In this era of digital heritage, immersive media, such as 360° documentaries, have been proposed to enrich engagement and learning. However, how immersive 360° media formats influence the understanding of ethnic minority cultures remains underexplored. We conducted a controlled laboratory experiment comparing traditional 2D and 360° documentary presentations of the Miao community in Guizhou Province, using the same narration and content, including village scenes, performances, and crafts, to isolate the effect of media format. The results suggest that the 360° documentary may increase viewers' enjoyment, sense of presence, curiosity, and appreciation of cultural content relative to a comparable 2D film. These exploratory findings indicate a potential for immersive media to deepen cultural understanding. Our study underscores 360° documentaries as a promising tool for engaging audiences with ethnic minority cultures, while noting that these conclusions are provisional given the lab setting and should be tested in real-world museum contexts.

Digital resources such as laptops have the potential to improve access to educational resources and provide personalized and uninterrupted learning opportunities for students. The impacts of these technologies may be especially salient in contexts where classroom sizes are large and schooling quality is poor. Here, we study the impacts of access to laptops on foundational math proficiency in one such context, i.e., India, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the implementation of the Tamil Nadu Free Laptop Scheme (TFLS). Introduced in 2011, the TFLS was one of the largest and targeted free laptop programs in the world, distributing over 5 million laptops. Using data from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) and India Human Development Survey (IHDS) within a double difference design, we show positive effects of access to laptops on foundational math proficiency of students, with the largest improvements experienced by those in economically disadvantaged households. We further find that these positive effects on foundational math proficiency are complemented by improvements in other education-related outcomes of students, such as more time spent on learning, better comprehension of language, and a reduction in private tuition. We provide evidence that laptops are able to close economic and gender divides in education. Our results remain robust to a variety of falsification and sensitivity checks.

As socially assistive robots (SARs) become increasingly integrated into aged care, it becomes essential to ask: how do these technologies affect caregiving work? Do SARs foster or diminish the conditions conducive to meaningful work? And why does it matter if SARs make caregiving more or less meaningful? This paper addresses these questions by examining the relationship between SARs and the meaningfulness of care work. It argues that SARs should be designed to foster meaningful care work. This presupposes, as we will argue, empowering caregivers to enhance their skills and moral virtues, helping them preserve a sense of purpose, and supporting the integration of caregiving with other aspects of caregivers' personal lives. If caregivers see their work as meaningful, this positively affects not only their well-being but also the well-being of care recipients. We begin by outlining the conditions under which work becomes meaningful, and then we apply this framework to caregiving. We next evaluate how SARs influence these conditions, identifying both opportunities and risks. The discussion concludes with design recommendations to ensure SARs foster meaningful caregiving practices.

School career information advice and guidance in England has typically focused on pupils aged 13-18. However, pupils aged under 11 have already formed career aspirations. Career aspirations are used as a proxy for future occupational destinations. This study tracks the individual career aspirations over 3 years for 78 children aged 7-9 at the start of study, from three schools in the North East England taking part in a STEM outreach project. The data are also used to explore the applicability of aspiration development frameworks for younger children. The majority of children were able to name at least one career aspiration with nearly 70% naming more, although these aspirations were drawn from a relatively narrow pool of jobs related to children's interests and jobs they see around them. 38% of the children had the same aspiration over time, but 60% of children changed their careers aspirations completely over the 3 years of the study. Career aspirations were strongly gendered, with boys naming a smaller pool of jobs most often. Between 2019 and 2021, there was an increase in STEM aspirations named by boys, and a decrease by girls. Thematic analysis of the reasons given for different aspirations identified four themes: self-actualisation, altruism, characteristics of the job, and role models. These themes were related to the aspiration frameworks. This study shows that there is both flux and stability in children's aspirations between the ages of 7 and 11. The gendered career choices at both time points indicate that there is a need for educators to challenge stereotypes about who can do what type of job from a much earlier age. All aspirations were drawn from a relatively small pool of job suggesting that introducing children to a wider range of jobs at an earlier age could support development of aspirations.

Studies investigating the effects of bilingualism on cognitive function have often yielded conflicting results, which may stem in part from the use of arbitrary criteria to categorize participants into groups based on language experience. The present study addresses this limitation by using a machine learning algorithm, known as cluster analysis, to identify naturally occurring subgroups of participants with similar language profiles. In a sample of 169 participants with varying degrees of first- and second-language proficiencies and ages of acquisition, the cluster analysis yielded four bilingual subgroups: late-unbalanced, early-unbalanced, late-balanced, and early-balanced. All participants completed the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery. Results revealed that early-balanced and early-unbalanced bilinguals scored higher than late-unbalanced bilinguals on the cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control subtests of the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery, whereas late-unbalanced bilinguals scored higher than early-balanced bilinguals on the verbal working memory subtest of the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery. Bilingual language experience did not impact performance on measures of processing speed, episodic memory, and English vocabulary. These findings demonstrate the utility of data-driven approaches to capture the variability in language experience that exists in the real world. We conclude that different bilingual experiences can shape a wide range of cognitive abilities, from working memory to inhibitory control.

