Digital Commons Network^™

``Is That What It Means?'' Performative Storytelling In Early Childhood Education: Meaning-Making Through Interaction, Fathia Anggriani Pradina, Untung Yuwono, Bernadette Kushartanti

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

Early childhood education is inextricably linked to the role of adults in every aspect of its process. In addition to formal classroom learning, storytelling with a storyteller is another activity that involves adults. The dialogic interaction between storyteller and children fosters the creation of meaning. This study examines how storytelling, as an interactional practice, can dynamically construct meaning together between storyteller and children. Sixty-one kindergarten children participated in this study during a one and half hour storytelling activity. The qualitative and interactional approach used in this study focused on moment-to-moment exchanges during the naturally occurring storytelling event. The findings indicate …

Ƒ(Enlightenment): A Complex Adaptive Systems Model Of Recursive Causality And Human Meaning-Making, Daniel Lambert

Dissertations and Theses

Conflict Resolution has developed as a richly interdisciplinary field; however, its theoretical architecture remains fragmented across distinct bodies of scholarship. Existing approaches offer valuable but often isolated explanations of conflict behavior, limiting their ability to account for its complexity. This thesis addresses this limitation by advancing systems science as an organizing framework for integrating these perspectives. It introduces the Human-Complex Adaptive Systems (H-CAS) framework, which conceptualizes human behavior as a recursive adaptive process operating across interconnected regulatory domains. Within this model, conflict is not treated as a discrete event or purely deliberative process, but as an emergent property arising from …

Stylometric And Formal Patterns In The Scholarly Impact Of Scientific Literature, Joshua Ange, Eric Godat, Rajani Sudan

SMU Journal of Undergraduate Research

Scientific communication is typically tied to promoting public engagement and interest in science, increasing scientific literacy, and playing an essential role in policymaking. The success of public communication of scientific findings is largely associated with secondary characteristics of research (e.g. the style of writing and presentation), rather than the primary content or research quality. But it is unclear to what extent the success of scientific literature intended for working scientists is influenced by those same secondary characteristics. Does the writing style of scientific articles impact their success in academic spheres? In this study, we explore the stylometric and formal characteristics …

Framing Ecclesiastical Issues As Identity Questions: A Comparative Analysis Of Digital Media In North Macedonia And Montenegro, Martin Protogjer

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines how digital media frame ecclesiastical issues as identity questions in North Macedonia and Montenegro. The analysis compares two distinct but structurally related cases: the media reception of the recognition and normalization of the status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archbishopric in North Macedonia in 2022, and the media reception of the Law on Freedom of Religion and the church processions associated with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro in 2020. The study employs qualitative content analysis with a framing approach, based on two purposively selected digital media corpora consisting of 20 media texts from North …

Book Review - Lindsay Pérez Huber And Susana Muñoz, Why They Hate Us: How Racist Rhetoric Impacts Education, (New York, Ny: Teachers College Press, 2021), 240 Pages, Isbn: 0807764981, Olufemi Oyebade

Global Africa: Journal of African and African Diaspora Studies

No abstract provided.

Language And Culture: Exploring The Links Between Africans And African Americans, Joash J. Gambarage

Global Africa: Journal of African and African Diaspora Studies

Due to the generational distance between contemporary African Americans and the earliest generations of enslaved Africans, the deep cultural connection between these two groups has not been sufficiently explored. Moreover, much of the existing literature on African culture in the Americas primarily focuses on retentions related to religion, music, food, and language, often missing other critical aspects of cultural continuity within the African diaspora, such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Niger-Congo linguistic ties, naming practices, and African epistemologies. This exclusion limits our understanding of how the historical movement of Africans and the persistence of African cultural legacies, have …

When Auditors Trust Ai: A Qualitative Study Of Professional Judgment, Data Quality, And Adoption Barriers In Lebanon, Joseph Serghani

