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Islam And Catholicism: Theology And Practice Of Inter-Spiritual Dialogue, Felix Koerner

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article explores foundations, preconditions, aims, persons, groups, practices, methods, texts, and criteria of Muslim–Christian inter-spiritual dialogue. In-ter-spiritual dialogue thrives within the network of other dialogical forms: dialogue of life and collaboration, of theological and practical understanding. This article argues that the spiritual dimension of dialogical encounter may itself constitute a critical site of moral reflection, enabling participants to perceive injustice more clearly and to respond to it more responsibly. Nevertheless, the integrity of in-ter-spiritual dialogue depends upon the cultivation of trust, candor, and a shared orientation toward mutual enrichment and spiritual purification. Where dialogue is subordinated to extrinsic strategic …

The Dialogue Of Spiritual Experience In Buddhist-Christian Encounter, S Mark Heim

Journal of Global Catholicism

Can one learn more about one’s own religion through the practices of another? My positive answer to this question is illustrated in this paper by reflection on aspects of the Buddhist practice of emptiness, in specific connection with Christian under-standing of our lives as creatures. The Buddhist meditative practices I have in mind have several things in common. They are introspective (activated in one person’s inner consciousness) and premised on the Buddhist understanding of emptiness (specifically “no self ” teachings). Buddhist introspective practice takes at least three broad forms. One of these is a meditative analytical awareness of the contents …

Affirming Farmer Assets And Visions: Results From A Pilot Appreciative-Inquiry-Based Asset-Mapping Workshop, Andrew R. Smolski, Elisabeth Ramsey, Cathy Royal, Michael Schulman

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

Cooperative Extension Services and non-profit farm advocacy organizations assist farmers through network development and resource referrals to access information and services needed to operate resilient farms. One method for building networks and assessing existing resources is through participatory asset-mapping tools to document community strengths. In this research brief, we describe the results of a pilot study to test, evaluate, and refine an asset-mapping tool based on Appreciative Inquiry principles. Our goal in the pilot project was to assist the assembled farmers in identifying objectives for a sustainable future and understanding the existing set of resources that would empower them toward …

A Comparison Of Regional Food Systems And Food Security In Rural Mississippi And Italy, Reinhard M. Knerr, Athan M. Gregory, Anne Cafer

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

In the Mississippi (MS) Delta, more than 40% of residents are food-insecure despite predominantly agricultural land use. We hypothesized that limited social networks and non-navigable food market systems constrain MS producers, limit market viability, and hinder regional food sovereignty. This ethnography compared rural Italian and Mississippian food systems through semi-structured interviews of food producers, processors, and marketers. We described differences in social networks between groups that led to differential capacities to share capital and to overcome producer and labor constraints. We also described key differences in governmental and Extension support of local food systems. Finally, we provided suggestions for addressing …

Investigating And Re-Imagining Contemporary Religious Leadership, Amy Lawton, Feyza Akova

Sociology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Sociologists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and others have shown that religion is a feature of life in every known human society (Bellah 2011). While the cultural contexts, organizing principles, and values of each religion differ greatly – so much so that “religion” is a problematic universal category (Asad 1993) – many religions do share certain characteristics. One of those characteristics – shared among most social groups regardless of their purpose – is leadership, variously defined. Spiritual and religious groups, gatherings, and collectives have specific individuals that they turn to for wisdom, spiritual or moral guidance, fostering community, and/or ritual facilitation. We …

Education Of Blacks In The South: A Redux And Revival, John A. Williams Iii, Aminah Crawford, Micayla Gooden, Virginia Redwine Johnson, Stephania Jackson, Salandra Grice-Johnson

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

James Anderson’s seminal text, Education of Blacks in the South,1 is a canonical work that uniquely articulated the educational environment of African Americans immediately, during, and after Reconstruction in the southern United States. Anderson evaluated the intellectual challenges that Black people faced in securing their human right to quality education, as well as the educational fortifications implemented by formerly enslaved Black individuals that laid the groundwork for the U.S. public education system we see today. In homage to this text, this study aims to examine the educational outcomes of Black students in K-12 classrooms using secondary data from the Office …

A New Southern Strategy: Building A Policy Agenda To Improve Southern Education, Makiah Lyons, Terrence Wilson, Morgan Craven