Eradicating extreme poverty and inequality are the key leverage points to achieve the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the reduction of extreme poverty and inequality remains vulnerable to shocks such as pandemics and climate change. Numerous models have been developed to examine the complex social interactions giving rise to inequality and persistent poverty, yet few approaches include multilevel dynamics. Here, we introduce a heterogeneous agent-based model to identify conditions underlying poverty traps at different levels, which manifest as distinct statistical steady-state outcomes. We find that vulnerabilities emerge from the interaction between individual and institutional mechanisms. Individual characteristics like risk aversion, attention, and saving propensity can lead to sub-optimal diversification and low capital accumulation. These individual drivers are reinforced by institutional mechanisms such as lack of financial inclusion, access to technology, and economic segregation, leading to persistent inequality and poverty traps. Our experiments demonstrate that addressing the above factors yields a "double dividend"-reducing poverty and inequality within and between communities and creating positive feedback that can withstand shocks. Finally, we demonstrate that our theoretical model can be used as a sandbox for cost-benefit analysis of intervention strategies.

Immersive virtual reality (IVR), as presented through headsets, is becoming increasingly relevant in education, especially in STEM fields, due to its potential to make complex concepts more accessible. Despite empirical evidence revealing the potential of IVR, its adoption in primary schools remains low. The objective of this paper is to examine the level of acceptance and intention to use IVR among different stakeholders in Swiss primary schools. To achieve this, we conducted online questionnaires with directors ( = 37), teachers ( = 70), and parents/caregivers ( = 202). The results indicated considerable variability in the responses, with a general resistance to integrating IVR being detected across all groups. Common reasons for this resistance included high costs, technical challenges, and uncertainty about IVR's pedagogical value. However, we found that individuals who saw value in IVR were more likely to express the intention to integrate it into their schools. We discuss the importance of bridging the gap between IVR research and the reality of school implementation through targeted projects to encourage its integration into primary education.

This paper presents an Agent-Based Model (ABM) with Monte Carlo sampling, designed to simulate the deterioration processes within a population of objects over time. The model incorporates damage functions with the risk parameters of the ABC framework to simulate adverse events. As a result, it combines continuous and probabilistic degradation. This hybrid approach makes it possible to study the emergent behavior of the system and explore the range of possible lifetimes of collections with cultural value or scientific interest within galleries, museums, archives or libraries. A toy application of the model is tested with paper, with the main outcome of the model being the decay in condition of a collection as a consequence of all the combined degradation processes. The model is based on six hypotheses that are described for further testing. This paper presents a first attempt at a universal implementation of Collections Demography principles, with the hope that it will generate discussion and the identification of research gaps.

A lack of a shared understanding of key terms is acknowledged as a significant barrier to interdisciplinary research. This paper examines the ways in which a broadly interdisciplinary team of academics and youth co-researchers involved in mental health research interpreted a number of research and mental health terms that are central to their work in order to understand conceptual differences in how different stakeholder groups approach these terms. Data was collected in four phases (interviews, written responses, and two participatory 'living labs') and was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results revealed a wide disparity in the way participants understood key terms (including: 'research', 'data', 'loneliness', 'safe space' and 'resilience'). Our study highlights the need for more inclusive approaches to mental health research, where diverse perspectives and lived experiences inform both methodology and practice from the outset. In conclusion we suggest a new framework (the EQUITY framework) as a tool to operationalise these findings.

