Digital Commons Network^™

Beyond Boundaries: Unlocking Positive Social Change Through Shared Expertise, Sigifredo Castell Britton

Journal of Social Work in the Global Community

Societal progress thrives through the dynamic interplay of diverse disciplines, each contributing unique insights to advance positive change. Interdisciplinary collaboration plays a crucial role in addressing complex social challenges by combining the strengths of various fields. This article explores the historical evolution, theoretical foundations, and practical applications of interdisciplinary collaboration to foster positive social change. The discussion provides definitions of key terms, such as societal progress and positive social change, within distinct ideological and contextual frameworks. It makes use of these to clarify the direction of positive change in different societal settings. Historical and contemporary examples, such as Bolivia’s social …

Maximize Your Returns: The Critical Need For Red-Team Capabilities At All Echelons Of Command, Lex Oren Jr.

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article argues that the US Army’s underuse of red teaming at echelons below flag-officer levels hinders effective decision making and operational adaptability. Unlike existing literature that primarily focuses on red teaming at higher command levels, this article emphasizes the need to integrate red-team capabilities at the division, brigade, and battalion levels. The methodology includes a comprehensive analysis of current Army doctrine, historical case studies, and interviews with military experts to assess the impact of red teaming on operational outcomes. The findings suggest that embedding professionally trained red-team members at lower echelons enhances critical thinking, identifies potential vulnerabilities, and improves …

‘Passing’ The Baton Of Trauma: Queer Failure Of The Women’S Sport Policy Working Group’S Anti-Trans ‘Position’, Meredith M. Bagley, Mary Anne Taylor, Sarah F. Price

Publications and Research

Engaging in critical rhetorical theory and methodology, we interrogate the contemporary landscape of anti-trans backlash in women’s sport. Specifically, we read the ‘TERF wars’ (Pearce et al.) across critiques of biofeminism (Pape) and whiteness (Fischer) while drawing upon critical social science research into trauma-bonding, bullying, and the structural impacts of gender verification policies. Our analysis focuses on the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group (WSPWG), offering a trauma-informed reading of the WSPWG’s ‘Position’ statement to illuminate how lesbian female athletes who were previously slandered for failing to meet femininity norms in sport are unable to overcome that trauma to recognize and …

Paragliding The Cliff Edge: Introducing Open Mic Studies. A Creative Response To Navigating The Post-18 Landscape For Young Adults With Send., James Tarling, Charlie Robinson, Nick Hall, Sammy Shepherd

Plymouth Interdisciplinary Education Open Journal

This conceptual article investigates novel ways of thinking about Open Mic Nights (OMN) – performance spaces understood as free, community arts and performance opportunities where the members of the public are welcome to perform music, poetry and comedy in front of an audience. For the purposes of this article, music-related OMN that take place in pubs or community centres are discussed.

The article is intended to be a primer for OMN studies that offers new and emerging trailheads for future research and discussion. Its central focus is how OMN may benefit the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) community with …

The Banality Of Evil And Delayed Rehabilitation: Uncovering Post-1965 State Crime Through The Lens Of Decolonial Criminology, Farhan Arif Sumawiharja, S.H., M.Si., M.Krim

Jurnal Kriminologi Indonesia

This study sets out to reconstruct the history and structural repression that followed the 1965–1966 events in Indonesia—events that have long been reduced to a simple “horizontal conflict” between ordinary citizens. Using a socio-historical method, the study examines a wide range of historical literature and documents in order to reframe this violence as a State Crime, seen through the lenses of Critical Criminology and Decolonial Criminology. The findings show that the New Order regime borrowed the tools of subjugation first developed in the colonial era to crush progressive groups—a project that, in essence, served the interests of global capitalism during …

``I Don't.. I Don't Remember The Answer'': A Psycholinguistics Study Of Language Processing Impairment Caused By Traumatic Brain Injury In Film ``The Vow'' (2012), Fathiya Rosyada, Emy Sudarwati, Lee Huan Yik, Putrie Rahayuningtyas

