Frontiers in Sociology最新文献

{"title":"Creative entrepreneurship as a socially embedded form of work: a sociological ecology for the platform society.","authors":"Linchu Rajan, Lekshmi Mohan, Joel George, Ajimon George, Anoop Tom Thomas, Maria Susan Mathew","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1959266","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1959266","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Creative entrepreneurship increasingly combines creative production with entrepreneurial, communicative, and platform-mediated work. Existing scholarship has generated important insights into opportunity recognition, innovation, value creation, and creative labor, but these perspectives often examine entrepreneurial activity, social relations, cultural recognition, and platform governance as analytically separate processes. This Perspective develops the Sociological Ecology of Creative Entrepreneurship (SECE), a conceptual framework that positions creative entrepreneurship as socially embedded work within platform society. Drawing on economic sociology, sociology of work, labor process theory, digital sociology, and platform studies, SECE integrates five analytically distinct but relationally connected dimensions: identity construction, relational capital, platform governance, cultural legitimacy, and institutional embeddedness. The framework is presented as a relational and multilevel heuristic rather than a tested causal model. It proposes that creative entrepreneurial practice emerges through interactions among workers, audiences, collaborators, platforms, cultural fields, and institutions. The Perspective further considers how these relations are shaped by power, inequality, and human-AI interaction and identifies directions for empirical research into platform-mediated creative work, occupational sustainability, and changing forms of employment.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1959266"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13672186/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149217020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Language attitudes and ethnic or cultural identity among ethnic minority university students in China: a systematic bilingual knowledge synthesis.","authors":"Wei Chen, Yok Fee Lee, Shikun Zheng, Ratna Roshida Binti Ab Razak, Arfah Binti Ab Majid","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1952915","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1952915","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research on ethnic minority university students in China frequently links language attitudes with ethnic or cultural identity, but its findings are difficult to accumulate because studies operationalize different constructs and answer different questions. This systematic bilingual knowledge synthesis examined what the evidence collectively establishes and which explanations remain provisional. Searches of Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) yielded 303 records; 25 reports (individual publications) representing 23 distinct studies (underlying empirical investigations or datasets) were included. Seven reports representing six studies supplied direct evidence, while 18 reports representing 17 studies supplied contextual evidence. Two reviewers independently screened records, extracted data, and appraised the included studies using the 2018 Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). Direct evidence showed a recurring association between language evaluation and ethnic or cultural identity, while direction, common magnitude, and causal ordering remain unresolved. Contextual evidence showed that heritage-language attachment can coexist with the instrumental value of Putonghua and English and identified opportunities for use and recognition as plausible explanations for variation in practice. The focal conclusion remained supported when it was based only on the six studies classified as direct evidence; contextual findings were not counted as confirmation. The review identifies a shortage of direct tests and limited comparability across constructs, designs, reports, and evidence roles as the main barriers to cumulative knowledge.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1952915"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13671949/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149216840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Faculty curriculum development to open the gates to STEM: incorporating research experiences to the curriculum to increase student success in STEM.","authors":"Heather Haeger, Joseph Owusu Amoah, Enock Atta-Sah Nimfour","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1904900","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1904900","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>As access to college has increased, the access point has shifted from getting into college to persisting in elite majors, such as STEM majors which provide access to greater economic mobility. Passing through introductory gatekeeping courses in STEM, courses with high rates of dropping, failing, withdrawing, or taking an incomplete (DFWI rates), is a crucial access point for undergraduate students. Being able to pass these courses is a high-stakes filter that has a significant influence on persistence, retention, and degree completion in college. This study examines an intervention designed to improve student success and retention in STEM by supporting curriculum re-design of gatekeeper courses through Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). CUREs offer students opportunities to engage in authentic research, which provides students with practical experience to develop collaboration, communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and other competencies that help them succeed in gatekeeper courses in the early stages of the STEM pathways.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We employ a <i>post hoc</i>, quasi-experimental design to test the impact of this curriculum re-design on college persistence, persistence in STEM, and cumulative GPA. The study was conducted at a large public research university designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution. The treatment variable indicated participation in a CURE designed through the CURE Training Institute, a 1-week intensive training for STEM faculty teaching introductory STEM courses, followed by a year-long Community of Practice. Outcome variables included first- and second-year college retention, first- and second-year STEM retention, and cumulative GPA at the end of the second year. To address selection bias, Propensity Score Matching was used to create comparable groups of students who did and did not participate in CUREs. Regression analyses were then conducted on both full and matched samples to estimate the relationship between CURE participation and academic outcomes.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Using propensity score matching, the results show a consistent pattern in which participation in course-based undergraduate research experiences is associated with significantly higher retention in college and STEM retention.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>Integrating faculty curriculum development through course-based undergraduate research experiences supports students in succeeding in gateway courses without lowering academic rigor and the knowledge and mastery students need to possess.