Transdisciplinary research presents a promising approach to addressing complex societal challenges by integrating scientific and experiential knowledge in joint learning processes. Transdisciplinary methods are crucial for supporting knowledge integration by enabling actors from within and outside academia to evaluate their expertise, share insights, and co-create innovative solutions. Despite growing interest in transdisciplinary methods, their effectiveness remains under-researched, mainly due to a lack of standardized instruments to measure their contribution to knowledge integration. This gap is particularly significant given that the usefulness of transdisciplinary methods depends on knowledge integration as a multidimensional, iterative process that fosters learning without predetermined outcomes. In this study, a novel scale was developed and tested empirically to assess the contribution of transdisciplinary methods to knowledge integration. The scale development process involved a systematic review of 48 literature sources, which synthesized over 300 statements into 34 items. These items were tested in workshops with 71 participants using two different transdisciplinary methods: transdisciplinary scenario building and serious game development. The participants represented expertise from three academic disciplines and experiential knowledge from the dairy and meat supply chains as well as game development. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two distinct dimensions of knowledge integration: a socio-emotional factor and a cognitive-communicative factor. This finding resulted in a refined 25-item scale. The scale was then employed to compare the two transdisciplinary methods, thereby providing an instrument for comparative analysis of their respective contributions to knowledge integration. The article also underscores the scale's limitations and offers recommendations for future scale refinement. By improving the methodological basis for measuring transdisciplinary methods, this research contributes to the ongoing improvement of transdisciplinary research.

Conspicuous consumption, driven by immediate satisfaction, novelty, and status, contradicts the Circular Economy's (CE) goals of reducing consumption and waste. As the CE evolves into a global mission supported by legislation, it must address overconsumption by adopting a humanist, design-focused, participatory approach that fosters alternative cultures of consumption. This paper investigates the potential of leveraging human wellbeing as a strategic approach to achieving circular sustainable consumption of textiles. It proposes that strengthening the connection between human wellbeing and material resource flow, particularly through a garment's lifecycle, can aid in reducing the textile consumption necessary for a successful CE. The 'Wellbeing framework for consumer experiences in the circular economy of the textile industry' positions consumer wellbeing as essential for the circular value chain of textiles. It serves as a cornerstone for designing consumer experiences that support a CE, informs alternative narratives for the industry and society, and has the potential to influence policy. The Framework is grounded in a comprehensive literature review examining how consumer wellbeing can drive the social health benefits of circularity, foster new sustainable consumption cultures, and serve as a consumer-centric tool for achieving zero waste through responsible and personalised engagement with consumption, reuse, and recycling. The iterative literature review and interdisciplinary elaboration followed five stages: review, selection, empirical testing, synthesis, and abstraction to achieve the final framework. The Framework comprises 16 wellbeing dimensions clustered into three categories: being well, feeling well and doing well. The primary contribution of this framework is its holistic approach to integrating and balancing the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of wellbeing within the context of the CE. It conceptualises wellbeing as a dynamic temporal process that evolves throughout the consumption journey, encompassing moments of both satisfaction and challenge, and addresses social factors such as the embodied experiences and self-perception elicited by a garment.

While large-scale comparative and historical analysis of folktales has largely disappeared from anthropological inquiry after the wane of diffusionism in the early 20th century, such approaches are experiencing a revival in the framework of cultural evolution. In that context, questions asked include to what extent narrative traditions are transmitted horizontally from generation to generation; influenced by practices of neighbors; and form larger packages with other expressions of culture, prominently language. Here, I explore to what extent 41 versions of a widespread story told by Indigenous Andean storytellers in the Quechuan languages show signs of having developed according to evolutionary phylogenetic mechanisms, bringing data from the underrepresented New World into the purview of the literature. The story of Juan Oso ("John the Bear"), which tells of the origins and adventures of a half-bear, half-human boy, has European roots, meaning that variation in the Central Andes only had several centuries to develop. Analyses show that the story varies in ways that can neither be explained fully by where it is told (and hence by possible "diffusion" of characteristics from region to region), nor by the Quechuan variety in which it is told ("co-evolution of language and culture"), nor, most importantly, by historical mechanisms of an evolutionary nature according to which the story might change. With reference to the ethnographic literature, I suggest that these results can be explained by the ways in which Andean storytellers recombine narrative material from stories to imbue them with new meaning that comments on local and regional social and political circumstances, and that a "rhizotic" model of development, in addition to or instead of the phylogenetic ones tested by cultural evolutionists, might be more adequate to understand how the individual versions of this story came to be told the way they are.