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

There is substantial evidence of an association between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and language difficulties, particularly those related to cognitive impairment. Addressing an underexplored narrative perspective, this study examines the interaction between memory and language in the representation of cognitive-communication disorder (CCD) following TBI in the film The Vow (2012). Using a qualitative approach informed by Clinical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study analyzes selected dialogues to identify post-traumatic cognitive-communication difficulties reflected in language comprehension and production. The findings reveal a dissociation between relatively preserved linguistic competence and impaired communicative performance. In language comprehension, this dissociation is reflected in pragmatic misinterpretation, …

Speaking In Color: Code-Meshing Against Standard Language Ideology In The Public Speaking Classroom, Darrion A. Walker

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Public speaking courses do more than teach presentation skills; they also teach students which voices count as credible. In Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), instructional norms tied to standard language ideology position standardized English as the unmarked benchmark of professional communication. For students who speak African American Language (AAL) or other culturally informed language varieties, this creates a double bind: conform linguistically or risk being penalized for rhetorical authenticity. This reflective essay identifies the double bind as an underexamined problem in communication pedagogy and suggests that code-meshing—the intentional blending of multiple language varieties within a single communicative act—offers a more equitable, …

Decolonizing Communication Pedagogy: Toward An Afro-Rhetorical Framework, Lionnell Smith

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

This essay introduces Afro-rhetorical pedagogy as a decolonial framework for communication pedagogy. Building on Adam Key’s 2022 call for an Applied Africana Studies framework for public speaking pedagogy, this essay conceptualizes Afro-rhetorical pedagogy grounded in Afrocentric thought and African communication theory. Through a close reading of Molefi Kete Asante’s 2011 address on African curriculum, this essay establishes three foundational principles for Afro-rhetorical pedagogy: (a) epistemological agency, (b) decolonized knowledge production, and (c) institutional reconstruction. This pedagogical framework addresses communication education’s reproduction of white cultural hegemony by promoting African-centered principles, practices, and precepts that reposition communication pedagogy as a more liberatory …

Gender And Task Alignment Influences The Credibility Of Feminine But Not Masculine Ai Conversational Assistants, Joana Videira, David Deandrea

Human-Machine Communication

The present study investigated how the perceived gender of AI conversational assistants and the tasks they perform combine to influence perceptions of AI competence, trustworthiness, and goodwill (i.e., credibility). Participants evaluated AI assistants that appeared female or male and varied in the task they performed (stereotypically feminine or masculine task). Findings did not support an overall preference for female AI assistants over male AI assistants. Rather, perceived AI gender interacted with gender stereotypes associated with the task performed to affect perceptions of AI credibility. Notably, AI perceived to be very feminine had the highest credibility when performing stereotypically feminine tasks …

Determinants Of Antenatal Care Utilization: A Community-Based, Cross-Sectional Study In Morang And Sunsari Districts, Eastern Nepal, Sunil Shah, Chandra Jha

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

This study examined the factors influencing antenatal care (ANC) utilization in the eastern region of Nepal, focusing on the Morang and Sunsari districts, with the aim of identifying key determinants affecting ANC uptake and assessing the extent of ANC service utilization among mothers. Using lot quality assurance sampling, a community-based, descriptive, cross-sectional design was employed, surveying 164 mothers who had given birth within the previous 12 months; data were collected from June through November 2023. Data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS, with descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression. Findings revealed that 80.5% of respondents …

Assessing The Feasibility Of An Online Gaming Ministry And Developing An Action Plan To Train Apologists For Outreach., Alexander R. Mooney

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this research project is to assess the feasibility of an online gaming ministry and to develop an action plan to train apologists for outreach. This study is necessary due to several key developments over the last few years, including the growth of social media and digital platforms, the rise of content creation on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, and X, the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased the need for digital ministry, and the overall growth of Gen Z in religion and faith. Because of these points, the need for developing digital ministry and online gaming ministry has grown. …

Grace, Reciprocity Norms, Adverse Life Events, Religious Struggle, Salience Of Religion, Relationship To God As Modifiers, Calvin Jay Slot