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

Black students across the U.S. South are learning within school systems shaped by restrictive state laws and policies, diminished federal civil rights enforcement, and ongoing political hostility toward schools that support deep learning and sustain their identities. To move toward a brighter educational future for Black students, young people, families, teachers, advocates, and school leaders must be policy influencers from classrooms to Capitol buildings. This requires a collective understanding of a policy vision and a constant negotiation of the tension between justice and jubilee: how to influence meaningful change in hostile policy spaces now, while articulating a clear, bold vision …

Revisionist Policies And Practices: How Black Faculty Members Combat Pedagogy And Research Challenges At A Pwi, Larry J. Walker, Amanda Wilkerson, Lisa Jones

The Griot - Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.

This autoethnographic study critically examines faculty well-being and leadership within a predominantly White institution (PWI) amidst intensifying curricular restrictions and perceived challenges to academic freedom. Guided by fugitive pedagogy, it investigates how faculty mobilize historically situated covert-overt strategies to preserve rigorous, culturally and civically relevant learning while mitigating psychosocial strain. Utilizing reflective memos and artifacts (2022–2025) from course design, mentoring, and departmental leadership, analytic vignettes trace three tensions: (a) compliance versus intellectual honesty; (b) productivity metrics versus humane pacing; and (c) risk management versus scholarly courage. Findings reveal quiet innovations, protected dialogue protocols, the erasure of special topics in diversity, …

Demographic Trends And Far-Right Party Support In Europe: The Role Of The Cordon Sanitaire, Maxwell Curry

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines whether cordons sanitaires, institutional exclusionary arrangements common in Western and Central Europe on the part of mainstream political actors aimed to prevent far-right political parties perceived as posing a threat to liberal democratic order from entering into governing coalitions or otherwise participating in mainstream political life, condition the relationship between immigration-related demographic change and support for far-right political parties. Contemporary scholarship has extensively examined the relationship between immigration and support for far-right political parties, but comparatively little research has examined the institutional factors that potentially condition such a relationship. In an analysis of parliamentary election data …

Personal Goal Facilitation, Burnout And Work Engagement: The Role Of Self-Discrepancy, Jacinth Jia Xin Tan, Bek Wuay Tang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Employees who perceive greater personal goal facilitation through work (PGFW) experience lower burnout and higher work engagement. This research examined whether self-discrepancies and emotional experiences explain these relationships across two cross-sectional studies involving a nationally representative sample of working adults (Study 1; N = 889) and a sample of public school teachers (Study 2; N = 228) in Singapore. Participants listed personal goals and rated how much their jobs facilitated these goals, alongside measures of self-discrepancy, emotions, burnout, and engagement. Across both samples, higher PGFW predicted lower burnout and greater engagement. These associations were consistently explained by lower ideal self-discrepancy …

Sustainable Rural Development Under Ecological Civilization: Two Mountains Theory, “Green Rural Revival”, And Post-Productivist Transition In Zhejiang, Qian Forrest Zhang, Jianzhang Luo, Li Zhou

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Existing studies of China’s overarching ideological framework for national development, “Ecological Civilization”, have focused narrowly on environmental governance; how it reshapes sustainable rural development remains underexplored. This paper pursues two analytically distinct tasks. First, it reconstructs the policy history of how President Xi Jinping’s “Two Mountains” theory was incorporated into the Eco-civilization framework and how Zhejiang Province’s “Green Rural Revival” (GRR) program, as a lived example of Eco-civilization, was elevated as the national template for rural development in 2024. Second, drawing on three cases from a sample of 21 villages in Zhejiang, it identifies three core practices of GRR and …

Governing Algorithmic Attention: Attention Safeguard Models And The Cognitive Attentional Standard As System Level Interventions In Human Computer Interaction, Behavioral Economics, And Artificial Intelligence, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Algorithmic recommendation systems and interface designs shape attention by combining visually salient cues with uncertain reward timing and low friction interaction. These conditions can sustain anticipatory checking, extend time on task, and reduce natural disengagement points through patterns such as infinite scrolling and autoplay. This paper synthesizes research across neuroscience, human computer interaction, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence to argue that attention capture is a predictable outcome of incentive driven design rather than an individual failure of self regulation. It advances the Attention Safeguard Models and the Cognitive Attentional Standard as system level interventions that regulate exposure conditions, pacing, and …

