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BAR - Brazilian Administration Review Call for papers: Special issue on Digital Technologies for Entrepreneurship and Social Change Main Topic: Digital technologies enable entrepreneurs to create innovations that can cross traditional industry boundaries, integrating digital and non-digital assets and scaling new ventures with new products, services, and business models (Nambisan, 2017; Nambisan et al., 2021). The ecosystem support for digital entrepreneurship can help to promote socioeconomic development, solve unemployment problems, generate innovative products and services, create a competitive environment, and increase local prosperity and well-being (Beliaeva et al., 2020). This special issue aims to diffuse research that focuses on the use of generative and emerging digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, IoT, and digital platforms (also known as Industry 4.0 technologies – Schwab & Davis, 2018) for digital entrepreneurship, especially when it aims to generate social impact. Research approaching the use of digital technologies as a driver for social change (for instance: new services for financial inclusion, employment opportunities, the promotion of diversity and environmental sustainability) are also targeted by this special issue. Important Dates: Submission of Full Paper: until October 31, 2023. Initial decision sent to authors: until March 31, 2024 Deadline for revised papers: July 31, 2024 Notification of acceptance: until September 31, 2024 Deadline for final versions: October 31, 2024 Special Issue publication (expected): December 2024 Guest Editors: Dr. Amarolinda Zanela Klein - Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Business and Management School, Brazil (aczanela@unisinos.br) Dr. Cristiane Pedron - Universidade Nove de Julho, Brazil (cdpedron@uni9.pro.br) Dr. Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood - Florida International University, USA (selalufc@fiu.edu) Dr. Winnie Ng Picoto - Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto Superior Economia e Gestão, Portugal (w.picoto@iseg.ulisboa.pt) BAR Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Ivan Lapuente Garrido - Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Business and Management School, Brazil (bar-eic@anpad.org.br) &nbsp

In 2020, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 45–84 years (Woolf 325:123–124, 2021). However, systemic inequities and disparities exacerbated the pandemic’s effect on racial and ethnic groups (Tai 72:703–706, 2021). The exact impact of the pandemic within the Middle Eastern North African (MENA) community is not well documented or understood due to the lack of federal recognition of MENAs as an ethnic group. Given the lack of COVID-19 research among this community, this study was created to address COVID-19 needs, perceptions, and health-seeking behaviors regarding COVID-19 precautions, mask wearing, and routine healthcare appointments. Between June and July 2020, an anonymous survey was distributed in English and Arabic using a Community Participatory Based Research design in Dearborn, Michigan. Overall, 298 individuals were surveyed and their misconceptions regarding COVID-19 infections, spread, and precautions were identified. It is important to note that about 75% of survey respondents identified as female, while only 24% of survey participants identified as male. Survey participants slightly underestimated the distance in which COVID-19 can be transmitted as 5.5 ± 3.5. Participants severely underestimated COVID-19 deaths in the US, with 23% estimating that under 250,000 individuals would die from COVID-19. Overall, 60% of participants reported that they did not have any difficulty adhering to COVID-19 precautions and self-quarantine rules during Ramadan, while this number dropped to only 36% (87/238) after Ramadan. The goal of this study was to serve as a tool to better understand the misconceptions, difficulties, and needs regarding COVID-19 among this understudied population. The MENA community may be particularly vulnerable to the economic, medical, and social changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction ‘Drinking occasions’ are commonly used to capture quantities of alcohol consumed. Yet this standardised terminology brings with it numerous assumptions and epistemological limitations. We suggest that social changes brought on by COVID‐19 restrictions have influenced routines, patterns of time use and drinking practices, highlighting the need to re‐examine how we conceptualise drinking and ‘drinking occasions’ in alcohol research. Methods This analysis draws on data gathered from 59 qualitative interviews conducted during the second half of 2020 with Australian drinkers aged 18 and over. The interviews explored how COVID‐19 restrictions impacted daily practices and alcohol consumption patterns. Findings Participants spoke about their work, study and social routines changing, which influenced the times, timing and contexts of their drinking practices. We separated these shifts into four overarching themes: shifting of structures shaping drinking; the permeability of drinking boundaries; the extension of drinking occasions; and new contexts for drinking. Discussion and Conclusion COVID‐19 restrictions have led to shifts in the temporal boundaries and contexts that would otherwise shape people's drinking, meaning drinking practices may be less bound by structures, norms, settings and rituals. The drinking occasions concept, although a simple tool for measuring how much people drink, has not been able to capture these complex developments. This is a timely consideration given that COVID‐19 may have enduring effects on people's lifestyles, work and drinking practices. It may be useful to examine drinking as practice, rather than just an occasion, in order to better contextualise epidemiological studies going forward.

As a key indicator to measure the mental health status, psychological security level of Chinese college students and its changes over time are of great value to examine.A cross-temporal meta-analysis was performed using papers that measured the psychological security level of Chinese college students using the Security Questionnaire between 2006 and 2019. In addition, a time lag analysis was conducted to define whether the selected macro social indicators can explain the changes in the psychological security level.A total of 58 papers involving 28,352 Chinese college students were included in the final sample. The results revealed that scores of psychological security and its two factors were significantly negatively correlated with the year. Scores of psychological security and its two factors were significantly associated with five social indicators of economic condition (residents' consumption level), social connectedness (divorce rate, urbanization level) and overall threat (college enrollment rate, crime rate), suggesting that social change may account for the decline in psychological security level of Chinese college students.The underlying mechanism is only discussed at a theoretical level. Thus, future studies can collect the relating empirical evidence to test the proposed theoretical model.Our study revealed a decreasing trend of Chinese college students' psychological security level across time, which was associated with macro-social changes in diverse areas. In addition, combined with the corresponding macro-social indicators, a three-dimensional theoretical framework is proposed to explain the psychological security for college students as a group.

As we planned this special issue, the world was in the midst of a pandemic, one which brought into sharp focus many of the pre-existing economic, social, and climate crises, as well as, trends of widening economic and social inequalities. The pandemic also brought to the forefront an epistemic crisis that continues to decentre certain knowledges while maintaining the hegemony of Eurocentric ways of knowing and being. Thus, we set out to explore the possibilities that come with widening our ecology of knowledge and approaches to inquiry, including the power of critical reflective praxis and consciousness, and the important practices of repowering marginalised and oppressed groups. In this paper, we highlight scholarship that reflects a breadth of theories, methods, and practices that forge alliances, in and outside the academy, in different solidarity relationships toward liberation and wellbeing. Our desire as co-editors was not to endorse the plurality of solidarities expressed in the papers as an unyielding methodological or conceptual framework, but rather to hold them lightly within thematic spaces as invitations for readers to consider. Through editorial collaboration, we arrived at the following three thematic spaces: (1) ecologies of being and knowledge: Indigenous knowledge, networks, and plurilogues; (2) naming coloniality in context: Histories in the present and a wide lens; (3) relational knowledge practices: Creative joy of knowing beyond disciplines. From these thematic spaces we conclude that through repowering epistemic communities and narratives rooted in truth-telling, a plurality of solidarities are fostered and sustained locally and transnationally. Underpinned by an ethic of care, solidarity relationships are simultaneously unsettling dominant forms of knowledge and embrace ways of knowing and being that advances dignity, community, and nonviolence.