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether adverse life events, reciprocity norms, relationship to God, salience of religion, religious struggle and/or grace moderate the frequency of church attendance-physical health relationship or if the psychospiritual variables interact with adverse life events (ALE). 1,000 participants were recruited through Prolific to produce a sample representative of the United States population. An additional 20 participants were recruited through pastors of three churches in Illinois. Multiple linear regression revealed relationship to God, religious struggle, reciprocity norms, and ALE were moderators. Additionally, religious struggle and negative reciprocity norms interacted with adverse life events, …

Keepers, Surfmen, Wives, And Daughters: A Gender And Kinship Study Of The United States Life-Saving Service In North Carolina, 1874-1915, Tammy M. Woodward

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is both a beautiful and dangerous place. Its region is filled with descendants of the Keepers and Surfmen who once manned the lifesaving stations that the federal government built along America’s coastlines. It is also home to one of the most dangerous stretches of American coastline known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. The United States Life-Saving Service, established in 1871, was a government solution to the growing public outcry over the staggering number of deaths by shipwreck during the nineteenth century. While the Life-Saving Service has fostered a small but detailed historiography, its …

The Lived Experiences Of Special Education Teachers Regarding The Influence Of Transformational Leadership: A Phenomenological Study, Jaleesa Glover

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of school leadership among special education teachers in inner-city charter schools in the United States. At this stage in the research, the lived experience of school leadership support is generally defined as how special educators perceived, interpreted, and responded to the leadership behaviors of their school administrators within their professional roles. The theory guiding this study was Burns’ transformational leadership theory. The central research question addressed in this study was: What are the lived experiences of special education teachers in inner-city schools with school leadership support? Data …

The Bambisanani Partnership: A Global Initiative Activating Faith And Sport, David Geldart, Matt Hoven

Journal of Catholic Education

The Bambisanani Partnership: A Global Initiative Activating Faith and Sport Partnership is a United Kingdom-based charity that originated as a sports-based partnership between St. Mary’s Catholic High School in the UK, and Mnyakanya High School in rural KwaZulu- Natal (KZN), South Africa, in 2006. Inspired by papal teaching about sport, this article explores the ways in which this particular program has been successful in providing opportunities to live out the Catholic faith through sports participation. The partnership, which remains based at St. Mary’s School and is run entirely by volunteers, operates in the Nkandla region of South Africa, which is …

Measure By Measure: Reflections On Building A Quiz Map For Critical Caribbean Digital Pedagogy, Ra Bacchus, Medardo G. Rosario, Alexander S. Butler

archipelagos: a journal of Caribbean digital praxis

This article reflects on the web development of a digital quiz map designed to help students critically engage with the representation of the Caribbean in digital space. Emerging from workshops organized by Visiones del Caribe—a digital humanities initiative using digitized maps and archives to teach Caribbean history, culture, and cartography—this tool responds to students’ inquiries about the region’s spatial boundaries. The quiz invites students to select on a map those countries and territories they consider part of the Caribbean, prompting reflection on the diversity of perspectives shaping Caribbean identity. Drawing from the discourse of critical cartography and digital pedagogy, we …

Refusing Artificial Coherence: Christopher Tolkien's Philology And His Editorial Practice On His Father’S Legendarium, Nicholas Birns

Journal of Tolkien Research

This paper was given at The Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference sponsored by the Tolkien Society, held online on 23/24 November 2024.  The paper was given on Zoom on November 24, 2024.

This paper argues that Christopher Tolkien’s 1950s philological essay “The Battle of the Goths and the Huns” anticipates the editorial principles that later governed his presentation of his father, J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium. Analyzing Christopher’s treatment of early medieval legend alongside his handling of the Celeborn and Galadriel materials, the essay argues that he consistently resisted imposing artificial coherence on fragmentary evidence. Whether confronting speculative Gothic history, or …

Roots That Refuse To Die: Narratives Of Displacement And Solidarity In Palestinian And Chicanx Feminist Traditions, R. H., Lea Colchado-Joaquín

Gatherings

Amidst the recent passing of Senate Bill 17 and increasing restrictions on academic freedom, and efforts to shut down encampments, political tensions have been on the rise at Texas university campuses. As women of color scholars learning to navigate these challenges, we are committed to fostering safe pedagogical spaces that honor minoritized students’ voices. This paper examines interpretations of solidarity narratives between Chicanx and Palestinian feminist authors through a decolonial feminist lens and employs an autoethnographic methodological approach such as autohistoria-teoría to highlight parallels between the authors' lived realities. Authors begin this conversation by using their own narratives of resistance …