Thinking Silence Otherwise: Toward A “Research Other” In Qualitative Research, Rosa Vázquez Recio

The Qualitative Report

Why ask about silence when it comes to research? This paper explores and analyzes how silence, unlike words and verbal expression, has received little attention in the data production process. Despite its different manifestations and meanings in social interactions and knowledge production, silence tends to be overlooked, ignored, or silenced. We focus on analyzing how we relate silence to evidence-based research to describe the “non-places” of silence in qualitative research, addressing controversies and issues. We propose a “research other,” grounded in decolonial approaches and Southern and feminist epistemologies, to argue for the inclusion of silence in the research process. …

Character Education Across School Contexts: A Qualitative Study Of High- And Regular-Performing Schools In Indonesia, Heri Retnawati, Zurqoni Zurqoni, Mukhamad Ilyasin, Hasan Djidu, Kartianom Kartianom, Ezi Apino

The Qualitative Report

This qualitative study explores how character education is understood, organized, and enacted across two types of junior high schools in Indonesia: High-Performing Schools (HPS) and Regular-Performing Schools (RPS). Using semi-structured interviews with school leaders, teachers, parents, students, and school committee members from nine schools across three provinces, we examined how institutional conditions and relational practices shape the implementation of character education. Analysis generated four themes: variation in program management approaches, differences in implementation structures and stakeholder involvement, school inputs shaping program capacity, and community perceptions of character education outcomes. Findings show that HPS tend to institutionalize character education through structured …

A Multi-Stakeholder Perception Model Of Study Tour Resources: A Grounded Theory Study, Zhao Junming, Diana Mohamad

The Qualitative Report

Understanding stakeholders’ perceptions of study tour resources is essential for improving resource planning, enhancing program quality, and fostering more sustainable tourism practices. In this study, "study tour resources" refers to the educational, cultural, natural, and service elements, among others, that support experiential learning during organized study tour activities. This study addresses the research question: What are the key dimensions of stakeholders’ perceptions of study tour resources, and how do these dimensions interact to form a coherent perception model? Our study endeavors to construct a comprehensive perception model of stakeholders regarding study tour resources. To achieve this end, guided by constructivist …

L1) Religious Tourism In Islam: Between Spiritual Purpose And Sincere Intention, Tariq Elhadary, Razaq Raj

International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conferences

This study explores religious tourism in Islam through the interrelated concepts of spiritual purpose and sincere intention. It argues that the Islamic understanding of religious experience extends beyond physical travel or the visitation of sacred sites, grounding its value in the inner dimension of faith. Islam prioritizes the essence of actions over their outward form, establishing conviction of the heart before verbal affirmation and physical practice. Accordingly, intention serves as the primary criterion for assessing the validity, acceptance, and spiritual completeness of deeds. Religious journeys such as Hajj, Umrah, and visits to holy sites therefore attain their authentic significance when …

G2) Pilgrimage As Biographical Resource: A Process-Based Typology Of Camino De Santiago Pilgrims, Andreas Braun

International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conferences

Research on the Camino de Santiago has predominantly classified pilgrims along single dimensions: by motivation before departure, by the type of experience encountered on the road, or by the meaning derived from the journey (Cohen, 1979; Brumec et al., 2023a). What has rarely been attempted is a typological approach that treats the full biographical trajectory from departure through experience and change to return as an integrated unit of analysis.

This article develops such a process-based typology. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of 588 open-ended written responses from German-speaking Camino pilgrims, it reconstructs six ideal-typical biographical configurations following the method of …

Online Rights Defense Among Chinese Americans Against Racial Aggression In The U.S. During The Covid-19, Fangzhu Lu, Wenshan Jia

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose

This study investigates how Chinese American communities responded to heightened racial discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic by utilizing social media platforms to safeguard their civil rights, articulate collective concerns, and mobilize resistance against racial aggression.

Methodology

Through qualitative case study analysis, the research examines the social media activities of six advocacy organizations, including three X accounts (WashTheHate, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Asian Americans Advancing Justice) and three Instagram accounts (Stop AAPI Hate, Stop Asian Hate, Advancing Justice: AAJC). The analysis focuses on the content strategies and communication mechanisms employed to counteract racial hostility.