Under the background of "the Belt and Road" and "the economic corridor of China, Mongolia and Russia" initiatives, it is of great significance to study the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of urbanization in Russia. This paper studied the population urbanization level, economic urbanization level, social urbanization level, eco-environment urbanization level, and their coupling coordination development degree during 2005-2020 in Russia. First, combining with the Population-Economic-Sociology-Eco-environment model, the paper constructed the index systems to evaluate the urbanization development levels in Russia. Second, based on the comprehensive weighting method of entropy weight and variation coefficient, this paper calculated the population urbanization level, economic urbanization level, social urbanization level, and eco-environment urbanization level in Russia. Third, this paper used the coupling coordination model to measure the coupling coordination degree of the urbanization development levels in Russia. Finally, the spatial differentiation of the population urbanization level, economic urbanization level, social urbanization level, eco-environment urbanization level, and their coupling coupling-coordination degree was performed, respectively, by using ArcGIS. The results are as the following. First, from 2005 to 2020, the economic urbanization level and eco-urbanization level have shown the increasing trend in Russia. The population urbanization level and social urbanization level have shown the stable changing trend in Russia. The eco-environment urbanization and economic urbanization contribute larger share to the urbanization system compared with the population urbanization and social urbanization. The coupling coordination development degree of population urbanization level, economic urbanization level, social urbanization level, and eco-environment urbanization level has showed a slight increasing trend. However, the overall situation of the urbanization in Russia is still in the moderate uncoordinated recession stage. Second, the federal subjects with high urbanization development levels are mainly distributed in Moscow city, Moscow Region, Sverdlovsk Region, Tumen Region, Saint-Petersburg city, Republic of Tatarstan, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Republic of Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk Region, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Krasnodar Territory, Rostov Region, and Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Area. The federal subjects with low ones are mainly located in Republic of Khakasia, Republic of Marii El, Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, Republic of Tyva, Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Republic of Kalmykia, Republic of Altay, Jewish Autonomous Area, and Republic of Ingushetia. Third, spatially, from 2005 to 2020, the urbanization pattern of population, economy, society, eco-environment, and their coupling coordination degree in Russia all show unbalanced development characteristics. The population urbanization pattern and the social urbanization pattern have not changed significantly, showing the spatial characteristics of "high west, low east," and "high middle, low north, low south." The economic urbanization pattern has been increasing significantly, showing the spatial characteristics of "high core, low edge." The eco-environment urbanization pattern has not changed significantly, showing the spatial characteristics of "high north, low south." The coupling coordinated development degree of urbanization pattern has showed a slight increasing trend, showing the spatial characteristics of "high middle, low north, low south," "high west, low east". Finally, we suggest policies and strategies that can boost the growth and development of the urbanization in Russia.

After the “Arab Spring” uprisings, an optimistic strand in the field of media and social change emerged which presents the role of social networking websites as key tools for Muslim and Arab women to change the dominant representations about themselves in the media and literature as oppressed and sexually objectified by their men (Nahed Eltantawy 2013). While I acknowledge the role of online social media spaces as resources for social change, this paper incorporates feminist scholarship on gender, postcolonialism, and representation (Abu-Lughod 2002; Chandra Mohanty 2003; Aihwa Ong 1999) to critically evaluate social networking websites as spaces that actually promote stereotypical and/or hegemonic understandings of Syrian refugee women's issues. As an example of what Ong (1999) calls “self-orientalization,” I analyze the discourses of the Facebook campaign “Refugees Not Captives” (RNC) and argue that this campaign's messages transfer to and interact with mainstream global media coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis. My main goal is to show how what may appear to be a local authentic online campaign aiming to encourage feminist actions to end the suffering of Syrian refugee women is, in fact, disconnected from the offline realities of these women and the activist groups who work with them on the ground. My concern is to critique a form of feminist online campaign that claims to represent the voices of women who generally do not have the economic and educational privileges to access the online spaces to speak for themselves. Methodologically, this article is part of a broader study based on my fieldwork during the summer of 2013 in Jordan, where I conducted ethnographic research as well as thirty-three in-depth interviews with Syrian refugee women and activists, including the representative of the RNC campaign. My paper discusses how the discourses of both this online campaign and the Western media reinforce hegemonic orientalist representations of Syrian women, as well as marginalizing both refugee women's voices and the voices of activists that do not fit dominant representations of Muslim women.

This paper was inspired by Michael Rush’s works on the social construction of fatherhood in non-European contexts. It aims to fill a knowledge gap in gender, family and Iranian studies by exploring both the changing role of fathers and men’s involvement in family life and care in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Adopting an intergenerational approach and a mixed methods design, the paper considers how fatherhood practices and discourses have changed over the last decades and how different generations of men elaborate, describe, and perform the paternal role. Despite institutionalized gender inequality and a patriarchal family structure supported by family law legislation, fatherhood in Iran is anything but static. Instead, it is possible to notice a gradual redefinition of gender roles within the family. Especially urban middle class’s men are negotiating diverse masculinities and, at the same time, delivering non-traditional parenting roles.

This paper comprises a collection of illustrations, along with background information, analysis, and commentary, from “baby books”—advice books published in the United States for a parent audience from the 1890s to the 1980s. These publications, and especially their drawings and photos, provide a window on past child rearing practices and beliefs. The paper provides historical background on parenting behaviors such as toilet training and infant feeding, then traces changes over time through drawings and photos that appeared in parenting advice publications. These publications grew in popularity as changing work and family structures removed traditional sources of information for parents, and scientific information and expert guidance took their place. Publications from a variety of sources, but especially the U.S. Children’s Bureau, are explored. A finding of note is that images of babies and their families, which in earlier publications were entirely white and middle class, became more diverse over time. The author concludes that published parental advice from professionals made for a fascinating study, was ideologically driven, and often lacked a basis in empirical scientific knowledge of child development, and therefore asserts that parents may regard such advice conditionally.

Global events like a pandemic or climate change are massive in scope but experienced at the local, lived, microscopic level. What sorts of methodologies and mindsets can help critical internet researchers, functioning as interventionists or activists, find traction by oscillating between these levels? How can we push (further) against the boundaries of research methods to build stronger coalitions and more impactful outcomes for social change among groups of scholars/researchers? This panel presents four papers addressing these questions based on a large scale online autoethnography in 2020. This “Massive/Micro” project simultaneously used and studied the angst and novelty of isolation during a pandemic, activating researchers, activists, and artists to explore the massive yet microscopic properties of COVID-19 as a “glocal” phenomenon. The challenge? Working independently and microscopically through intense focus on the Self but also working with distributed, largely unknown collaborators, in multiple platforms. The emerging shape of the project itself showcases the challenges and possibilities of how research projects at scale can (or don’t) reflect and build social movements. The panel’s four papers situate the project through a kaleidoscope of perspectives featuring participants from 7 countries, who variously explore: the value of the project for precarious or early career researchers, how MMS worked as both collaborative space and critical pedagogy, how non-institutional or playful experimentation in asynchronous collaborations can lead to new synergies; and how MMS developed an independent life of its own, beyond studying COVID to generating multiple communities of future digital research practice.

The aim of this paper is to explore the concept of creative spaces where cultures meet. The empirical material subjected to analysis consists of the results of interviews conducted with cultural managers. The qualitative analysis is extended by a sociological approach based on literature criticism and the analytical-synthetic method. The main question posed is how creativity is experienced by cultural managers who organize cultural events in specific spaces related to the concept of multicultural dialogue. Creativity is considered both as a subjective property and as a social construct that is context-dependent. The paper argues that norms and values influence the experience of urban creativity and that creative endeavors can influence the social and economic development of a city. The paper explores the relationship between culture and creativity in space and assesses its creative potential. In particular, the results may help to shape theoretical consensus on the function of creativity at intercultural meeting points in the process of social change.

