the future (national center for science and engineering statistics [ncses] 2017; national science board 2018). according to umali (2020), “the united states needs to raise its investment in science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) to remain globally competitive”. one university’s response to this alarming statistic was to work together with local school partners to provide various engaging stem initiatives for students and teachers alike with the goal of bringing equity to stem education in high needs schools. 6.1 strategic plan for overcoming limitations in stem education the stem initiatives presented here have helped to identify several recommendations for stimulating students’ interest in stem disciplines and careers. p-12 school administrative leadership and vision in support of stem education is crucial to overcoming stem education barriers in p-12 schools, particularly in urban settings. in this context, supporting the teachers with sustained mentorship is necessary and includes: 1) extensive collaboration with university faculty to help embed stem curricula where available, 2) application of problem-based learning through authentic experiences where children collaborate in problem-based learning in a social setting, 3) implement and engage in available community stem activities and experiences to support and extend schools’ stem curricula., and 4) introduce positive experiences that engage older students in real-world stem applications such as internships at university research labs and/or engineering firms and companies. through a targeted effort to train and support p-12 teachers, as well as partnering with schools to engage students in high quality stem experiences, resides the hope to positively influence the outcome of young american stem professionals in the near future. references alemdar, m., moore, r. a., lingle, j. a., rosen, j., gale, j., & usselman, m. c. 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(2018). creating inclusive prek-12 stem learning environments. waltham, ma: education development center. retrieved from http://cadrek12.org/resources/broadening-participation-policy-practice-brief prepare and inspire k-12 science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) education for america’s future. (2010). education digest, 76(4), 42-46. president’s council of advisors in science and technology. (2010). prepare and inspire: k-12 education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) for america’s future. washington, dc: white house office of science and technology policy. proudfoot, d. e., green, m., otter, j. w., & cook, d. l. (2018). stem certification in georgia’s schools: a causal comparative study using the georgia student growth model. georgia educational researcher, 15(1), article 2, 14-38. https://doi.org/10.20429/ger.2018.15102 ralston, p. s., hieb, j. l., & rivoli, g. (2013). partnerships and experience in building stem pipelines. journal of professional issues in engineering education & practice, 139(2), 156-162. https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)ei.1943-5541.0000138 robelen, e. w. (2013). k-12 bolsters ties to engineering. education week, 32(26), 1-19. schunk, d. h. (2016). learning theories: an educational perspective (7th ed.). boston, ma: pearson education inc. shultz, r., ueda, d. e., ward, j. s., & fontecchio, a. k. (2015). a hands-on, arduino-based approach to develop student engineering skills and introduce cybersecurity concepts to k-12 students. proceedings of the asee annual conference & exposition, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.18260/p.23395 thornburg, d. (2009). hands and minds: why engineering is the glue holding stem together. thornburg center for space exploration. retrieved from http://www.tcse k12.org/pages/hands.pdf umali, a. (2020). the case for mentoring as a pathway to promote student interest in stem. nyas u.s. bureau of labor statistics (2019, april 12). employment projections: employment by major www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 3, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. occupational group. retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/emp-by-major occupational-group.htm vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. wang, h., & nam, y. (2015). exploring the impact of a stem integration teacher professional development program on secondary science and mathematics teachers’ perceptions of engineering and their attitude toward engineering integrated teaching. journal of the korean earth science society, 36(5), 484-499. https://doi.org/10.5467/jkess.2015.36.5.484 education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 68 original paper semiotics of the image: addressing the different types of mental operation and their sematic interpretation euphrosyne efthimiadou 1* 1 department of aeronautical sciences, hellenic air force academy, dekeleia, greece * euphrosyne efthimiadou, department of aeronautical sciences, hellenic air force academy, dekeleia, greece received: may 13, 2020 accepted: may 21, 2020 online published: may 25, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n1p68 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n1p68 abstract our era is dominated by the prevailing presence of images. the spectator often identifies with the characters and aims to interpret the signs evoked by the objects, since every image is governed by codes. if we look at the history of image semiotics, we observe a cognitive and pragmatic approac h. according to kant, the images we receive from the environment are not simply reproductions but often creative productions based on patterns generated by the imagination. according to recent research in semiotics, we observe that the pragmatic approach is extended by a study of stimuli collected by the environment. on the other hand, köhler’s theory of gestalt considers perception as a pre-conscious activity, linking visual semiology with the functional interpretation of perception. in addition, tardy brings into focus strategies of visual communication by highlighting the semiotic status of represented objects. for this reason, it is essential to deepen the versatility of the field o f semantic interpretation of a visual support from different types of mental operations. finally, the semiological approach to the image with different types of mental operation will be able to generate a plural and original semantic interpretation through the creative exploitation of visual elements. keywords image semiotics, semiotic and cognitive approach, gestaltian perception, mental operations, sema ntic interpretation of an image www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 69 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction images occupy an overwhelming place in today’s life. the spectator tends to identify with the characters and interpret the signs evoked by the objects because every image is governed by codes. in this case, the viewer is confronted with an imaginary reality and is invited to develop a crit ical mind in order to counteract the psychological influence on the image. on the one hand, we are going to look at the semiotics of the image by carrying out both a cognitive and pragmat ic approach. on the other hand, köhler’s theory of gestalt will lead us to the idea that perception is unconsciously pre-constructed, a fact which will allow us to deepen the versatility of the field of semantic interpretation of a visual stimulus through different types of mental operations. 2. semiotics of the image: cognitive and pragmatic approach if we consider the history of schemat ism we shall notice that in his work entitled “crit ique of the faculty of judging”, kant e. (1790) argues that there are two theories simultaneously: an empirical one with semantic value as well as a transcendental one (kant, 1790, introduction, viii, pp. 949-952) (note 1). in this aspect, the images we receive from the environment are not simply reproductions but often creative productions based on the schemas generated by the imagination. formigari, l. (1994, p. 18) po ints out kant's empirical semiotics by emphasizing the productive function of images by linking the concept through the intuitive use of schemas (note 2). “in contrast to images that are merely reproductions of empirical data, schemas are generated by the imagination, whose function is not only reproductive but productive (i.e., creative), accord ing to an “art h idden in the depths of the soul” (kant, 1787, p. 887) (note 3). in this way, we can see that the patterns are distinguished from pure mental objects aimed at a simple reproduction of the image. thus, signs facilitate the synthesis of original intuit ive images through the use of imagination drawn from ideas hidden in the depths of the psyche. according to recent research in semiotics, we observe that the pragmatic approach is extended by a study of stimuli collected from the environment concerning sensory -motor, social, technological and media semiotic mediat ions. according to darras b. (2006), “the precursors in this field are jean piaget and lev vygotski, but also jack goody, eleanor rosch, george lakoff, mark johnson and ron langacker. today, the work of jean-paul bronckart, bernard darras, jean-pierre meunier and daniel peraya is moving in this direction” (darras, 2006, p. 6) (note 4). 3. gestalt theory and the semantic interpretation of an image on the one hand, it would be interesting to approach the theory of gestalt advocated by köhler (1938). indeed, köhler emphasized the idea that visual perception was limited to the external field only. however, it is essential to study the processes of mental perception and to relate v isual semiology to the functional interpretation of perception. köhler (1938) points out that “whatever the process underlying www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 70 published by scholink inc. gestalt perception, we know that it occurs pre-consciously, since the articulation of the visual field is produced at the same time as the contents of vision are given” (köhler, 1938, p. 60) (note 5). moreover, st. martin f. (1990) highlights perceptive activity, which is unconsciously preconstructed even in freud’s work. “according to freudian terminology, perception takes place at the level of the preconscious, i.e., even if it is likely to become the object of conscious knowledge, perceptive activity does not, in most cases, reach this level and remains unconscious” (st. mart in, 1990, p. 13) (note 6). on the other hand, tardy michel (1989) focuses interest on strategies of visual communication by highlighting the semiotic status of represented objects. for tardy, visual communication presupposes the shared possession of a trip le culture: a cu lture of knowledge, a culture of thought, a culture of images. “in the same image, the same visual element can, depending on the circumstances, be either a simulacrum (identification), a clue (inference), a sign (decoding), or a symbol (interpretation). the encounter of an image implies, therefore, a decision regarding its semiotic functionality” (tardy, 1989, p. 70) (note 7). if we wish to discern the meaning existing in the semantic interpretation of an image, we can distinguish six (6) different types of mental processes in order to explo it the versatility of mental signs. first, the operation of perception is related to the form represented by an object, a person or a setting and the interpretation of the sign related to the signified. secondly, the operation of identification refers to the brain imaging through the idea of an absent object, which can be represented in the imaging consciousness, in contrast with the perceptive consciousness. in this case, similarity or metaphor or even a very strong and powerful perception can be presented when evoking several objects in relat ion to a single inductive object. as stöckl h. points out (2004), “most importantly, the image’s metaphoric nature is realized by a morphing technique which allows for the carefully engineered b lending of v isual features. as a result, the reader g ets a very realistic impression of an imaginary object, which plays tricks on his perception (stöckl, 2004, p. 24) (note 8). moreover, the inference operation allows a person to infer ideas from non-existent data. it is possible to classify three (3) categories of inferences: a) spatial inferences, by complet ing what is not shown, b) temporal inferences to refer to later or earlier moments, c) psychological inferences to resort to the expression of emot ions. it is interesting to deprive oneself of floating informat ion or incorrect inferences. subsequently, the decoding operation focuses on the choice of an object from a general image, taking into consideration clues and signs. in this way, codes are generated by the existence of extra -visual codes from everyday life ones; specifically, visual codes drawn solely from the image, and semiogenesis by the birth of unprecedented codes by invention or even by combination of edited codes. in this case, semiogenesis derives either from the unexpected birth of a new original code or from the association of already instituted codes, which result from the combination of old semiogenesis. on the other hand, the idea-association operation distinguishes three mental mechanisms: a ) reacting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 71 published by scholink inc. by similarity (resemblance), b) reacting by contiguity by associating convergent or even divergent elements, c) reacting by contrast by displaying lateral thinking. with regard to areas of idea-association, it is important to regulate the proliferation of ideas either evoked by repetitio n in the social areas or emitted by invention in the personal areas. finally, isotopy resolution gives rise to plural interpretations by seeking cohesive and coherent meaning through an effective selection during the process of evaluating ideas and selecting ideas which can be deployed across the evocation of disparate and heterogeneous elements and the multip le interpretations of context. table 1. semiotics of the image: six (6) different types of mental operation and their semantic interpretation 1. operation of perception (form) material variat ions gestalten (shape) 2. identification operation a. the idea of an absent + a represented object/representation of an object by the imaging consciousness as opposed to the perceptive consciousness similarity / metaphor b. errors in identificat ion / images of objects versus real objects induction (1 inductive object 3 target objects) a very strong and powerful perception 3. inference operation to infer: to overstep the given; to construct and deduce what is not evident three (3) categories of inference a. spatial inferences: filling in what is not shown b. temporal inferences: referring to later or earlier moments of time c. psychological inferences: using expression of emotions. relationship of adjacency: adherence, metonymy errors a. floating information b. incorrect inferences 4. decoding operation sign/language: moving from the general image to the focus of a specific object by taking into consideration clues and signs. a. es tablished codes: extra-visual codes (from the codes of everyday life) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 72 published by scholink inc. specific visual codes (just from the image) b. semiogenesis (birth of new codes by invention or by combination of established codes) 5. operation of association of ideas emergence of fantastic ideas: proliferation of ideas three (3) mechanisms for associating ideas a. react ing by similarity (likeness) b. reacting by contiguity: associating converging or even diverging elements c. react ing by contrast: using lateral thinking idea association zones a. social areas (by repetition) b. personal areas (by invention) c. regulat ion of the association of ideas 6. isotopy resolution levels of overload: process of evaluating ideas and selecting ideas evocation of disparate and heterogeneous elements multiple interpretations of context: search for a cohesive and coherent meaning through an effective selection of disparate and heterogeneous elements as a result, the field of interpretation of ideas is mult iplied by the fruit ful explo itation of d ifferent types of mental operations through the cognitive and pragmatic approach of a visu al support. thus, fisette (2006, p. 16) h ighlights a few examples of dynamic interpreters according to the triadic model. at the first level, there is an emotional interpreter, designating aesthetic pleasure (or boredom or emot ional neutrality) (note 9). then there is the second energetic interpreter, designating the effort made to produce analysis and research. the third dynamic interpreter is called logic. in this case, the sign is strictly mental, aiming to recognize either associations and trans -associations or dis-associations since it goes directly from the image to the symbol. finally, accord ing to the hypo icon, this mental sign invites deviations and binds itself to the imaginary. 4. discussion ult imately, the semiotics of the image are characterized by a close correlation between the form of expression and the form of content by linking the signifier to the signified, which leads to a multip le interpretation by acting not only by denotation by evoking semiogenesis but above all by associative connotation by resorting to complex mental operations, with a view to enriching the semantic interpretation with convergent, divergent and even original ideas. “moreover, it is observed that the sequence of ideas by contiguity leads to original associations, emphasizing the appeal to the creative imagination. finally, the scope of the interpretation of the inducing object suggested always remains www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 73 published by scholink inc. wide. thus, the territory of the associated ideas remains unconquered and reveals the psychology and the inventiveness of the participants” (efthimiadou, 2017, p. 58) (note 10). consequently, a semio logical approach of the image can be encoding by different types of mental operation and generating a plural and an original semantic interpretation through the creative explo itation of visual supports. references darras, b. (2006). images et sémiotique: sémiotique pragmatique et cognitive. collection esthétique-8. série images analyses. centre de recherche images, cultures et cognitions. paris: publications de la sorbonne. efthimiadou, e. (2017). study of connotation: kent and rosanoff’s test of association of words and ideas in a creat ive perspective. asian education studies, 2(1), 52-58. retrieved april 18, 2020, from https://doi.org/10.20849/aes.v2i1.111 fisette, j. (2006). man ray, violon d’ingres. in images et sémiotique: sémiotique p ragmat ique et cognitive. collection esthétique-8, série images analyses, 7-21. paris: publications de la sorbonne. formigari, l. (1994). la sémiotique empiriste face au kantisme. traduit par mathilde anquetil. belgique, liège: editions mardaga. kant, e. (1790). critique de la faculté de juger. in œuvres philosophiques, iii. paris: gallimard (1985). kant, e. (1787). critique de la raison pure. in œuvres philosophiques, i. paris: gallimard (1980). köhler, w. (1938). the place of value in a world of facts. londres: kegan paul. saint-mart in, f. (1990). la théorie de la gestalt et l’art visuel. québec: presses de l’université du québec. stöckl, h. (2004). in between modes: language and image in p rinted media. in e. ventola, c. charles, & m. kaltenbacher (eds.), perspectives on multimodality (pp. 9-30). amsterdam/philadelphia: john benjamins publishing company. https://doi.org/10.1075/ddcs.6.03sto tardy, m. (1989). le texte iconographique : stratégies et tolérances. spirale, revue de recherches en éducation, images, 2, 65-72. retrieved april 20, 2020, from https://doi.org/10.3406/spira.1989.1826 notes note 1. kant, e. 1790: introduction, viii, 949-952. note 2. formigari, l. 1994, p. 18. note 3. kant, e.1787, p. 887. note 4. darras, b. 2006, p. 6. note 5. köhler, 1938, p. 60. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 1, 2020 74 published by scholink inc. note 6. st. martin, f. 1990, p. 13. note 7. tardy, m. 1989, p. 70. note 8. stöckl, h. 2004, p. 24. note 9. fisette, 2006, p. 16. note 10. efthimiadou, 2017, p. 58. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 11 original paper educational dilemmas and challenges for students with autism under the learning in regular classroom policy: a qualitative study based on the perspectives of two parents in beijing qian wang 1 & yingmei mao 1* 1 special education college of beijing union university, no.a1, puhuangyu 2nd alley, yongwai, fengtai district,beijing 100075, china * corresponding author: yingmei@buu.edu.cn received: july 14, 2024 accepted: july 28, 2024 online published: august 14, 2024 doi:10.22158/eshs.v5n3p11 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v5n3p11 abstract learning in regular classroom（lrc）is a crucial approach for addressing the educational placement of children with special needs and implementing the philosophy of inclusive education. however, children with autism face significant challenges in inclusive settings due to difficulties in social interaction, communication, and behaviors. this study employs a qualitative research method, interviewing parents of children with autism whose children have completed compulsory education in regular schools in beijing, to explore the practical challenges of implementing lrc policy the findings reveal conflicts between the ideal and the reality of policy implementation. families of children with autism encounter challenges related to school placement, adaptation, and support due to incomplete policy regulations, inadequate policy execution, and insufficient educational support. to ensure the effective implementation of inclusive education, a deeper reflection and adjustment of the lrc policy are necessary. this study provides valuable insights from a parental perspective into the challenges faced by children with autism in china under the lrc policy, aiming to inform future policy development and implementation. keywords learning in regular classroom, inclusive education, children with autism, parental perspective www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the term “learning in regular classroom” (lrc) was first introduced in chinese national policy in the 1987 document “notice on issuing the teaching plan for full-time schools (classes) for the intellectually disabled (draft for comments)” (national education commission, n.d.). initially, it was a supplementary approach to promoting compulsory education for individuals with disabilities. over time, it has evolved into a preferred form of special education in china. as china‟s primary method for adapting to the international trend of inclusive education, lrc is the most locally characteristic manifestation of inclusive education models (guo, & deng, 2021). according to the “survey report on the family status, needs, and support resources for individuals with autism and neurodevelopmental disorders in china” (china autism family status social survey project team, 2023), 45.5% of children with autism are currently receiving inclusive education in regular schools. currently, inclusive education is undergoing a critical transition from quantitative expansion to qualitative improvement in china. the 2017 revision of the “regulations on the education of persons with disabilities” emphasized the need to improve the quality of education for individuals with disabilities and actively promote inclusive education. in 2020, the ministry of education issued the “guidance on strengthening inclusive education for children and adolescents with disabilities during compulsory education”. the 20th national congress of the communist party of china underscored the commitment to enhancing the quality of inclusive education, highlighting the need to strengthen the management of inclusive education for school-age children and adolescents with disabilities. beijing has pioneered the implementation of a dual enrollment system for special education school students, facilitating transitions between regular and special schools based on student needs (central government of the people‟s republic of china, 2023). however, children with autism face challenges in social interaction, communication, and behavior patterns within inclusive education settings. compared to their peers, children with autism often struggle to meet the behavioral and cognitive standards of regular classrooms, resulting in poor classroom participation and impacting their academic and overall development (yang, 2019). in terms of social interactions, autistic students often exhibit lower levels of social behavior and higher levels of aggression and sensitivity, leading to their neglect and rejection by peers in inclusive settings (zhang, & lian, 2020). unlike the broadly implemented inclusive education in international contexts, china‟s inclusive education emphasizes the specific placement of special needs students in regular schools. nevertheless, as the practice of lrc has evolved in response to international trends rather than domestic special education needs, there remain policy and practice discrepancies. these are evidenced by issues such as underdeveloped working mechanisms, inadequate support conditions, and insufficient special education expertise among regular classroom teachers (ministry of education, 2020). these factors limit the effective inclusion of autistic students and impact the overall quality of inclusive education (ma, 2019). the phenomenon of children with autism returning from regular schools to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 13 published by scholink inc. special education schools (guan, liu, & li, 2022) is particularly prominent, presenting significant challenges to inclusive education. previous research (wei & mou, 2017; pan, 2019) has primarily focused on the inclusive education experiences of autistic students at specific educational stages (preschool, primary school, or middle school), lacking longitudinal studies across these stages. furthermore, there is a dearth of research examining the experiences and perceptions of parents of autistic students across different educational stages (su, guo, & wang, 2018). (gómez-marí, tárraga-mínguez, & pastor-cerezuela, 2022; su, wu, & fang, 2014) parents of autistic students are direct recipients of inclusive education services, and their experiences, perceptions, attitudes, and evaluations are crucial for improving the quality of inclusive education. this study focuses on the experiences of two mothers of autistic students whose children have completed compulsory education in regular educational institutions in beijing. the basic information of the study participants is presented in table 1. table 1. basic information of the study participants participant id relationship to student occupation family situation degree of disability educational placement experience 001-f mother kindergarten teacher family of three: husband (mental health condition) and son (autism) mild regular kindergarten, regular primary school, regular middle school, regular high school 002-f mother special education teacher family of three: husband (teacher) and son (autism) moderate regular kindergarten, regular primary school, private confucian academy, vocational high school (special education) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 14 published by scholink inc. 2. research design 2.1 methodology this study employs a qualitative research method known as interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa), which involves a double hermeneutic process. initially, participants‟ experiences are interpreted and understood through in-depth interviews, and then further interpreted and analyzed by the researchers (liu, 2019). in-depth interviews, a primary method in qualitative research, generate substantial textual data through comprehensive conversations with respondents. these interviews provide rich material for understanding the lifestyles and life experiences of a particular social group, exploring the formation of specific social phenomena, and proposing solutions to social problems. in this study, qualitative research methods were used to conduct interviews with the parents of two children with autism, with the assistance of nvivo 12 software for coding and analysis. nvivo software was used to import chinese interview transcripts, index, search, and theorize non-numeric data, thereby enhancing the efficiency of the researcher‟s statistical analysis. the study aims to analyze the effectiveness and impact of inclusive education policies, exploring the educational challenges and difficulties faced by children with autism in the context of the continuous implementation of these policies. 2.2 procedure 2.2.1 data collection method this study employed a mixed sampling method, combining convenience sampling with purposive sampling to select participants. initially, the interviewees were targeted as parents of students with autism whose children had completed compulsory education in regular school. based on previous interactions with parents of autistic students and relevant resources, the researcher selected parent a as the first interviewee using the principle of convenience. after completing the interview with parent a, parent b was selected as the second participant through purposive sampling. this choice was also informed by parent b‟s public statements on platforms, which aligned with the study‟s objectives, ensuring data saturation. the primary method of data collection was through interviews. after the parents were fully informed about the study‟s purpose, content, and use, and provided their informed consent, the interviews were conducted. the interview content focused primarily on basic information and the experiences of students with autism in inclusive education at different educational stages. the interviews were recorded using audio equipment. the interview with parent a lasted 115 minutes, producing an original transcript of approximately 28,054 words. parent b‟s interview was conducted in a live broadcast format. as a certified bcba (behavior analyst), she interacted in real-time with parents of children with autism across the country during a live session on january 13, which attracted 6,689 viewers and lasted 150 minutes, generating 31,137 words of content. additionally, parent b conducted a complete interview titled “b: 12 years of autism from regular elementary to high school”, released on march www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 15 published by scholink inc. 14, 2023, containing 10,125 words. in total, the researcher compiled all interview content and recordings, resulting in a comprehensive interview transcript of 69,316 words. 