Findings

The selected organizations used social …

From Maps To Meadows: Ecologically Literate Zoning And The Regeneration Of Wildlife Habitats, Jonathan Rosenbloom

Cleveland State Law Review

For more than a century, zoning has shaped the American landscape, often at the expense of wildlife and ecosystems. Rooted in legal doctrines that treated animals as property and nature as a raw material, zoning codes have fragmented habitats, erased migration corridors, and accelerated biodiversity loss. At the same time, federal protections are narrowing, leaving critical gaps in environmental governance. This Article argues that local governments possess both the authority and the obligation to respond. By embedding ecological principles into zoning—through conservation districts, wildlife corridor protections, wetland buffers, pollinator protections, dark skies, wildlife fencing, habitat restoration, and others—municipalities can transform …

Understanding The Perspectives Of Refugee Youth On Education And Freedom In Malaysia, Seok Wun (Shiila) Au Yong

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines how refugee youth in Malaysia understand, experience, and reimagine education and freedom within a socio-political context that denies them legal recognition, mobility, access to public education, opportunities for legal employment, and affordable healthcare. As Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees are not formally recognized by the state. Situating itself within refugee education scholarship and drawing on transnational feminism, critical refugee studies, critical disability studies, and queer theory, this study centers refugee youth as knowledge producers, interrogates dominant narratives of refugee youth, and challenges the conventional approaches to refugee education in order to …

F1) Walk Of Mutual Repair: Pilgrimage In The Context Of Peirce's Triadic Philosophy, Tadeja Jere Jakulin, Dane Munro

International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conferences

Pilgrimage and pilgrim tourism are recognised in reductionist everyday thinking as phenomena that occur in the context of belief or tourism, among other things, and are also researched from this perspective. In our research, we will present pilgrimage as a complex system that requires an in-depth, systemic approach to understanding. In doing so, we will draw on Charles Sanders Peirce's triadic philosophy to present the evolution of the pilgrim, who travelled as a believer and passive participant, to the pilgrim who experiences regeneration and actively cares for sacred spaces. The contribution examines the historical development of pilgrimage studies from Turner's …

An Approach To Sacred Spaces From The Perspective Of The Connection Between Nature And Health, Ricard Fernàndez Molinet, Sílvia Gili Olmeda

International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conferences

In a context marked by an increasing search for meaning and well-being, sanctuaries are re-emerging as significant spaces within contemporary spiritual tourism. This work proposes an approach to sanctuaries located in natural environments as liminal spaces, in the anthropological sense developed by Victor Turner, where processes of passage, transformation, and the reconfiguration of personal experience are facilitated. Historically, many sanctuaries have been established in places of strong symbolic and ecological significance, often linked to singular natural elements such as mountains, springs, forests, or caves which have been perceived as sites of connection with the numinous. These spaces have functioned not …

D2) The Phygital Pilgrim: Navigating Hybrid Sacred Experiences At The World Youth Day Jubilee 2025 In Rome, Justyna Liro, Elżbieta Bilska-Wodecka

International Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Conferences

Religious tourism is undergoing a profound transformation where the boundaries between physical presence and digital engagement are increasingly blurred. This paper presents first results from research analysing the World Youth Day Jubilee 2025 in Rome, examining the event as a "living laboratory" for digitized religious mobility. The study focuses on how hybrid ("phygital") environments redefine the contemporary religious experience and influence spatial behaviours.

Moving beyond the traditional dichotomy of online versus offline, this study examines the pilgrimage as a "platformed experience," co-produced by material urban settings and the communicative logic of social media. The research employs a robust mixed-method design, …

Language, Life, And Indigenous Knowledge: Cultural Contexts In Advanced Kaqchikel Maya Language Education Approaches To Indigenous Language Revitalization In Kik'aslemal Ri Kaqchikela': An Advanced Kaqchikel Maya Language Textbook, José Israel Herrera

Journal of Maya Heritage

Abstract. This article examines the relationship between Indigenous language revitalization and the continuity of socially embedded systems of knowledge through the case of advanced Kaqchikel Maya language education. Drawing upon scholarship on Indigenous pedagogies, linguistic anthropology, and Indigenous epistemologies, the article explores how culturally grounded approaches to language learning contribute not only to the development of linguistic competence but also to the reproduction of memories, values, and intellectual traditions. Particular attention is devoted to Kik'aslemal ri Kaqchikela': An Advanced Kaqchikel Maya Language Textbook, whose thematic organization and collaborative development illustrate broader processes of knowledge production and cultural continuity. Rather than …