This paper explores transnational migration in and from Mustang, Nepal, a high-altitude region of the Himalayas, to understand how people who migrate and return reconstruct a sense of belonging to their birthplace. Narrative ethnography forms the core of this paper as we discuss the stories of four individuals from Mustang to explore the complex decision making around migration and the act of returning, permanently and cyclically. We build on theories of ‘transnationalism’ and ‘belonging,’ and emphasize the circular nature of migration, to argue that migratory journeys involve a continued evaluation of the social and economic realities of contemporary life at ‘home’—highlighting intergenerational tensions, ideas around cultural preservation, and a dynamic understanding of belonging in the context of a transnational community. Although financial need continues to be a primary driving force behind migration trends in Mustang, this paper acknowledges other factors that shape migration such as, family pressure and intergenerational tensions, and the infrastructural and technological developments that have made travel and communication easier and more reliable. Despite the widespread depopulation of Nepal’s highlands, we argue that many Mustangis who migrate remain committed to Mustang’s socioeconomic future, and nurture a connection to their ancestral homeland even as their transnational aspirations pull them away.

Digital platforms have shaped the ways of navigating and occupying shared housing properties in the private rental market. Online platforms reconfigure the geography of housing searches and allow potential tenants to identify and enquire about shared properties while transcending local and national boundaries. Urban scholarship has viewed these platforms as real-time, fine-grained, big datasets for investigating housing markets. However, limited attention has been given to tenants’ experiences of using online platforms, and the extent to which these platforms facilitate access to housing. Drawing on interviews with tenants [n = 35] in Sydney, this paper explores tenants’ experiences of searching, negotiating and securing shared room housing advertised on digital platforms. The findings highlight that shared housing digital platforms operate on the logic of peer-to-peer interaction between landlords and tenants via user-generated listings. These platforms allow tenants to compare rental prices, locations and characteristics of shared properties through ‘computerised algorithms’. Shared housing tenants, nonetheless, face a series of challenges, especially related to misrepresentation of property conditions, fake profile identity of advertisers, upward pressure on rental prices and high competition for listed properties, all of which influence their housing search and living experiences. Digital platforms emerge as complex socio-technical assemblages that are difficult to regulate as city authorities struggle to formulate effective mechanisms to govern technology-led social change. The paper provides valuable insights into housing informality and tenant exploitation at the platform interface and calls for platform governance.

This paper considers the Royal Historical Society (RHS)'s ‘Race, Ethnicity & Equality in UK History’ report published in 2018. The report contained the findings of a survey sent to staff and students working or studying in History higher education in the United Kingdom. In this paper, I reflect on the various findings of the report related to staff and student numbers, the attainment gap between white and Black and Ethnic Minority students, the curriculum, and racial harassment in History within universities. The RHS report emerged out of the work done by a number of organisations championing race and equality in the sector over decades. By connecting the work of RHS to these earlier initiatives it is possible to map a broader societal change in the historical sector to address historic inequalities, racialised disadvantage and structural exclusion. The RHS and institutions such as Runnymede Trust, the Institute of Historical Research, and Leading Routes are championing greater racial and ethnic equality which reflects broader political, economic and cultural transformations taking place in Britain. In this paper, I show how the RHS is part of an important conversation in foregrounding racial and ethnic equality in the historical profession to the inevitable benefit of History higher education.

Gulangyu Island is a special case of social development and changes since modern China. In the past, Chinese and foreign people lived together and Chinese and Western cultures coexisted, resulting in an international community with outstanding cultural diversity and modern quality of life. As a functional carrier, space is of great reference significance to the research on the spatial evolution path of the Gulangyu international community with the accelerating globalization and rapid expansion of urbanization. Based on the interpretation of historical maps and the integration of historical geographic information, this paper explores the evolution path of Gulangyu community space in modern times from the perspective of actor-network theory. It is found that: (1) The change of key actors promotes the spatial evolution of the Gulangyu international community. (2) In the stage of foreign culture dissemination (1840–1902), foreign nationals, as key actors, promoted the formation and development of actor-networks through administrative recruitment and other means, and promoted Gulangyu Island to change from a traditional Minnan community to a modern community form, with the embryonic form of an international community beginning to emerge. (3) In the stage of multicultural integration (1903–1940), overseas Chinese returning home became key actors. The concept of a combination of Western cultures was not only embodied in community management but also acted on space practice to promote the multicultural integration of the Gulangyu international community. This paper summarizes the effects of various factors on the evolution of community space, to provide a reference for other coastal cities to rationally develop islands and promote the multicultural integration of local communities.

Dalit life-writings have often been identified as reified spaces of protest against the Brahmanic oppression continuing since centuries in the Indian society. Banished to a space of invisibility, both metaphorical as well as physical margins of the Social Imaginary, Dalits continue to push back boundaries by transforming the ‘marginal’ space into a space of ‘subaltern resistance’. My aim in this paper is to interrogate the methods of collective resistance in the life-writings of Dalit women authors and show how the peripheral spatial geography becomes the central site of resistance. Both Baby Kamble’s The Prisons we Broke (2008), and Bama’s Karukku (1992) belong to entirely different historical periods, and therefore, inevitably differ in their plot-narratives and manner of expression. However, they converge in their emphasis on how the Dalit segregated spaces in their village assume an important role in awakening their collective consciousness first – as members of a community, and second – as women. Both Karukku and The Prisons We Broke refuse to adhere to the Augustinian definitions of the autobiography as a genre and instead become works which elude generic conventions of the autobiography, anticipating a separate literary genre for themselves. In fact, the closest literary referent of these texts is the Latin American genre of the testimonio - social and political narratives of witnessing significant events as a collective - that emerged in the 1960s. Reading these Dalit life-writings as testimonios of collective resistance is evocative of the on-going struggle of the Dalits to claim a separate space, both social and literary, while lending a voice to their lived-experiences in a paternalistic society that is essentially casteist. Baby Kamble and Bama raise pertinent questions against the dominant religious ideology and contribute to a social change in the conditions of women. Thus, my second intention in the paper is to closely look at the resistance offered against religious bias by the two authors. Since the Indian caste system derives its justifications from the Hindu law of divinity that are apparently inalterable according to Hindu purists, challenging the ‘ savarna ’ customs and rituals has been a persistent preoccupation within Dalit activism. Foregrounding textual instances of such challenges and resistance shall help us in understanding how a society practices coercion against a community when it comes to something as benign and as personal as man’s spiritual connection with the divine force.

Co-management is often put forward as a way to foster sustainability and improve the adaptive capacity of small-scale fisheries. Transformations towards co-management are enabled by processes that support social change, such as nurturing leadership, collective action and learning, as well as political processes that change legislative frameworks from centralized to decentralized decision-making. However, major policy changes can be difficult and change-actors often fail to overcome barriers created by institutional friction, dominant policy discourses or powerful interests supporting the status quo. In the literature, special attention has been paid to social processes that foster cooperation, the role of bridging-actors on the path towards co-management, or conditions that influence its effective implementation. In this paper we shift the attention to political decision-making and changes in policy discourse as an integral part of fisheries’ transformations. We use the well-studied cases of co-management transformations in small-scale fisheries to identify how interactions among political actors and stakeholders, as well as social-ecological interactions, shaped the policy discourse and influenced policy change during the transformation process. By comparing how policy change emerged across four fishery transformation cases, we illustrate the importance of (cross-scale and cross-type) coordination and collaboration among diverse political actors in creating conditions for adoption of legislation, as well as its timing during the policy process. The paper contributes to the literature on sustainability transformations by explaining how policy changes supporting such transformations may emerge, in addition to providing insight on political conditions and processes that could be fostered in order to support policy change towards decentralization in fisheries.