Arab Economic and Business Journal

This study explores auditors’ trust in AI in a limited-resource and turbulent context, namely Lebanon. Using semi-structured interviews with 14 junior and senior auditors in Lebanon, this study identifies the factors that make auditors either willing or unwilling to trust in AI-powered audit processes. The results indicate that auditors perceive the potential benefits of AI, such as increased speed, capacity, and ability to detect anomalies. Yet, trust in AI is limited by concerns about implementation costs, the erosion of professional judgment, blockchain complexity, data overload, and reliance on high-quality data. Instead of excluding AI from the equation, auditors perceive it …

Upright: Zheng 正 And The Semantics Of Political Legitimacy, Kaz Wegmuller

Open Educational Resources

This article examines the semantic structure of the left-right political binary in contemporary Anglophone discourse. It argues that the fusion of “right” as directional orientation with “right” as moral correctness produces a form of semantic over-determination that complicates the articulation of democratic legitimacy in periods of political crisis. The claim is not that directional metaphors determine political outcomes, but that they furnish a discursive resource that can be mobilized in struggles over authority, order, and rectitude. To illuminate the contingency of this fusion, the article turns to the East Asian concept of zheng 正 (uprightness), whose semantic independence from handedness …

Beyond Self-Defense: A Critical Analysis Of The Biden Administration’S Application Of ‘Just War’ Theory In The Israel-Hamas War, Thomas Elias

Graduate Student Research Symposium

Abstract

The Israel-Hamas war has ignited critical questions regarding the justification for violence, particularly the right to self-defense. Harm to Palestinian noncombatants and the conflict’s prolonged duration has contributed to critiques and doubts about Israel’s military operations and the Biden administration’s substantial military aid post-October 7th. The war’s extensive destruction and dehumanization creates a stark tension with the Biden administration’s invocation of just war theory. This paper critically analyzes the Biden administration’s use of just war theory in supporting the Israel-Hamas war, investigating how Christian theological ethics on just war and self-defense have been utilized and misapplied since October 2023. …

Breaking The Box: How Pandora's Box Activates And Reinforces Gender Ideologies Through Linguistic Adherence To Archetypal Hegemonic Masculinity, Hannah Pitkofsky

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Mythology, such as Pandora’s Box, provides a strong ideological framework for how our society views certain issues, including femininity and female potential. However, the images presented in these stories are often artificially crafted with implicit biases that allegorize femininity within a pre-established masculine and patriarchal framework, whose core concepts remain persistent in contemporary culture. In this paper, I dissect contemporary English translations of the original Pandora myth by analyzing language patterns and examining their cultural and linguistic implications. Furthermore, I investigate the authorial rationale behind these lexical frameworks through the lens of contemporary hegemonic masculinity. I argue that the current …

A Charcoal Analysis At The Jupiter Inlet 2 (8pb35) Site In Jupiter, Florida, Christopher Rubido

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This project utilizes five sediment core samples from the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse archaeological (8PB35) site in northern Palm Beach County, Florida (four core samples derived from areas where cultural material has been found and one core from a nonanthropogenic area). These sediment core samples were analyzed using a variation of a tested charcoal analysis methodology often used with lake and peat bog cores, but in this case, the cores come from an upland coastal environment. The findings of this project have shown efficacy of the modified methodology for locating charcoal peaks in habitation zones found in core strata and as …

Intra-Individual Cognitive Variability As A Predictor Of Mild Cognitive Impairment In Older Adults: Longitudinal Patterns, Clinical Classification, And Sex Differences, Joshua Conniff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Some older adults score differently on the same cognitive test from one visit to the next, and that inconsistency has been proposed as an early warning sign of decline. This dissertation tested whether within-person variability actually tells us anything useful about who has, or will develop, mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A total of 334 older adults completed quarterly neuropsychological testing over three years as part of a larger longitudinal study. Visit-to-visit variability was measured as the mean absolute successive difference on the MoCA, the MMSE, and a battery of memory, executive, language, and visuospatial tasks, and MCI was classified from …

Coordinating Meaning With Ai System Cards: A Thematic Analysis, Jennifer Rene French Cyrek

