Social SciencesPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-01-22DOI: 10.3390/socsci15010055
Sheridan Sweet, Nicole McCaffery, Jerry Jiang, Robert W S Coulter, James E Egan, Janet Myers, Martha Shumway, Marina Tolou-Shams, Emily F Dauria
{"title":"Design Justice in Action: Co-Developing an HIV and Substance Use Linkage Intervention with Young Adults Involved in the Carceral System.","authors":"Sheridan Sweet, Nicole McCaffery, Jerry Jiang, Robert W S Coulter, James E Egan, Janet Myers, Martha Shumway, Marina Tolou-Shams, Emily F Dauria","doi":"10.3390/socsci15010055","DOIUrl":"10.3390/socsci15010055","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>To redress systemically biased approaches to health interventions and service design, it is critical that public health researchers employ frameworks that are intentional in their approach to recognizing and working against existing power structures to advance equity in public health. Design Justice represents an approach to design which centers marginalized people and uses collaborative design processes to address community needs and challenges. The purpose of this paper is to describe our process for applying a Design Justice framework to Project XX. Project XX is a study funded by XX designed to develop and test an eHealth-enhanced peer navigation intervention to improve engagement in substance use and HIV-related services for young adults with recent carceral system involvement. We situate the project within the theoretical foundation of Design Justice and community-engaged research, describe its development and implementation, and analyze the application of Design Justice principles from an implementation science perspective by overlaying them with Stanford University's Center for Dissemination and Implementation's five key dimensions of dissemination and implementation methods. We highlight successes, challenges, and lessons learned, offering recommendations to guide more equitable and inclusive approaches for future research and practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13372254/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148457045","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}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2025-07-20DOI: 10.3390/socsci14070442
Gina Marie Longo, Ian Almond
{"title":"Caught Between Rights and Vows: The Negative Impacts of U.S. Spousal Reunification Policies on Mixed-Status, Transnational Families with Low “Importability”","authors":"Gina Marie Longo, Ian Almond","doi":"10.3390/socsci14070442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14070442","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines how U.S. immigration policies enact legal violence and multigenerational punishment through the spousal reunification process, particularly in mixed-status, transnational families. Building on the concept of “deportability,” we introduce “importability” to describe a beneficiary’s potential to secure permanent residency, which varies according to social markers such as race, gender, and region of origin. Drawing from a content analysis of threads on the Immigration Pathways (IP) web forum, we analyze discussions among U.S. citizen petitioners navigating marriage-based green card applications, with a focus on experiences involving administrative processing (AP) (i.e., marriage fraud investigations). Our findings show that couples who do not align with the state’s conception of “proper” family—particularly U.S. citizen women petitioning for Black African partners—face intensified scrutiny, long delays, and burdensome requirements, including DNA tests and surveillance. These bureaucratic obstacles produce prolonged family separation, financial strain, and diminished sense of belonging, especially for children in single-parent households. Through the lens of “importability,” we reveal how legal violence and multigenerational punishment of immigration policies on mixed-status families beyond deportation threats, functioning as a gatekeeping mechanism that disproportionately affects marginalized families. This research highlights the understudied consequences of immigration policies on citizen petitioners and contributes to a broader understanding of inequality in U.S. immigration enforcement.","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"14 7","pages":"442-442"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/7/442/pdf?version=1753069095","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147907370","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}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-06-26DOI: 10.3390/socsci14070405
Amelia Elias Noor
{"title":"Bi<sup>5</sup>: An Autoethnographic Analysis of a Lived Experience Suicide Attempt Survivor Through Grief Concepts and 'Participant' Positionality in Community Research.","authors":"Amelia Elias Noor","doi":"10.3390/socsci14070405","DOIUrl":"10.3390/socsci14070405","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper explores suicidality and suicide research from an autoethnographic analysis framed through grief concepts. Self-identifying as a Muslim in the United States, the author explains how lived experiences being racialized through Islamophobia, identifying as a genderfluid non-binary woman, being socially biracial, holding a postpartum bipolar diagnosis, and being connected to a diaspora, are critical elements to develop a deeper sociocultural understanding of suicide. Grief concepts that are used to analyze these themes include disenfranchised grief, ambiguous loss, anticipatory grief, and secondary loss. While these grief concepts are understood as part of the author's embodied lived experience as an individual, there is also a collective grief that is explored through the author's bilingual experience with Arabic as it relates to the topics of suicide and genocide occurring in the Arabic-speaking diaspora located in Gaza, Palestine. A conceptual framework is offered to make sense of the author's lived experience by both incorporating and challenging existing academic perspectives on suicide and research. The <i>emic</i>, or insider, perspective is contextualized such that it may hold implications beyond the individual author, such as for U.S. Muslims and other hard-to-reach populations. A positionality statement demonstrates the author's reflexivity of being an insider 'participant'-researcher in conducting transformative research approaches with the U.S. Muslim community. Further directions are shared for scholars with lived experience who may seek to utilize comparable individual or collaborative autoethnographic approaches with such majority-world communities.</p>","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"14 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13502157/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148814426","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}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2025-06-13DOI: 10.3390/socsci14060374