PurposeThis paper takes seriously the feminist adage that “the personal is political” by critically exploring my experiences as an early career scholar of gender and entrepreneurship studies to offer vital context for the contributions of my work and future research agenda, in light of the current historical moment of interconnected political, public health and environmental calamity.Design/methodology/approachThe author presents reflections on her positionality, philosophical and political commitments, and theorises from her experiences of racist distraction and intersectional marginality in contemporary academia, considering their implications for incoming and aspiring gender and entrepreneurship scholars whose research agendas are still in development.FindingsRacism functions as a persistent distraction from overall research agendas and activities, and delimits the lane of perceived contributions. However, collectively challenging it in work and study presents a vehicle by which intellectual and affective experiences of academic work may be enriched, and a spacious and expansive legacy of critical scholarship built that will be resonant for years to come.Originality/valueThe paper argues that although racism will doubtlessly continue to cause immense distraction, it presents an invitation to create positive social change, through collectivising with a community that aims to shape a liveable, equitable and imaginative academic future.

This paper will explore a different form of global socio-political protest, which spread in cities worldwide and was characterized by the pulling down of certain monuments in public space. This investigates how the fall of monuments operates as a tool for political resistance against marginalization, discrimination and exclusion, a binding factor for democracy and social justice, and as a means of dealing with contested heritage. Protesters referring to themselves as ‘Fallist,’ common across the world, raise concerns about race, identity, position and recognition in society. They choose pulling down monuments as a tool through which they demand addressing of socio-political injustices. In consideration of the above this study employs the methodological application of qualitative exploratory design as well as analyzing contemporary cases of street protest surrounding the pulling down of monuments from different geographic and socio -political contexts, including South Africa, United States and the United Kingdom. This paper further argues that the pulling down of monuments is thus not merely about contesting the past; it also operates as a tool for inquiring, critiquing, and changing the present.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) describe a course of action to address poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). More specifically, SDG 6 clarifies how water quality, quantity and access are crucial to human well-being, and yet human activities are compromising water resources through over-exploitation, pollution, as well as contributing to the spread of disease. Globally aquatic ecosystems are highly threatened and concerted efforts by governments and civil society to ‘turn the situation around’ are simply not working. Human-created problems require human-centred solutions and these require different ways of thinking and acting to those behaviour patterns that are contributing to the challenges. In this paper, we first consider causal approaches to attitude change and behaviour modification that are simply not working as intended. We then explore enabling responses such as citizen science and co-engaged action learning as more tenable alternatives. SDG 6 has a focus on clean water and sanitation for all. The SDGs further clarify how the extent to which this goal can be realized depends, to a large extent, on stakeholder engagements and education. Through stakeholder engagements and educational processes, people can contribute towards SDG 6 and the specific indicator and target in SDG 6.b – Stakeholder participation. Following a three-year research process, that investigated a wide range of participatory tools, this paper explores how the Stream Assessment Scoring System (miniSASS; www.minisass.org) can enable members of the public to engage in water quality monitoring at a local level. The paper continues to demonstrate how miniSASS can contribute to the monitoring of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal Target 6.3, by providing a mechanism for data collection indicator 6.3.2. miniSASS is proving popular in southern Africa as a methodology for engaging stakeholder participation in water quality monitoring and management. The technique costs very little to implement and can be applied by children and scientists alike. As a biomonitoring approach, it is based on families of macroinvertebrates that are present in most perennial rivers of the world. The paper concludes by describing how useful the miniSASS technique can be for addressing data gaps for SDG 6.3.2 reporting, and that it can be applied in most regions of the world.

Waqf has been one of the major sources of public financing in Islamic tradition. Since early Islam, waqf serves the needs of the ummah in various realms, including education, social development and public needs. Traditionally, waqf has been in the form of fixed and tangible assets. Up until recently, cash waqf has been proposed as one of the sources of waqf. On the other hand, there has been also a suggestion to innovate the practices of waqf in order to assure that they meet the current challenging world. One of the new innovatives of funding waqf sources apart from cash waqf is Service Waqf. Giving this background, this paper endevour to do a systematic review analysis of the Service Waqf as well as well established cash waqf practices as innovatie way for diversifying waqf source in Malaysia. In reviewing the topics systematically, this paper gathered all related articles from Emerald Insight, Google Scholars, Jstor, and Scopus databases. Relevant journal articles were being searched via the internet in several database sources using advanced searching features available in those database based on specific keywords. The relevant journals were selected based on the latest findings which had been published between year 2010 until 2020. From the systematic review analysis, 20 journal articles regarding ethical issues in gamification were filtered and selected using PRISMA statement. Findings from this systematic analysis show that issues pertaining to the cash waqf were among the major discourse in the waqf innovation. Much have been emphasised on the waqf management and governance and also the reason waqf application in a institution. Less has been given into the service waqf and its benefits to communities.

Intellectuals are a class of educated and gifted people (writers, scholars, scientists, artists) produced by society to perform social functions and assume a historical responsibility. Their ethically-based competences and prophetic visions are vital to establishing a sustainable social order and promoting the society of justice. Edward Said wrote in Representations of the Intellectual that “the proliferation of intellectuals has expanded into the very large number of fields in which intellectuals—possibly following on Gramsci’s pioneering suggestions in The Prison Notebooks which almost for the first time saw intellectuals, and not social classes, as pivotal to the workings of modern society—have become the object of study.” To exemplify and understand the role of the intellectual vocation, this paper explores the question of organic intellectualism in famous American expatriate writers Ernest Hemingway and James Baldwin using distinguished public intellectuals such as Edward Said and Cornel West as a conceptual framework and theoretical reference. The discussion raises, among others, the following focus questions: what is an intellectual? What is the role and responsibility of this social class in the public domain? How do intellectuals relate to the marketplace, power, and the marginalized? How do intellectuals contribute to social change? The paper argues that both transatlantic authors Ernest Hemingway and James Baldwin were organic intellectuals whose engaged social critique, intellectual expertise, and activism were designed to counter social dysfunction, injustice, and modern alienation.

This paper analyses how social marketing scholarship engages with the concept of empowerment and reflects critically on its usage and conceptualisations. Based on a systematic literature review, the paper discusses the importance of empowerment theory for increasing the emancipatory potential of social marketing in pursuit of community betterment and social change. The paper offers a definition of empowerment for the social marketing discipline, constructs a conceptual framework of empowerment for social marketers, and clarifies the main aspects and principles of empowerment theory relevant for the development of critical social marketing, thereby providing sources for future research, continuing critical reflections and critique.