2.2.2 data organization and analysis after each interview, the researcher transcribed and organized the collected data. prior to formal analysis, the recorded audio was carefully reviewed and listened to again to ensure that the full context of participants‟ responses was considered. this study utilized colaizzi‟s seven-step phenomenological data analysis process, combined with taxonomic analysis and situational analysis methods. the analysis began with a thorough examination of each interview transcript to identify meanings and experiential themes. in taxonomic analysis, data with similar attributes were categorized under the same class and given conceptual labels. situational analysis involved understanding the specific context to identify indigenous concepts used by the participants, allowing for a comprehensive and detailed depiction of the participants‟ dynamic processes in specific situations. this approach enabled an interpretative understanding of the participants‟ personal experiences and the meanings they ascribed to them. 2.2.3 coding method ① a new case was created, and the relevant interview transcripts were imported into nvivo 12 software. ② the interview transcripts were then coded and analyzed. this involved assigning codes to the interview data, integrating pre-established sub-nodes, and marking multiple nodes within a single segment of material. when new conceptual categories emerged and could not be immediately classified, they were labeled as free nodes; otherwise, they were marked under a specific sub-node. ③ after initial coding was completed, the software was used to regroup and merge multiple nodes. during this process, all content under each node was extracted, and node names were appropriately revised. 2.2.4 coding examples open coding and axial coding are critical steps in conceptualizing and categorizing the original interview data. open coding involves breaking down and reassembling abstracted concepts from the interview records, organizing and synthesizing them in new ways, and assigning them new concepts and categories. during open coding, the original interview data are analyzed line by line to perform initial conceptualization. to better construct the main categories, axial coding is employed, along with cluster analysis, to analyze the fragmented content from the open coding process. by linking relationships between different categories, more generalized categories are formed. the initial categories are then systematically organized according to their relationships and logical order, resulting in four main categories and their corresponding subcategories: school placement (enrollment challenges, parental concerns); school adjustment (transition preparation, academic challenges, social isolation); school support (challenges for educators, resource constraints); policy implementation (information barriers, ideal vs. reality). (see table 2 for a partial example of the three-level coding related to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. educational challenges of children with autism in mainstream schools. table 2. three-level coding of educational challenges for children with autism in mainstream schools (partial) category subcategory original statement school placement enrollment challenges “there was some drama during enrollment (the homeroom teacher was unwilling to accept my child), but that issue was resolved. i still feel very grateful to the principal—without her support, the other teachers wouldn‟t have treated my child so well. because the principal showed such concern, the other teachers followed suit”. parental concerns “i felt like i was on the verge of a breakdown, almost mentally ill, somewhat depressed. it was like an invisible pressure that i couldn‟t shake off. when i was with my child, i just couldn‟t adjust, and the pressure i put on myself was overwhelming”. school adjustment transition preparation “if we are aiming for inclusion in mainstream education, the child at least needs to have some basic skills, like reading, writing, and arithmetic. he may struggle with difficult tasks, but he should at least be able to do basic math and write words from pinyin. that‟s why we insist that children have basic abilities before integrating them into mainstream schools. they must at least know how to read, write, and do basic math”. academic challenges “by third grade, he couldn‟t keep up with the academics. most of our special needs kids really can‟t keep up academically”. social isolation “he doesn‟t get along well with the other kids in class. it seems like, as a child with autism, he just doesn‟t like being in noisy, crowded situations”. school support challenges for “but when it comes to individualized support for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. category subcategory original statement educators children like f, there is no iep”. resource constraints “the resource room is practically abandoned. these children are allocated a significant budget, and there‟s a resource room and a sandplay classroom, but they‟re always locked. we had a psychological counselor and some teachers at the beginning, but they were never available to us. the equipment is there, but it‟s never been used”. policy implementation information barriers “it feels like the government isn‟t doing much. i usually get policy information from teacher l, who shares it with me. sometimes i ask the relevant government personnel if the policy exists, and they tell me to wait for the notice, but getting information often requires negotiation from both sides”. ideal vs. reality “the principal’s support made it easier for my child to enter the school and start inclusive education. at the time, the principal suggested we try it out for two weeks, and if it didn’t work, we’d move to a special school”. 3. research findings 3.1 school placement 3.1.1 challenges in school placement when deciding on an educational setting, parents of school-age children with autism often face two primary constraints: the proximity of the school and their assessment of their child‟s developmental abilities. two participants in this study made the decision to enroll their children in mainstream classrooms based on their observations of the children‟s early cognitive, memory, and language abilities. this decision-making process was primarily driven by the parents, with other family members (especially grandparents) providing emotional and resource support. it was a multi-faceted decision-making process, involving a complex interplay of emotions and practical considerations. “as for his abilities, how can i put it? he‟s quite capable, yet not outstanding. at that time, i had high hopes, unlike now when i‟m more realistic. back then, i was certain he‟d go to college—he‟s so smart. it was all so ideal in my mind, because he was doing better than other children with autism. he was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. good at learning, had an excellent memory. for example, in english, his classmates would ask him for answers because he knew them all. he had a remarkable memory. even when the teacher played a video, he wouldn‟t need to watch it closely—his hearing was exceptional. after listening to an english cartoon a few times, while others were still reading it, he had already memorized it. the same with studying chinese classics; he memorized the analects of confucius too”. (001-f) “he started talking at the same time as typical children, maybe even earlier. in fact, among children like ours, he‟s probably in the top 10 or 20 percent”. (002-f) after selecting the type of school, parents faced the challenge of ensuring their child‟s acceptance into a mainstream school. the interviews revealed that both parents chose to be upfront about their child‟s condition, allowing the school to make the final decision. however, their experiences differed significantly. one parent received support from the school principal, despite initial resistance from the classroom teacher, leading to a successful school placement: “at first, his teacher didn‟t want to accept him and wanted to transfer him to another class. i had to appeal to the principal, who eventually resolved the issue. the other teachers were actually quite kind. i‟m still very grateful to the principal; without her support, the other teachers wouldn‟t have treated my child so well. the principal‟s support made a big difference—seeing how the leadership valued my child, the subject teachers were also accommodating, and he integrated pretty well”. (001-f) the other parent, however, faced verbal humiliation from the school admission officer and had to rely on personal connections to secure a suitable placement for their child: “back in 2011, elementary schools in beijing still conducted interviews. during the interview, the vice principal and a teacher told me they had never seen a child like mine and said he wasn‟t fit for their school. one male teacher even asked if my child needed to see a doctor or take medication. they told me that inclusive education was only for children from the local district, and my child didn‟t qualify. we ended up seeking out other schools, using personal connections to find one with a resource room. the principal there suggested we try it out for two weeks, and if it didn‟t work, we could consider a special school”. (002-f) 3.1.2 parental reflections after overcoming various obstacles, as students with autism gain the right and opportunity to study in regular schools, parents begin to nurture aspirations and expectations for their child‟s achievements in mainstream schools. parents hold a mix of simple hopes and internal conflicts regarding what they wish their child to achieve in regular education. on one hand, parents have realistic expectations based on their children‟s capabilities; on the other hand, they may harbor the desire for their children to perform like their neurotypical peers, influenced by the mainstream school environment. the following dialogue between a mother and her child illustrates this inner conflict vividly: “mom, you forced me to go to that mainstream school when i was in sixth grade”. “i believed that, with your abilities, you could overcome the challenges. i had faith in your capability to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. handle it. every process has its difficulties—nothing is ever easy or pleasant, and things don‟t just get resolved without effort. but after assessing the situation, we tried our best to find ways to persist through it”. (002-f) the emotional impact on parents is both extensive and profound. from the initial diagnosis to receiving appropriate rehabilitation and ongoing educational support, parents of children with autism, alongside their children, engage in what feels like an endless marathon against other parents of neurotypical children, often leaving them physically and mentally exhausted. they face pressures both internally and externally, frequently falling into the mire of anxiety and self-blame: “i felt like i was on the verge of a breakdown, almost as if i was losing my mind—like i was becoming depressed. the invisible pressure i placed on myself became unbearable. when you‟re taking care of your child, their emotions affect you. i kept putting too much pressure on myself, setting high and strict expectations for my child. i just wanted him to keep up with his classmates, whether academically or in terms of social integration”. (001-f) parents also grow through these challenges, gradually coming to terms with reality, learning to manage stress, and seeking methods for self-relief and personal growth: “i don‟t think i ever really adjusted until recently. the pressure just never seemed to go away, unlike now, where i‟ve finally let go of a lot of it”. (001-f) “looking back, i was so overwhelmed at that time that i wished for suicide. but later on, i found ways to cope, like exercising and getting more sleep. when i turned 40, i even started studying for the bcba exam and eventually passed. now, my husband and i tutor our child ourselves”. (002-f) to ensure their children‟s smoother integration into mainstream schools, parents of autistic children often have to engage in extensive communication and coordination with school staff, teachers, students, and other parents. “in addition to being my child‟s mother, i also take on additional roles such as assisting teachers, acting as a liaison with other students‟ parents, and promoting awareness about our children‟s needs”. (001-f) given the large class sizes in chinese schools, parents sometimes find it necessary to maintain relationships with teachers to ensure their child receives adequate attention and care. “my child‟s kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school teachers—we‟re still in touch. i still reach out to them during the holidays”. (002-f) 3.2 school adaptation 3.2.1 transition preparation to facilitate their child‟s integration into mainstream education, both parents were highly attentive to the prerequisite skills necessary for entering a regular school. they emphasized the importance of transitional education, including self-care abilities, behavioral norms, emotional stability, and adaptation to a group environment. these skills were seen as essential for better adjustment and integration within the school setting. however, the parents‟ expectations regarding support from the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. school were relatively low. during the interviews, it was commonly expressed that the primary responsibility for the child‟s successful integration lies with the child and the family. the parents were inclined to rely on early preparation and training to ensure the child‟s readiness for mainstream education, while maintaining a rather passive attitude towards the support and assistance provided by the school. “for example, we chose a school focused on traditional culture to teach our child basic principles of life, simplicity, and moral values. the curriculum included cognitive training and exposure to classical texts. this environment helped stabilize their emotions, allowing them to calm their minds and prevent restlessness”. (001-f) “our child barely managed to get through school. in hindsight, delaying entry by a year and enrolling in a transition program would have been beneficial, providing a year for psychological maturity. if we had known about such institutions at that time, we would have chosen that option to better prepare our child”. (002-f) “when it comes to mainstream integration, our child needs to possess at least basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. they don‟t need to master difficult concepts, but they should be able to perform simple calculations and read and write basic words”. (002-f) “parents usually endure a certain period during which they must adjust their child‟s behavior. this period is crucial as it represents a window of opportunity for making necessary adjustments. if you missed the chance, and tensions arise with other parents, the situation could become difficult to manage. it is essential for parents to collaborate with the school to address any problematic behaviors that might hinder the child‟s integration, especially those that impact others”. (002-f) 3.2.2 academic challenges despite the aspirations that parents of autistic students hold for their children‟s education, the gap between these ideals and reality often proves insurmountable. the harsh realities of life relentlessly shatter these expectations, manifesting in every aspect of the students‟ school experiences. academic achievement, a key indicator of the quality of inclusive education, encompasses both learning outcomes and participation. in this study, two autistic students who received inclusive education at different stages exhibited a pattern in their academic performance that transitioned from “no significant difference compared to typical children” to “gradually falling behind” and eventually “failing to adapt”, thus becoming outsiders within the inclusive education system. during the preschool years, autistic children who participated in inclusive education did not show significant differences compared to their peers. “kindergarten was great; for him, he was so happy with the inclusion because it was mostly play and activities” (001f). however, in elementary school, as the grades progressed, the academic performance of these students began to decline. this was mainly reflected in poor academic outcomes. “you know, by the time he reached fourth or fifth grade, his comprehension ability... he couldn‟t keep up. the lessons were all about group discussions, and he was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. rarely able to participate. the other students tried to include him, but he just couldn‟t keep up with the discussions or anything. he couldn‟t integrate into the group. the difficulty in mathematics increased as well. by fourth or fifth grade, he was struggling academically, so he didn‟t continue in regular middle school” (001-f). after numerous struggles and faced with increasingly severe emotional issues in her child, 001-f ultimately chose to withdraw from public school inclusion education. meanwhile, 002-f continued to persevere. “by the third grade, his academics were falling behind, which is common for most of our special needs kids, as they struggle with academics” (002-f). “in middle school, he started to feel the pressure from both his emotions and academics. his emotional issues became severe in the second semester of sixth grade, and by the first year of middle school, it was even worse. by the time he was in ninth grade, he was facing the pressure of exams. of course, the timeline varies for each child, but he started falling behind academically earlier” (002-f). “my husband and i broke down the knowledge into simpler parts, using flashcards and mind maps to tutor him” (002-f). “in high school, my son felt very isolated. the academic workload for his peers was so intense that he struggled to keep up with his studies and found that they were often too busy to engage in conversation with him” (002-f). additionally, both teachers and parents adjusted their educational expectations as the autistic students progressed through different stages of their lives. teachers tended to set lower expectations from the beginning, accepting the child‟s limitations. “the teacher sometimes said, „don‟t be too strict with him‟” (001-f). “just keep the child quiet and following the class” (002-f). parents, too, gradually lowered their expectations as their child advanced through life. they moved from high hopes, such as, “back then, my wish was not as modest as it is now. i was sure my child would go to college because he was so smart, and i had such beautiful expectations”, to more pragmatic considerations like, “now, as we‟re approaching the next phase, we‟re wondering if we can arrange a simple job for him in our neighborhood, like sweeping the floor. he could get paid or not, even as a volunteer, as long as he has something to do, like working in property management, cleaning, or doing some small tasks” (001-f). “i used to think that little d was in the top tier among autistic kids, and i just kept persisting, believing that he would make it through regular education. but the reality is that there is still a gap... because little d has already graduated from high school (failed the college entrance exam)... he is a dreamer, even though he‟s not academically strong. i think it‟s more precious that he is full of love for life. every day, he thinks about how to eat well, sleep well, have fun, and find a job that he enjoys. i believe these thoughts are perhaps more valuable than his academic scores” (002-f). 3.2.3 social isolation children with autism often exhibit a weakened sense of social awareness and face significant challenges in communication. their difficulties in expressing emotions are particularly pronounced when it comes to initiating and responding to social interactions, maintaining eye contact, sharing objects, and recognizing and responding to others‟ emotional expressions. as a result, they frequently www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. struggle to establish and maintain peer relationships, which can lead to feelings of isolation. one parent observed, “my child doesn‟t seem to get along well with classmates. it‟s like he just doesn‟t enjoy being in a lively group setting”. (001-f) another parent shared her experience: “in elementary school, my child mainly needed to adapt to school life, which involved basic skills like self-care, classroom behavior, and following instructions. these were largely guided by teachers and supported by peers. as students move into middle school, they become less reliant on teacher guidance and develop their own judgments. peer relationships become more influential, and middle schoolers often worry about being excluded by their peers. they use subtle cues and unwritten rules, which can be hard for children with special needs to navigate. when my son entered adolescence, his self-awareness developed rapidly, and he began to strongly desire peer relationships—something typical of his age. however, his lack of appropriate social skills created noticeable conflicts and contradictions. middle school students tend to enjoy teasing and playing pranks, and my son couldn‟t distinguish between malice and joking. at first, i tried to teach him how to tell the difference, but eventually, i let it go because he didn‟t seem to mind being teased; in fact, he was happy to be interacting with others at all. this interaction, to some extent, fulfilled his social needs and alleviated his sense of loneliness. i believe that as long as the pranks aren‟t too extreme, it‟s okay not to be overly sensitive or make a big deal out of it. the school‟s overall atmosphere and the class environment are crucial—if the teachers set a positive tone and there are no serious incidents of bullying, then some minor teasing isn‟t a problem. my son still says the three years of middle school were his most unforgettable time. in high school, however, he felt extremely lonely. his classmates were overwhelmed with their studies, and he struggled to keep up academically. when he wanted to chat with them, they often didn‟t have time, and most of their conversations were about schoolwork. he repeatedly asked them the same questions, and while they would respond politely, the interactions were brief and infrequent. there was no obvious exclusion or bullying, but my son still felt very isolated”. (002-f) 3.3 enrollment support 3.3.1 challenges for educators when children with autism enter mainstream schools, teachers are tasked not only with adjusting teaching goals, content, and methods, but also with creating a positive classroom environment that fosters acceptance of these children by their peers and their parents, ensuring peaceful coexistence between both groups. to achieve these objectives, teachers require policy support, resources, and empowerment training from the school. however, in reality, such support is rarely provided, leaving teachers struggling to cope and feeling overwhelmed. one parent remarked, “the elementary school teacher said she just couldn‟t handle it anymore, and eventually, we had to switch classes and homeroom teachers. i think it was partly due to her menopause, which made her emotionally unstable, and also because some other parents questioned why there was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. such a child in the class. kids tend to mimic behavior, and my child would occasionally make noises, which some parents would exaggerate as a big issue. but there was no individualized support or educational plan tailored for my child”. (001-f) another parent shared, “the teacher frequently called to complain, so i couldn‟t go to work. i had to constantly take leave, pick my child up from kindergarten, and bring him home. later, when he started school, he was expected to sit still in class, but all the academic learning and homework was left to me and his father to handle. we understand the immense pressure on teachers in beijing‟s mainstream schools”. (002-f) currently, most frontline teachers involved in inclusive education in china are general primary and secondary school teachers who graduated from regular teacher training institutions. they gradually develop an understanding of the characteristics and learning needs of special students through classroom observation and testing. however, when faced with behavioral issues, emotional challenges, and interpersonal conflicts involving students with special needs, they often find themselves ill-equipped to handle these situations appropriately. as a result, these teachers are unable to meet the needs of special students in a timely manner. the lack of specialized knowledge and skills among general teachers, along with the difficulties and limitations this brings, has become a significant bottleneck in improving the quality of inclusive education in china. 3.3.2 resource constraints resource classrooms in mainstream schools are intended to support the development of inclusive education by providing a warm, flexible environment that fosters the growth of both special and general students. these classrooms should be well-equipped with professional resources and services to support the individualized learning and development of all students. both parents mentioned resource classrooms as a key criterion when selecting schools for their children. however, the reality has been disappointing. one parent stated, “the resource classroom was practically abandoned. these children were allocated a significant amount of funding, and there were resource classrooms and even a sandplay room, but the doors were always locked. when my child was in elementary school, we were never allowed to use them. there was supposed to be a psychological counselor, but we were never provided access. the equipment was there, but it was all locked away. back then, the maternal and child health center in changping also built a sandplay room. i knew some people there, so i asked if we could use their sandplay facilities, covering the costs ourselves and bringing in a professor from beijing normal university. we gathered a few nearby children to participate together. we used the facilities at the health center for several years”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 24 published by scholink inc. 3.4 policy implementation 3.4.1 information barriers parents expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of access to policy-related information. despite their proactive efforts to seek out such information, they often encounter challenges related to untimely, non-transparent, and inaccurate communication. some parents, in an effort to better support their children in mainstream school settings, even resort to leveraging personal connections to obtain necessary information. regarding the channels through which they learn about policies, one parent shared, “it seems the government is somewhat passive. i usually receive policy information (about resource rooms, assistive devices etc.) from ms. l (a leader at an organization), who shares it with me. sometimes i ask relevant government officials directly whether certain policies exist, and they tell me to wait for official notifications, but getting information often feels like a tug-of-war”. (001-f) another parent voiced concerns about the availability of resources for inclusive education: “what is the distribution of inclusive education resources across different districts? where is the resource center for your school district? which schools have resource rooms, and what process should parents follow to apply for these resources? shouldn‟t this information be publicly available on official websites, making it easier for parents to access, rather than solely relying on school notifications?” (002-f) this indicates certain deficiencies in the frequency, scope, and accuracy of policy dissemination by relevant institutions (mao, & wang, 2023). given the high level of initiative displayed by parents in seeking out policy information, it is evident that government agencies, schools, and organizations like the disabled persons‟ federation need to enhance proactive information dissemination. by employing broader and more accurate channels to communicate relevant policies to parents, these institutions can help reduce information asymmetry and increase transparency and convenience in parents‟ decision-making and application processes. 3.4.2 the ideal and the reality when examining the inclusive education experiences of two children with autism, we observe unique phenomena in the implementation of inclusive education policies, characterized by “policies at the top, countermeasures at the bottom” and “formal compliance without substantive alignment”. since its development in 1986, the policy of inclusive education has evolved from a simple directive tool into a more systematic and diversified implementation strategy. this evolution includes infrastructure development, technical training, incentives, and guidance measures, with a greater focus on teaching regulations, teacher training, and educational management to improve education quality and enhance the support system. however, related inclusive education policies remain mostly as guidelines, notices, and opinions, without being elevated to the level of national laws and regulations. the most authoritative regulation, the “regulations on the education of persons with disabilities”, is merely an administrative regulation, leading to an excess of overarching guidance but insufficient directive power www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 25 published by scholink inc. and enforceability. cooperation and integration between departments are suboptimal, resulting in a lack of attention to inclusive education by some relevant departments and personnel, leading to the marginalization of this work. the extent of implementation in schools often depends on the personal willingness of the principal. as one parent noted: “if the principal supports it, the child can get into the school, and inclusive education can proceed. the principal said, „let‟s try for two weeks. if it doesn‟t work out, we can send the child to a special school.