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1904900"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13668744/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149217011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"The information exists, but it's your job to find it\": 1.5-generation immigrants' encounters with public institutions.","authors":"Pnina Dolberg, Karin Amit, Avital Kaye-Tzadok","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1857620","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1857620","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Public institutions play a central role in immigrants' access to rights, resources, and opportunities, yet less is known about how immigrants experience encounters across multiple institutional settings during the early years following migration. Based on qualitative interviews with 21 immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel, this study examines how adults who immigrated during adolescence (referred to as the 1.5 generation) retrospectively describe and interpret their early interactions with public institutions. We identify four central themes: absence of institutional guidance, institutional misfit and misrecognition, active mediation by immigrant youth within their families, and localized experiences of support within specific institutional contexts. Participants' accounts point to a recurring gap between the formal availability of institutional resources and participants' ability to identify, access, and use those resources in practice. Information, guidance, mediation, recognition, and cultural sensitivity shaped how they experienced institutional encounters, while adolescents often became central intermediaries between their families and public systems. Positive experiences were commonly associated with particular institutional actors or structured programs that provided support and opportunities. The study highlights the value of examining early institutional encounters from a broader vantage point of adulthood.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1857620"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13668496/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149216961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Improving market infrastructure for small entrepreneurship in Uzbekistan: a sociological opinion on export potential, employment, and social inclusion.","authors":"Firuza Saidkulova, Dilafiruz Narzieva, Nigina Chorieva, Firuza Achilova, Jasurbek Jonibekov, Mokhichekhra Rajabova","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1926726","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1926726","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1926726"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13668556/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149216684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Women workers' labour market engagement and financial autonomy: the mediating role of government initiatives in Kerala, India.","authors":"Shahbaz Babar Khan, P Mubarak Rahman, Jasvinder Sidhu, Najul Laskar","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1882363","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1882363","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This research examines the interrelationship between the labour market engagement and financial autonomy of employed women, with a focus on the mediating role of government initiatives in Kerala, India. Despite high literacy rates and progressive social indicators in Kerala, low female labour force participation points to deep-seated socio-cultural and institutional barriers. Drawing on Human Capital Theory, the Gender and Development Framework, and Empowerment Theory, the study constructs a comprehensive model incorporating cultural, economic, and policy determinants. Because the sample comprises women who are already employed, the study examines <i>labour market engagement</i>-employed women's active involvement in work, confidence in employability, access to job opportunities, and perceived professional growth-rather than labour force participation in its conventional sense. Using survey data collected from 1,357 women workers across five districts of Kerala and analyzed through Structural Equation Modelling in AMOS 28.0, the results indicate that cultural determinants are more strongly associated with women's labour market engagement than economic factors alone. Labour market engagement is positively and significantly associated with financial autonomy, suggesting that economic engagement is linked to greater financial decision-making power and financial control among women. Bootstrapped mediation analysis further indicates that government initiatives such as Kudumbashree and the Women Entrepreneurship Mission partially mediate the association between labour market engagement and financial autonomy. Given the cross-sectional design, these findings represent empirical associations rather than causal effects. The study contributes to gendered labour economics by suggesting that employment needs to be accompanied by enabling institutional mechanisms for sustainable empowerment and equitable growth.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1882363"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13668573/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149216767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Meritocracy in Brazil, China and USA: identifying inconsistencies in the Preference for the Merit Principle Scale through Exploratory Graph Analysis.","authors":"Luciano Rossoni, Pedro Henrique Ribeiro Santiago, Luíza Marques do Valle, Kauê Brandão Bezerra, Marcos Henrique Rodrigues Formiga","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1720286","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1720286","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The belief that individuals should be rewarded according to merit for their effort and talent has become increasingly widespread, yet efforts to measure it remain contested. Meritocracy has been conceptualized both as an ideology that justifies inequality and as an ideal of distributive justice, with some studies emphasizing its descriptive nature, whether it is perceived as existing in society. Others analyze it as prescriptive, framing it as a desirable social norm. This study focuses on the Preference for the Merit Principle (PMP), the most widely used prescriptive measure of meritocracy. It demonstrates that its assumed unidimensionality, encompassing the principles of equity, equality, and need, is untenable across sociocultural contexts. To that end, we compared the dimensionality and internal consistency of the PMP across three national samples using Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA): a prototypically WEIRD country (United States), a non-WEIRD BRICS country (China), and our own sample of 136 Brazilian university students. Results consistently favored multifactorial over unidimensional structures across all three countries, with greater heterogeneity observed in the non-WEIRD samples. In the Brazilian sample, four unstable dimensions were identified: Need (reverse), Equity, Equality (reverse), and Competitive Equity. Criterion validity analyses revealed divergent and contradictory associations: equity was negatively associated with hierarchical beliefs, whereas denial of Need showed a marginal negative association with support for affirmative action policies. Given the low reliability of some PMP dimensions, these results should be interpreted with caution. These findings urge greater caution in applying the PMP across sociocultural contexts and call for treating prescriptive meritocracy as a multidimensional, contextually embedded belief system.