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As the meaning of AI risk remains unsettled across sociotechnical and public discourse, AI system cards are an emergent, yet understudied, genre of technical documentation through which AI technology developers publicly frame new AI system capabilities including risks. This thematic content analysis study examines how AI technology developers coordinate meaning regarding risk and responsible development in stewardship of AI. Guided by a constitutive view of communication and systems theory, second-order cybernetics, and the cybernetic tradition, this study analyzes a purposive corpus of AI system cards collected from 2023-2025 using thematic content analysis and the hierarchy of meaning heuristic from coordinated …

Stuck In A Paradox: Loving An Unseen God While Hating The Neighbor That Is Visible: A Quantitative Correlational Study, Felisha A. Jones

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Racism within the Christian church is a persistent concern that may influence interpersonal relationships and spiritual development. Although research has examined this broadly, there has been limited research on the relationship between perceived racism and spiritual maturity in a Christian church setting. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between racism and spiritual growth amongst Christians, assess the perceived prevalence of racism in the church, and explore perceptions of responsibility for addressing racism in the church. It was hypothesized that a negative relationship would be found between racism and spiritual maturity. Data was collected from …

Secondary Traumatic Stress: Lived Experiences Of Urban Educators, Stephanie R. Booker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and interpret the lived experiences of urban educators who experienced secondary traumatic stress resulting from exposure to the traumatic events of their students. Teachers in urban school settings serve students with high exposure to poverty, violence, and trauma, and these shared experiences often result in the urban educator experiencing secondary traumatic stress (STS). The theory guiding this study was Hans Selye's Stress Theory. Data were collected through interviews with ten secondary urban educators from five states and eight cities with varying years of experience, grade levels, and racial and ethnic backgrounds. …

Well-Being And The New Economics Of Labor Migration Theory: A Study Of Elderly Left-Behind Parents In Guatemala, Dawn Marie Lawson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative study tested whether multidimensional self-assessed well-being constitutes a suitable dimension for extending the New Economics of Labor Migration (NELM) framework. Specifically, the study examined the association between perceived migration-related material outcomes, namely consumption of market goods, savings, property holding, and business ownership or expansion, and self-assessed well-being among left-behind elderly parents in Guatemala. Well-being was operationalized using the Well-Being of Older People instrument (WOOP), a measure that the study established as culturally relevant to the sample. Given the ordinal levels of measurement used to capture the variables, the study used nonparametric statistical methods, viz., Kendall’s tau-b, Spearman’s rho, …

Collisions Of Law: Judge William Howard Taft At The Intersection Of Labor, Capital, And Government, 1887-1900, Michael Richard Crill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

William Howard Taft’s early judicial career has been dismissed by historians and biographers for nearly a century as merely an unimportant preliminary phase before his later political and Supreme Court career. This dissertation challenges that interpretation through a detailed examination of forty-six labor and antitrust-related opinions written by Taft while serving on the Superior Court of Cincinnati and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. During his eleven years on these courts, Taft wrote a disproportionate share of labor and antitrust-related opinions and engaged deeply with legal problems arising from the socioeconomic upheavals of the Second Industrial …

Caring For ‘Lewy’: The Lived Experiences Of Adult Children Caregivers Of A Parent With Lewy Body Dementia, Tina Ellis Long

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the lived experiences of adult children caregivers of a parent with Lewy body dementia (LBD). The study was guided by Pearlin’s stress process model (SPM) and Thibault and Kelley’s social exchange theory (SET), as these theories informed aspects of caregiver burden and stress, as well as caregiver motivation. The study implemented a qualitative design with a transcendental phenomenological approach, exploring caregivers’ subjective individual experiences, while also observing caregivers’ common objective experiences. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, journal prompts, and cognitive representations, and was analyzed using the Colaizzi open coding …

Developing An Empirically-Driven Immigration Policy Towards Socially Inclusive Hong Kong: A Social Justice-Oriented Acculturation Framework, Gizem Arat, Narine Kerelian

Journal of Justice-Informed Social Work Practice and Research

We conducted a qualitative study to develop an empirically driven social justice-oriented acculturation framework by exploring educators’ perceptions of diverse ethnic groups’ social inclusion in Hong Kong. Twenty in-depth interviews with educators serving ethnic minorities in Hong Kong were conducted adopting a vignette methodology using examples of specific groups relevant to Hong Kong. Based on our findings, we developed a social justice-oriented acculturation framework centred on four categories (assimilation, separation, marginalization, and integration) for understanding the interplay of factors in the exclusion or inclusion of diverse groups in mainstream society; and distinguishing the interchangeable uses of assimilation and acculturation—as a …