In the Replicating a Rembrandt Study project, which revisited the attribution of two portraits of Rembrandt while exploring the strengths and limitations of replication studies in art history, dendrochronological research was carried out to reproduce and replicate research conducted in the 1990s. One of the portraits, at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, Germany, had then been attributed to Rembrandt, whereas the other one, at the collections of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, The Netherlands, was considered a copy. In this study, the reproduction involved reassessing the results obtained for the two panels in the 1990s by comparing the tree-ring measurements produced then with reference oak chronologies from the source area (Poland and the eastern Baltic), and with a third panel from the Rijksmuseum that had matched the wood of the Nuremberg portrait, and seemingly originated from the same oak tree. The replication entailed remeasuring the tree rings in the panels through digital photography and using modern software to compare them to new reference chronologies and the Rijksmuseum panel. Both approaches confirmed the original results, including the southern Baltic provenance of the wood and a same-tree match between the Nuremberg and Rijksmuseum panels. However, the reproduction identified measurement errors in the initial study, while the replication corrected these errors. Furthermore, thanks to the improved reference datasets currently available, the replication provided more accurate interpretations about the felling dates of the trees. This research demonstrates that dendrochronology is a reliable science that should yield consistent results if applied rigorously, regardless of the software or ring-width acquisition method employed. However, for reproducibility, detailed reporting, including reference datasets used and statistical values obtained, is required. Long-term storage of dendrochronological data and digital images from the tree-ring sequences allows for verification and reanalysis without the need to re-examine the artworks. Therefore, it is advised that museums and art collectors commissioning dendrochronological research request dendrochronological reports that contain detailed graphs and information, as well as the shared stewardship of the tree-ring datasets and digital images produced by dendrochronologists.

This study uses metadata visualisation and corpus linguistics to examine patterns of representation of the emerging term in media reports, as retrieved from the Nexis news database. The metadata analysis reveals that media coverage of greenlash has surged since 2021, predominantly in left leaning European and North American media sources. Through Sketch Engine, collocation analysis identified core thematic areas surrounding greenlash: definition and resistance, status, actor, cause and impact, and location. Our findings indicate that greenlash is primarily a European phenomenon, which may be attributed to a lack of mainstream outlets through which actors can voice opposition to climate policies. The phenomenon is largely driven by economic concerns, in response to specific policies perceived to impose financial burdens on protesting groups. Moreover, our analysis reveals that media organisations often introduce the term greenlash as broad, generalised public opposition to environmental policies rather than a complex, economically driven opposition to specific policies, and portray this opposition in a negative light. We suggest that media organisations may downplay these elements in opposition to neoliberal or populist ideologies or to retain readership. This phenomenon thus highlights the complex intersection between environmental policies, economic burdens, and political divisions underscoring the broader tensions and paradoxes surrounding climate action and socio-economic disparities.

Linguistic choices, crucially including negatively valenced words and divisive messages, can bias people's feelings, thoughts, and judgments. However, these phenomena have been typically captured with small groups in controlled settings, casting doubt on their robustness and ecological validity. Here we examined whether such effects hold in a massive public gathering. During a large TEDx event ( = 3139), participants engaged in an interactive musical game and then evaluated their perception of (active and vicarious) enjoyment and (ingroup and outgroup) performance through surveys that manipulated (a) the initial framing ('divisive' or 'communal') and (b) the questions' valence ('positive', 'neutral', 'negative'). Results showed that negatively valenced words reduced enjoyment and performance ratings, particularly under divisive framings. Active enjoyment also decreased under communal framings. These results were corroborated upon adjusting for sociodemographic variables. Briefly, linguistic manipulations of affect immediately altered a crowd's perception of enjoyment and performance. These insights extend psycholinguistic models and contribute to discussions on public communication.

In an era of increasing calls for responsible environmental stewardship within health research and care, the concept of environmentality is a productive vehicle to theorise, analyse and critique the changing trends of environmental governance. Despite the usefulness of this approach, little to no literature has explored how this concept could apply to the health sector. In this paper, we examine three examples of emerging environmental governance in the health sector to illustrate and consider the usefulness of the environmentality lens. We show how environmentality provides a framework to interrogate different forms of governance and, in particular, how specific modes of environmental governance gain traction such that different types of knowledge/power (relations) are produced. We argue that using this analytical framework can draw attention to the regimes, techniques and technologies that are beginning to shape the forms of knowledge that are gaining power in health sector environmental management and can contribute to a better understanding of fields of environmental knowledge/power (in)visibility.

In Turkey, anti-genderism is notably influenced by top-down politics, which are largely integrated into social engineering within a majoritarian-authoritarian-securitarian political agenda. While grassroots support for this agenda remains limited, it is equally challenging to claim that sweeping resistance from below exists against such politics. Social justice activism based on gender issues can be a common ground for front-line workers, activists, and scholars to resist these politics. In this endeavour, a transformative feminist social justice approach is required that highlights the visibility and autonomy of women's and LGBTQ+ movements while also incorporating men's participation. This inclusion is crucial, as top-down anti-gender politics jeopardise these movements' capability to connect with broader society amidst state-sanctioned violence. Despite growing discontent towards the ruling power's political agenda, men may struggle to adopt a gender-sensitive perspective and engage in transformative feminist social justice efforts due to their contentious positionalities in the feminist movement. I identify this struggle as a manifestation of slow violence that hinders sociological and political imaginations for an empowering ethical-political stance required for a radical societal transformation. The article explores possibilities of collaborating with men for lasting social transformation toward gender equality and justice, and preventing gendered violence within a feminist framework using the capabilities approach. Benefiting from four studies on gendered violence in Turkey, the article presents novel and robust insights into men's engagement and proposes the capabilities approach through continuum thinking, emphasising the context of interlinked forms and layered effects of gendered violence alongside ongoing anti-gender politics rooted in masculinist entrenchment. This revealed the challenges male scholars, front-line workers, and activists face in addressing social injustices and violence, highlighting the need for critical reflexivity to overcome these issues. Finally, the article discusses the possible conditions for fostering an environment that can facilitate the cultivation of critical reflexivity for male scholars, front-line workers, activists, and men in general.