Against a backdrop of increasing cultural visibility of people who identify across, between or beyond the categories of male and female, young people have been positioned within the wider social imaginary as radical trailblazers for a new, progressive gender order. This paper provides original insights that empirically ground and interrogate such claims. Drawing on findings from focus group interviews held with 136 young people (aged 16–24) in the UK, the paper demonstrates how young people's understandings and narrations of gender diversity both support and contest linear progress narratives. We show how young people position their acceptance of gender diversity in contradistinction to older generations. However, this narrative of generational progress was undermined and complicated by tensions and ambiguities within young people's talk. Our findings suggest that, alongside being accepting of gender diversity, young people also experience confusion and misunderstanding which may mean that they are more comfortable with stable and binary forms of gender diversity. Moreover, some young people express ideological resistance to gender diversity, informed by wider debates around ‘identity politics’. Overall, we stress the importance of situating young people's gender talk amidst multiple discursive constellations through which increasingly politicised struggles around the meanings of ‘gender’ are currently playing out.

Purpose This paper highlights the potential of social activism – defined as a public act that aims to challenge the status quo by bringing alternative views or narratives to the debate – in transformative service research and proposes a future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach This paper builds upon a review of social activism in the management and communications literature to identify its potential for social change in service (eco)systems. Findings This paper outlines three ways in which social activism can influence companies (external activism, internal activism, and activism as practice) and illustrates how they can be used to advance transformative service research in selected priority areas. Research limitations/implications This paper develops a future research agenda and suggests research questions that could guide scholarly inquiry at the intersection of social activism and transformative service research. Practical implications For managers and policy makers, this paper highlights how social activism can influence companies' attempts to drive social change. Originality/value ​​​​​​​This paper is among the first to link social activism and transformative service research and highlight novel research opportunities at their intersection. Post-print / Final draft

This paper aimed at establishing the treatment of gender-nonconforming learners in Namibian schools. The provision of education in Namibia is based on the principles of non-discrimination and equal access to quality education for all as stipulated in the Namibian constitution. Even though there is growing evidence on the mistreatment of gender-nonconforming learners in schools world wide, there is a paucity of literature on the treatment of gender-nonconforming learners in the Namibian education context. This paper employed a case study design as a transformative research method informed by the social identity perspective. One hundred and eighty-two teachers were randomly sampled into the study, and one deputy Director of Special Programs and Schools, one deputy Director of Diagnostic, Assessment and Training Services, one regional school counsellor and one inclusive education officer at the National Institute for Educational Development were purposively sampled. The findings revealed that societal, religious, and cultural beliefs in schools were determinants of how gender-nonconforming learners were treated in some schools. A supplementary framework for the implementation of inclusive education policy (SFIIEP) was developed from the findings of this study. It is recommended that the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture align the SFIIEP to the inclusive education policy implementation to enable open discussion of sex education topics during life skills lessons, creation of supportive learning environments, and establishment of anti-bullying policies with specific measures on curbing homophobic bullying as well as strengthening the psychological support to learners.

This paper stems from cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration between community music and human geography which sought to interrogate and understand claims of social sustainability and social change often cited in evaluation reports of community music projects. The lead authors (Parks and Cassidy) took this dialogue forward by organising a geography conference session which incorporated an instant choir workshop to test how we might ‘do’ social sustainability through practice. Drawing upon ideas from both disciplines, the paper synthesises the reflections of nine participants in the session to explore the capacity of creative, embodied, geographical practice to transform hegemonic experiences of academic conferences, and to create a sustainable and inclusive community of practice.

Purpose Romance fraud refers to situations where an individual is deceived for financial gain by someone with whom the victim perceives to be in a romantic relationship. With the increase in internet use, the growth in loneliness and the increasing engagement in online dating sites during COVID-19, opportunities for romance fraud may have suffered an important increase. This paper aims to analyse changes in romance fraud, loneliness and internet use during the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach Data about romance fraud reported to the police in the UK, and survey data recorded by the Understanding Society longitudinal survey, are used to address our research questions. Auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modelling is used to analyse whether temporal changes observed are an effect of social changes associated with lockdown and stay-at-home orders. Findings The analysis shows that cyber-enabled romance fraud experienced a large increase after April 2020, which is greatly above any expected crime variation considering known pre-COVID trends. The increase in romance fraud was more abrupt among young adults than older persons. The results also indicate that only young adults experienced a significant increase in loneliness, while older adults reported a large increase in internet use during COVID. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is a first-of-its-kind paper analysing the effect of rapid social changes on a growing type of cyber-enabled fraud. It is likely that the growth in romance fraud during COVID is due to a combined effect of an increase in internet use and growing loneliness rates experienced by many people during the pandemic.

In order to improve the evaluation effect of the economic and social development pioneer area, this paper constructs the evaluation index system of the economic and social development pioneer area based on the spatial network structure analysis method and obtains an intelligent analysis system. Moreover, from the perspective of economic development information flow, this paper uses information flow direction analysis method and advantage flow analysis method to discuss the structural characteristics of urban economic development network in the economic belt, providing new methods and perspectives for the study of urban economic development flow. In addition, this paper attempts to propose a universal method for quantitative research on the “flow space” structure of urban economic development as the forward-looking content of urban economic development. According to the simulation test results, it can be seen that the evaluation index system of the economic and social development pilot area based on the analysis of the spatial network structure proposed in this paper has a good effect.

[EN] Medellin has experienced a significant process of transformation after a 20 years Violence period, both cultural and social. The purpose of this research is to analyze in depth the contribution of the UVA buildings to the positive growing of the urban landscape, interweaving urban architectonic recycling between social improvement. The former private infrastructure of water tanks has turned into a vital element of the new integrated continuous modern Medellín. This paper assesses to what extent the implementation of the UVAs has influenced in the enhancing modernization of the Medellin¿s housing infrastructure. The main question remains in clarifying if such a heterogeneous aesthetic construction can effectively become part of the architectonic idiosyncrasy of the urban view. Furthermore, the study dives into the responsibility of the architect in analyzing the conjunction of place and formal impressiveness, and how their technical strategy exerts an instrumental influence in the impairment or improvement of the urban society. The model of assessment is the UVA Orfelinato, as it is popularly called in the comuna ¿UVA de la Imaginación¿. From the triggering light of the original idea, through the implementation of the project, it will prove how to transform the inhabitants into active decision-taker participants, who proudly stare at the UVA as a metaphor of integration. Finally, the paper will examine the positive impact of Building recycling in the opportunity of moving up in the economic scale for its citizens, struggling for equality and fairness as the pillars of peaceful coexistence., [ES] El objetivo de este trabajo de investigación es analizar la estrategia proyectual utilizada en una ciudad que ha sufrido una transformación social y cultural, tras unos 20 años de violencia como lo es Medellín Colombia. Se toma como caso de estudio el proyecto UVA (Unidades de vida articulada), que utiliza como estrategia el reciclaje de las infraestructuras de tanques de agua. Pasar de propiedad privada y de puntos ciegos en una ciudad fragmentada a lugares de encuentro que promueven continuidad urbana. Se indagará en las diferentes estrategias utilizadas en el proyecto para generar transformación y cambio en una ciudad que aún tiene secuelas del conflicto. ¿Han sido del todo asertivos con la implantación de estos proyectos?. ¿Cómo poner a favor la morfología atípica y cambio de uso en estas infraestructuras para generar arquitectura?. Aquí es donde el proyectista debe considerar todos los aspectos del lugar en el proyecto y ser consientes de que cualquier intervención puede mejorar o desfavorecer a una sociedad. Se estudiará más a fondo la UVA DEL ORFELiNATO, o como la llamaron los propios habitantes de la comuna la “La UVA de la imaginación”, desde su implantación hasta su proceso proyectual y resultado final. Se analizará como se integra en su contexto inmediato, para extraer las estrategias que generan una arquitectura participativa y con gran impacto social. Una arquitectura que genere cambio, luchando por la igualdad y la equidad como pilares de la convivencia pacífica.