From The Traditional Role Of Motherhood To The Creation Of Ritual Fertility Dolls Among The Ashanti People, Youssoupha Mane

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This article explores the art and traditional sculpture of the Ashanti people of Ghana. The study delves into the symbolic, spiritual, therapeutic, and psychological implications of ritual fertility dolls known as Akua’ba, which serve as a means for infertile women to experience the joy and delight of motherhood. The study will also focus on how accessing motherhood is highly esteemed and regarded as a social obligation in most African cultures. The psychological burden and pressure associated with the social duty of bearing children to avoid ‘‘social death’’ or being ‘‘the dead end of human life’’ is undoubtedly at the root …

Relational Reasoning Across Cultures: Consistency And Variation In South Korea, The United States, And China, Alexandra Carstensen, Minju Kim, Youngon Choi, Caren M. Walker

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Abstract reasoning in early childhood is often described as following a “relational shift,” over which children become increasingly sensitive to relations. However, recent work has challenged the generality of this account, showing that children in the US and China follow distinct trajectories in a relational match-to-sample task. This difference aligns with multiple cultural and linguistic factors implicated in relational reasoning, where the US and China appear at opposite ends of a continuum, focusing on objects (US) versus relations (CN). This raises the possibility that differences in culture and language may shape variation in the development of abstract reasoning. Here, we …

The Impact Of Ceo Sociopolitical Activism On Firms’ Financial And Stakeholder Outcomes: A Critically Appraised Topic, Philip R. Stuczynski

Engaged Management ReView

In recent years, CEO activism has emerged as a highly visible and controversial form of executive communication. This structured literature review examines 23 peer-reviewed, ABS-rated articles published between 2017 and 2025, with the goal of synthesizing what researchers have learned about the effects of sociopolitical speech by corporate leaders. Drawing on studies from strategy, management, accounting, and finance journals, this paper explores how CEO-initiated public commentary influences investor reactions, firm performance, and stakeholder sentiment. Using the PICOC framework, the review defines CEO activism as executive speech or public commentary on controversial social or political issues which may be unrelated to …

Profiling Arbutin As A Potent Cholinesterase And Gsk-3Β Inhibitor And Evaluating Its Cytotoxicity In Sh-Sy5y Cells For Alzheimer’S Disease Therapy, Shirin Tarbiat, Tuğba Bal, Deni̇z Gülmez

Turkish Journal of Biology

Background/aim: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder linked to cognitive decline and memory loss, marked by hyperphosphorylated tau tangles and decreased acetylcholine levels, which are affected by acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) activity. Glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta (GSK-3β) also plays a role in AD through abnormal activation. In this study, the potential of β-arbutin to inhibit cholinesterases and GSK-3β was investigated, utilizing in vitro assays, cytotoxicity analysis, and molecular docking simulations to explore its therapeutic implications.

Materials and methods: Ellman’s technique was used to test the inhibitory effects of arbutin on cholinesterase enzymes. An ATP-Glo luminescent assay kit was …

Kindergarten Classroom Educators’ Perceptions Of Social Emotional Learning Implementation, Thomasina A. Millner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem addressed in this study was that research on social emotional learning (SEL) has largely focused on student outcomes, program effectiveness, and implementation practices, but limited research has examined kindergarten classroom educators’ perceptions of implementing SEL. Grounded in the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning framework, the purpose of this study was to explore kindergarten classroom educators’ perceptions of SEL implementation. For this basic qualitative design, semistructured interviews with nine kindergarten educators who had at least 1 year experience implementing SEL were conducted. Through thematic data analysis the following five themes emerged: Educators noted (1) that SEL is …

Full Issue, Kritika Kultura

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Between Spectacle And Struggle: Representations Of The Sea In Indonesian Popular Visual Culture, Susanne A. H. Sitohang, Teguh Prasetyo