Similar to other countries from Central and South-Eastern Europe, Romania's cultural field developed as a literature-centric system. Throughout the process of nation-making and state-building that unfolded starting with the early nineteenth century, literary figures (writers, poets, and other men of letters) have played a critical role in shaping Romanians' historical consciousness and national identity. This paper intersects the conceptual perspective derived from the tenets of critical place-name scholarship with historical contextualisation provided by literary studies to examine the patterns of spatial inscription of literary figures in Romania's urban street names. Using as dataset the entire collection of street names in Romania's cities and towns ( = 49,469), the article analyses who are the canonical writers commemorated in the country's streetscape and how the presence of writers had changed after Romania's regime change of 1989. It then charts the spatial distribution of writers' names across the country's geo-historical regions, investigates the gender disparity, as well as, the ethnic structuring of the literary namescape. The first to combine critical place-name research with literary studies in a quantitative approach to a large-N set of spatial data, the study contributes to several bodies of scholarship by mapping the memorial literaturisation of street nomenclature at the national level as well as its longitudinal dynamics, regional variation, gender disparity, and ethnic structure.

To fill data gaps in human-environment systems, especially in difficult-to-access locations, novel tools are needed to collect (near) real-time data from diverse populations across the globe. Here we discuss the practicalities, constraints, and lessons learnt from six field studies using high spatial and temporal smartphone surveys in six different countries. We suggest that high spatiotemporal, self-administered smartphone surveys will produce novel insights into human behaviour, attitudes, and socio-economic characteristics that, when matched with high spatiotemporal resolution environmental data (e.g., from remote sensing), can be used to address sustainability challenges for global communities. Furthermore, we highlight the need for continuous refinement and improvement in future developments to enhance the efficacy of this methodology. By sharing the practical implications and constraints associated with smartphone surveys, this article contributes to the evolving landscape of data collection methods.

Consequential STEM experiences in informal settings can address issues of equity by fully engaging historically marginalized high school students in complex socio-scientific issues. However, inclusive and effective programs are in high demand, and there is little research on what specific aspects, context, and timeframes are most important when scaling these experiences. Using a mixed method approach, this study demonstrates that students make significant gains, in the short and long term, through in-person and remote informal programs ranging between 22-h and 320-h. Progress across STEM learning constructs is attributed to authentic research experiences, students' connections to STEM professionals, direct hands-on participation in projects, and group work. Relative to formal education settings, research-based informal STEM programs can be implemented with minimal resources, can maintain effectiveness while scaling, and work towards addressing the societal challenge of improving STEM learning and outcomes for high school students from historically marginalized communities.

Political ecology analyses climate change adaptation by examining the intricate relationships between systemic inequalities, power dynamics, and structural factors, including colonialism and capitalism. This paper examines the political ecology of climate change adaptation in the Arctic, focusing on five Inuit communities in Nunatsiavut, a self-governing Inuit region in northern Canada. It examines how various social, economic, and environmental factors intersect to influence adaptation. We found that colonialism, forced relocation, and capitalism are driving the historical construction of climate risk along with contemporary adaptation challenges, and showcase how inequities affect the ways different community members experience and respond to climate change. Inuit communities face significant adaptation barriers, such as high costs associated with store-bought food and machinery, economic constraints, and technological dependence required for food gathering. Using a political ecology lens, we contextualised these barriers within the broader socioeconomic factors. The analysis centres on the critical question of "adaptation for whom?" and examines the barriers and limits to adaptation, emphasising the uneven distribution of adaptive capacity within Nunatsiavut. This study underscores the need for an equitable approach to adaptation that addresses the systemic, structural, and infrastructural challenges faced by Inuit in a rapidly changing Arctic. This research was conducted in accordance with Indigenous and Inuit research ethics, ensuring Inuit self-determination and community control over the research process.