Jennifer Smith‐Merry, Damian Mellifont
{"title":"Payment of Participants with Disability in Research: A Scoping Review and Framework","authors":"Jennifer Smith‐Merry, Damian Mellifont","doi":"10.3390/socsci14060374","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14060374","url":null,"abstract":"Payment of people participating in research is a common practice in research. Research ethics guidelines often require additional scrutiny of payment practices and research practices more generally for groups identified as vulnerable, including people with disability. However, the existing guidelines are vague, and often conflict, meaning that it is difficult for researchers to determine what is appropriate in relation to the payment of participants in research. This situation is addressed in this paper, which provides a review of the existing research on the topic of payment of participants considered ‘vulnerable’ in research. We followed a systematic approach to our scoping review, thematically analysed the data identified and reported our results according to the PRISMA-ScR guide for scoping reviews. Fifteen papers met the inclusion criteria and were included in this review. Where studies included empirical findings, most studies were based in the US and Canada, with a small number from European, African, and Asian countries. The key ethical concepts identified in the papers were consent, justice, and reciprocity, which were positioned in relation to coercion and concerns about undue influence from payment. The papers consistently identified economic precarity as being a shared factor across the groups identified as vulnerable which placed them at risk of coercion in relation to payment. The papers also strongly identified context as being an important consideration in both mitigating and enhancing risks around the payment of participants. A framework for considering the payment of participants is offered which responds to the areas identified in the papers. It focuses on the research environment, research situation, participant group, risks and benefits of the research, individual context, relational context, and research practices. This framework is provided as a resource for researchers considering the payment of people with disability in research, and those identified as vulnerable in research more broadly.","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"14 6","pages":"374-374"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/6/374/pdf?version=1749807995","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147891106","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}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2025-04-28DOI: 10.3390/socsci14050270
Pam Nilan
{"title":"Researching Young People and Far-Right Populism","authors":"Pam Nilan","doi":"10.3390/socsci14050270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14050270","url":null,"abstract":"This paper considers the challenges facing qualitative researchers who study far-right populism and youth. First, there is the question of the method itself. Across the relevant literature, it seems more popular to use online methodologies rather than conduct face-to-face interviews. This is not surprising given the difficulties of talking face-to-face with a specific cohort of young people who are often suspicious of outsiders and who may even pose a personal security risk to the interviewer. Second, the age, gender, and institutional status of a researcher may constitute an obstacle to the effectiveness of a face-to-face interview. Common features of far-right populism are mistrust of elites and misogyny. Moreover, the online world of youth today is a dynamic technological sphere that may be hard to grasp for someone from a previous generation. This paper is a reflective essay that uses examples of research in action. It aims to invite reader reflection on attuning research approaches to the lived experiences of youth drawn to far-right populism","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"14 5","pages":"270-270"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/5/270/pdf?version=1745836099","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147901204","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}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2025-02-20DOI: 10.3390/socsci14030119
Peter Lau, Jiahui Zheng
{"title":"Exploring the Interplay Among Student Identity Development, University Resources, and Social Inclusion in Higher Education: Analyzing Students as Partners Project in a Hong Kong University","authors":"Peter Lau, Jiahui Zheng","doi":"10.3390/socsci14030119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030119","url":null,"abstract":"Social inclusion is vital in teaching and learning, particularly within collaborative educational frameworks like the Students as Partners (SaP) initiative. This article delves into selected SaP projects regarding social inclusion in a Hong Kong university, focusing on understanding the complex interplay among student identity development, university resources, and social inclusion. To achieve this, the study employs a qualitative research methodology, which allows for an in-depth exploration of the experiences and perspectives of students involved in the scheme. By analyzing student interview data, this article delineates the identity development process in SaP projects. Additionally, it explores aspects related to the university resources that support student partners throughout the social inclusion project implementation in the Hong Kong context. The results indicate that students are generally aware of social inclusion. Some of them developed a new identity to sustain a positive influence on social inclusion through SaP projects, along with the necessary university resources.","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"14 3","pages":"119-119"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/3/119/pdf?version=1740047337","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147892512","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}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2024-08-01Epub Date: 2024-08-21DOI: 10.3390/socsci13080432
Zamzam Dini, Cawo Abdi, Beatrice Bean E Robinson, Jennifer Jo Connor