Building Transgender And Gender Expansive Capacity In Social Work Education, Ashling Hallford, Aisha Chapra

Journal of Justice-Informed Social Work Practice and Research

The problem to be addressed through this paper is the lack of advocacy and curriculum around transgender and gender expansive (TGE) issues in Social Work higher education. TGE people face threats to their rights through oppressive, state-level legislation, with 437 anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ+ bills as identified by the American Civil Liberties Union being debated (2024). Prock, et al, (2022) found that 40% of social work programs in religiously affiliated institutions used discriminatory language targeting TGE people in their student and faculty literature. This paper will describe recommendations for social work education and social work practice around TGE issues including faculty …

Screening And Treatment Protocols Used In Nicus Across Minnesota For Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorders (Pmads), Rachael Witt

Journal of Justice-Informed Social Work Practice and Research

Parents of infants with prolonged neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) hospitalizations are a population that is overlooked in recommended routine screening for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), yet this population is at greater risk for developing diagnosable mental health disorders. Previous research shows that across the US, PMAD screening and treatment practices vary widely, with many NICUs not providing any routine PMAD screening, psychoeducation, or treatment options to parents. The objective of this study was to explore the current mental health screening and treatment protocols used in NICUs across the state of Minnesota to learn if there are areas …

Who Is A Good Kid: Perceived Parenting Styles And Altruism, Brianna Guinigundo

Undergraduate Scholarship and Creative Works

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the correlation, if any, between perceived parenting styles and altruism scores among students at the University of Central Florida (UCF). The quasi–independent variable, perceived parenting styles, refers to how an individual personally believes their relationship with their parent to be. The four types of parenting styles include negligent, permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative. The classification of one’s perceived parenting style was based on their scores for parental control (i.e. how overbearing they believed their parent to be) and parental responsiveness (i.e. how warm and engaged they felt their parent was). The quasi-dependent variable …

Adaptation Of Malay Culture In The Society 5.0 Era In Malaysia From Cultural Geography Perspective: A Systematic Literature Review, Yanur Merny, Syafri Anwar, Dedi Hermon, Febriandi Febriandi, Saiful Adli

Jurnal Pendidikan Geografi: Kajian, Teori, dan Praktek dalam Bidang Pendidikan dan Ilmu Geografi

Society 5.0 and globalization have transformed social organization in physical and digital spaces, reshaping cultural practices and the construction of Malay identity in Malaysia. Although previous studies have examined Malay culture, modernization, and identity, a systematic synthesis of how Malay culture adapts to technological and social change from a cultural geography perspective remains limited. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the patterns of Malay cultural adaptation and identity reconstruction in the Society 5.0 era in Malaysia. This study employed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines to review 22 scientific articles published between 2020 and 2025 concerning …

Infant Hippocampal And Amygdala Volume In An Observational Follow-Up From A Randomized Clinical Trial For Maternal Prenatal Depression, Catherine H. Demers, Benjamin L. Hankin, Lillybelle K. Deer, Robert J. Gallop, Mercedes Hoeflich Haase, M. Camille Hoffman, Martin A. Styner, Nancy K. Grote, Elysia Poggi Davis

Psychology: Data Sets

Prenatal maternal depression may have intergenerational effects on offspring brain development, with potential socioemotional consequences. In an observational follow-up of a randomized clinical trial of a prenatal depression intervention (the CARE Project; ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03011801), brain development and subsequent negative emotionality were examined among 109 infants born to mothers randomized during pregnancy to brief interpersonal psychotherapy or enhanced usual care. These data include MRI-derived hippocampal and amygdala volumes at approximately 6 weeks of age and a laboratory-based assessment of infant negative emotionality at 6 months.