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to report the findings of a synthesis of literature reviews and stakeholder interviews conducted in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The synthesis provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reports the findings of a systematic literature review, and participant interviews, in six sub-Sahara African countries. The research links to the British Council's initiative to develop instructional leadership in developing contexts, including the six countries featured in this submission.FindingsThe findings show diverse policy and practice of instructional leadership in these African contexts. Three have no explicit policies on this important leadership construct, while the others have relevant policy statements but limited evidence of instructional leadership practice.Research limitations/implicationsThe research provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries, but more school-based research is required to develop grounded evidence on whether and how this is practiced. The pandemic inhibited such school-based research in 2020. The study provides emerging evidence of the impact of instructional leadership on school and student outcomes, confirming what is known from international research.Practical implicationsDeveloping awareness of how instructional leadership can improve student learning, linked to appropriate training, could lead to more effective schools.Social implicationsThe Sustainable Development Goals stress the importance of high quality education for economic and social development. Leadership is an important aspect of quality, and the research reported in this paper shows the potential for instructional leadership to enhance student learning.Originality/valueThis is the first cross-national study of instructional leadership in sub-Saharan Africa.

Activity theory has long been an influential framework in the field of education. However, its theoretical concepts are not easily grasped by scholars, mainly due to difficulties in translation from the original Russian works, the complexity of these concepts and multiple versions embedded within the tradition. The two major approaches within activity theory were established by Leontiev and another version proposed later by Engeström, and they have often been confused and conflated together in the literature. This paper provides a much-needed theoretical comparison between these approaches in regard to the field of education. The criteria for comparison involve their theoretical foundations, central phenomena of interest, key theoretical concepts, units of analysis and explanatory mechanisms. Insights from this paper contribute to establishing a more refined understanding of activity theory and its variants, which in turn allows researchers to make more informed decisions when selecting and using these frameworks. Implications for practical research practices are discussed with examples from the area of teacher professional development.

The objective of this paper is to reflect on methodological and academic innovations produced in recent years in Argentina within the framework of the massification of feminist struggles. The article begins by reconstructing epistemological shifts produced in the international field in recent decades with the expansion of feminisms and the admittance of queer theory in the academia. Second, it outlines methodological possibilities that have emerged from positions in line with these shifts. Finally, it exposes the transformations that have occurred in Argentina with the implosion of feminisms since 2015, which has permeated the production of knowledge and generated openings in the rules for writing research papers and in their methodological designs. At this point, the paper focuses on the changes introduced in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, which has renowned trajectory in working with feminist issues within the Argentine university system. The article is framed in a qualitative methodology and concludes that the feminisms of the last decades, strengthened in recent years, have made visible conservative aspects of our fields of knowledge production and have shaped changes that need to be deepened. El objetivo del presente texto es reflexionar sobre innovaciones metodológicas y académicas producidas en los últimos años en la Argentina en el marco de la masificación de las luchas feministas. El escrito comienza reconstruyendo desplazamientos epistemológicos producidos en el terreno internacional en las últimas décadas con la expansión de los feminismos y el ingreso de la teoría queer al ámbito académico. En segundo lugar, da cuenta de posibilidades metodológicas que han irrumpido desde posturas en línea con esos desplazamientos. Finalmente, expone transformaciones ocurridas en la Argentina con la implosión de los feminismos desde el 2015, que ha permeado la producción de conocimiento y generado aperturas en las normas de redacción de trabajos de investigación y en los diseños metodológicos de los mismos. En este punto, el escrito se centra en los cambios introducidos en la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, que tiene una reconocida trayectoria en el trabajo con temáticas feministas dentro del sistema universitario argentino. El trabajo se enmarca en una metodología cualitativa y concluye que los feminismos de las últimas décadas, potenciados en los últimos años, han permitido visibilizar aspectos conservadores de nuestros ámbitos de producción de conocimiento y han plasmado cambios que requieren ser profundizados.

Prefiguration unites organizations and collectives as diverse as post-growth organizations, common good organizations, community-supported agriculture, transition towns, or ecovillages in their fundamental critique of contemporary capitalism and the belief in the urgency of a major social transformation toward sustainability. It refers to realizing imaginaries of radically alternative futures in social practices, of bringing about the future by enacting real utopias in the present. Prefiguration is an increasingly fashionable concept in the social sciences, but it is still rarely used in scholarship on infrastructures. This paper shows the potential relevance of this concept for studying infrastructures, in particular to address the social transformation of contemporary infrastructures toward radically alternative, revolutionary infrastructures. It therefore starts with providing insights into the common and yet rather narrow understanding of social change and transformation in literature on prefiguration. Building on scholarly reflections on the politics of social transformation and the crucial role of organizing in transformative social change processes, the paper derives a multi-political approach where prefiguration is considered in its intricate linkage to other forms of politics. Furthermore, the paper outlines the conceptual relationship between prefiguration and infrastructures, proposes conceiving radically alternative infrastructures as being created through prefigurative organizing, and discusses a few exemplary challenges of prefiguring alternative immaterial and material infrastructures. It generally suggests that a fundamental social transformation of our societies and infrastructures requires prefigurative organizing, understood through its multi-political lens., Historical Social Research Vol. 47, No. 4 (2022): Special Issue: Ruptures, Transformations, Continuities. Rethinking Infrastructures and Ecology. Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

Este artículo explora algunos de los aprendizajes que la Oficina de Asuntos Públicos (OAP) de la comunidad bahá'í de España obtuvo en sus esfuerzos por contribuir al discurso público en los espacios nacionales desde 2014. En 2008, el Órgano de Gobierno Internacional de los bahá'ís (la Casa Universal de Justicia) dijo que, si la comunidad se expandía desde las bases y crecía en consecuencia, se sentiría cada vez más atraída hacia la vida de la sociedad que la rodea. En esa misma carta se invitaba a aplicar los enfoques, métodos e instrumentos surgidos en el ámbito de la expansión y consolidación de la comunidad bahá'í (marco que había cristalizado ya en 20052 y alcanzado gran coherencia en ese ámbito de acción) a un conjunto diverso de áreas que sería necesario abordar para contribuir al progreso social. Este trabajo se basa en la experiencia de la OAP para ilustrar el funcionamiento del marco en un campo de acción distinto al de la expansión y consolidación de la comunidad bahá'í, donde ese marco se materializó primero. Esta otra esfera es la contribución a los discursos nacionales, en particular en respuesta a la pandemia de la Covid-19. La experiencia de la OAP respalda dos hipótesis interconectadas: en primer lugar, a medida que los actores se alinean más y más con el marco de acción, sus esfuerzos para contribuir al cambio social se vuelven más eficaces; y en segundo lugar, las organizaciones comprometidas con el aprendizaje, la creación de capacidades y el progreso a largo plazo podrían estar en mejor posición que otras organizaciones orientadas sólo a la acción para responder a condiciones de incertidumbre y a crisis repentinas e inesperadas (como la Covid-19). This paper explores some of the learnings that the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) of the Baha’i community of Spain gained in its efforts to contribute to public discourse in national spaces since 2014. In 2008, the International Governing Body of the Baha’is —the Universal House of Justice— said that, as the community expanded at the grassroots, it would be drawn further and further into the life of the surrounding society. In that same letter, an invitation was extended to apply the approaches, methods and instruments emerging from the sphere of the expansion and consolidation of the Bahá’í community — a framework that had crystallized as early as 20054 and endowed that area of action with coherence— to a diverse range of areas which will need to be addressed in order to contribute to social progress. This paper draws on the experience of the OPA in order to illustrate the operation of the framework in a field of action distinct from the expansion and consolidation of the Bahá’í community where that framework materialized first. This other field is the contribution to national discourses, in particular in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The OPA’s experience lends support to two interconnected hypotheses: first, as actors align more and more with the framework for action, their efforts to contribute to social change become more effective; and second, organizations committed to learning, building capacity and long-term progress might be in a better position than other organizations oriented only towards action to respond to conditions of uncertainty and to sudden and unexpected crises (like Covid-19).