{"title":"Cultural Norm Transmission/Disruption amongst Somali Refugee Women: The Beauty and Privilege of Intergenerational Relationships.","authors":"Zamzam Dini, Cawo Abdi, Beatrice Bean E Robinson, Jennifer Jo Connor","doi":"10.3390/socsci13080432","DOIUrl":"10.3390/socsci13080432","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Since the onset of the Somali civil war in the late 1980s, more than 2 million Somalis have been internally displaced or crossed international borders to seek haven. Yet, research on diasporic Somali women's intergenerational communication about marriage, sex, and female genital cutting (FGC) remains scant. This paper draws from data we collected from 15 women over the age of 45 who were part of a much larger project on refugee women and sexual health and well-being. The analysis centers on how Somali women across the generations recalibrate definitions of family. We analyze the new roles that sisters, aunts, and grandmothers occupy in the lives of younger women, as family dispersal often results in the absence of biological mothers. In the new settlement, the findings showcase both continuity and change in how sex, marriage, and female genital cutting (FGC) are discussed among female family members. Our findings support not only the dynamic nature of family roles that women occupy across generations but also the malleability of cultural practices as families navigate changing cultural, legal, and social norms in their new settlements.</p>","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"13 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12302913/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144745300","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}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2024-01-10DOI: 10.3390/socsci13010046
Mira Elise Glaser Holthe, Kerstin Söderström
{"title":"Adversarial Growth among Refugees: A Scoping Review","authors":"Mira Elise Glaser Holthe, Kerstin Söderström","doi":"10.3390/socsci13010046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13010046","url":null,"abstract":"Background: The main aims of this scoping review are to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing knowledge about adversarial growth among refugees, and to gain insight into the complexity of post-trauma development. Methods: We applied a systematic search strategy resulting in the inclusion of 43 quantitative and qualitative empirical studies. Our findings underscore the prevalence of growth as a common phenomenon among refugees, emphasizing the positive associations with problem-focused coping, optimism, positive reappraisal, religiosity, and social support. Additionally, this review sheds light on the qualitative experiences and outcomes of growth, particularly pro-social outcomes, and the cultural and religious aspects of growth processes. Findings concerning the role of time and post-migration factors on growth processes highlight the need for more studies among established refugees. In sum, the findings supplement and lend nuance to pathology-oriented research, while acknowledging the severity of suffering and trauma and their consequences for individuals. We suggest that further research should focus on existential aspects and theories of growth: compassion, altruism, and pro-sociality following trauma, and the importance of religious and cultural elements in growth processes.","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"1 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139440347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2024-01-10DOI: 10.3390/socsci13010045
Moa Nyamwathi Lønning
{"title":"After Being Granted or Refused Asylum in Norway: Relational Migration Journeys among Afghan Unaccompanied Young Men","authors":"Moa Nyamwathi Lønning","doi":"10.3390/socsci13010045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13010045","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers experiences of moving and dwelling in Europe among Afghan unaccompanied young men in the context of stringent migration, asylum, and settlement processes. The young men embarked as minors and arrived unaccompanied in Norway. There, their claims for asylum had radically different outcomes: some were granted international protection and others were refused asylum. The article sheds light on forms of relationality on migration journeys by focusing on relational selves and subjectivities regarding trajectories, processes of inclusion and exclusion, and family. Participants shared numerous challenges and struggles arising from their journeys, but also possibilities and transformations taking place alongside developmental changes and life transitions. While some attached meaning to experienced hardships and drew on a sense of direction, others spoke of exhaustion or inoculated themselves from an inability to pursue a direction they desired and saw as necessary for their lives. They made sense of their experiences relationally, relating to hopes and fears, idealised and longed for kinship ties and care, and the ongoing processes and positionings involved in shaping their present situations and imaginings of the future.","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"68 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139440896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Social SciencesPub Date : 2024-01-10DOI: 10.3390/socsci13010044
Avril Margaret Brandon, Erika Emandache, Aleksandra Iwaniec
{"title":"Social Media, Newsworthiness, and Missing White Woman Syndrome: A Criminological Analysis","authors":"Avril Margaret Brandon, Erika Emandache, Aleksandra Iwaniec","doi":"10.3390/socsci13010044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13010044","url":null,"abstract":"Missing White Woman Syndrome has been widely acknowledged within traditional mainstream media, resulting in a heavy focus on missing white women and a simultaneous underrepresentation of missing women from minority ethnic communities. However, less is known about whether this has carried through to social media, wherein users play a key role in determining what becomes widespread news. This review seeks to examine this issue with reference to existing research. It begins by exploring the concept of newsworthiness and the ways in which social media influences the distribution of news. It will then review the concept of the ‘ideal victim’, and its continued association with ethnicity. Finally, the review will examine Missing White Woman Syndrome and the ways in which it has historically manifested within traditional media and continues to manifest on social media. The review will conclude with a discussion on findings and avenues for future research in Ireland and internationally.","PeriodicalId":37714,"journal":{"name":"Social Sciences","volume":"5 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139440113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}