‟” (002-f). another parent expressed: “the principal said it‟s too troublesome. if a child is admitted (under the lrc policy), there would be a lot of evaluations followed. it‟s a good idea, but there aren‟t enough teacher. all the subject teachers have their tasks, and there‟s no dedicated teacher for this. you need space, staff, and evaluations. there‟s also supervision from above”. (001-f). when the researcher pointed out that this is a legal right of the child and that it should be defended, the parent‟s response was filled with helplessness and sorrow. “what can i say? we have a good relationship with school staff. if you don‟t know them and ask for something, they won‟t give it to you, including the sandplay teacher and others. parents are easily satisfied with the current situation. we don‟t have high expectations from the relevant departments; as long as they can accept our suggestions, we are already very grateful. otherwise, who can you turn to? no one cares about you. there are some parents who cause trouble (parents of children with autism), but it doesn‟t solve the problem”. (001-f). traditional confucian culture in china has long centered on the core idea of “benevolence”. while this promotes tolerance and acceptance of people with disabilities, it leads to the practice of inclusive education being driven more by “pity” and “charitable acts” rather than by ensuring and realizing the equal right to education for special students. this inevitably results in self-deprecation by special students and their parents, reinforcing their disadvantaged and unequal status. resource rooms, as a supplementary form of inclusive education, have been continually developing. in 2012, when the children of the two participants were in primary school, beijing had approximately 1.1 million primary and secondary students, with 148 resource rooms established (sun, 2013). however, interviews revealed a paradoxical situation: resource rooms in economically developed areas were underutilized, while those in less developed areas were in high demand but unavailable. this may stem from various factors, including uneven distribution of educational resources, inadequate supervision systems, changes in educational demand, and limitations in the understanding and utilization of educational resources. although corresponding policies are in place to provide guidance and support for inclusive education, there remains a need for legal policies to offer detailed explanations and protect the legitimate rights and interests of children with autism and their families. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 26 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion 4.1 challenges of the inclusive education policy china‟s policy-making follows a top-down approach, where the central government establishes the macro policy framework through laws, regulations, plans, and guiding documents. local governments then formulate detailed implementation rules and plans based on these central guidelines. when we examine how the macro policy of inclusive education manifests in the daily lives of families with autistic children, the importance of refining these policies becomes evident. currently, the inclusive education policy faces challenges such as vague wording and a lack of legal authority. the policy often takes the form of “measures”, “notices”, or “opinions”, lacking the legal status of national laws and regulations, which results in relatively weak enforcement. consequently, lower-level executors may selectively accept and implement the policy based on their interests (dai, 2023). for example, although the state mandates that regular schools should admit autistic children capable of attending, many schools still refuse admission (liang, & gong, 2021), which is influenced by multiple factors: at the school level, concerns about the impact on teaching quality, school reputation, and potential loss of high-achieving students due to the pressure of maintaining high graduation rates; at the teacher level, concerns that special needs students may disrupt classroom order, and the disproportionate workload and rewards associated with these students could negatively impact performance evaluations, promotions, salaries, and social status; at the parental level, concerns that autistic children may disrupt their own children‟s learning environment, negatively affecting their safety and academic progress, leading to skepticism or even opposition to inclusive education. in some cases, this has led to parents collectively demanding the removal of special needs children from schools (sina.com, 2021). 4.2 lack of support for inclusive education educational opportunities for autistic children in china are marked by significant regional disparities, evident in differences between cities, urban and suburban areas, and between urban and rural areas. regular schools‟ acceptance of autistic children varies widely, and many families are constrained by geographical and economic conditions when choosing schools, resulting in unequal access to education for autistic children. moreover, the lack of effective support poses a significant challenge to the current inclusive education system for autistic children. the existing mechanisms and support systems for inclusive education are not yet fully developed. there is a lack of clear criteria and assessment standards to determine which autistic children are suitable for regular school education. additionally, the professional training provided to teachers involved in inclusive education is insufficient, lacking regular and systematic training mechanisms, making it difficult for teachers to deliver effective instruction. furthermore, it is imperative to address how to enhance the understanding of inclusive education among school administrators, especially principals, how to systematically monitor the implementation of inclusive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 27 published by scholink inc. education in schools, how to provide comprehensive training to all regular teachers to improve their understanding of autism and their ability to respond professionally, and how to equip all students with adequate knowledge about the behavior and characteristics of autistic children and strategies for interacting with them, to enhance their ability to engage and coexist with autistic children. these are urgent issues that need to be addressed. 5. recommendations 5.1 enhancing policy clarity and authority, strengthening policy implementation enhancing the legal force of the inclusive education policy is crucial for its effective implementation. firstly, it is essential to increase the political momentum of the policy by reinforcing its legal binding force. this can be achieved by refining relevant provisions in the compulsory education law and the regulations on the education of persons with disabilities, and by integrating successful local experiences in inclusive education into a comprehensive chapter within special education legislation. elevating these policies to the level of national laws and regulations will ensure stronger legal effectiveness. therefore, the enactment of a special education law in china is an urgent necessity. in terms of policy articulation, abstract language should be avoided in favor of concrete, understandable, and operational expressions. for instance, specific standards for inclusive education should be clearly defined. to facilitate systematic change, it is imperative to improve the assessment and evaluation system for students in inclusive education, ensuring that the evaluation criteria are scientific and comprehensive. moreover, in terms of teacher training, it is essential to establish a professional standards for inclusive education teachers, aiming to cultivate regular teachers with special education skills and special education teachers with regular education capabilities. this would contribute to the construction of a complete and professional teacher education system, thus promoting universal education and educational equity. additionally, strengthening the policy implementation monitoring mechanism is critical. it is recommended to establish a dedicated supervisory body to dynamically monitor and evaluate the implementation of policies. simultaneously, it is crucial to enhance the policy implementation capabilities of municipal and county-level education administrative departments, which are the primary governing bodies for the compulsory education and inclusive education of all children with disabilities. to ensure effective policy enforcement, reward and punishment measures should be refined, with explicit legal provisions for penalizing departments and individuals who fail to fulfill their responsibilities, ensuring accountability for any violations. 5.2 strengthening interdepartmental collaboration and integration to build a support system for inclusive education currently, most policy formulation relies heavily on the state council and the ministry of education, with relatively limited involvement from other departments. however, the policy of inclusive education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 28 published by scholink inc. involves multiple sectors, including education, development and reform, civil affairs, finance, and others, necessitating cross-departmental cooperation to establish an efficient advancement mechanism. therefore, it is crucial to establish a clear interdepartmental cooperation framework, which should include defining the responsibilities and relationships among departments, promoting information sharing, and enhancing public communication efforts to ensure the comprehensive and effective implementation of policies. standardization is also key to improving the effectiveness of departmental collaboration. consistent standards will ensure uniformity in the implementation of inclusive education policies across departments, thereby reducing issues arising from discrepancies in standards. by enhancing the operability and authority of policies, their implementation can be better ensured, thus providing more comprehensive and scientifically grounded educational support for children with autism. furthermore, to advance the development of inclusive education, it is necessary to improve the supporting systems and establish a robust support framework. this includes addressing the inadequate attention from local governments and the insufficient and uneven allocation of funding for inclusive education. in terms of operational mechanisms, a comprehensive support system should be built, encompassing an assessment system for inclusive education candidates, a management system for inclusive education teachers, and a monitoring system for the funding allocation for inclusive education, all organized within a four-tier support structure (“province—city—county—school”). this will aid mainstream schools in effectively accommodating children with disabilities, enhancing the educational quality for these children, and promoting their social integration. 5.3 clarifying the responsibilities of schools, parents, and society, and strengthening multilateral collaboration a lack of understanding and acceptance of students with special needs within society leads to various challenges and difficulties for these students in integrating into mainstream schools. schools often lack effective support measures in inclusive education, such as an inclusive campus atmosphere, iep for students with special needs, and specialized inclusive education teachers. parents also have misconceptions about inclusive education, often believing that it solely involves helping their children adapt to the mainstream environment, while neglecting the responsibilities and obligations of schools in inclusive education. this situation results in a lack of effective collaboration in inclusive education practice, hindering the successful integration and development of students with special needs in mainstream schools. the effective implementation of inclusive education policies requires the joint efforts of the government, schools, parents, and society. as the frontline of policy implementation, schools need to improve the accessibility and accuracy of policy information dissemination to parents, establish a comprehensive mechanism, support system for inclusive education and create a supportive campus environment. this may be one of the potential solutions to the current challenges. parents also need to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 29 published by scholink inc. actively promote a shift in their roles, foster positive school-parent relationships, and proactively engage in the process of inclusive education. moreover, parents‟ feedback and suggestions should be considered as evaluation criteria for the quality and effectiveness of inclusive education services. by refining policies, enhancing collaboration among schools, families, and communities, and increasing societal inclusivity, educational environment support can be improved. this includes transforming public facilities for accessibility and integrating special education personnel and resources into the mainstream education system. together, these efforts will provide appropriate education for students with disabilities, thereby creating a more equitable and fair educational environment. 6. conclusion researchers have critically reflected on the challenges faced by the lrc policy in addressing the educational needs of children with autism and have drawn the following conclusions: firstly, while the lrc policy is a positive approach to inclusive education within its theoretical framework, there is a significant discrepancy between its implementation and the specific needs and individual differences of children with autism. this mismatch has resulted in these children facing more complex issues related to academic performance, social interaction, and emotional development within the inclusive classroom environment. secondly, parents have reported multiple challenges encountered by children with autism during the compulsory education stage, including academic pressure, difficulties in peer interactions, and a lack of professional competence among teachers. these issues not only affect the learning experiences of children with autism but also impose additional stress and challenges on their families. further analysis reveals that the root causes of these issues lie in unclear policies and a lack of educational support measures. the absence of personalized support and insufficient resources has prevented the lrc policy from fully meeting the special needs of children with autism, leaving them feeling neglected and marginalized within the educational system. in conclusion, to ensure the effective implementation of inclusive education, it is necessary to undertake a deeper reflection and adjustment of the lrc policy. policymakers should place greater emphasis on the actual needs of children with autism and their families, providing more accurate, feasible, and authoritative support measures to ensure they have equal opportunities and resources in education. additionally, there is a need to enhance teacher training and professional support to improve the educational system‟s capacity to address the needs of students with special requirements. such efforts will contribute to the realization of the inclusive education philosophy and provide children with autism a more beneficial and sustainable inclusive educational experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. 7. limitations the sample used in this study included only the mothers of two children with autism from the beijing area, which may not be generalizable to the broader population of individuals with autism. the study did not include representation from fathers of children with autism, and it only encompassed individuals who had already been diagnosed with autism, potentially excluding those who may have difficulty obtaining a diagnosis for various reasons. 8. conflicts of interest the authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article. 9. funding the author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: this work was supported by the comprehensive project on disability affairs by the china disabled persons‟ federation research on the current status and countermeasures of educational transition for children with autism in the compulsory education stage (2023) [23 & zc054]. references central government of the people‟s republic of china. 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(2022). the dilemma of inclusion: a qualitative study on the educational placement choices of parents of children with autism. chinese special education, 1, 75-82. guo, z., & deng, m. (2021). the chinese discourse and practice path of inclusive education model: analysis and reflection based on the ministry of education‟s “guiding opinions” on inclusive education. chinese special education, 12, 3-9. http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2023-02/08/content_5740600.htm https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe12070063 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 5, no. 3, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. liang, y., & gong, l. (2021). an exploration of the quality issues and improvement strategies of inclusive education for children with autism. teacher, 21, 102-103. liu, m. (2019). application of colaizzi‟s seven steps in the analysis of phenomenological research data. nursing journal, 11, 90-92. ma, j. 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(2020). social behavior characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorder in inclusive education and their impact on peer relationships. chinese special education, 11, 34-41+48. education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 84 original paper understanding the african continental free trade area: beyond “single market” to “africa’s rejuvenation” analysis dr. kaze armel1* 1 post-doctorate fellow at yunnan university, school of international relations, center for african studies, yunnan, kunming, china * dr. kaze armel, post-doctorate fellow at yunnan university, school of international relations, center for african studies, yunnan, kunming, china received: june 29, 2020 accepted: july 7, 2020 online published: july 12, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v1n2p84 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v1n2p84 abstract while global trends continue to move from integration towards heightened protectionism, and retaliatory trade measures, african countries improved their intra-regional trade levels and deepened their regional integration by launching the african continental free trade area (afcfta). the afcfta seeks to deepen africa’s market integration at regional and continental levels; smash down tariff barriers within africa; boost intra-africa trade; promote regional and continental value chains; and hopefully deliver africa’s rejuvenation. however, africa as a continent is facing many challenges, especially its notions and concepts of development, plus the complications caused by the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. however, questions are being aroused on whether african policy makers are prepared enough to overcome the afcfta related challenges. this article examines the mechanisms needed to fully implement the recently signed continental free trade area deal, its impact on africa’s regional economic communities (recs), and what’s in it for africa’s major economic partners. in this article, the author will also point out existing daunting challenges and give a series of policy recommendations. keywords african continental free trade area, regional economic communities, intra-african trade, single market, africa’s rejuvenation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 85 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the african continental free trade area (afcfta) is the 21st century’s biggest free trade area, which was endorsed by 54 out of 55 african union (au) member countries, leaving eritrea the only african nation that hasn’t signed the agreement. the afcfta’s objective is to create a single market for goods, services and free movement of african people and capital within the african continent and help deepen the continent’ economic integration (note 1). according to the united nations economic commission for africa (uneca), the afcfta will gradually eliminate tariffs on 90% of the goods produced in africa. the afcfta was initiated in june 2015, entered into force on may 30th, 2019, but will fully enter into action from july 1st, 2020. ghana, one of the fastest growing economies in africa, was designated to host the secretariat of the afcfta. the afcfta aspires to create a tariff-free continent that aims to grow african local businesses, and pave the way for a new custom union. the initiative is also slated to boost intra-african trade through better harmonization of trade liberalization, while enhancing industrialization to create more jobs opportunities for african citizens. however, while the afcfta agreement entered into force in 2019, commerce due to have started on july 1st has been delayed as the covid-19 pandemic set back negotiations to lay the foundation for trade in goods, including tariff concessions. while the window to implement the deal is very narrow, african heads of state want it to move as quickly as possible once conditions allow. the launch of the afcfta is a significant milestone for african countries, for african citizens and for the african union itself and will be governed by five operational instruments: the rules of origin; the online negotiating forum; the monitoring and elimination of non-tariff barriers; a digital payment system and the african trade observatory (note 2). each of these operational instruments are being successively launched and fully supported by different african high personalities and heads of states. 2018 estimates from brookings institution indicate that with the actual operationalization of the afcfta, the african continent is likely to become a us$ 3.5 trillion economic trade zone. in addition, when fully operational, the afcfta could be the world’s biggest free-trade zone by area, with a potential market of 1.3 billion people and a combined gdp of us$ 3.5 trillion (obeng-odoom, 2020). however, even though the continental free trade deal has been launched, african countries have a long way to go and should learn from their counterparts, especially the european union (eu), or even the association of south-east asian nations (asean) on how to put aside differences and aim to grow internal trade volume and trade interdependence. at present, africa ranks behind other regions in terms of its overall level of regional trade volume. despite african countries’ cultural affinity and geographic proximity, it is unfortunate that between 2015 to 2017, only 17% of trade was conducted among african countries, largely due to africa’s intra-trade barriers, africa’s fragmented market, poor transport and telecommunication connectivity, etc. furthermore, african countries remain keen on sheltering their internal markets from external influence, while asia intra-continental trade, especially within the association of south-east asian nations (asean) is estimated up to 59%, north america www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 86 published by scholink inc. by 37%, latin america by 20%, and european union by 69% (note 3). nevertheless, it is also important to notice that many african countries have made significant progress in their economic performances in the last ten years. countries like rwanda, ethiopia, nigeria and ghana, to name just few, are attracting large amounts of foreign direct investment (fdi) globally. in addition, according to the african union open data, africa has the largest number of active consumers; its population is projected to hit 2.5 billion by 2050; comprising around 26% of the world’s working age population; and an economy estimated to grow twice as rapidly as that of the developed world (note 4). however, despite rapid economic development of some african countries, products and goods traded within african countries are mainly raw materials and traditional commodities with little or no value added. this should not have been the case if there were no trade barriers within african states. although, the actual operation and implementation of the afcfta agreement as a whole has a long way to go to overcome all the existing daunting challenges, but the impact of the continental trade deal area agreement on boosting investment in africa should not be ignored. the launch of the afcfta will speed up the complete elimination of trade barriers, enhance africa’s global competitiveness at the enterprise and industry level, and hopefully, it will be easier for african businesses to trade within the continent, and benefit from the growing african market. the objective of this article is to give insights from an african perspective of what the african continental free trade area agreement will bring to the african continent and to its major economic partners. in this article, the author will only take china and the usa as case study. africa has a large number of countries, many regional economic communities (recs), vast disparities in their economies, a growing and competitive work force, among others. it is just about time africa begins to do things for herself, especially in an era featuring uncertainties and fluctuations. the launch of the afcfta comes at the opportune time; especially when african country leaders are embracing integration and push forward their own development programs through the “africa agenda 2063”. based on its basic goals, the afcfta deal is set to reduce heavy tariffs that have been slowing the intra-africa trade speed and unlock many opportunities on the continent, redesign the architectural framework of africa’s economic systems and hopefully anchor the modern africa that african citizens want. nevertheless, the success of the implementation of the afcfta agreement depends not only on documents signed in a conference room but rather on the functions of elements beyond african countries borders such as transparency and clear rules of play. how africa as a continent can take advantage of the huge market opportunities and africa’s demographic dividend to boost intra-africa trade remain the big question needed to be answered. a key takeaway form this article is: african countries have more integration barriers to beat in their markets than in signed agreements. the lack of adequate transportation and telecommunications infrastructure in the continent and over reliance on western foreign exchange currency in the arena of trade, provide incentives for the maintenance of the current status quo. in addition, substandard www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 87 published by scholink inc. infrastructure and africa’s current poor trade logistics sit alongside tariffs as barriers that need to be solved. the author of this article argues that it will take more than a reduction in tariffs to achieve the success of the continental free trade area deal. in this article, the author will point out existing challenges and give a series of policy recommendations, hopefully that might help in the successful implementation of the afcfta. 