In dem Beitrag suche ich nach einer Antwort auf die von Bruno Latour (2019) aufgeworfene "neue geo-soziale Frage" nach Möglichkeiten zur Etablierung einer alternativen amodernen Weltbeziehung. Dazu lese ich Das wilde Denken von Claude Lévi-Strauss (1973) neu, analysiere die Rolle des Körpers und erarbeite das Konzept des Wilden Körpers. Ich argumentiere, dass der Körper im Zentrum der umgekehrten Symmetrie von Wildem und modernem Denken steht und seine Veränderung einen gesellschaftlichen Wandel einleiten kann. Darauf aufbauend zeige ich, dass der Wilde Körper in seiner Ethik und Politik mit Latours Terrestrischem Manifest übereinstimmt. Abschließend gebe ich exemplarische Ausblicke, wie mögliche Antworten des Wilden Körpers auf die "neue geo-soziale Frage" aussehen können. In the paper, I seek an answer to the "new geo-social question" raised by Bruno Latour (2019) for a political strategy that can establish an alternative to the modern world relation. To this end, I reread The savage mind of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1973), analyse the importance of the body in it and elaborate the concept of the Wild Body. I argue that the body is at the centre of the inverse symmetry of savage and modern thinking and that its transformation can initiate social change. Building on this, I show that the Wild Body is consistent with Latour's ethical demands and political goals. Finally, I give exemplary perspectives on how possible answers of the Wild Body to the "new geo-social question" could look like.

Nowadays, the market competition becomes increasingly fierce due to diversified customer needs, stringent environmental requirements, and global competitors. One of the most important factors for companies to not only survive but also thrive in today’s competitive market is their logistics performance. This paper aims, through a systematic literature analysis of 115 papers from 2012 to 2020, at presenting quantitative insights and comprehensive overviews of the current and future research landscapes of sustainable logistics in the Industry 4.0 era. The results show that Industry 4.0 technologies provide opportunities for improving the economic efficiency, environmental performance, and social impact of logistics sectors. However, several challenges arise with this technological transformation, i.e., trade-offs among different sustainability indicators, unclear benefits, lifecycle environmental impact, inequity issues, and technology maturity. Thus, to better tackle the current research gaps, future suggestions are given to focus on the balance among different sustainability indicators through the entire lifecycle, human-centric technological transformation, system integration and digital twin, semi-autonomous transportation solutions, smart reverse logistics, and so forth.

With the rapid development of society, especially the advent of intelligent technology of life services, the ability of the elderly to adapt to modern digital life is getting weaker and weaker, the dilemma of the “digital divide” for the elderly has aroused heated public debate. In the era of aging and information superposition, in-depth study of the multi-dimensional impact of the digital divide on the elderly has become an effective content of China’s active aging strategy. Based on the micro-data of the Chinese General Social Survey in 2017, this paper uses the entropy right method to construct the digital divide index system for the elderly over 60 years of age from the perspective of essential equipment, Internet utilization degree, and Basic Internet usage skills. At the same time, this paper constructs China’s comprehensive index of active aging from three aspects: health, social participation, and guarantee of the elderly, to study the impact of the digital divide on China’s active aging. The following conclusions have been drawn: the digital divide among the elderly significantly inhibits China’s active aging. The digital divide reduces the level of physical and mental health and social participation of older persons and inhibits the level of guarantee of older persons, thus impeding their active aging. In addition, it also reduces the overall life satisfaction of the elderly. The use of the Internet, skills, and other digital technology abilities of the elderly have effectively promoted active aging. The more Internet access devices older people have, the higher their level of social participation. The higher the Internet frequency of the elderly, the healthier the body and mind. Furthermore, the greater the level of physical and mental health and social participation of older groups who use online payments. The digital divide among the elderly inhibits the process of China’s active aging, and the unique course and stage characteristics of the development of the aging of the Chinese population require us to pay full attention to the relationship between the digital divide and active aging and how to construct a “digital-friendly” aging system is an essential issue for China’s social development to consider.

With the development of information technology, random forest algorithm has become one of the most widely used mining algorithms with its high classification accuracy. The classification performance of traditional random forest algorithm in the medical field is significantly reduced, and it will take longer to build multiple decision trees of random forest itself. In this paper, the South China Sea is selected as the research area, the groundwater cold water and hot water in this area are comprehensively investigated, and the formation conditions and genetic mechanism of the groundwater hot water system are deeply analyzed. As a traditional national sport, Wushu teaching has a profound cultural heritage, which is essential to promote the physical and mental health of college students. In order to speed up the development of Wushu education in colleges and universities, the following measures are put forward: strengthen the construction of Wushu teachers; enrich the content of martial arts teaching action; strengthen the docking of theory and technology; and make full use of the latest teaching methods to improve the quality of education. As an important part of China’s education system, the rapid development of university education in recent years has provided China with a large number of high-quality workers and highly practical technical talents. It plays an important role in China’s economic construction and rapid social development. Therefore, this paper uses the random forest algorithm technology to study the geochemical characteristics of the South China Sea and the content of teaching action simulation. Based on the research of random forest algorithm, this paper applies it to the study of geochemical characteristics of the South China Sea and martial arts teaching action simulation, which promotes the better development of martial arts teaching.

The convergence of an aging society, knowledge economy, and professional labor mobility introduces issues for education. Societies are approaching a norm of social politics organized around flexible labor markets and structural exclusion which alters the access to social inclusion through education and employment. The analysis of national education and employment policy is important in the context of a contemporary crisis of capital. The local communities, Taiwan accommodates global capital by deregulating and opening up its markets, takes active interest in the competition for the best brains, and develops a cosmopolitan outlook. The author addresses the rescaling processes affecting Taiwan in which youth are settling. Young people face a world of work filled with uncertainties in the context of intensifying global competition and contractual flexibility. The aim of this paper is to examine some key aspects of social change in Taiwan, which has undergone significant changes in its occupational structure, labor market, economy, and educational provision since the 1980s. The paper has three aims. The first deals with the structural and institutional transformations, and some key aspects in its political economy, labor market and education. The second is concerned with occupational and social mobility patterns and trends, and their association with the changing role of education. Finally, this paper explores the experiences of youth to gain an understanding of the social, political, and cultural factors that impinge on school-to-work and social mobility outcomes. Literature review is utilized to gather some descriptive statistics.