Self-Governance, Social Order And Institutional Solutions To Collective Action In A Tent City, Karen A. Snedker, Jennifer Mckinney, Steven Pfaff

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Applying insights from the theory of collective action in self-governance, this paper addresses how a city-sanctioned homeless camp has successfully self-governed for over two decades. Based on a club goods model and democratic practices, this tent city attains social order and provides numerous collective benefits to its residents, who initially bring very little capital to the camp. Our case study, which includes in-depth interviews with residents of a tent city at four time points between 2012-2025, as well as observations from their weekly organizational meeting, illustrates how the possibility of exclusion for rule violation, norms emphasizing voice and service, and …

Human Freedom And God’S Image In Undocumented People, An Nguyen

Obsculta

This article explores the relationship of human freedom in the theological perspective and undocumented immigrants in the United States: how immigrants embody the divine image, Imago Dei, despite legal and social constraints. I will begin with the theological foundation—freedom as a distinguishing characteristic of God’s image in humanity—and analyze the complex nature of freedom as both a divine gift and a human responsibility. Additionally, I will demonstrate that the Church has a special responsibility to recognize and affirm the inherent dignity of undocumented people by drawing from Catholic social teaching, migration studies, and theological anthropology, ultimately calling for pastoral practices …

Called From Within The Community: The Vocation Of Undocumented Hispanic Men To The Diaconate, Anisabel Palma

Obsculta

This paper examines the discernment of undocumented Hispanic men to the diaconate within a diocese facing growing Hispanic populations and a shortage of Spanish-speaking clergy. Using ethnographic research, theological reflection, and historical analysis, it argues that this reality should be discerned not as a pastoral problem but as a response to concrete community needs. Interpreted through four theological perspectives (sacred vocation, divine initiative, unconventional divine choice, and the community-oriented nature of diaconal ministry) the study proposes that welcoming undocumented men into formal discernment and formation for the diaconate constitutes a faithful and ecclesial response to the Church’s mission.

Disciplining The "Unrestrained" Child Through Moral Rectification: The "Civilizing" Role Of The Us Educational System, Unleashing An Era Of Assimilation, Urnisha Dutta

Impact: A Journal of Community and Cultural Inquiry in Education

Moral education in the US frequently has centered on cultivating “civic sense” and developing citizens who are morally akin to the dominant culture’s ideals. Although implemented as preventive measures (to avoid an otherwise inevitable suspension), these interventions are colored with dominant cultural sentiments that visualize differences as immoral. The idea of disciplining the “unrestrained” child thus aligns with a Western historical “civilizing” mission that aims at creating “moral citizens” through cultural erasure and behavioral transformation. This article discusses the unpleasant reality of moral education in the US educational system, demonstrating an inherent acculturation politics underlying behavior rectification initiatives. The essay …

Institutional Influences And The Governance And Administration Of The Programa Produtor De Água Payment For Ecosystem Services Program In Brazil, Thomas G. Safford

Faculty Publications

Payment-for-Ecosystem-Services (PES) has been promoted as an innovative approach to environmental governance capable of simultaneously advancing conservation and sustainable development objectives. While studies commonly assess the ecological and economic performance of PES schemes, less attention has been given to their organizational and administrative effectiveness. This study examines these governance dimensions of one of Latin America’s most prominent PES initiatives—the Water Producer Program (WPP) in Brazil. Drawing on a meta-synthesis of 125 publications, the analysis investigates how regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional forces shaped WPP implementation. Guided by neo-institutional theory and institutional bricolage, findings show that WPP governance operated through hybrid …

The Medicalization Of Rapists In Psychiatry From 2000-2024, Lily Plowden

ETDs from 2020-2029

The process of human problems coming to be defined as medical conditions and thus under the purview of medical professionals is called medicalization. This study examines how psychiatrists medicalize perpetrators of sexual violence, looking particularly at debates around whether to include a new disorder, Paraphilic Coercive Disorder, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition. Using a content analysis of n=102 articles, it finds that discussions of the pathology of sexual violence perpetration were prevalent among psychiatric journals from 2000-2024. Psychiatrists medicalize rapists through three pathways: advocating for a new medical disorder; attributing the cause of sexual …