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1720286"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13661348/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149184983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From intersectional position to migrant standpoint: Ghanaian migrants' knowledges of wellbeing, care, and constraint in Alberta, Canada.","authors":"Noah Boakye-Yiadom, Isaac Nortey Darko, Bukola Salami","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1914141","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1914141","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Intersectionality has strengthened migration scholarship by showing how race, gender, class, legal status, culture, and other relations of power shape migrant lives. However, it has been less explicit about how migration-shaped locations become sites of interpretation, critique, and knowledge production. This article addresses that gap by developing the concept of migrant standpoint through the case of mental health promotion among Ghanaians in Alberta, Canada.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The study used a qualitative design grounded in Ori-Oyena, an African-grounded methodological orientation centered on relational knowledge, story, participation, and communal interpretation. Data were generated through in-depth interviews with Ghanaian adults in Alberta and a community dialogue with leaders that refined emergent interpretations. Analysis proceeded iteratively, combining qualitative coding with interpretive attention to how participants defined wellbeing, explained constraint, and described the conditions under which support became possible or difficult to sustain. Participants varied by gender, migration pathway, occupational location, religious affiliation, and length of residence, and the analysis treats that variation as constitutive of standpoint rather than as background noise.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Participants understood wellbeing in relational rather than narrowly individual terms, linking it to spiritual grounding, family relationships, moral responsibility, and social legitimacy. Four interrelated dimensions of migrant standpoint emerged: relational wellbeing; translated survival knowledge; institutional misrecognition and selective engagement; and double vision as comparative social knowledge. Together, these findings showed that migration shaped not only exposure to inequality but also the interpretation of care, distress, and institutional fit. These dimensions were internally differentiated: religious practice supplied a rival system for authoritatively naming distress, and the relational labour on which wellbeing depended was gendered, falling disproportionately on women whose kin networks had not migrated with them.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>Migrant standpoint extends intersectional migration scholarship by shifting attention from social position alone to socially situated knowledge shaped by movement, settlement, racialization, and institutional negotiation. Mental health promotion proved to be a revealing analytic site because it exposed broader struggles over recognition, belonging, legitimacy, and the conditions under which wellbeing can be sustained. Rather than proposing a universal migrant standpoint, this article shows how a bounded empirical case can clarify a broader sociological mechanism through which migrant communities generate knowledge under altered structural conditions.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1914141"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13661382/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149184980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Governing socio-ecological transition in an industrial city: public institutions' prominence and the risk of a top-down process.","authors":"Lidia Greco","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1899843","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1899843","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines the governance of the socio-ecological transition in the industrial city of Taranto (Italy) as it strives to move beyond its historical dependence on the steel industry and towards a more sustainable model of development. Based on the qualitative evidence, the article shows the protagonism of local public institutions, namely, the Puglia Region and the Municipality of Taranto. Through a mix of ideational, political, and economic mechanisms, local public institutions have adopted a post-industrial economic model and articulated a vision for Taranto's transition aligned with a green growth perspective. While positively valuing the unprecedented effort toward the diversification of the area's economy and society, the local public-led governance raises concerns regarding administrative capacity, the extent of social participation, and the extent to which alternative perspectives are incorporated to achieve its ambition of a just socio-economic transformation toward climate neutrality. The article seeks to deepen understanding of urban and regional transformation driven by the ecological transition in industrial areas and offers an original contribution to the literature on Taranto by moving beyond the predominantly industrial perspective to examine the broader territorial and urban governance arrangements, as well as the socio-economic dynamics underpinning the transition.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1899843"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13661322/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149184967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Making non-compliance visible: how smart bins reshape social norms in urban waste management.","authors":"Claudio Marciano, Alessandro Sciullo, Filippo Barbera","doi":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1939810","DOIUrl":"10.3389/fsoc.2026.1939810","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Urban waste management increasingly relies on hybrid collection systems based on controlled-access smart bins. Their implicit promise is to strengthen compliance by increasing behavioural control while reducing the organisational costs associated with door-to-door collection. This article tests this premise through a survey of 502 users involved in a large-scale Italian pilot project. Integrating analytical sociology, social norms theory, and Science and Technology Studies, we identify three interrelated mechanisms underlying the system's ambivalent outcomes: limited norm internalisation, ineffective sanctions, and the increased visibility of non-compliant behaviour. We argue that smart bins reshape users' empirical expectations and may thereby contribute to the progressive erosion of compliance with waste separation norms.</p>","PeriodicalId":36297,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sociology","volume":"11 ","pages":"1939810"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13661463/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149184970","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}