The Whitworth has been making art useful since 1889. Originally founded in the memory of the pioneering engineer Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803–87), the gallery was built for ‘the perpetual gratification of the people of Manchester’. As the Whitworth celebrated its 130th year, the gallery hosted a major exhibition which explicitly explores and acknowledges the history of the Whitworth institute, gallery and park. A proponent of standardisation, Sir Joseph revolutionised precision engineering through his development of interchangeable parts in machinery. While he maintained a natural interest in technical education throughout his life, less is known about whether this support extended to the fine and decorative arts. Conversely, today the Whitworth is celebrated for its internationally significant collections of art and design and its contemporary exhibitions programme, but for many visitors the gallery’s association with the great Victorian mechanical engineer is less clear. This paper, which was presented at the Science Museum Group Research Conference 2019: The Place of Industry, reflects on research that was first carried out in preparation for the exhibition ‘Standardisation and Deviation: the Whitworth Story’ (14 December 2019–January 2022). It is not intended to be an original piece of research nor to provide a comprehensive history of the gallery. What follows is a reflection on some of the original source material and research papers that were consulted in preparation for curating the exhibition. Together they have been used to illustrate how the history of the Whitworth provides an object lesson in how art and technology unite.

This paper takes issue with previous influential accounts of the evolution and contemporary potency of the Sociology of work (SoW) in the UK by challenging mythologies which have grown up around the trajectory of the sub-discipline. This paper is based on a sociological analysis of the political, organisational and social forces which have shaped the sub-discipline and comprehensive examination of its broad and complex canon. This enables a refutation of previous orthodoxies which suggest that a clearly defined SoW previously existed in, and emerged from, the narrow confines of Sociology departments only, and relatedly, that a ‘Golden Age’ of SoW research existed in the post WW II era and that its ending led to the irrevocable decline of the sub-discipline. These misinterpretations are politically problematic in that they laud an era of research which neglected complex and important questions in relation to who holds power and how that is exercised and in relation to the reproduction of social inequality within work and employment and furthermore, are based on a narrow interpretation of the SoW. This paper overturns conventional wisdom about the contemporary importance and relevance of the sub-discipline: where others have identified decline we explore SoW’s relationship to power and inequality and the spread and breath of its impact and concludes that the spread of discipline beyond the narrow confines of academia offers opportunities for radical social change.

International audience; A fixation on ‘scaling up’ has captured current innovation discourses and, with it, political and economic life at large. Perhaps most visible in the rise of platform technologies, big data and concerns about a new era of monopolies, scalability thinking has also permeated public policy in the search for solutions to ‘grand societal challenges’, ‘mission-oriented innovation’ or transformations through experimental ‘living labs’. In this paper, we explore this scalability zeitgeist as a key ordering logic of current initiatives in innovation and public policy. We are interested in how the explicit preoccupation with scalability reconfigures political and economic power by invading problem diagnoses and normative understandings of how society and social change function. The paper explores three empirical sites – platform technologies, living labs and experimental development economics – to analyze how scalability thinking is rationalized and operationalized. We suggest that social analysis of science and technology needs to come to terms with the ‘politics of scaling’ as a powerful corollary of the ‘politics of technology’, lest we accept the permanent absence from key sites where decisions about the future are made. We focus in on three constitutive elements of the politics of scaling: solutionism, experimentalism and future-oriented valuation. Our analysis seeks to expand our vocabulary for understanding and questioning current modes of innovation that increasingly value scaling as an end in itself, and to open up new spaces for alternative trajectories of social transformation.

In recent years, the consumption of social media content to keep up with global news and to verify its authenticity has become a considerable challenge. Social media enables us to easily access news anywhere, anytime, but it also gives rise to the spread of fake news, thereby delivering false information. This also has a negative impact on society. Therefore, it is necessary to determine whether or not news spreading over social media is real. This will allow for confusion among social media users to be avoided, and it is important in ensuring positive social development. This paper proposes a novel solution by detecting the authenticity of news through natural language processing techniques. Specifically, this paper proposes a novel scheme comprising three steps, namely, stance detection, author credibility verification, and machine learning-based classification, to verify the authenticity of news. In the last stage of the proposed pipeline, several machine learning techniques are applied, such as decision trees, random forest, logistic regression, and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms. For this study, the fake news dataset was taken from Kaggle. The experimental results show an accuracy of 93.15%, precision of 92.65%, recall of 95.71%, and F1-score of 94.15% for the support vector machine algorithm. The SVM is better than the second best classifier, i.e., logistic regression, by 6.82%.

Smart city is the product of social development and information technology progress. Smart city evaluation research can provide basis for relevant departments to analyze the development of smart cities around the world. Through neural network learning and training, the paper constructs an intelligent neural network model for evaluating the development level of smart city based on GRA-BPNN model. Based on various factors, this paper selects 15 domestic cities as samples for empirical analysis. By comparing the evaluation results of different methods, this paper further demonstrates and confirms the effectiveness and rationality of the evaluation model based on grey correlation theory and BP neural network to evaluate the development potential of smart city.

Time and again, disasters bring forth various challenges concerning risk communication, disaster-resilient infrastructure, last-mile delivery, disaster reporting, etc. These challenges often highlight the existing gap between research and academicians, and the policymakers and practitioners. Secondly, it brings forth the lack of adequate collaboration among experts and practitioners of different fields. Most of these challenges require innovative and low-cost solutions catering to local and contextualized problems, and calls for a multi- and transdisciplinary approach and collaboration. With this vision, amidst the current pandemic of COVID-19, Resilience Innovation Knowledge Academy (RIKA) India, Indo-Japan Laboratory (Keio University, Japan) and four partnering universities have launched the Social Innovation Online Hackathon (SIOH) 2020. SIOH aims to provide a unique virtual platform to student innovators and mission-driven entrepreneurs from different fields like architecture, engineering, disaster management, etc., to collaborate and develop innovative solutions for tackling the pandemic and future disasters. The paper aims to introduce SIOH and its four-step process as a tool of multi-disciplinary collaboration to promote innovation for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Besides the critical outcomes of the SIOH, the paper seeks to flag some indirect positive impacts of such an exercise. Among others, these include, firstly, the introduction of the field of DRR to academicians and practitioners of other sectors, thereby paving the way for its mainstreaming in other sectors. Secondly, such an exercise involving young students envisages to invoke a spirit of inquiry and innovation, which is crucial for bringing social change. Thirdly, it highlights the critical role of proper sectoral mentorship in handholding the young innovators in their journey of building resilient societies.

Background: Climate change is a problem which is global in nature, and whose effects go across a wide range of disciplines. It is therefore important that this theme is taken into account as part of universities´ teaching and research programs. Methods: A three-tiered approach was used, consisting of a bibliometric analysis, an online survey and a set of case studies, which allow a profile to be built, as to how a sample of universities from 45 countries handle climate change as part of their teaching programs. Results: This paper reports on a study which aimed at identifying the extent to which matters related to climate change are addressed within the teaching and research practices at universities, with a focus on the training needs of teaching staff. It consists of a bibliometric analysis, combined with an online worldwide survey aimed at ascertaining the degree of involvement from universities in reducing their own carbon footprint, and the ways they offer training provisions on the topic. This is complemented by a set of 12 case studies from universities round the world, illustrating current trends on how universities handle climate change. Apart from reporting on the outcomes of the study, the paper highlights what some universities are doing to handle climate issues, and discusses the implications of the research. Conclusions: The paper lists some items via which universities may better educate and train their students on how to handle the many challenges posed by climate change., peer-reviewed