Kritika Kultura

Indonesia is a maritime nation, consisting of 17,500 islands—one-third of its geographical area is ocean. Thus, Indonesia declares its identity as an archipelagic nation and actively promotes the geographical facts mentioned above as maritime nationalism. However, the sea remains “secondary” compared to the land and it is frequently misrepresented in Indonesian popular visual culture. This article offers an analysis on how the sea is constructed across three popular visual texts, namely Wonderland Indonesia, a music video series produced by Alffy Rev; the film Budi Pekerti (2023); and The Bajau, a documentary, produced by Watchdoc. The analysis draws on Stuart Hall’s …

Building Ties, Connecting Islands: Api Kartini's Longing For An Affective Community During The Cold War, Asri Saraswati

Kritika Kultura

This article discusses the inter-class and cross-oceanic ties envisioned by socialist women’s organization Gerakan Wanita Indonesia (Indonesian Women Movement or Gerwani) through an analysis of their magazine, Api Kartini (AK). The magazine published fiction and non-fiction writings that reveal their affective impulse to build connection as they shared their observations of the women’s movement and labor in Indonesia and abroad. The magazine addressed middle-class women and wives, connecting them emotionally with women of the working class and women organizations across the oceans in their rejection to colonialism and feudalism and their fight for equal rights. This article aims to understand …

Island As Mechanism: Island Narrative And Affective Landscapes In Ng Kim Chew’S “Fish Bones” And “Allah’S Will”, Chi Miao, Shu Li

Kritika Kultura

This article reframes Sinophone Malaysian (Mahua) literature through the perspective of island studies, foregrounding Malaysia’s cross-island configuration. We propose negative islandness as an operational category: a structurally produced negative affect of suspension, deferral, and dread generated by the island–sea regime’s simultaneous openness and boundedness. We argue that, in Ng Kim Chew’s “Fish Bones” and “Allah’s Will,” the island operates as a mechanism that interstitializes perspectives and tidalizes narrative time, thereby converting arrival into an unfinished passage and relocating trauma into embodied, material rhythms. Through close readings, we develop two interrelated strands: First, an interstitial perspective with the temporality of tides …

Tally’S Spatial Criticism: Following Jameson And Going Beyond, Ying Fang

Kritika Kultura

As a celebrated Marxist literary theorist and cultural critic, Fredric Jameson has been very influential and highly acclaimed in China’s academia for about forty years. One of his former undergraduate students, Robert T. Tally Jr., is now widely regarded as an inheritor of Jameson’s thoughts as well as his impact on China’s literary studies. Tally is especially valued for his spatial criticism, which, characterized by its distinct terminology and methodologies, builds upon Jameson’s intellectual legacy while also significantly moving beyond it. In the first place, Tally’s notion of space inherits Jameson’s view of history and space while also drawing on …

The Reception Of Jameson’S Works In China, South Korea, And Japan, Mingming Li

Kritika Kultura

An examination of data from the academic databases CNKI, DBpia, and CiNii indicates that the reception of Fredric Jameson’s works in China, South Korea, and Japan can be traced back to the early 1980s. Shaped by their distinct historical and political contexts, each country has developed its own academic discourse surrounding Jameson’s theories. In China, Jameson’s intellectual presence began in 1986, marked by Tang Xiaobing’s article “Postmodernism: Commodification and Cultural Expansion—An Interview with Fredric Jameson.” Since then, over 1,100 research documents on Jameson have been published in China, covering a wide array of topics such as Marxism, postmodernism, globalization, and …

Reconfiguring "National Allegory" In A Critique Of The Philippine Neocolonial Experience, Epifanio San Juan Jr.

Kritika Kultura

With appropriate adjustments, Jameson’s theory of national allegory can serve as a serviceable frame to interpret Filipino texts. Allegory as figuration or image-thinking aims to resolve conceptual blockage or theoretical dead-ends. Analyzing an exemplary story by Lualhati Bautista, this essay seeks to demonstrate how the author’s mode of representation captures the effect of combining feudal-archaic and capitalist modes of production in the lives of typical characters. Private thoughts and feelings conflict with public norms in the predicament of two uprooted protagonists caught in the crisis of a disaggregated polity. The Philippine social formation as a dependent entity exemplifies the mix …