2. literature review on a broader scale, since the beginning of the 21st century, african countries have worked together in seeking their development opportunities. in fact, within the last two decades, africa’s intra-regional trade has been growing. with the launch of the continental free trade area deal, it is expected to foster inclusive trade among african countries and lower dependence on extractive local products and inherent fluctuations of commodity prices (wang, 2019). until today, not many scholars have done research about the afcfta deal, but existing researches and policy reviews show a strong confidence in the success of the implementation of the deal. for instance, global economy expert landry signe estimates that a successfully implemented afcfta could generate us$ 6.7 trillion in consumer and business spending across africa by 2030, while the united nations economic commission for africa (unca) has predicted that a fully implemented afcfta can raise intra-african trade between 15% and 20% (us$ 50 billion to us$ 70 billion) by 2040. a number of experts hold strong belief that the continental free trade area deal could change the fate of africa. for instance, asmita parshotam in her article “can the african continental free trade area offer a new beginning for trade in africa”, provides a snapshot of the negotiations that preceded the signing of the african continental free trade area agreement and examines the benefits that should flow from a successfully implemented continental trade deal, pointing out some of the difficulties that may hinder or slow down its implementation (note 5). zezhong zhang, a chinese scholar from jiangxi normal university in his article “african economic integration strategy under the african continental free trade agreement”, reviewed the efforts made by african leaders to pull together the continental free trade area agreement and analyzed what benefits the continental free trade area deal will bring to chinese companies investing in africa, besides additional opportunities for the “belt and road initiative” (bri) implementation in the continent (note 6). dr. q. chihombori arikana, an african union ambassador to the united states in his statement to the chinese global television network (cgtn) believes that the african continental free trade area agreement has the potential to catapult the continent into a foremost position into global trade and development (note 7). however, he emphasized that to fully enjoy the results that the continental free trade area agreement will bring, african countries need to strengthen their bilateral relations and push forward their economic and political integration. with economic integration, countries can implement a single market, and as the economic atmosphere grows, there appears the need for political integration; something that has remained elusive in the african www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 88 published by scholink inc. continent. since the gain of independence in the 1960’s, african countries tend to trade more with europe and asia than with neighboring markets. in fact, less than a fifth of african countries’ exports are headed to other neighboring countries on the continent. the existing intra-continental trade shortcomings on the continent underscore the extent of lost revenue and development opportunities for african countries (abrego, 2020). without african countries integration, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the african continent to negotiate individually with its strong and major economic partners such as the usa, china, russia, japan and the eu (monyae, 2019). scholar daniel n. mlambo in his article: “unearthing the challenges and prospects of regional integration in souther africa”, emphasizes the importance of regional integration. in his article, daniel categorizes regional integration as a significant initiative with regard to stimulating economic growth amongst member states and enhancing intra-regional trade, security initiatives, and bilateral and multilateral agreements (note 8). unfortunately, african countries’ regional integration has done little to stimulate growth on the continent. in fact, sluggish implementation of regional trade liberalization and spatial integration policies still remain among african countries (pretorius, drewes, & van aswegen, 2017). in addition, africa’s regional integration, which involves the removal of existing trade barriers to the free movement people, goods and services, and harmonization of its economic policies, remain patchy and uneven (kayizzi-mugerwa, anyanwu, & conceicao, 2014). since the creation of the african union (au) back in 1963, african country leaders hoped for a time when the continent would enjoy more intra-african ties and interdependence. some 57 years later, african countries have yet again come together to foster their regional integration by implementing the afcfta agreement. the operational phase of the trade agreement has since been launched. the afcfta is africa’s momentum achievement as it takes place in a new era in which regional integration schemes are disintegrating as seen from brexit; riots related to racism in the usa; xenophobia and anti-immigrant climate in south-africa; quarrels between burundi and rwanda; as well as unending crisis between sudan and south-sudan. while regional integration plays a key role in ensuring the successful implementation of the afcfta deal, the goals of africa’s regional integration have not been fully studied. scholars naym charaf-eddine and ilan strauss in their article “the ten commandments of applied regional integration”, argue that africa’s regional integration study analysis has been misunderstood and poorly constructed. in their article, they offer ten policy recommendations to fully achieve at least a minimal form of regional integration, analyze what is stopping africa’s full integration (note 9). since the afcfta agreement is newly signed, african countries have a lot to learn from other regions or countries that have succeeded in implementing a single market or need the support and guidance from its economic partners. lily sommer and david luke in their article “canada’s progressive trade agenda” reviewed canada’s contribution to africa’s economy and canada’s opportunities in africa. in their article, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 89 published by scholink inc. two scholars provided insights on how canada could engage with africa and what canada can do to support the implementation of the afcfta agreement (note 10). given few scholars thoughts and research results on the regional integration current situation on the african continent, they all send a strong message: the need of africa’s unity. from an african perspective, the afcfta agreement presents compelling potentials benefits for good businesses on the continent and have the potential to boost trade and fdi, generate necessary conditions for inclusive growth in africa. the core problem is that african policy makers have tried and attempted many times to increase intra-regional trade on the continent. different africa’s regional economic communities (recs) have signed many trade agreements, and yet the required willingness for cooperation in africa’s recs is still questionable. however, the author of this article strongly believes that the recently signed continental free trade area deal will significantly boost trade and economic growth within african countries, and have the potential to spur development. however, there is so much more to be done to fully drive across the agenda in the continent; calling greater willingness of the african people to actualize the dream, especially now that the continent is facing a new challenge, the covid-19 pandemic. 3. steps toward africa’s “single market” 3.1 status of regional integration in africa regional integration is the process by which at least two or more countries agree to co-operate, either economically or politically and work together to achieve common peace, security and share wealth (cormick, 1999). regional integration involves written agreements between signatories that describe areas of cooperation. what is the status of regional integration in africa? regional integration on the african continent has been stable as many regional economic communities (recs) kept burgeoning. the african continent has 15 regional economic communities but only eight of them are recognized by the african union; five of which have customs unions. they are: the east african community (eac), the southern african development community (sadc), the economic community of west african states (ecowas), the economic community of central african states (eccas), and the common market for eastern and southern africa (comesa). the aim of these regional economic communities is to provide building blocks for african countries integration. in addition, these recs have a huge impact in creating jobs opportunities for african citizens and each one of the recs is in pursuit of economic welfare, which is assumed to be pursued by african countries, especially the ones considering or evaluating their regional integration arrangement membership (seck, 2019). in october 2008, the eac, comesa and sadc launched their tripartite cooperation arrangement that aimed at synchronizing, harmonizing and coordinating the market integration, infrastructure and industrial development of the three economic blocs (erasmus, 2013). in 2013, the three blocs successively launched their tripartite capacity building program (tcbp) that provides technical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 90 published by scholink inc. assistance to the three recs, and was backed by the board of directors of the african development bank (afdb), who invested over us$ 7.5 million. the rational of the tcbp was to establish a single market and increase intra-tripartite trade growth by boosting the economic welfare of 27 combined member countries, with over 700 million consumers, and a gdp above us$ 1.4 trillion. the tcbp is also pushing through the removal of barriers to free movement of people, goods and services; and development of regional value chains and poverty alleviation. a review of the program reveals that it has helped in enhancing the eac-comesa-sadc tripartite negotiation process, helped develop trade facilitations instruments among them. back in 2015, the tcbp also established the eac-comesa-sadc tripartite free trade area (tfta). the tfta was launched with several objectives, key among them, to address the challenges of many africa’s recs with many overlapping memberships in the eastern half of the continent (note 11). the tfta was built on three major pillars: industrial development, infrastructure development and market integration (note 12), and there is an ongoing parallel agreement on free movement of people. the establishment of the tfta between africa’s three recs is a significant step toward enhancing and consolidating africa’s intra-regional trade, strengthening existing regional integration, as a step towards full implementation of the afcfta. through tfta establishment, africa’s regional integration will grow stronger, maybe not immediately, but surely will in the future. however, the tfta negotiations among the three economic blocs are still ongoing, which raises questions on future coordination between the afcfta and the tfta. 3.2 what to expect from african regional integration? regional integration is the removal of barriers to trade between countries. it indicates the growing economic interaction between signatory countries. allowing the free movement of goods, services and people have been the common goal of all african regional economic communities. free movement of goods and services is ongoing in several africa’s recs, gradual progress is being made towards the free movement of people. for instance, the common electronic biometric african passport has been approved by the au protocol on free movement of persons; right of residence and right of establishment has been activated since january 2018; nigeria opened its doors for all african citizens, and is considering visa-free for all african origins; monetary union continues to be actively pursued by five of the eight recognized recs, etc. however, for africa, monetary union on a continental scale is for the time being not feasible. it will require some surrender of sovereignty, which many african countries are not ready for at the moment (ekekwe, 2009). with the news about west african countries plan to introduce a new regional currency, the “eco”, is a reminder that the idea behind it is just a means to get rid of the actual cfa currency imposed by france back in 1945 for its ancient colonies (note 13). a monetary union at a continental scale requires robust institutions, like the ecb for the european union, which african countries don’t have at the moment. historically speaking, regional integration has the potential to promote long-term economic growth, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 91 published by scholink inc. politically stable development and self-determination of african countries (kleis, 2016). in fact, regional integration has been idolized as the key to promoting regional growth and development through the adoption and implementation of policies that will yield mutual benefits for all parties involved (note 14). in other words, regional integration is key to sustain economic growth and leverage new opportunities for concerned parties (adende, 2007). african countries through recs have managed to deepen their intra-trade interdependence. with complete integration among african recs, intra-africa trade volume could grow from currently 17% up to 60% in 2022. in addition, complete regional integration in africa could be a major break-through for business across the continent. by regional integration, it is important to note that “economic integration” and “political integration” are both important, especially in this opportune time when all african countries are willing to create a single continental market. and by creating a single continental market, all african countries have to put aside their differences and aim at boosting their internal market. economic and political integration are intertwined, one cannot go without the other. as seen from the practice within existing economic blocs like eac, sadc, and ecowas, member states of each rec agreed to remove trade barriers (tariffs, quotas, border restrictions, etc.) between them. this should not be surprising. after all, many intergovernmental institutions established in africa have aimed at developing economic arrangements to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade (jalloh & abass, 2014). however, all the promises seem to have been left on paper. for instance, because of inadequate technical assistance and capacity building, products from burundi such as tea or coffee still face tariffs while entering tanzanian market or any other market in the eac; kenya’s avocados are hardly sold in its neighboring country uganda because of high tariffs as well. considering the existing customs unions in each african rec, each economic bloc needs to revise its trade facilitation mechanisms to ease trade and integration between its member countries. despite the fact that african recs have all succeeded in strengthening their economic integration, and implementation of custom unions, they all have failed to draw attention on their political integration. careful consideration must be paid to the need for political integration, otherwise african countries will fail to create a single continental market, let alone a monetary union as envisaged. a lesson from the european union (eu) political integration tells us why the treaty on european union, commonly called “maastricht treaty”, was a turning point in the process of the european integration (note 15). in november 1993, after the treaty was signed, for the first time, the ambition of political union was formalized all over europe, moving on from the initial objective of economic integration as an instrument for political reconciliation. if no attention is taken into forging political integration, no one can predict that there won’t be a time when a single african country wouldn’t want to be part of the african union. in fact, the domino effect of brexit may not trigger exit referendum among african union member states, but it may have intensified agitations for referendum on self-determination (aniche, 2020). the same goes for african countries. without bold actions into www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 92 published by scholink inc. strengthening their political and economic integration, the success of a common market, or even the pursuit of a monetary union, is far from guaranteed or yet another pipe dream. 4. what’s in it for africa’s major economic partners? the signing of the afcfta has made solid progress in strengthening africa’s regional integration. the successful launch of the afcfta will be an epoch-making event and a big step in promoting multilateralism on the african continent. however, there is a rise of protectionism, self-reliance tendencies among global powers. despite the rise of protectionism and unilateralism, why are african countries choosing to increase interconnectivity between them? with africa’s fragmented markets and a large number of countries, the best option to guarantee africa’s rejuvenation would be strengthening their integration rather than promoting protectionism or unilateralism. given the rising sentiment of anti-globalization, protectionism and unilateralism around the world, the afcfta aims to boost global trade facilitation and liberalization, and inject new impetus to promoting open world economy. in the last couple of decades, african countries have signed many trade agreements with western developed countries as well as developing countries. despite all the promises that lies behind the afcfta, what’s in it for africa’s major economic partners? the author of this article believes that the afcfta agreement will help forge closer economic ties between africa and its economic partners. in fact, the afcfta will improve the relations between africa and its external trade partners, so as to guarantee a win-win situation, by creating a bigger market for itself and for its trade partners. on one hand, the afcfta will effectively reduce the costs of imports, especially those from europe and asia. on the other hand, the continental free trade deal will create a huge market for foreign investors, improve the business environment, attract more fdi, reduce barriers to foreign investment, and lay a solid foundation for foreign enterprises to invest in african countries. for china, the afcfta will inject new vitality into upgrading china-africa bilateral trade cooperation. china has been africa’s biggest trading partner for more than a decade, with an accumulated investment for over us$ 200 billion by 2019. with china’s proposed “belt and road initiative”, which refers to the silk road economic belt and the 21st century maritime silk road, designed to build trade and infrastructure network that connects asia with europe, africa and beyond (jones & zeng, 2019). president xi jinping in his congratulatory message to the 33rd ordinary session of the assembly of african heads of states and governments pointed out that under the guidance of the african union, african countries have actively explored development paths suited to their own conditions and realities, congratulated african countries for their collective efforts that they made in the pursuit of their unity and self-improvement. president xi also noted that the china-africa relationship is currently at its best history, adding the 2018 beijing summit of the forum on china-africa cooperation (focac) led to a new wave in developing the china-africa friendship, with the implementation of its results injecting new vigor into their practical cooperation in various fields, notably the “eight major initiatives” (八大 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 93 published by scholink inc. 行动-ba da xingdong) plus the “ten china-africa cooperation plans” (中非十大合作计划-zhong fei shi da hezuo jihua), both backed by us$ 60 billions of financial support (note 16). for the usa, it will be a chance for washington to renew its engagements in africa, and re-address the post-agoa agenda as a single entity. with the launch of the afcfta, washington will have access to a larger and integrated market, and have the opportunity to work with emerging economies like china, brazil, india, russia, which are already active on the african continent. it will also be a way for the us to work closely with the african union in tackling terrorism in africa. with the afcfta, the potential of the african market will be further realized, which will deepen and intensify usa-africa cooperation in industrial and trade capacities. the improvement of business environment in africa will raise its appeal to american investors. recently, the us secretary of state mike pompeo’s five-day trip to sub-saharan countries proved washington’s willingness to strengthen ties with the continent. during his trip to senegal, angola and ethiopia, secretary mike pompeo announced many american firms and companies’ willingness to invest in africa’s infrastructure. for instance, the us engineering firm betchel and senegal local authorities signed agreements to build a road from dakar to saint louis; in angola, us oil firm chevron promised to explore angola’s offshore natural gas fields, bringing jobs and economic growth for both angola and the usa; in ethiopia, beverage maker coca-cola pledged a new us$ 300 million investment, etc. 5. daunting challenges 5.1 internal challenges it has been known that a major challenge in africa is not a lack of good policies or strategies, but a lack of their effective implementation. crucial to implementation is an understanding of the political economy underpinning the economic integration of the continent. africa is facing many challenges to fully get its share behind its continental free trade area agreement. challenges such as xenophobia, poor transport and telecommunication infrastructure, and insecurity are among daunting challenges that africa as a continent have to resolve not only to be more prosperous, but also to see its “africa agenda 2063” and the afcfta succeed. regarding the issue of xenophobia, history has shown that getting across the border to the next african country isn’t where true integration lies, rather, it lies in becoming part of the new community one is joining. many african countries today see their national interests in xenophobia. hundreds of violent incidents of anti-immigrant hate crimes have been recorded in south-africa over the past two decades (gordon, 2020). in 2019, malawians, nigerians, zimbabweans, even other citizens from other african countries residing in south africa were attacked, kicked out of the country and their businesses were destroyed. some even died from their injuries (kerr, durrheim, & dixon, 2019). in the ecowas bloc, countries like nigeria and ghana, which should be leading other members of the community by setting good leadership examples, have ended up doing just the opposite. for instance, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 94 published by scholink inc. there was a complaint by the nigerian union of traders association based in ghana that the ghanaian government asked them to raise their capital up to us$ 1 million or leave ghana just to make room for investments of indigenous ghanaian (note 17). the same scenario is being observed in the eac, where burundi and rwanda used to be good neighbors and political allies, but with the 2015 burundian political crisis, burundi accused rwanda of supporting a militia that attacks burundi. rwanda has denied those accusations, and with the tension between the two countries has rose ever since. rwandan citizens that are living in burundi are afraid of being attacked or kicked out of burundi, as much as burundian citizens that reside in rwanda. as a result, burundi is considering closing its borders with rwanda, and even ditching the eac bloc for sadc. another critical challenge that africa is facing is poor infrastructure. the success of the afcfta depends on infrastructure development. there is chinese adage that goes: “if you want development, you need to mend a road” (要发展，先修路-yao fazhan, xian xiulu). african poor transport, and telecommunications facilities besides high trading costs, make it difficult for african countries to reap the potential benefits of regional trade arrangements (yang & gupta, 2008). for instance, telecommunication in africa or intra-africa telecommunication is the most expensive in the world. telecommunication companies across africa, especially those of african origin are yet to reach compromise that will enable affordable communication or augment their infrastructure to facilitate good quality communication networks. in addition, there is a need to increase connectivity across the continent. for instance, flying from abuja-nigeria to bamako-mali should take at least one and half hour but it takes an estimated fourteen to thirty hours by transferring through france or any other country in europe to finally reach the final destination and it is probably only ethiopian airlines or asky airlines that would fly to those destinations. the problem is, many african countries are not ready or are not willing to liberalize the aviation industry as envisaged by the “open sky” policy because they do not have reliable local carriers. so, basically, african countries without local carriers want to have the capacity to compete with other external airlines before allowing other competitors access to their markets. and this position hinders progress as it has been overtaken by globalization and trade advancement. however, in the last couple years, africa’s airspace is going borderless, especially with significant progress on the au single african air transport market initiative that was launched in 2018. in conclusion, a vast range of projects are under way to upgrade africa’s infrastructure, but for now, infrastructure deficits are holding back the continent’s development and the expansion of intra-regional trade will need to be addressed for the afcfta to reach its full potential. the last but not the least of internal challenge is insecurity. there is no sustainable development without peace and stability! in many african countries, civil unrest, terrorism, militia and ethnic violence are the norm. countries like nigeria, cameroon, ethiopia, mali, south-sudan, libya and democratic republic of congo are recording scores of deaths on daily or periodical basis. terrorist groups like boko haram, al-shabaab, iswap and isis are very active on the continent. however, at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 95 published by scholink inc. the 33rd african union summit that was held at the headquarters of the au from february 9 to 10th 2019, african policy makers agreed to “silencing the guns” in africa by 2020 and to put an end to all internal wars, which continue to wreak havoc on the resource-rich, yet less-stable continent (note 18). as african policy makers and country leaders vowed to end all wars across the continent by 2020, millions of conflict-affected african citizens are still stuck in many war camps, while african illegal immigrants are being captured in italian waters, with scores others dying in the waves. the core question is how to succeed in silencing the guns in a continent grappling with significant phenomena such as terrorism, pre and post electoral crises, inter-community conflicts? at the current rate and conditions, it will take tremendous efforts of all african leaders if not miracles to silence the guns by 2020. drastic and serious reforms must be undertaken to make the conditions possible. although, progress has been made in reducing state-driven conflicts across africa, the only thing that remain is a political will that ensure the preservation of africa’s supra-national unity. 5.2 external challenges while all african countries have signed the implementation of the afcfta, africa still face many challenges. despite some of the internal challenges cited above, there are also many external challenges. the afcfta agreement commits african countries to remove tariffs to the tune of 90% of goods produced locally and to liberalize services. however, there is a risk of trade loopholes behind the agreement. for instance, african countries have signed agreements with their western or asian counterparts, which if not well monitored, could become a problem in the future. for instance, the european union has a pact with morocco and the two have signed cooperation agreements, some allowing european companies the right to produce, manufacture and sell products in morocco. with the implementation of the afcfta, which promotes free movement of goods and services between african countries, european companies operating in morocco could manufacture their goods in the country and flood their products in many african country markets, especially in the ecowas member countries, free of tariffs, and it is doubtful if local african companies have the capacity or the ability to compete with european ones present in many african countries. this may result in a massive economic dislocation as many job opportunities could be lost along the way. in addition, existing trade arrangements between the european union and many african countries are not based on free trade agreements, but rather subjected to tariffs under the wto. if the afcfta is not well monitored, it could unintentionally offer the european union free trade opportunities via the backdoor. the same goes with china or the usa’s signed agreements with many african countries. for instance, washington announced on february 7th, 2020 that it intended to start trade negotiations with kenya. many critics have faulted the usa-kenya trade talks, some questioning if it is not a way for washington to leverage its opportunities over chinese in kenya or the eastern part of africa; or whether it is not a way for the usa to undermine existing continent-wide commerce pact and limit africa’s power to negotiate with the us (note 19). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 96 published by scholink inc. if the afcfta is not well monitored, the african manufacturing sector will suffer severe consequences, mainly because it doesn’t have the adequate infrastructure in place to compete with imported products that come in duty free. it is already difficult for many african local manufacturers to compete with imported products at the current tariff situation, let alone when the afcfta will be launched by july 2020. creating a duty-free corridor will make it exceedingly difficult if not impossible for african local manufacturers to compete with products imported from china or the usa. africa must be aware that similar motives are already in play, as many chinese companies are producing goods in many african countries and take rigorous actions that may prevent them falling in the trap. another external challenge worth mentioning is the rise of protectionism on the african continent (note 20). african countries should not rush into implementing any trade agreement or rush into protectionism and unilateralism without full considerations of what they might lose. for instance, in october 2019, nigeria, the biggest economy in africa, decided to close its border after its customs services claimed it would generate more revenue from seaports as a result of the closure. however, the decision of the nigerian government to shut its borders has come against ecowas rules of integration and the free movement of goods and services within the region. a couple months before closing its borders, nigeria signed the afcfta agreement. the integration and free trade agreement have been jeopardized by the border closure policy, and it has also instigated retaliatory responses from nigeria’s neighboring countries like niger republic, threatening to shut her doors against nigerian products or goods. rwanda and uganda in the eastern part of africa are also dancing to the same tune by closing their borders to each other. prior convergence of regional integration must happen before the continental level integration. if africa doesn’t have such a strategy, the continent will be open for trade shocks, which would result in substantial welfare loses. 6. policy recommendations 6.1 reduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers among african countries tariffs are taxes imposed on imports and exports between countries or regions with the aim of generating government revenues while protecting domestic companies or industries from external market products. in africa, tariffs between countries are higher than anywhere else in the world. in 2017, the united nations conference on trade and development (unctad) reported that among developed countries, tariffs on tradable goods and services are at 1.2% more or less, which are very low compared to the average tariffs on tradable goods and services among african countries which stand at around 9%. let alone high tariffs, african countries use non-tariff barriers (ntbs) among them as part of their political or economic strategy. unfortunately, existing high tariffs in africa help some african countries to trade more with europe and the united states at the expense of each other. over 60 to 70% of total african trade is with countries that are thousands of miles away from the continent. compared to the rest of the world, this is unfortunate to say the least. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 97 published by scholink inc. compared with other continents, africa has lower proportion of intra-regional trade, due to high tariffs and a highly fragmented market. in this context, african countries can only overcome their structural weakness of small economic size and market through joint efforts and economic integration by reducing tariffs on tradable goods and services, so as to pool their strength and cope with external economic impact and challenges of globalization by means of expanding and strengthening their markets (he, 2019). however, a recent united nations economic commission for africa (uneca) report indicates that if tariffs and ntbs are significantly reduced, or if possible totally eliminated, intra-africa trade would increase to more than 50% of total trade on the continent (note 21). decreasing the ntbs could help sustain economic expansion on the continent, despite a number of international economic shocks. nevertheless, the reduction in tariffs between african countries will also result in reduction in african governments’ revenues. however, the reduction in tariffs and ntbs would actually curtail african governments’ ability to provide public goods and services to its general population. in addition, with the reduction of tariffs, there could be an increase in income tax and value added tax. recently, an article published in foresight africa 2019 by the brookings institution argued that if african countries could trade more between themselves, they would exchange more manufactured and processed goods, would have more knowledge transfer and would create more value. with the coming into effect of the afcfta, which aim to create a single domestic market for goods and services of over 1 billion people, this is the opportune time for africa to review and discuss the reduction, if not the elimination of tariffs and ntbs on the continent. a less fragmented and more coordinated africa could result in much higher intra-trade, especially by tackling tariffs and ntbs while having greater access to more open markets could have various positive and encouraging spillovers. it could boost export bottleneck of many african countries, integrate them into regional and global value chains, help them build resilience to commodity price downswings, boost small and medium-sized enterprises (smes), attract foreign direct investment (fdi), enhance productivity and foster innovation (note 22). however, it is important to emphasize that the immense potential of the afcfta will only be realized if tariffs and ntbs are significantly reduced or totally eliminated. the reduction or elimination of tariffs and ntbs should be a priority at the very start of the implementation phase in july 2020. however, as with all signed free trade agreements, tariffs are phased-out over a specified period. due to the diversities among african regional economic communities and to different domestic contexts of african countries, different timelines will be pursued under the afcfta. around 97% tariff-free trade under the continental free trade agreement will only be realized after a period of 15 to 20 years. 6.2 establish a blockchain technology the benefits of the afcfta are enormous to africa. economists believe that tariff-free or reduction of ntbs to a huge and unified market like the one envisaged in the afcfta agreement will encourage local manufactures and service providers to increase production. with a market of 1.3 billion people, an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 98 published by scholink inc. increase in demand will instigate an increase in production, which in turn will lower unit costs. this will lead to consumers paying less for local goods and services, thereby helping to improve the fragile economies of several african countries. but, in order for all that to happen, african countries introduced 5 majors instruments among which, the rules of origin. the rules of origin states that only goods manufactured with local inputs in member countries can be exported to other countries that belong to the same market and enjoy tariff-free status. unfortunately, with the exemption of south africa, algeria, and morocco, most african countries do not have strong industrial base to produce most goods citizens can consume without importing from western or eastern markets. this is one of the reasons why many african countries have economic partnership agreements skewed against their favor because industrialists from europe, america, or even china when they sign partnerships with african countries, it is possible for them to produce goods in their markets, ship them to african countries they have trade relations with and have them packaged as locally manufactured products, and they can easily enter the african market and enjoy the tariff-free status as well. so, it is important for the afcfta secretariat to revise the rules of origins before engaging in full implementation of the agreement. the rules of origin need to be revised for the afcfta to open up new markets for local african owned companies. as envisaged in the agreement, the afcfta will allow african owned companies to expand their customer base and lead to new products and services. this in return not only will help africa local companies to grow; it will also make investing in innovation viable. in addition, it will also help grow local manufacturing sector and increase the percentage of gdp. presently, africa’s local manufacturing represents only about 10% of total gdp on the continent, considerably low comparing to other developing regions. for all of this to work, there is an urgent need of strengthening africa’s blockchain technology. the african customs union and african manufacturers associations need to establish a single digital distributed secure database which will contain information of all locally produced or manufactured products in compliance with the laws of each signatory country and monitor their logistics and supply chain up to their exports across the borders. this will help customs of every signatory country to have real time data of each product from neighboring or distant countries entering their markets. with the establishment of the blockchain technology, it will ensure that no african or local industrialist or manufacturer colludes with european countries, america or china to breach the rules of origin by bringing or import finished products from western or asian markets and package them as indigenous manufactured leading to the creation of dumping grounds for smuggled products. the afcfta secretariat, which is already operational in ghana, needs to consider the adoption or set up the blockchain technology before the full implementation of the pan-african economic market in july 2020 to prevent inter-africa illegal trade practices that could result in litigation, or even worse, the withdraw of membership by some members. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 99 published by scholink inc. 6.3 political good-will the recently signed african continental free trade area agreement is the first flagship project of the african union’s “africa agenda 2063”, and a major key initiative in the industrialization and economic development of the african continent. it has the potential to boost intra-african trade, stimulate investment and innovation, attract more fdi, foster structural transformation, improve food security, enhance economic growth and export diversification, and rationalize the overlapping trade regimes of the main africa’s regional economic communities. however, it is important for african policy makers to deliver what they signed for and promised african citizens. african policy makers have a bad reputation when it comes to implementing any agreement. and implementation is the elephant in the room and much of the continental free trade deal success rests on african policy makers’ ability and willingness to implement it domestically and support the au institutions to monitor its implementations mechanisms. the signing of the afcfta area doesn’t guarantee the success of its implementation without firm political will, determination and collective efforts of all african political leaders (cofelice, 2018). like many trade agreements that have been signed among african countries, capacity challenges will arise. challenges such as inefficient customs controls, poor border coordination, supply constraints, or even misinterpretations of the afcfta agreement will happen and there is a possibility for some african countries to withdraw from the agreement or likely to fail in fulfilling their obligations, owing to national interests or rising levels of protectionism. this is the time for african policy makers to change africa’s destiny. it is the time for african policy makers to prove to the world that africa’s rejuvenation is possible. the fact that many challenges will rise along the way, this should not discourage african policy makers. challenges should not be the reason not to further pursue the gains and promises that lies behind the afcfta. the success of the afcfta implementation depends on political good-will and on the harmonization of national policies, such as clarity and transparency, and most of all, get rid of corruption or corrupt bureaucrats. no african country should be left behind in implementing the continental free trade area deal. it will be a challenge for african policy makers to deliver all the required tools to succeed in their tasks. every african country has to put in place suitable technical skills that respond to the successful implementation of the afcfta agreement. 7. conclusion as the post-world war ii institutions of global governance tear apart at the weight of anti-globalization forces across the world, african countries have realized the long-held aspiration of continental integration. it has taken african countries almost 30 years since the signing of the abuja treaty in 1991 to sign the african continental free trade area agreement. african countries cannot afford to wait another 30 years to implement the continental free trade area deal and the potential it holds. in this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 100 published by scholink inc. article, the author reviewed existing few research results that relate to the afcfta and to the african integration and what integration mean to the african continent. in this article, the author argued that while global trends tend to move from integration towards protectionism and unilateralism, african countries tend to improve intra-regional trade levels and deepen their regional integration. as positive as this massive change is anticipated to be, there are also still challenges to overcome. in this article, the author elaborated some challenges and gave a series of policy recommendations. qualitative analysis was used in this article. the main findings in this article were the need of a more understanding of what the afcfta means for africa, despite criticism and negative perceptions on african countries’ inability to deliver sustainable development to its citizens. beyond greater physical connectivity through infrastructure construction, one of the most noteworthy recent development is that african countries have prioritized the need to trade more with one another. africa’s recs have done a tremendous job to increase the level of integration on the continent, despite the current low intra-regional trade. the afcfta agreement looks up to current low intra-regional trade of the african continent, largely by reducing key barriers to trade. this is a critical time for african countries to reconsider or discuss how to reduce or if possible, completely eliminate tariffs and ntbs on the continent. the potential of the afcfta will only be realized if tariffs and ntbs are reduced or totally eliminated. at this juncture, the average tariffs on tradable goods and services between african countries are very high compared to tariffs on tradable goods and services between developed countries. the world is taking interest in africa’s growth and transformation potential. many developed countries like the usa, japan, germany, and the uk, or developing countries like china, india, brazil, russia, and even turkey, are turning their interests on the african continent. they have held economic cooperation forums and invited african country leaders and policy makers to take part in their forums, and bilateral trade agreements have been signed. in may 2019, african countries created the world’s largest free trade area, and african countries opened their business environments and built industrial zones and infrastructure to attract investment. africa is now well positioned for economic and industrial expansion by its strategic location and growing population (note 23). according to the author of this article, africa’s rejuvenation is no longer another pipe dream but a reality. a united africa is also possible, not only behind the african union support, but also by a collective effort of all african regional economic communities. with the launch of the afcfta, it is possible for africa to cooperate among its nations on primary objectives that promote economic integration. the alarming problem will be a “politically united africa” and the fight against the covid-19 pandemic. however, a lot of work is still needed to be done to ensure that the benefits brought by promoting the continental free trade area deal are equitable. there is an african adage that goes: “when you chase a specific goal with the right motives that matches up with your activities, the results become compelling and satisfying”. a strong conviction plus political good-will will increase africa’s chances to fully implement the necessary tools and mechanisms required to launch the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 101 published by scholink inc. continental free trade area. the author of this article believes that african countries will benefit from the afcfta agreement. the agreement will boost the continent’s economic levels, help push forward africa’s agenda 2063 implementation, and will help many african countries achieve, if not reach, the united nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals (sdgs). the afcfta agreement will also provide the much-needed unity of purpose between african countries, which will give africa a better negotiating chip and offers africa the unique opportunity to leverage its relations with external powers. references abrego, l., & zamaroczy, m. de. 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(2019). continental transformer. china daily. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/kindle/2019-07/19/content_37493852.htm notes note 1. he wenping, “the implementation of the afcfta: a new milestone”, july 2019, chinafrica, vol. 11; http://www.chinafrica.cn/homepage/201907/t20190709_800173100.html (accessed in february 20, 2020). note 2. african union press release; https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20190707/operational-phase-african-continental-free-trade-area-launched www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 1, no. 2, 2020 103 published by scholink inc. -niger-summit (accessed in january 31st, 2020). note 3. abayomi azikiwe, editor at pan-african news wire; https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20190707/operational-phase-african-continental-free-trade-area-launched -niger-summit; (accessed in july 25th, 2019). note 4. questions and answers compiled by the african trade policy center in association with the african union commission; https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/36085-doc-qa_cfta_en_rev15march.pdf; (accessed in august 15th, 2019). note 5. asmita parshotam, “can the african continental free trade area offer a new beginning for trade in africa”, june 2018, journal of south african institute of international affairs, occasional paper 280, pp. 5. note 6. zezhong zhang (张泽忠 ), “african economic integration strategy under the african continental free trade agreement”, 2020, journal of international economic law, pp. 50. note 7. lawrence freeman, “africa enters new era of trade and development with the afcfta”, cgtn press, july 09th, 2019. note 8. daniel n. mlambo, “unearthing the challenges and prospects of regional integration in southern africa”, journal of public affairs, september 2018, vol. 19, issue 1, pp. 1. note 9. naym charaf-eddine, ilan strauss, “the ten commandments of applied regional integration analysis: the african case”, november 3rd, 2014, african development review, vol. 26, issue s1, pp. 7. note 10. lily sommer, david luke, “canada’s progressive trade agenda: engaging with africa to support inclusive gains under the african continental free trade area”, january 2019, canadian foreign policy journal, vol. 25, issue 3, pp. 241. note 11. melaku geboye desta, guillaume gerout, “the challenge of overlapping regional economic communities in africa: lessons for the continental free trade area from the failures of the tripartite free trade area”, august 2018, ethiopian yearbook of international law, book chapter of book series, etyil, volume 2017, pp. 111. note 12. east african community press release; https://www.eac.int/press-releases/157-trade/1464-conclusion-of-the-bilateral-tariff-negotiations-betwe en-sacu-and-the-eac (accessed in february 7th, 2020). note 13. celestin monga, “africa isn’t ready for currency unions”, february 26th, 2020, the new times rwanda leading daily; https://www.newtimes.co.rw/opinions/africa-isnt-ready-currency-unions (accessed in february 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silencing guns”, february 13, 2020, xinhua news; http://www.china.org.cn/world/off_the_wire/2020-02/13/content_75700868.htm (accessed in february 26th, 2020). note 19. luke anami, “lawyers fight kenya-us trade deal”, march 22, 2020, the eastafrican; https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/lawyers-fight-kenya-us-trade-deal/2560-5499270-2iwjkyz/ index.html (accessed in march 23, 2020) note 20. sella oneko, “africans want open borders, but can they overcome the stumbling blocks?”, december 2019, allafrica news; https://allafrica.com/stories/201912190002.html (accessed in february 28th, 2020). note 21. united nations economic commission for africa report; assessing regional integration in africa part 8; https://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publicationfiles/aria8_eng_fin.pdf (accessed in february 28th, 2020). note 22. hannah edinger, “trade winds are blowing”, july 2019, chinafrica, vol. 11; http://www.chinafrica.cn/homepage/201906/t20190627_800171847.html (accessed in february 28th, 2020). note 23. adm james foggo iii; https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/09/africa-great-power-competition-and-us-navy/159828/; (accessed in september 24th, 2019). education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 1 original paper textuality in online news paper articles manar kareem mehdi1* 1 department of english, college of education, al-zahraa university for women, karbala, iraq * manar kareem mehdi, department of english, college of education, al-zahraa university for women, karbala, iraq received: december 16, 2022 accepted: december 24, 2021 online published: january 2, 2023 doi:10.22158/eshs.v4n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v4n1p1 abstract textuality is a key concept in text linguistics. it is a property that a text must have in order to be regarded as a good text. in this paper, an attempt is made to arrive at the aspects of textuality utilized in online newspaper articles. more precisely, the paper endeavors to answer the following question: what are the most prevalent aspects of textuality utilized in this kind of discourse? as such, this paper aims at identifying the most common aspects of textuality exploited in online newspaper articles. accordingly, it is hypothesized that cohesion, coherence, and informativity are the most prevalent aspects of textuality utilized in online newspaper articles. in order to achieve the aims of this paper and test its hypothesis, de beaugrande and dressler’s (1981) model of textuality is utilized for the analysis of the data under scrutiny. the analysis is executed on six articles retrieved from online british newspapers, namely, the independent, the telegraph, the guardian, and express. findings of the analysis validate the above mentioned hypothesis. keywords textuality, cohesion, coherence, informativity, newspaper articles 1. theoretical underpinnings 1.1 texts, textuality, and texture there are various senses in which a piece of writing may be said to be a “text”. the word “text” itself is the past participle stem of the latin verb texere, to weave, intertwine, plait, or (of writing) compose. the english words “textile” and “texture” are also derived from the same latin word. a “text” may thus be taken to be “a network of analytic, conceptual, logical, and theoretical relations that is woven with the threads of language” (brown, 2003, p. 17). textuality is a key concept in text linguistics. neubert and shreve (1992, p. 30) define textuality as “the complex set of features that texts must have to be considered texts. textuality is a property that a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. complex linguistic object assumes when it reflects certain social and communicative constraints”. texture, structure, and context are the three fundamental domains of textuality. the term “texture” refers to the different strategies employed to maintain consistency of meaning and so make a series of sentences work (i.e., both cohesive and coherent). the structure of texts is another factor that contributes to their coherence and helps them develop it. this aids us in our endeavor to distinguish between distinct compositional plans in what would otherwise just be a disjointed string of sentences. as a result, structure and texture work best together, with the former giving the overall framework and the latter the details. we rely on higher-order contextual aspects when dealing with structure and texture to identify how a given phrase sequence serves a particular rhetorical purpose, such as arguing or narrating and hence becomes “what we have called text” (hatim & mason, 1997, p. 71). in essence, people are made up of shared experiences, bodies, and brains. the products that humans create using these resources are texts. textuality is the result of shared cognitive mechanisms at work, as seen in readings and texts. textuality’s experienced quality is its texture (stockwell, 2009, p. 45). 1.2 model of analysis this paper follows the textuality model put forward by de beaugrande and dressler (in their well-known introduction to text linguistics (1981)). according to these theorists (1981, p. 3) a text “...will be defined as a communicative occurrence which meets seven standards of textuality”. the seven standards referred to are cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, contextuality and intertextuality. 1.2.1 cohesion the term “cohesion” refers to the connections between the parts of a sentence, or the actual words we hear and use, in a text (grammatically and lexically). according to halliday and hasan (1976, p. 11), cohesion exists “where the interpretation of any item in the discourse requires making reference to some other item in the discourse”. de beaugrande and dressler (1981, p. 3) comment in this regard that the “...surface components depend upon each other according to grammatical forms and conventions, such that cohesion rests upon grammatical dependencies”. jackson (1990, p. 252) refers to the fact that a “...bond is formed between one sentence and another because the interpretation of a sentence either depends on or is informed by some item in a previous sentence”. halliday and hasan (1976, p. 13) point out that the “concept of cohesion accounts for the essential semantic relations whereby any passage of speech or writing is enabled to function as text” and that this concept is systematized by means of five distinct different categories. these categories are: reference, substitution, ellipse, conjunction and lexical cohesion. reference as a cohesive device refers to the inclusion of a new item in the text and the succeeding reference to that same thing through a different item, typically a shortened form (commonly known as a “pro-form”). pronouns, demonstratives, comparatives, a variety of lexical structures, even adverbs and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. adjectives may be implemented for this purpose (ibid, p. 31). in the case of substitution, a substitute is essentially used “in the place” of another word or expression to avoid using the same term or phrase twice. this makes it possible to shorten the text as well. different types of substitution, such as nominal, verbal, and clausal substitution, can be identified (ibid.). in the process of ellipsis, elements of sentences are physically removed or omitted because the author assumes that the reader will fill in the gaps when the sentence is presented (donnelly, 1994, p. 103). with conjunction, we connect the propositions in adjacent sentences depending on specific semantic correlations “e.g., additive, adversative, causal and temporal” by using conjunctions and adverbs. the conjunctive items aid to “...reinforce and highlight the relationship between other elements of the text” (ibid, p. 105). lastly, lexical cohesion describes the semantic connections (such as collocation, antonymy, and synonymy) made by certain lexical items. understanding this kind of coherence requires familiarity with certain semantic structures (ibid.). 1.2.2 coherence coherence is likely the most important aspect of any type of textual analysis because a text cannot be considered “excellent” if it is not thoroughly comprehended. it might be challenging to define what exactly constitutes “coherence” in a writing. however, the definition offered by neubert and shreve (1992, p. 94) is extremely helpful: “a coherent text has an underlying logical structure that acts to guide the reader through the text” so that “it “sticks together” as a unit” (hatch, 1992, p. 209) and generates the “feeling that a text hangs together, that it makes sense, and is not just a jumble of sentences” (mccarthy, 1991, p. 26). 1.2.3 intentionality and acceptability most people interested in text linguistics consider intentionality and acceptability to be a “pair” of principles. acceptability refers to the attitude of the text recipient that the series of events should produce a cohesive and coherent text with some use or relevance for the recipient, such as to gain knowledge or offer cooperation in a plan. similarly, intentionality focuses on the text creator’s belief that the sequence of events should make up a text that is cohesive and coherent and serves to further the producer”s “intentions”, such as disseminating information or achieving a predetermined goal (de beaugrande & dressler,1981, p. 13). 1.2.4 informativity the degree to which the instances of the text being given are anticipated versus unanticipated or known versus unknown is the focus of this textuality standard (ibid., p. 14). the amount of novel information in a text is measured by the informativity principle, and whether new information is recognized by the reader depends on their prior knowledge and basic understanding of the world (jurin & krišković, 2017, p. 24). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. as a result, every text is at least partially informative; regardless of how predictable shape and content may be, there will always be a few unpredictable events that cannot be completely anticipated. a text with especially few information is likely to be unpleasant, boring, or even disregarded (de beaugrande & dressler, 1981, p. 14). 1.2.5 contextuality contextuality (sometimes named situationality) emphasizes the vital role played by context in any communicative event. every text, i.e., everything said or written, develops in a certain context of use. this effectively indicates that the participants” shared contextual knowledge determines the effectiveness and quality of communication in every situation where language is utilized. the fields of pragmatics and sociolinguistics both study this element of language use (trask, 1995, p. 68). 1.2.6 intertextuality intertextuality is a concept used to describe how all texts, whether they are written or spoken, formal or casual, creative or ordinary, are connected to one another in some way (van zoonen, 2017, p. 1). in addition, intertextuality is a manifestation of a neat connection between texts acknowledging text dependence on previously generated texts (jurin & krišković, 2017, p. 24). 2. data description and analysis 2.1 data description the data of this study is represented by six scientific articles retrieved from online british newspapers, namely, the independent, the telegraph, the guardian, and express. 2.2 method of analysis this work implements de beaugrande and dressler’s (1981) model of textuality which has been explained in section (1.2) above for the analysis of the data under scrutiny. 2.3 data analysis text (1) in this article, (see the appendix), the journalist is discussing the finding of a scientific research which suggests that women need more sleep than men because of their complex brains. the journalist, in this article, utilizes many aspects of textuality to make this peace of written discourse more efficient and hence more attractive. the whole article has a very well organized internal structure, in that the sentences and phrases of the texts are neatly tied to each other through the use of various cohesive devices such as cross-reference using pronouns, ellipsis, and conjunctions: -women need more sleep than men because of their “complex” brains. -women’s brains work harder than men’s (i.e., than men’s brains). -you’ve got two choices: either emerge from the covers and get a head start to the day, or you try to go back to sleep. women tend to require more sleep than men because of their “complex” brains, according www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. to research. moreover, the article is coherent in that all its parts are logically tied to each other in that they all discuss one unified topic which is how research found that women need more sleep than men. also, the article is completely informative in that it presents new and valuable information to the reader. at the beginning of the article, the journalist attempts to present the new and valuable information before the old or known one so he uses the grammatical structure of fronting: -women need more sleep than men because of their “complex” brains, research suggests, (instead of saying: research suggests that women need more sleep…). text (2) in this article, (see the appendix), which is taken from the telegraph, the journalist is discussing the environmental disaster facing britain’s ash trees because of a “bright green beetle”. the internal organization of the article is well structured and all the parts of the text are neatly tied to each other through the use of cohesive devices such as cross-reference via pronouns, conjunction, and ellipsis: -the insect has passed through denmark and is believed to have reached sweden. in 2002 it was accidentally introduced to north america, where it has killed millions of ash trees. -ash is britain’s most common hedgerow tree and the second most common tree in woodland, after the oak. -the insect has passed through denmark and (-) is believed to have reached sweden, (i.e., the insect or it is believed…). it can be clearly noticed that the article is coherent in that all its parts are logically connected to each other because they are all dealing with a unified topic which how ecologists found that the beetle is making serious damage in ash trees which britain’s most common and valuable trees. moreover, the article is informative in that it introduces new and valuable information to the reader. the journalist presents new and important information through the grammatical structures of fronting and passivization: -bright green beetle will wipe out britain’s ash trees, scientists warn, (instead of saying: scientists warn that bright green beetle will…). -the insect has passed through denmark and is believed to have reached sweden. text (3) in this article, (see the appendix), which is taken from the guardian, the journalist is tackling the report of wildlife experts about the loss of “england’s last golden eagle” and it is feared that the bird is dead. the article is well organized syntactically and its internal structure is well presented through the use of such cohesive devices as reference via pronouns and conjunction: -wildlife experts say the bird likely died of natural causes after they fail to spot him at his usual haunts in the lake district. -when the eagle didn’t appear last month we thought there was a chance he might be hunting in a nearby valley but over the past few weeks we’ve been gradually losing hope. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. moreover, the article is obviously coherent in that its parts are logically linked to each other and they are not just series of jumbled sentences. the linkage is manifested in the discussion of one integrated topic, namely the loss of “england’s last golden eagle” and its expected death. the article is informative in that it conveys new and valuable information to the readers. the journalist handles the presentation of new and important information through the exploitation of such grammatical structures as fronting and passivization: -england’s only resident golden eagle is likely to have died after failing to appear this spring, wildlife experts fear, (instead of saying: wildlife experts fear that england’s only resident golden eagle is…). -the eagle was believed to have been around 20 years old and had lived alone since the death of his mate in 2004. text (4) in this article, (see the appendix), which is taken from the independent, the journalist is discussing the findings of a scientific research which can solve the old question of “how inherently good humans are—or aren’t?” the article is well organized and its internal syntactic structure is knitted through the use of such cohesive devices as reference via pronouns, conjunction, and ellipsis: -however, researchers at the university of california, los angeles have used science to try and find out. they came to the conclusion that “our altruism may be more hard-wired than previously thought”. -they also looked at the dorsolateral and dorsomedial parts of the prefrontal cortex, which regulate behaviour and control impulses. -the more we experience the states of others, the more we appear to be inclined to treat them as we would ourselves (i.e., as we would ourselves like to be treated). the article’s several segments are connected logically by the fact that they all address the same subject which is the finding of a scientific research which suggests a potential method of encouraging less selfish and more altruistic characteristics of the human brains. moreover, the article is informative in that it implements new and valued information. the journalist manifests informativity through the presentation of new and significant information by exploiting certain grammatical devices such as fronting: -altruism may be “hard wired” into the human brain, scientists have suggested, (instead of saying: scientists have suggested that altruism may be…). text (5) this article, (see the appendix), is dealing with the finding of a documentary team which came up with the conclusion that shakespeare’s skull may have been removed from his grave through the use of high-tech radar. the sentences and phrases in the text under examination are neatly connected to one another having a very well ordered internal structure achieved by the use of various cohesive devices such as cross-reference using pronouns and conjunctions: -a team performed a ground-penetrating radar scan on the grave at the holy trinity church in stratford-upon-avon. they found evidence of “a mysterious and significant repair to the head end of http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. william shakespeare’s grave”. -frank chambers raided shakespeare’s vault in the chancel of holy trinity church and left shakespeare’s skull in a church in worcestershire. it is obviously noticeable that the article is coherent in that all its portions are logically connected to each other because they are all dealing with a amalgamated topic which is how a documentary team found that shakespeare’s skull may have been removed from his grave. the article is informative in that it conveys new and valuable information to the readers. the journalist manages the presentation of new and important information through the exploitation of such grammatical structures as fronting and passivization: -shakespeare’s skull may have been removed from grave, documentary finds, (instead of saying: documentary finds that shakespeare’s skull…). -the bard and his loved ones were wrapped in winding sheets. text (6) in this article, (see the appendix), the journalist is discussing the finding of some astronomy research conducted by a harvard professor who suggests that we could find aliens living in giant clusters of stars on the edge of our milky way. the article is well-structured, and its internal syntactic architecture is build up through the use of certain cohesive elements like reference via pronouns and conjunction: -aliens are living in giant clusters of stars and scientists will be able to find them on the edge of our milky way. -the sun is 4.6 billion years old and has allowed us to evolve to intelligent beings. additionally, the text is coherent in that each of its components is logically connected to the others as they all address the same subject which is the finding of an astronomy research that suggests the existence of aliens living in giant clusters of stars on the edge of the milky way. as for the informativity of the article, the journalist at the beginning of the text makes a knowledge deficit by using the demonstrative “this” without previously mentioning its co-referent. -this is where we should be searching for aliens. this deficit can be filled if we complete reading the article to find out that “this” refers to “giant clusters of stars”. the journalist also uses fronting to present new and important information before the old one: -this is where we should be searching for aliens, according to harvard professor, (instead of saying: according to harvard professor, this is where we...). 3. concluding remarks the findings of this study may be summed up as follows: 1) the hypothesis set at the beginning of this paper which reads: “cohesion, coherence, and informativity are the most prevalent aspects of textuality utilized in online newspaper www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. articles”, has been validated in that these aspects of textuality are extensively appealed to in the articles analyzed. 2) moreover, it has been revealed that informativity is the most common aspect of textuality exploited in this kind of discourse. it is frequently utilized in the articles analyzed. 3) it has been also noticed that the journalist frequently resorts to such cohesive devices as reference via pronouns, conjunction, and ellipsis as a means of achieving textuality through cohesion. 4) the journalist handles the presentation of new and important information through the exploitation of such grammatical structures as fronting and passivization. references brown, v. (2003). textuality and the history of economics. in w. j. samuels (ed.), a companion to the history of economic thought. oxford: blackwell. de beaugrande, r., & dressler, w. (1981). introduction to text linguistics. london: longman. donnelly, c. (1994). linguistics for writers. buffalo: suny press. halliday, m. a. k., & hasan, r. (1976). cohesion in english. london: longman. hatch, e. (1992). discourse and language education. cambridge: cambridge university press. hatim, b., & mason, i. (1997). the translator as communicator. london: routledge. jackson, h. (1990). grammar and meaning. a semantic approach to english grammar. london: longman. jurin, s., & krišković, a. (2017). texts and their usage through text linguistic and cognitive linguistic analysis. rijeka: filozofski fakultet u rijeci. mccarthy, m. (1991). discourse analysis for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. neubert, a., & shreve, g. (1992). translation as text. kent: kent state university press. stockwell, p. (2009). texture: a cognitive aesthetics of reading. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. trask, r. l. (1995). language: the basics. london: routledge. van zoonen, l. (2017). intertextuality. in p. rössler, c. hoffner, & l. van zoonen (eds), the international encyclopedia of media effects. new jersey: wiley-blackwell. (web resource 1) retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/women-need-more-sleep-beca use-of-their-complex-brains-research-suggests-a6925266.html (web resource 2) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/23/bright-green-beetle-will-wipe-out-britains-ash-trees-scien tists/ (web resource 3) retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/14/englands-last-golden-eagle-feared-dead (web resource 4) retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-brain-could-be-hard-wired-towards-altruism-scient ists-say-a6941041.html (web resource 5) retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/03/23/shakespeares-skull-may-have-been-removed-from-grave-doc umentary/ (web resource 6) retrieved from http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/654305/alien-globular-cluster-et-milky-way-galaxy-harvard appendix online newspaper articles text (1) women need more sleep than men because of their “complex” brains, research suggests as women’s brains work harder than men’s, they also need more sleep by: will worley the independent/march 2016 on mornings like this, you’ve got two choices: either emerge from the covers and get a head start to the day, or you try to go back to sleep. women tend to require more sleep than men because of their “complex” brains, according to research. scientists found that around 20 minutes more sleep was needed by women compared to men and said this was thought to be because the female brain works harder during the day. the study was carried out on a sample set of 210 middle-aged men and women. “one of the major functions of sleep is to allow the brain to recover and repair itself”, study author jim horne, a sleep expert formerly director of the sleep research centre at loughborough university, told the mail online. “during deep sleep, the cortex—the part of the brain responsible for thought memory, language and so on—disengages from the senses and goes into recovery mode”. http://www.independent.co.uk/author/will-worley http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/sleep http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brain http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1246029/who-really-needs-sleep--men-women-one-britains-leading-sleep-experts-says-answer.html www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. prof horn said the amount of sleep was necessitated by the complexity and intensity of brain activity during the day. he said: “the more of your brain you use during the day, the more of it that needs to recover and, consequently, the more sleep you need”. “women tend to multi-task—they do a lot at once and are flexible—and so they use more of their actual brain than men do. because of that, their sleep need is greater”. “the average is 20 minutes more, but some women may need slightly more or less than this”. however, he said men who have complex jobs which involve a lot of “decision-making and lateral thinking” are also likely to need more sleep than the average male. the study also found that poor sleep among women was linked to a number of side effects. increased levels of psychological distress and greater feelings of hostility, depression, and anger were all found in women who slept poorly, but not men. (web resource 1) text (2) bright green beetle will wipe out britain’s ash trees, scientists warn by: leon watson the telegraph/ march 2016 a bright green parasite will put the final nail in the coffin of britain’s ash tree population after laying waste to woodland across europe, scientists warned on wednesday. the arrival of the emerald borer beetle, originally from asia, is “inevitable” and with the fungal disease ash dieback will create a “double whammy” that could make ash trees extinct, a comprehensive new analysis found. ash is britain’s most common hedgerow tree and the second most common tree in woodland, after the oak. there are around 157,000 hectares of ash woodland with 68 million trees as well as a further 12 million ash trees outside those areas. but scientists say it will not be able to withstand the arrival of the emerald ash borer, which has been steadily spreading west. the adult beetles feed on ash leaves and do little damage, but the larvae bore under the bark and into the wood, killing the tree. recorded in moscow in 2003, the insect has passed through denmark and is believed to have reached sweden. in 2002 it was accidentally introduced to north america, where it has killed millions of ash trees. peter thomas, a tree ecologist at keele university who carried out the analysis, said: “between ash dieback and the emerald ash borer, it is likely that almost all ash trees in europe will be wiped out, just as the elm was largely eliminated by dutch elm disease. http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/work http://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/leon-watson/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/12098065/ash-dieback-breakthrough-as-scientists-learn-to-spot-resistant-trees.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/12098065/ash-dieback-breakthrough-as-scientists-learn-to-spot-resistant-trees.html www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. “the two together are a double whammy”. “it is only a matter of time before it spreads across the rest of the europe—including britain. “our european ash is very susceptible to the beetle and the beetle is set to become the biggest threat faced by ash in europe—potentially far more serious than ash dieback”. “it is quite a big beetle, originally from asia, and can fly a long way. in the past, insect diseases have spread very quickly”. thomas’s analysis was published on wednesday in the journal of ecology. britain’s ash trees are already battling dieback, which was first spotted in the uk in 2012 and is feared to threaten 95 per cent of the species. it causes leaf loss, crown dieback and bark lesions in affected trees. once a tree is infected the disease is usually fatal, either directly or indirectly by weakening the tree to the point where it succumbs more readily to attacks by other pests or disease. it remains unclear how many ashes will die, as it can take years for mature trees to succumb. its spores can be blown more than 10 miles in the wind and survive on woodland floors for four or five years. (web resource 2) text (3) england’s last golden eagle feared dead wildlife experts say the bird likely died of natural causes after they fail to spot him at his usual haunts in the lake district by: jessica aldred the guardian/april 2016 england’s only resident golden eagle is likely to have died after failing to appear this spring, wildlife experts fear. the bird, which has been a resident at riggindale near haweswater, cumbria, since 2001, has not seen by rspb staff since last november, and would normally be seen at this time of year building a nest and displaying to attract a mate. lee schofield, site manager at rspb haweswater, said: “when the eagle didn’t appear last month we thought there was a chance he might be hunting in a nearby valley but over the past few weeks we’ve been gradually losing hope”. the eagle, who did not have a name, was believed to have been around 20 years old and had lived alone since the death of his mate in 2004. “we will probably never find out what happened to him but as he was ... an advanced age for an eagle, it”s quite possible that he died of natural causes”, schofield said. “his disappearance marks the end of an era as he has been an iconic part of the haweswater landscape for the past 15 years. during this time, thousands of visitors have travelled from across the country hoping to catch a glimpse of him at the riggindale eagle viewpoint”. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/10883595/ash-dieback-is-now-unstoppable-ecologists-warn.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/10883595/ash-dieback-is-now-unstoppable-ecologists-warn.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/11147298/ash-dieback-found-north-west-of-england-for-first-time.html http://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicaaldred http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/3600265.stm www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. adrian long, of birdlife international, said it was incredibly sad news. “raptors are at the top of the food chain, and eagle species need big areas to live. we must remember that decades of altering our landscape and habitats has caused this iconic bird to no longer patrol the skies of england. i hope that eagles will one day be seen flying again the hills of england again, with perhaps some of the scottish population moving south”. birder alan tilmouth, who broke the news on the @birdguides twitter account on wednesday evening, said: “the haweswater golden eagles probably provided many thousands of birders their first experience with an iconic bird, for many it will be the only golden eagle encounter they have had in england. “we’ll wake tomorrow to a country less wild than before, nature one step further from us, one step closer to simply being a shadow of itself”. dawn balmer, head of surveys for the british trust for ornithology, said: “it seems likely that this magnificent bird has died of natural causes, and in this wild landscape it’s unlikely a corpse will be found. we can only hope that the small and vulnerable golden eagle population in south-west scotland increases and expands in the future, and that some eagles disperse into england”. the rspb said the eagle was not tagged or ringed as it was too hard to catch them. golden eagles arrived in the lake district from scotland in the late 1950s and a pair first bred at haweswater in 1969. there are an estimated 440 annual breeding pairs in the uk, which are mostly found in the wide-open moorlands and mountains of scotland. eagles have traditional territories and nesting places which may be used by several generations. they have been illegally killed in the past and are still occasionally poisoned, or have their nests robbed. the original male died in 1976 and was replaced by britain’s oldest known eagle who lived until he was at least 30 years old. in turn, he was replaced in 2001-02 by the most recent male. the original female was replaced in 1981 by the last female who died in 2004. although it is unlikely that golden eagles will take up residence again at haweswater in the near future, the conservation organisation is undertaking an extensive programme of habitat restoration which it hopes will eventually encourage eagles to nest again at the site. schofield said: “at the moment the lake district isn’t particularly attractive to golden eagles as there is a shortage of suitable habitat and food. by restoring a range of natural habitats at haweswater, we hope this will lead to an increase in wildlife, including birds and small mammals, which would provide a sustainable food source for golden eagles”. (web resource 3) text (4) human brain could be “hard-wired” towards altruism, scientists say “the more we experience the states of others, the more we appear to be inclined to treat them as we would ourselves” http://www.theguardian.com/uk/lake-district www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. by: will worley the independent/march 2016 altruism may be “hard wired” into the human brain, scientists have suggested. how inherently good humans are—or aren’t—has been an issue which has occupied philosophers for centuries. however, researchers at the university of california, los angeles (ucla) have used science to try and find out. they came to the conclusion that “our altruism may be more hard-wired than previously thought,” according to leonardo christov-moore, a postdoctoral fellow at ucla’s semel institute of neuroscience and human behaviour. the research also indicates a potential method of encouraging less selfish and more altruistic characteristics, said senior author marco iacoboni, a ucla psychiatry professor. “this is potentially ground-breaking,” said prof iacoboni. the claims follow the findings of two studies. in the first study, researchers analysed brain activity in 20 participants. this was done by scanning participants” brains while they were shown a video of a hand being poked with a pin and asked to imitate photographs of faces displaying a range of emotions. in particular, the scientists looked at the cluster of parts of the brain known as the amygdala, somatosensory cortex and anterior insula. these are associated with experiencing pain and emotion and imitating other people. they also looked at the dorsolateral and dorsomedial parts of the prefrontal cortex, which regulate behaviour and control impulses. participants then played the “dictator game”, a task often used by social scientists to study decision making. they were given money—$10 per round for 24 rounds—to either keep for themselves or share with a stranger. recipients were los angeles residents whose real ages and income levels were used in the experiment. after each participant had completed the task, researchers compared their pay outs with their brain scans. participants with the most activity in the prefrontal cortex – associated with behaviour and impulse control proved to be the least generous, giving away an average of only $1 to $3 per round. but the one-third of the participants who had the strongest responses in the areas of the brain associated with perceiving pain and emotion and imitating others were the most generous. on average, these subjects gave away approximately 75 per cent of their money. researchers referred to this tendency as “prosocial resonance” or mirroring impulse, and they believe the impulse is a primary driving force behind altruism. “it’s almost like these areas of the brain behave according to a neural golden rule,” mr. christov-moore http://www.independent.co.uk/author/will-worley http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brain http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/ucla www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. said. “the more we tend to vicariously experience the states of others, the more we appear to be inclined to treat them as we would ourselves”. in the second study, researchers looked at if the behaviour and impulse controlling prefrontal cortex also restricts the altruistic mirroring impulse. a non-invasive procedure called theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation was used on 58 participants to numb brain activity in specific areas. participants with dumbed-down activity in the prefrontal cortex were found to be 50 per cent more generous than participants who were numbed elsewhere in the brain. “knocking out these areas appears to free your ability to feel for others”, christov-moore said. the findings of both studies suggest potential avenues for increasing empathy, which is especially critical in treating people who have experienced desensitizing situations like incarceration or war. “the study is important proof of principle that with a noninvasive procedure you can make people behave in a more prosocial way”, prof iacoboni said. (web resource 4) text (5) shakespeare’s skull may have been removed from grave, documentary finds by: alice vincent the telegraph/march 2016 in 1879, an unconfirmed report in the press claimed that william shakespeare’s skull was stolen from his shallow grave by trophy hunters 85 years earlier. now, a high-tech radar investigation into the bard’s grave suggests that the story is true. the channel 4 documentary secret history: shakespeare’s tomb, follows a team as they perform a ground-penetrating radar scan on the grave at the holy trinity church in stratford-upon-avon. they found evidence of “a mysterious and significant repair to the head end of william shakespeare’s grave”. the archaeologists’ theory is that the grave was disturbed previously, causing the floor to sink and needing repair. kevin colls, the archaeologist who leads the team, says in the documentary: “we have shakespeare’s burial with an odd disturbance at the head end and we have a story that suggests that at some point in history someone’s come in and taken the skull of shakespeare. “it’s very convincing to me that his skull isn’t at holy trinity at all”. it is not the only startling finding from the radar examination, which has discovered that shakespeare and his family are buried in a shallow grave under the church floor, rather than the large family vault where their bodies were thought to have been laid. the playwright, along with his wife anne hathaway and other members of the family are buried less than a metre below ground. colls’ and his team also believe that the bard and his loved ones were wrapped in winding sheets or http://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/alice-vincent/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. shrouds and buried in soil, rather than in a formal coffin, as there was no evidence of metal—which would indicate the presence of coffin nails—in the area of the grave. two magazine articles—thought to be written by a former vicar at st leonard”s church, worcester—published in 1879 and 1884, claimed that a doctor called frank chambers raided shakespeare’s vault in the chancel of holy trinity church and left shakespeare’s skull in a church in worcestershire. st leonard’s church, located 15 miles north-west of stratford in beoley, is home to a lone skull in a sealed crypt that some have thought could be shakespeare’s. the current vicar, rev paul irving, sought permission from the church of england’s consistory court to have the skull tested for dna, but had the application rejected on a lack of firm evidence. barrister chancellor myrnors wrote that there was no “scholarly or other evidence” to support the theory, even dismissing it as a “piece of gothic fiction”. but, following the findings at holy trinity church, archaeologists were granted permission to carry out forensic anthropological analysis on the mysterious skull at beoley. the results showed that it did not belong to shakespeare, but an unknown woman who was in her seventies when she died. for now, colls maintains that the location of shakespeare’s skull is unknown, with colls admitting that “thinking of the findings sends shivers down my spine”. the rev patrick taylor at holy trinity statford, however, maintains that shakespeare’s skull remains under the church’s flagstones. “we are not convinced that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that his skull has been taken,” he said in a statement. “we intend to continue to respect the sanctity of his grave, in accordance with shakespeare’s wishes, and not allow it to be disturbed. we shall have to live with the mystery of not knowing fully what lies beneath the stone”. (web resource 5) text (6) this is where we should be searching for aliens, according to harvard professor aliens are living in giant clusters of stars and scientists will be able to find them on the edge of our milky way, a leading astronomer has said. by: sean martin express/march 2016 groups of stars called globular clusters, have been around more than twice as long as the sun and earth, meaning any potential alien life could have evolved to be more advanced than humans. dr. rosanne di stefano from the harvard-smithsonian center for astrophysics in the us, made the bold claims in an article about star clusters. globular clusters are areas in the universe which are densely packed with ancient stars, the majority of which are older than our sun. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 4, no. 1, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. the “halo” region of the milky way—the part beyond the catherine wheel arms of our galaxy—contains globular clusters which have stars as old as 10 billion years old. considering the sun is 4.6 billion years old and has allowed us to evolve to intelligent beings, dr di stefano believes 10 billion years” worth of evolution could mean that the potential aliens are even more advanced than us. additionally, the stars in this region are close together, meaning it takes light as little as one month to travel from one star to another, whereas the closest star to earth, aside from the sun, is 4.2 light years away. dr. di stefano said due to the close proximity of the stars, “it would also be easier for a civilisation to explore and even set up outposts on other worlds”. only one planet has been found in a globular cluster—the 12.4 billion-year-old methuselah, named an exoplanet because it isn’t in our solar system. but dr. di stefano wrote in the sky at night magazine: “it would be strange if there were not many others. “of course, this is all conjecture. we don’t know whether there is alien life in such clusters. “but globular clusters would be a good place to look and might be the first place where intelligent life is identified in our galaxy”. however, others believe we should focus the search for alien life on earth’s transit zones. a report recently published in astrobiology states scientists should hone in on the areas of space that we can see, and thus potential aliens may be able to see us. astrophysicists rené heller and ralph pudritz’s study states alien civilisations may be looking for extra-terrestrials in the same way we are tracking exoplanets—by monitoring their shadows as they pass in front of their host star. they write: “our planet may be seen by distant observers against our sun’s light, allowing them to detect us. “as an ultimate consequence, even if our species chose to remain radio-quiet to eschew interstellar contact, we cannot hide from observers located in earth’s solar transit zone, if they exist”. (web resource 6) http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/648827/aliens-earth-transit-zones-scientists-et-exoplanet education, society and human studies issn 2690-3679 (print) issn 2690-3687 (online) vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs 14 original paper delivering competent knowing and living in the narrative space framed by “inscriptive connectivities” milan jaros1* 1 merz court c521, newcastle university, newcastle upon tyne, uk * milan jaros, merz court c521, newcastle university, newcastle upon tyne, uk received: november 23, 2020 accepted: december 4, 2020 online published: december 14, 2020 doi:10.22158/eshs.v2n1p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/eshs.v2n1p14 abstract advancing modernity fatally weakened direct ways of intervening in the social, whether by the divine will or barricades. nietzsche’s technique of inscription has been gradually adapted to reach the present as hazardous sub-brands of “digitally enhanced” inscriptive connectivity born out of an unlikely alliance of emergent tools of networked communication and technophobia of much of the humanities. even some specialist topics enter the public space as “narratives”, no longer grounded in open allegiances to a system of thought or worldview. instead authors prefer a travelogue format which hides intended connections. what then is the genealogy of this way of structuring narratives? in particular, what might serve as a tutorial door opening not only to the hidden content of such narratives but also to turning them into useful tools of learning and competence building free of top-down impositions and rota learning familiar from the curriculum delivery demanded by much of the educational establishment? it will be shown how to guide the reader in an interactive, bottom up manner so that he or she can, gradually, and at the level of ability and resources peculiar to the case in hand, proceed through ascending stages of reading and engaging with the text, and systematically dispel the baggage of layers of loss and uncertainty preventing confident, critical approaches to communication, work, and citizenship. keywords relating narratives, competence development, human-machine interfaces, understanding and inequality www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 15 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction: actuality of the narrative expression 1.1 temporalisation and localisation of communicative expression re-inscribing facticity the cosmos of aristotle was a purposeful unity of gods, humans, and things. galileo replaced god’s command with “measure and quantify” and broke up the unity of cosmos. immanuel kant set out to reconcile galileo and newton with philosophy. to this end he divided the world into phenomena and noumena. we can then achieve reliable knowledge of phenomena thanks to a priori forms of perception of space and time. the content of practical reason must remain open. if one knew how to be free and moral then morality would belong to “reliable knowledge”, i.e., would be the object of science! yet, although we do not “know” how to comprehend the moral imperative and beauty, we do comprehend their incomprehensibility and this informs our judgment. that makes our existence enigmatic: for when products of pure reason leave the closure of the lab and cloister they too fall into the realm of value judgement. the post-einsteinian science and mathematics de-legitimated claims to universal validity based on the notions of eternal truths and absolutes of space, time, and spirit, and recast them in terms of the limits of their applicability. in the absence of any absolute reference point—offered by god or by nature to the kantian observer—thought is a perpetual movement of signifiers. this has far reaching consequences. concept generation and negation are no longer constrained by the demands of transcendental theory; any thought is only “local”. then signs do not “represent” any prior entity but derive their credibility by reference to other systems of signs. thus this temporalisation and localisation of judgement re-inscribes facticity; i.e., the visible sign does not represent a face, a landscape or injured body as a thing out there recognizable by the meaning granted to it by a fixed place in a shared structure. it is made so as to put before us whatever brings to life a “driving engine” on the scale of a particular form of selection or “measurement” we have made; and it is often framed by conscious or unconscious attempts to make sense of any change by behaving as if there were a formula, a prescription-like arrow pointing from of a to b whether such a relation really exists or not. although the process of confronting narrative particulars with results of science and science-inspired logical inquiries enlivened by artistic brilliance has long exposed the limits of assumptions on which the speculative reason shaped our cultural history, it does not mean that homer’s odyssey, plato’s republic, the bible, newton’s principia and kant’s critiques etc. are no longer documents of great value. by discoveries of independent reason of the rational grounding of our past efforts we have not lost anything. rather we have been gradually liberated—be it at the cost of having to learn to live with novel challenging finitudes of life—from the limitations that speculative schemes supposedly of universal validity imposed often quite ruthlessly upon mankind. nor is it right to claim as many have done that the age of reason delegitimised our spiritual inheritance without putting anything in its place. for the pursuit of this very reason has recently provided humans with the means for recasting our heritage via genealogies of independent order generation and application as a function of increasing degrees of complexity. without such clearing of the action space from the chaotic flow of value www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 16 published by scholink inc. judgments there would be no elbow room for recognising and fostering genuine creativity and imagination in arts and design, no protection from fraud and muddled interferences for the concept generation enabling directional movements of the mind. this is particularly relevant at a time when a facebook executive openly calls on his company to expand its worldwide infiltration of connectivity even if it means that people could be harmed (e.g., marantz, 2020)! indeed, the techno-scientific development has been so fast, and has taken place on scales far exceeding those of the human body, that our social structures and their ownership by citizens have much to live up. the results of state of the art research are still emerging only in an uncoordinated, case by case manner, often cast into highly technical terms that the general reader—be it one among the well-educated—can rarely appreciate. yet, since the limits of genealogies of order generation offered by the quantitative empirical methodologies of the digital age are known, they can inform our judgement; it gives us the confidence and tools to proceed with iterative loops of inquiries, asking at every turn what the relevant parameters and their limits of application are, and how to improve upon them. this is well in keeping with the notion of knowledge acquisition as an open process perpetually to be critically re-positioned and updated (see jaros, 2019a, and refs. therein). 1.2 credibility of the narrative space conditioning work, value, and citizenship when value is grounded in social labour, work becomes an onto-epistemic concept. then, so hoped karl marx in his dreams about social emancipation, humans can transcend the commoditisation of their labour. for it makes it possible at least in principle to appreciate value in terms of a generic relationship between work and all aspects of life. although most of current work practices are far removed from the capitalism of das kapital, it is this methodological turn that makes marx’s legacy relevant even today (e.g., harvey, 2010). a generation later, vladimir lenin’s project, from the opening gambit of “what is to be done” to “all power to the soviets” which informed his utopian vision in “state and revolution” of 1914 and grounded the political power in councils elected directly in a bottom up manner by the local community, again rested on the assumption of open access to communicative action. however, the trying conditions of institutional collapse heightened by the civil war rapidly turned his vision into a dictatorship guilty of even cruder impositions and disenfranchisements than what he and his comrades so detested in the 19th century capitalism. already in the cosy confines of café central of pre-wwi vienna, rudolf hilferding argued that in their hateful reaction to marx his critics lost sight of the social labour that produced most goods (wasserman, 2019; sigmund, 2017). only by perpetually focussing on and updating the systems of signs and their accessibility in all processes of exchange could humans hope to improve upon social accomplishments. in his view, the libertarian elevation of the individual as the ultimate source of value, and the key object of social theory in general and economics in particular, mistook what is always a historically contingent variable conditioned by the prevailing system of signs for a universal one. this is how we ended up with sound bites like mrs thatcher’s infamous “there is no society, only www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 17 published by scholink inc. individuals”. the result was unbridled subjective valuation of even the most complex scenarios. when life became dominated by ever present social media and distributed production systems, any consensus that could tame wild fluctuation of moods of millions of actors trapped in perpetual messaging on media platforms could have only been ephemeral. not to mention misuse of imported conceptualisation of the social. for example, the key motif on which stood the ideas of founding fathers of what we now call neo-liberalism, of thinkers like friedrich hayek and ludwig mises, was “…the state in which a man is not subject to coercion by the arbitrary will of another or others” (sigmund, 2017, p. 207). yet that was also the canonical line for emanuel kant and any philosopher of the enlightenment, the movement blamed by hayek and his fellow libertarians from the mont pelerin society for the camps and gulags! of course, the meaning of a formal statement is in the potentiality it fosters. its actuality, the social content, i.e., what happens when it enters the realm of material exchanges called life, depends on contextualisation making its transmissivity and applicability real. then it necessarily depends on who does the translation and what practices are subject to its application. for example, although a young person living in france or britain today is unlikely to be subjected to any legally identifiable coercion, it is only because the laws that form the boundary conditions and the operational space of the law protecting individual liberties is such that it does not see any. the neo-liberal regimes reacted to the runaway rise of complexification of life in general and of the narrative space in particular by reducing value to price. the realms of work and value have been separated from those of production and communicative action driving development. although a few hayekian gamblers may have ended up with pockets full of hot dollars, instead of enjoying free-wheeling independence they perhaps more than anyone end up trapped in what can best be described as “digitally enhanced serfdom” of schizophrenic consumption for the sake of consumption (jaros, 2018). 1.3 naming the unnamable: change as movements of matter humans have always endeavoured to seek new forms of order and organisation whether in nature or in the mind. it has been something of a driving force constitutive of civilisation. with the advent of the age of reason, it rose to the forefront of social awareness as a measure of progress in human self-understanding. already adam smith reminded us in the wealth of nations (1776, p. 415) that “…there is scarce perhaps a single moment…without any wish for alteration or improvement of any kind”. for without its gradient, people throw themselves upon each other and end up somewhere like jean-paul sartre’s hell of in camera! however, lack of systematic application of reason soon turns any apparent improvement into chaos by unintended outcomes. only independent order is invariant to naming. indeed, from plato’s republic to michel foucault’s order of things philosophers have been telling us how to cope with life—with what happens when the order of things turns into the order of signs, and words in particular! any contextualisation of products of pure reason can only be made meaningful by comparison, as part of a genealogy of naming, and is therefore perpetually actualised www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 18 published by scholink inc. whether we acknowledge it or not by recasting its conceptualisation in relation to its past and present. hence the practice of relating narratives is of key importance; it enjoyed heightened attention during the last decade of post-modern discourse (e.g., cavarero, 2000, and refs. therein). making meaning is to select and organise experience; and to do that one must “measure” though it is rarely called so! for once put that way, it forces us to identify the intended level of complexity and the empirical limits of the application, i.e., what exactly there is to measure, its metric, precision and error. it also requires explicit statements about the choice of variables, units, boundaries, and comparability with their predecessors in the vector of development in question (morris, 2010; piketty, 2014). this creates conceptual challenges and calls for sharp, creative thought. for when it is done without a credibly structured database or reduced to speculative constructs the result is a kind of lone event that at best disappears after its twenty-minute fame. most interventions are and have always been unwittingly in the latter category—in the long run they make for “censorship by inflation”! with the rise of the age of reason, the flow of “measure and quantify” from the lab and cloister gradually exchanged the standards based on rituals of sacrifice and reading of religious texts for accounts of events expressed in terms of movements of matter—be it for most at the level of narrative. so quickly did it come that it left little time and social energy for finding a stable system of signs to make life with the runaway generation of new forms of order more liveable. that led to a crisis of modernity touching its very foundational principles. for actualisation of independent reason cannot maintain itself without perpetual renewal via spatio-temporal translations of couplings between social systems and the citizen on one side and emergent knowledge and its institutionalised face on the other. since in place of absolutes and their ritual re-enacting there is the quantum probabilistic dynamics of material exchanges, the kantian canon “to be free is to be autonomous”, i.e., only in transcending the commoditisation of life one can glimpse at what is and what ought to be, may now appear to some as yet another superstition. we also have to put up with revelling in atomised existence as a popular form of self-defence; it is easier to hide in the black hole of unstructured interventions (houllebecq, 2001; eshun, 2004). not to speak of henry kissinger’s laments that the balance in world order cannot be maintained or even conceived when the most powerful of social and political functions are hidden from view in the cyberspace with no international standards of conduct (kissinger, 2016). it is of course much worse. already the interior ministry of louis xvi in the decades before the revolution believed that who controls the past controls the future and acted upon it; they secretly employed a group of monks to frustrate the power of what they perceived as their adversaries (baker, 1990)! at least they owned what they wanted: the big data and algorithmic chaos when left alone merely promotes the growth of big data and chaos! furthermore, today all messaging flows via coding which functions as a contingent mediator, wittingly or unwittingly—but always because of some movement of matter in the shape of “data” or performance—re-making the rules of the game whatever that might be. some even delegate the management of the flow of objectified matter to the machine by plugging it in as if it were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 19 published by scholink inc. a fancy version of a telephone land line. that only makes the coming of a crash more likely as we now know only too well! the widespread fascinations about complexification with a life of its own also lead to highly speculative extrapolations; e.g., ray kurtzweil’s omega point and his “universe with a purpose”, not to mention non-material labour, luxury communism, and many others (e.g., mirowski, 2013, and refs. therein). fortunately, there are also brilliant omega antidotes (delillo, 2010)! 1.4 the archetypal role of loss in western culture and its meta-modern other genealogies of cultural development are punctuated by ever present be it perpetually changing narrative expressions of irredeemable loss (see e.g., dollimore, 2001). doctrines of the fall, breakup of the unity of cosmos, the divided self of the post-freudian mind, the enforced shift in the inquiring mind from aristotle’s why and galileo’s how to post—einsteinian what—all that made it look as if humans have been losing their starry position at the center of universe that had been gifted to them by providence, and then step by step taken away by advancing rationality. the unity of cosmos also meant unity of virtue, truth, and perfection. without such bonds, advances in making and shaping not only heightened a sense of loss and insecurity but also of some generic “ruinnessness” of the human condition. when we say that the chief function of narratology is to make our human condition liveable, dispelling the myth of loss and opening access to liberating moves of independent reason freed of imposing layers of illusory certainties must be what it is about. what a formidable challenge! centuries of religious as well as secular speculative thought claiming universal validity built up layers of illusions of stability exploiting the power of constitutive value of loss framing human existence and expectations. when people believed that god created matter, it looked as if he must have endowed it with a purpose of its own, so that it cannot be merely a container for something else. yet rational moderns cannot see any purpose in nature, for otherwise it could not serve as a neutral referent which is one of the pillars on which stands independent reason in general and galilean science in particular. this condition alone makes our alienation from nature and the sense of loss it brings explicit. since humans identified themselves in time and space by marking the earth, loss is a fault in the fabric of being they ought to own, poised between form and formlessness where it now stands separated from the context of production which brought it to light. no wonder that already in the hebrew tradition prohibition of idolatry was not just about protection of monotheism but a way to address what it saw as limitation of the status of objects. “you shall not make unto the any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that in the earth beneath or that in the water under the earth” (exodus, 20:3-4, p. 24). for a thing as an embodiment of finitude is less then suitable for conveying the divine content of the absolute. since form cannot express everything a thing is either, any representation must appear as a kind of violence which fixes the object in the finitude of its making. matter formed into meaningful shapes ultimately breaks up and opens space for new structures to be made. it is through such acts of recognition, what greeks called anagnorisis, that we www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 20 published by scholink inc. pass from ignorance to knowledge. it makes for a world of what would appear to be generically damaged goods, of a world as if constituted by a new class of ruin-ness with action micro-spaces separated by ephemeral gaps and voids. time, extension, and materiality on which stood the cartesian ontology appear to be “out of joint” in a space whose metric is unexplainably fluid. the command of language depends on competence to “own” its functioning and meaning making. hence, we must ask what new ways of knowing and being has this development brought about and what are the key manifestations of their actuality in narrative accounts of the human condition. it is essential and urgent to make the process of perpetual translations and metamorphosis of products of the human mind and hand transmissible (jaros, 2019b). we must free materia poetica and concept generation it fosters from any chaos by fostering independent means for taxonomy of novelty and its separation from imitation, trivia of opportunism, and from commoditisation of life at large. not to reduce life to layers of silicon “bits” but to protect it from them by making actualisation of reason recognisable and retrievable—narratable (jaros, 2020a)! 2. demise of traditional story telling humans can only remain human if they possess competent command of language. the necessary condition for this to materialise is to keep translating human experience of life so as to maintain quasi-continuity of meaning making. that in turn depends on the degree of recognition and directional pursuit of disparate forms of independent order and its genealogy. only then is personal independence and social emancipation achievable, and only then can the human-machine interfaces remain within the bounds set by the human design no matter how robotic is their functioning. the fear of what would happen if human delegated too much of the action space to machines is no more or less than the fear of losing competence in recognition of and engagement with novel forms of—to use the foucauldian term again—the order of things. although new methods of modelling fostered by quantitative empirical methods and tools make it possible perpetually to upgrade the level of our accomplishments and cast them into genealogical sequences based on transparent parametrisation and limits open to public scrutiny, their application remains confined to case by case studies and cast in highly technical terms challenging even the well-informed audiences. the task of narrators is—as it has always been, be it now with an upgrade to what might be called “digitally-enhanced challenge”—to make the flux of order generation and structuring into signs capable of enchanting living places. today even topical interventions in physical and social sciences enter the public space as “narratives”. however, they are almost as a rule no longer grounded in open allegiances to a system of thought, what is often labelled as ideology or world view, style or social system, and brought to perfection by the great novelists and commentators of the 19th and 20th century from victor hugo and fyodor dostoyevsky to john galsworthy and don delillo. with the decline of collective consensus and its home the modern common, even allegory lost its effectiveness. for when something like an ephemeral www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 21 published by scholink inc. “crypt” is supplied—alas, now by the very allegorist—its impact in the chaotic cyberspace is almost certain to lead to unintended outcomes. instead authors prefer going on a “trip” (e.g., sebald, 2000). there they pick “cases of interest” they deem fit for being “translated” into tools in the service of a chosen anchor concept or agenda—or so the reader must hope for today their identity is often unintelligible. in performing these “translations”, “customers” are led to acquiring a particular way of looking at and connecting things that then informs any of their future encounters. they all have one thing in common; the constraint of depending for the work’s readability on at least a rudimentary knowledge of a structured reference system of thought, and of having to be ready to defend its assumptions—not to speak of the charge of being liveried servants of some unpleasant comrade of the establishment—can be set aside. the “issue” is only limited by author’s imagination and linguistic skills—and “funding”! what then is the genealogy of such a way of building up and delivering narratives? how can its tools be brought into the open? in particular, what are the layers of different ways of meaning making created in the course of their development? and, above all, what might serve as a tutorial door opening not only to the content of such narratives but also, if possible, to turning them into useful tools of learning and competence building free of top down impositions practiced by the neo-liberal educational establishment? 3. being as wayfaring in search of a lifestory we have lost the aura and authority of traditions in a world that is dominated by mediation via networked structures of disparate character and purpose; what is more, we now depend on them for our wellbeing without ever fully mastering their functioning. our response is governed in the main not by direct seeing, hearing, and touching of static objects out there whose meaning is “fixed”. instead we depend on pseudo-algorithmic rhythms of neo-liberal social practices. they lend contingent meanings to direct encounters. the flow of objectified material exchanges and its assemblage-like machinic character incorporates the human body, and this body in turn incorporates the images of other objects to the point of being dominated by them (rabinow, 1992)! the living in an unstable human environment is then a kind of wayfaring, of making moves that keep re-constituting and re-engaging one’s identity and a sense of purpose. under the description of the actual travel path, there is a promise of a deeper motive and a story to tell. a walk, “travel” happens via bodily movements, more generally via an object and it is therefore an obvious means of self-recognition in the material condition of humans. the apparent reason for the journey invariably hides an onto-epistemic content under wholesale aesthetisation of life (e.g., steyer, 2017, and refs. therein). it constitutes the self by its journey and that in turn constitutes the journey as a living, experiential space-time. it amounts to punctuated experimentation and depends for its initial conditions on involuntary memory of the world of action, and for its being on access to rails along which thoughts can travel and collide. it raises the status of facilitating this access—to education in particular—to the level of importance normally reserved for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 22 published by scholink inc. health and wealth! what then constitutes the actuality of meaning making in the narrative space framed by novel means of human expression peculiar to the dynamics of neo-liberal decades? 4. birth of the art of inscription the dominant mode of human expression in the course of the long 19th century, in many ways well into the 1980ties, was steeped in the increasingly furious discourse of ideologies. in spite of the warring conditions, it remained in the main fueled by beliefs in this or that version of “universal history” and progress in human self-understanding, with all its socio-cultural consequences. however, already in the mid-19th century some of the most perceptive minds grasped the significance of coming of a generic change in the position of humans in relation to nature and to themselves. leaving aside the veil of linguistic acrobatics his work has been surrounded with, friedrich nietzsche’s project can be seen as one of the most insightful responses to this change—be it also most lethal and open to gross misuse. nietzsche anticipated dissolution of the traditional philosophy and human powers of representation it has fostered. in his anti-christ, section 14, he opens with “…our knowledge of man today is real knowledge precisely to the extent that it is knowledge of him as a machine…free will…may no longer be understood as faculty…(it) no longer ‘moves’ anything…” for the galilean science accredited with rationality without any limits internal to itself the human object and its social being will be there to be dissected again and again and the result available for perpetual processing in the quest for knowledge and power. however, since “a tool cannot criticize itself”, in nietzsche’s judgment the human as a social being had no chance of engaging this potentially runaway freedom so as to impose sustainable humanizing limits and directionality upon it. the object-event could no longer be seen for what it really was by direct means, by immediately visible appearances—the individual had to be “guided” via a concept in order to grasp it! nietzsche exploited the methodological opportunity presented by this novel, emergent condition of humans by launching a “subliminal” method of individualized genealogies of judiciously chosen object-events. waiting behind the narrative appearances was a new agenda thriving on runaway generation of “local” concepts enforcing de-territorialisation of experience and its records. there he implants into the reader’s mind a vector of sensitivity to recognition of a selected class of encounters, de-contextualised and arranged into brilliant patchworks of linguistic provocations, floating on a promise of “self-deliverance”. it was programmed by an intentionally concealed, aesthetic-in-extremis, individualized dimension of life whose philosophical grounding and directionality remains “unreadable” to the uninitiated majority. in geoff waite’s words, nietzsche was the first truly effective “revolutionary programmer of late fascoid-neoliberal techno-culture”. his texts are “immunopathological” in that they are “producing antibodies against the auto-immune community it has established within itself” (waite, 1996). more recent versions of the method of inscribed meanings have assumed novel significance since the ascent of neo-liberal doctrines and their cultural echoes, and have been inventively adopted almost anywhere, from academic interventions to the crudest twitting of “false news”. it always amounts to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 23 published by scholink inc. calculated integration of human life into larger than human structures through which life is, under an “attractive narrative cover”, manipulated into assimilating the patterns of a particular behavioral framework. this is how a fenced off action space is manufactured ready made for selected elites who can take advantage of their privileged position to read or misread with great social impact the texts and images so presented; and their returns are made as if of the transcendental subject! alas! the only “will” that matters here has no regard for reality other than one’s self-assertion—even at the cost of one’s life not to speak of that of others. such a life is justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon; the world is a solitary “work of art” produced by and unique to the mind of its creator. since it does not represent anything other than itself, it lives and dies with the fleeting illusion of its bearer! 