Resulting Publication: Infant hippocampal and amygdala volume in an observational follow-up from a randomized clinical trial …

Jerusalem, City Of David Visitor Center: The Early Islamic, Medieval And Late Ottoman Pottery, Benjamin J. Dolinka

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The excavation at the entrance to the Visitor Center in the City of David uncovered a small but significant assemblage of ceramics, all from stratified contexts, including bowls, basins, storage jars, jugs, a cooking pot and a clay tobacco pipe. The pottery dates from the Abbasid period (ninth–tenth centuries CE), the medieval period (mid-twelfth–late fourteenth centuries CE) and the late Ottoman period (mid- to late nineteenth century CE). The ceramic evidence from the excavation provides important insights into the occupational history of the site during these periods.

Jerusalem, City Of David Visitor Center: Remains From The Late Roman–Late Ottoman Periods, Joe Uziel

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

The following report presents the results of an excavation conducted on the summit of the City of David, Jerusalem, which exposed remains of six strata, spanning the Late Roman to the Medieval–late Ottoman period. Although the excavation area was quite narrow, important remains were exposed, contributing to our knowledge of the settlement and character of this portion of the city. Several surfaces interpreted as roads were exposed, beginning with an Abbasid road and continuing until the Medieval–late Ottoman period. Beneath these surfaces, a layer of garden soil, similar in character to the layer exposed in the Giv‘ati Parking Lot, was …

Listening To Learn: Preservice Teachers’ Voice On What Matters Most In Their University Preparation Programs, David Wolff, Scott Klimek, Elizabeth Y. Dale

The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning

This study explores the perspectives of preserviceteacher candidates on the topics in education they perceive as the most important and urgent as they prepare for their first year of teaching. Utilizing quantitative methodology, the study aims to identify and prioritize educational topics sixty (n = 60) preservice teacher candidates believed were critical to their professional development. Participants are asked to rate the topics based on two criteria: urgency and importance. Each topic is rated on a scale from 0 to 5, where 0 indicated unfamiliarly with the topic, 1 indicated low urgency or importance, and 5 indicates high urgency …

Exploring Stress And Mindfulness In Central Asia: Perspectives Of English Language Students In Uzbekistan, Laurie A. Wolfe, Rakhmatullo Akhmedov

The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning

Stress is a growing concern among university students worldwide, yet little is known about how stress is conceptualized and experienced within Central Asia, particularly Uzbekistan. This study explores how Uzbek university students understand and experience stress, identifies the primary sources of stress in their daily lives, and examines their perceptions of mindfulness as a potential stress‑reduction strategy. Participants were 60 students, primarily Muslim women, at a large public university in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Open‑ended questions on a post‑intervention survey were analyzed using a combination of deductive and inductive coding. Students most frequently described stress in emotional terms, including irritability, sadness, and …

Re-Reading The World: Why Critical Literacy Must Accompany The “Back To Basics” Movement, Carl Bryan

The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning

Recent literacy reforms in the United States have prioritized systematic phonics as part of the “science of reading,” backed by extensive evidence on the importance of phonemic awareness and decoding for early reading development. While these skills are essential, narrowing literacy to mechanics alone overlooks its broader cultural and civic purposes. Drawing on Freire’s (1970/2000) conception of literacy as both “reading the word and the world,” this paper argues for a balanced framework that integrates foundational instruction with comprehension, knowledge building, and critical literacy. Building on the work of Luke (2000) and Vasquez (2014), it positions literacy as both a …

A Modest Proposal For Discourse Analysis In Nonbinary Communities: Method And Case Study, Nikoli Michael Daigneault

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While linguists have long used discourse analysis to study language variation in binary and nonnormative gender groups, nonbinary people have often been excluded from analyses or treated without a nonbinary-informed framework. Nevertheless, nonbinary language use can provide key insights into the relationship between gender and language. In this thesis, I propose Nonbinary Discourse Analysis, a set of recommendations and best practices for conducting discourse analysis in nonbinary communities. These methods are informed by previous empirical research on nonnormative gender identities and theoretical work in trans linguistics (Zimman, 2020) and trans epistemologies (Nordmarken, 2019; Raclaw, in press). To demonstrate the methodology, …