5. the archaeological method of the arcades project since in this way of approaching nietzsche’s intervention it is seen as a result of the shift in the material condition of humans rather than a freak result of a twist of sickly personal brilliance, the emergence of new technicity of the human condition is a problem for his followers just as for any other tribe then and now. indeed, much of methodological effort in the last hundred years or so has been devoted to rising to this challenge and hoping to move beyond the blind alley of destructive individualism without falling back on the manner of grand speculations of the 19th century. in particular, by mid 1930s it was clear to many that not only nature but also politics and culture at large are neither linear nor continuous, and that the legacy of kantian autonomy, hegelian history, newton’s mechanical and reversible universe, as well as their numerous successful off-springs, were no more or less than outstanding simplifications. furthermore, access to reality by direct experimentation—observing falling stones, taking photographs or making linguistic signs of proof and poetry—no longer seemed an unproblematic route to the cartesian “clear and distinct” as it did to galileo and kant. it was also the time when walter benjamin (benjamin, 1999) launched his last, alas unfinished research project. in a truly creative move, he set out to account for the crisis of the subject in terms of the dynamics of the shift in the material condition of humanity brought about by advancing capitalist modernity. however, instead of launching yet another exercise in top-down theorising, he grounded his project in object-based, concrete (visual, material) representations of reality, cutting across the boundaries of domains of being traditionally thought to be autonomous, and one in which empirical documentation leads to and ultimately recovers and makes visible the philosophical concepts underlying them. hence the arcades project became a material counterpoint not only to abstract projects like nietzsche’s and heidegger’s but also to dated versions of historical materialism and positivism. although “literal reading” of nietzsche’s texts is open to almost any interpretation, only a fool unaware of the rigid programmatic conceptual structure developed throughout nietzsche’s research project would fall into this trap. benjamin’s method is inscriptive in exactly the opposite sense. the inscription here is in the form of an assemblage of concrete visual and textual material constituting in the broadest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 24 published by scholink inc. possible way seeds of the empirical content of the theme in question. it invites a projection upon the conceptual structures that have occupied the best minds of our civilisation. the aim is to instil a bottom up method of successive approximations, a tool that may prove particularly useful in today’s society of high complexity, dubious news and data. benjamin chose the 19th century paris as the empirical domain in which to develop his method resembling that of an archaeologist uncovering a buried city, layer by layer, patiently connecting found objects across adjacent temporal and spatial domains. he found artefacts coexisting as fragments—as if scattered by a giant explosion across the sacred parisian ground. he took as his starting point the ruthless, systematic destruction of traditional bonds and narratives grounding the intuitive notion of order by the runaway capital accumulation. benjamin’s montage, allegory, quotations etc., are consistent with the organisation of his arcades project as a whole; it is to reflect the new structural principle of his day: to erect large constructions out of smallest (architectural) units that have been “sharply and cuttingly” manufactured (stone blocks, columns, beams, bricks, iron and glass products), to discover the “crystal of the total event in the analysis of the small particular moments…” (buck-morss, 1989, chapter 3). the price he must pay for this novelty is that the traditional criteria for internal consistency of philosophical systems must be sacrificed on the altar of liberated access to the flow of material exchanges constituting the social. the genesis of onto-epistemic concepts can at best be quasi-continuous, dynamic, born and growing up as it were on the road, in moments when dialectics is “brought to a standstill”! however, benjamin’s was not a vision of capitalism leading humans into a void of runaway consumerism. he did not anticipate the unleashing by technology of body-invasive, self-organizing, and on and off super-profitable bio-matter witnessed by recent decades. nor was he after heideggerian debunking of techno-science or promoting nietzschean individualist vitalism. he wanted to recover under the fragmentary appearance of reality a material trace of ur-history, of “originary” history of signs and bonds. he believed that all this slaughter of traditions, karl marx’s melting of all that is solid into air by steel constructions and machinery, would liberate workers, and return them to a utopia of some primeval freedom from alienation and slave-wage. in his vision, the new urban space would be re-enchanted by the flood of new signs and wish symbols inspired by technology; for him inscribed under the surface mask of history is the trickster of theology animating socio-technological development! the conceptual back-bone of his arcades project was chosen to represent jungian-like archetypes of the 19th century capitalism; the gambler and the flaneur personify the empty time of bourgeois modernity, the whore signifies the commodity form of femininity a la baudelaire’s mother-prostitute, the decorative mirrors and interiors consumer subjectivism, mechanical dolls are emblematic of worker’s existence, the store cashier is an allegory of the cashbox… they stand there supported by concrete documentary material of citations and images etc. waiting to be projected step by step upon the established models of the world. they represent novel means for developing a personal, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 25 published by scholink inc. experiential ownership of a route into knowledge acquisition such that the mind is equipped critically to stand up to top down impositions. from this point of view, whether the site of such intervention is baudelaire, eiffel tower, or anything else that can be so documented becomes secondary if not irrelevant! 6. vertigos of the post-conceptual wayfarer on the back cover of sebald’s vertigo, the publisher tells the reader that this is “part fiction, part travelogue,…succumbing to the vertiginous unreliability of memory itself…what would possibly connect stendhal’s unrequited love, the artistry of pisanello, a series of murders by a clandestine organisation, a missing passport, casanova, the suicide of a dinner companion, stale apple cake, the great fire of london, a story by kafka about doomed huntsman and a closed down pizzeria in verona?…” sebald appears to have constructed his text as if out of brief, often only several sentences long blocks, each carefully crafted so as to look almost self-contained. their solidity is enhanced by the economy with which the sentence is composed. it invariably contains seemingly factual information—such as that 50 000 horses and men were killed at waterloo—even though the story has nothing to do with the battle. still less is it necessary to provide details about its death toll. here he makes it clear that understanding details is a key to grasping the turn of events; it is not there to inform as such but as a methodological tool; “tiny details imperceptible to us decide everything”. he employs great precision to embellish the passage or building block of text with concrete names of archaeological-genealogical importance. he inserts photos—of intentionally poor quality—of tickets, buildings, dresses, schematic drawings, with dates, numbers and brand marks clearly visible though the photos are of poor quality again to indicate they are a tool, not data. he refers to measurable physical properties such as material composition, colour and sound, light reflection, to acts of performance, even though judgements themselves often openly deny any possibility of uniqueness or indeed reality of what is being described. by frequent references by name to churches, railway stations, streets, gardens, the reader is led to developing high level of confidence in the narrator. yet there is not quite the sense of completeness familiar from traditional novels. even franz kafka, with whom sebald as it turns out wants to be compared, settles his characters into their cloths and chairs and makes sure we know they are “there”. his depends on recognition of what people do. there is none of sebald’s “abstract selectivity” and none of the generous supply of would be data, names, etc. arranged into sequential moves as if following a logical argument. however, by choosing to refer to one of his heroes as k., the author wants to initiate a chain reaction inviting parallels with the misfortunes of the famous kafka’s hero. the reader familiar with the trial (and the castle!) can engage in a sophisticated game of parallel pastiche readings. but no casey “place” (casey, 1998) for his story! the uncertain origin and metric of the space in which sebald’s narrative fragments move create a sense of vulnerability, of gentle traumatic openness to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 26 published by scholink inc. misadventure. he wants the reader to know that his is a kind of pseudo-probabilistic outlook (merrell, 1998). in his words, “…the more images i gathered from the past…the more unlikely it seemed to me that the past had actually happened in this or that way”. the reader whose education resembles that of sebald’s—i.e., someone who had been taught about the importance of visiting italy and seeing its treasures a la goethe’s italian journeys (goethe, 1980) and hegelian kulturgeschichte—will recognise and identify with at a very different level of appreciation, e.g., the twenty pages of accurate geographical and art historical tour from p.69 of vertigo of verona, milan, and venice, and again verona—only to end up with a reminder of franz werfel’s gift to dying kafka. hence sebald’s text offers several different levels of reading, each with hints at its peculiar class of inscription in which the concrete material artefacts forming the backbone of the text and the virtual strings connecting them may invoke different metrics. this structuring disregarding the usual literary practices spiced with top-down patronising invite a comparison with benjamin. indeed, another common aspect is the atmosphere of spectacle, of hyper-reality, be it of travel, city architecture or human thoughts and encounters. there are also places in the arcades project and, say, in sebald’s austerlitz (sebald, 2001) where lives of techno-scientific models become visible. they manifest themselves through mirror reflection, photography, systems of lighting, sparks and rays, transitional character of colour and shapes. austerlitz the adult specialises in monumental architecture of capitalism. his interest in grand railway stations and fortifications is highly technical as is benjamin’s interest in the eiffel tower, applications of iron and glass, atriums and street lighting. both benjamin and sebald dwell at length not only on the qualities of materials and structures but particularly on the process of using them in arts and literature. in austerlitz there are again maps and descriptions exceeding in detail and scope many a tourist or technical guidebook. even the account of torture in the terezin concentration camp appears as if factual. yet neither benjamin’s nor sebald’s work can be compared with that of authors who use scientific experiment or documentary argument to inform and to educate or simply to hold reader’s attention. the reference to mathematical or physical models or effects only appears indirectly via their manifestations; they stand as it were in the background and yet in the text, as inscriptions to be felt behind the lines. they create an atmosphere of possibility of order, of an unfulfilled promise of organisation far exceeding in importance the visible object and its features. for example, austerlitz “…was obeying an impulse which he himself, to this day, did not really understand, but which was somehow linked to his early fascination with the idea of hardware network such as that of the entire railway system…”, and a little later, “he…found himself in the grip of dangerous and entirely incomprehensible currents of emotion in the parisian railway stations which he said he regarded as places marked by both blissful happiness and profound misfortune”. just as the arcades project is a patchwork of disparate fragments arranged into collector’s boxes, so is sebald’s novel. it makes the resulting openness even more both promising and traumatic. this reduction of systems to their “local” manifestations breaks down the authority of speculative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. models of the world—as well as of those originating in the closure characteristic of the newtonian mechanical universe and of the scientific models it has inspired—without excluding any possible benefit they might bring to any of us. it scatters their fragments across the boundaries of science and technology and into aesthetic and social domains. when benjamin writes about colour, he is informed by goethe, not maxwell or einstein. like goethe, he can only “marvel at the knowledge of colours displayed by scientists”. sebald’s austerlitz, an orphaned child of wwii, is keen on artefacts, but his interest is almost entirely consumed by monumental architecture of late capitalism such as the colossal central railway stations of antwerp and brussel; also, this fascination appears to end at about 1900! indeed, many a sebald traveller had been educated very much like benjamin, or better likes to think he had been educated that way, e.g., to want to follow the example of great men of western culture like johann w. goethe, in order to instil in the mind the spirit of renaissance as a measure of the enlightened way of living whose meaning is universal. that is why when a hero of vertigo goes to verona he does follow in footsteps of goethe to enter verona the “right way”—that is from the railway station to giardino giusti! but when it actually happens, sebald’s hero does not gaze studiously at the architecture and paintings as a romantic wayfarer would have done any time between 1600 and 1900, may be even in 1950. it is as if the treasured buildings and paintings were a mere background, often only assumed to be known. what makes his journey worth the effort, apart from the idea of reliving a grand narrative, are the bits of food, of the bodies and dresses of lovely people, the tickets and other marks of life everywhere, anecdotal details that can be extracted during visits of a house or cemetery here and there, only to move on to another such encounter. there is no explicit mention of great stories of cultural history or models of the world, something a university professor like sebald must have been saturated with in the course of his career. yet without the gymnastic of historicism and philosophy, he manages to hint effectively that there is more to this than meets the eye! but if there is in it a way of reaching treasures of the past, it is via the steps reminiscent of benjamin’s ideas informing his arcades project! any similarity between benjamin and sebald has interesting limits quite telling about the gap separating their respective generations. unlike benjamin, sebald does not write about utopias. he does not show any signs of an active worldview or strong ideas about how to change this world. his austerlitz, though a child of victims of nazi camps, lives a life of an abstract intellectual and even after his “awakening” behaves like a recluse; he retires in order to find out about the fate of his parents but again purely as a personal obsession. he is not an engaged citizen with rights and responsibility. things happen and that is that. even any distant echoes of the kafkaesque are broken into fragments loosely held along the lines of forces whose direction and energy supply come only virtually, via habitual expectation of rational manifestations of order via repetition, dissipation, symmetry, (de)composition and shocks, i.e., not via nietzschean will to power, benjaminian rabbi marxism, or kafka’s “unfinished” still as if with a hope to free themselves from the clutches of the impenetrable system—as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. if, since according to kafka there is hope but it is not for us…! here then is another example of a text free of systemic impositions of esteemed views about life offering to an interesting inquirer several levels of reading of ascending sophistication—a welcome gift of tutorial material; for in skilled hands, it can serve—and has already done so on many an occasion (jaros, 2014a, 2014b)—as an excellent educational tool for initiating and developing further a bottom up, unassuming, personalised way of acquiring a method of learning about the world much better suited to the needs of citizens of the 21st century. the methodical, gradual un-concealing of layers of meaning potentially contained and hinted at in such texts illustrated on a few samples from benjamin’s and sebald’s works may open the door to what is now an increasingly popular way of building up narratives in just about any context; even for the spokesman of the anti-extinction movement mark 2020 the declared objective is to move from data to story-telling! this shift in narratology now also includes topics that have traditionally justified the format of a specialist monograph. like walter benjamin in his konvolutes of the arcades project and max sebald in his travelogues, suzanne stewart the poet laureate and ivy league professor chooses what she considers to be iconic nodes marking the territory of interest—in this case italian or rather roman ruins—and builds up their being out of material, constructional, and architectural-social qualities constitutive of their appearance and location (stewart, 2020); aristotle with his four cause canon would have applauded—not to speak of the visibility of archaeological-genealogical instincts in the benjaminian mode! but there is no dream of reaching ur-history, no nietzschean zest to beat evolution by the will to power, nor any mention of systems of thought, styles or zeitgeist! and we are told “there is a homology between the reification of monumental forms and the unquestioning acceptance of ideology”. how does one read that if not as hinting, in a “meta-nietzschean” move, that there is an ideology but it is not for telling? for surely a princeton poet publishing a generously produced in-depth study of roman ruins with the chicago university press places the most monumental of monuments—those of the roman empire—on the pedestal for all to worship? the grounding line informing the approach to the lessons—as well as to the arcades project and vertigo—is that appearances of the past and present depend on never ending processes of translation between the past and the present. more than that, in stewart’s words “…it is only in the continual transmission of our values, in the life of thought, language, and critical consideration, that we can find any permanence”. yes, adds robyn creswell in his insightful review of the ruins lesson, but which texts and which values shall we transmit to find any “permanence”? and who is we (creswell, 2020)? what is or should be the transmission path along which making and naming takes place, and how can it be made transparently definable and retrievable? these are not just the customary academic jibes. there is a long way from paragraph fruit pickings, whose authority in such a rendering rests chiefly on the notoriety of names like piranesi, winckelmann or goethe, to the conceptual foundations of their oeuvre and its position in the historical, philosophical, and linguistic idioms. only then might, say, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. winckelmann’s claims about the nobility of greek profiles or goethe’s reasons for elevating to the status of divinity certain italian artefacts and landscapes, change the colouring of their aura born out of such splendid textual isolation, and reveal some of the vectors lost in this format, e.g., those famously leading to pro-slavery engravings of the reputed development from apes to africans or to the notion of people without art and aryan aggrandisement! creswell laments about lack of structure and misses the logic of sequential reasoning normally expected from research monographs authored by ivy league academics. citations too are chosen with unorthodox selectivity—be it with great generosity! what comes to light by dint of careful observation and scholarship is composed so as to express what is and what its value is by skilfully employing prestigious value judgements lifted, as much as possible without spoiling their brilliance, from imposing frameworks of high-minded critics, so as to inscribe connectivity and meaning without having to declare allegiance to any particular style or system of thought—not to speak of offering a new one. it is, as we are reminded here and there, to find an alternative to the hated paths filling the cyberland by “reducing everything to bits”. yet while the structure or rather its absence in the usual sense of the term in this genre certainly does serve the declared objective, it would be very difficult to benefit from so ambitious an account of, say, composition of materials used in craft and architecture many centuries ago, unless one can make good use of internet-assisted access to the relevant sources without which it is just a piece of trumpery—or one has a seat in the senior common room next to the right professor! the same goes for unlocking the rich content hinted at every now and then and hidden behind dates and locations mapping the author’s personal patchwork of favoured pieces of development and decay, not only of ruins and ruin-ness of artefacts but also of all those people who inhabit collapsing physical and social structures wittily described in the ruins lesson as “lost in place”. alas! the loss-ness never touched on in this book but lurking behind just about every little item on the huge agenda, and one more formidable than any of its precursors afforded so generous a treatment there, has been given novel actuality by taking the inscriptive design of narration into the digital age. the loss-ness that emanates from every screen which—apart from a few quixotic characters—must be indispensable for everyone’s thoughtful if not critical readings of such texts! for when in an unguarded moment we lift our tired eye from the shiny flat surface before us and begin to think about what it has brought to our attention, the trauma of facing the abys presented by the open system on whose interrogation the success of our effort depends but one that we can never fully control or critically assess, is bound to overwhelm us. 7. conclusions today even topical interventions in physical and social sciences enter the public space as “narratives”. they are almost as a rule no longer grounded in open allegiances to systems of thought or worldviews brought to perfection by the great novelists and commentators of the 19th and 20th century. nietzsche’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. technique of inscription re-emerged as a source of major social challenges when it was adopted in recent decades as a mainstream narrative practice grounded in “inscriptive connectivities” and cemented by the unlikely alliance of emergent tools of networked communication and technophobia of the large section of the humanities. “inscribed” into even some of the most common of messages, the intended connectivity is hidden behind a pseudo-travelogue of a manipulative tale. its signature is invariably an atmosphere of open-ended “punctuated equilibrium”, full of pointers to spicy novelty; it is as if it were to lead to salvation—without ever delivering it. its aims are achieved by tangential hints, witticisms, and arrows to would-be desired objects, events, and meanings apparently outside the text. they are bound to create misleading impressions; no wonder if they turn the bewildered reader to seeking help in the overkill of messages offered at the click of a mouse by the cyberspace—its ease only amplifying the sense of personal insecurity! for the regime of “anything goes” in public communication fatally weakened credibility of direct intervention in the social even when beefed up with allegory unhinged by ephemeral crypts. anything from pata-physics of development and conspiracy theories to “deep fakes” has been polluting the public space and undermining the confidence in rational access to causal forces already diminished by the neo-liberal division of labour and wealth. however, in spite of or rather because of this way of structuring and its programmatic detachment from explicit allegiances to top-down systemic impositions, there emerged a sub-class of narratives that may serve as a welcome pragmatic platform for delivering competences fit for informing judgement in the challenging narrative spaces of today. even texts steeped in scholarly accounts of cultural traditions like the ruins lesson, unfolded in the manner demonstrated here on examples from benjamin’s and sebald’s oeuvre, may be instrumental in lifting from under the veil of cryptic pointers a fresh route to meaning making, and to taking the level of ambition to new heights. the chief aim here is not turning people into walking encyclopaedias but to instil an attitude fostering habitual deferrals of hasty conclusions in favour of iterative loops of meaning making, gradually clarifying the relevant assumptions, causes, variables, and limits of applicability—surely the only sane way of countering the colossal misuses of emergent technologies and of the social structures that promoted them or were created in their wake. without developing effective means for delivering personal confidence in making sense of the narrative space, leading to a credible form of emancipated citizenship, it is unlikely that the current challenges resolve themselves in consensual making of a just society. the state-of-the-art studies (piketty, 2020) do support this outlook. in particular, it is argued that although economy is inseparable from governance and citizenship at large, inequality is neither economic nor technological but first and foremost a product of the ideological and political, grounded in educational structures. history seen in the light of empirical, quantitative results “…shows that economic development and human progress depend on education and not on the sacralisation of inequality and property” (piketty, 2020, p. 1007). though evidence, the “facts”, can only be transmitted in a system of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/eshs education, society and human studies vol. 2, no. 1, 2021 31 published by scholink inc. signs whose form reflects the social norms as they are held at the site of action, and the quantitative data are always subject to inherent methodological limitations, so long as their finitudes are known they can inform our judgment about specific contextual meanings. it is for the tutorial skill to position the learner so that he or she can, at the rate and depth matching their ability and resources, acquire an attitude equipping the mind with confidence and tools fit to take it through ascending stages of critical reading. when the routine delivery of the factual content of the curriculum is left to interactive software, it will release tutorial time for personalised engagement with the content of the programme (jaros, 2014a, 2014b, 2020b). recent experience shows that no amount of good will, revolutionary fervour, or top-down directives can replace the power of personal ownership of work and value, and of the social content of products of creativity and sweat. also, the competence in critical un-concealing of meaning making in disparate forms of narrative production dominating the public space is the necessary condition for bringing it home to citizens that the personal independence making it possible for them to do what they are good at, in a shared public space, is the ultimate measure of value. only then can people consensually choose and bring about structural social reforms that have a chance to stick. the mass disenfranchisement heightened by distortions of access to rational meaning is recognised as a major source of instability of contemporary democracies. it was also the disenfranchisement of individuals in all walks of life that accounts for the depth of the collapse of the post-war “east european socialism”; it failed to deliver personal ownership of meaning making and work in spite of giving everyone free education, health service, and the right to work—and making us school children memorise comrade lenin’s advice “learn, learn, learn”! 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