This study investigates the determinants and pathways of residents’ intention to participate in owner-led self-reconstruction in old dangerous districts, using Haikou, China as the empirical context. Grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and informed by the theory of the production of space, the research builds an integrated framework that links renewal-information perceptions (policy perception, planning/design perception, and perceived community management capacity), spatial conditions (basic living conditions, public activity space, and infrastructure), and community relations (community cohesion, sense of community belonging, and social support) to TPB components (behavioral attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control), and ultimately to participation intention. Data were collected through door-to-door and on-site surveys in 12 designated districts, yielding 343 valid homeowner responses. Reliability and validity tests indicate satisfactory measurement quality, and structural equation modeling shows good overall model fit. Results confirm that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control significantly and positively predict participation intention, with subjective norms exerting the strongest effect. Policy, planning/design, and community management perceptions significantly enhance both attitude and subjective norms. Poorer perceived living conditions, insufficient public space, and inadequate infrastructure strengthen positive attitudes toward participation. Community cohesion, belonging, and social support reinforce attitude and subjective norms, while belonging and social support also increase perceived behavioral control. The findings provide targeted leverage points for designing communication, mobilization, and support strategies to promote resident participation in urban self-governance renewal.
At the beginning of the 2nd century AD, five new political entities emerged along the Eastern Black Sea coast, within the territory of historical Colchis. According to Flavius Arrian (ca. 95–175 AD), the southernmost of these was the kingdom of the Macrones and Heniochi. The Laz controlled the central part of Colchis up to the River Egristskali (modern Ghalidzga), while to their north lay the “kingdoms” of the Apsilae, Abasgoi, and Sanigae. This was the political configuration of the eastern Black Sea region when Pacorus, king of the Laz, appeared on the historical stage. He received his authority from Antoninus Pius (138–161 AD). Given the geopolitical situation in the Black Sea basin, the Laz–Roman alliance strengthened during the reign of Antoninus Pius. As the artifacts discovered in northwestern Colchis indicate, significant transformations took place in the eastern Black Sea region during Pacorus’ rule. This is confirmed by a silver cup with a Greek inscription unearthed in 2005 in an ancient grave at the village of Achmarda in the modern Gagra district. The inscription reads: Ἐγὼ Πάκουρος ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῖς ἀ|μνοῖς ἔδωκα -“I, King Pacorus, have given [this] to my sheep.” The inscription shows that by the mid-2nd century, the Laz king Pacorus had brought the Sanigae confederation under his authority. Naturally, this implies that he had already incorporated the smaller political groups of the Apsilae and Abasgoi into his kingdom earlier. Thus, Pacorus, the contemporary of Antoninus Pius, whose authority at the time of his accession extended only as far as the River Ghalidzga, succeeded within a short period in incorporating the confederations of the Apsilae, Abasgoi, and Sanigae. He laid the foundation for a powerful western Georgian polity whose northwestern boundary stretched to the River Akheountos (modern Shakhe). The consequences of Pacorus’ activities and the establishment of a unified state in western Georgia are reflected in the Geography of Ptolemy (ca. 100–170 AD). Unlike Arrian, Ptolemy no longer mentions the Apsilae, Abasgoi, or Sanigae in northwestern Colchis. He accurately reflects the new political reality and, throughout the entire eastern Black Sea region—from the province of Cappadocia to Sarmatia—refers to only one political unit: Colchis. It is clear that Ptolemy uses the term “Colchis” out of older tradition, and that in his time it corresponds to the later “Lazica.”
Social anxiety is a form of anxiety commonly experienced by individuals, especially during late adolescence and early adulthood. This developmental period is characterized by demands for social adaptation, independence, and identity search, which often cause excessive worry in social interactions. This study aims to determine the profile of social anxiety in late adolescent and early adult women. The method used was quantitative observational with a cross-sectional design. The study sample consisted of 155 female respondents aged 18–25 years in Palembang City, obtained through accidental sampling. The research instrument was a questionnaire that measured aspects of general feelings, physical feelings, and cognitive changes. The results showed that the majority of respondents were in the moderate category for all aspects, with a proportion of 58.7% in general feelings, 62.6% in physical feelings, and 75.5% in cognitive changes. The aspect of general feelings was the most vulnerable to being in the high category (30.3%). Based on age differences, late adolescents showed higher anxiety than early adults, particularly in terms of general feelings and cognitive changes. In conclusion, social anxiety in late adolescent to early adult women was generally moderate, with a higher tendency in the late adolescent group. These findings indicate the importance of psychological intervention to help individuals manage social anxiety according to their stage of development.
The innovative human capital in global economic development cannot go unnoticed in such times of change with a focus on sustainability. Research has long shown that the intermateriality across social, economic, and political facets is a manifestation of the change created by entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is therefore not just a venture creation process but a driver of civilization. Entrepreneurial learning has been evolving since the proposal of the first entrepreneurship course, dubbed ‘Management of New Enterprises,’ at Harvard Business School in 1947. The diversity of educational aims, methods in teaching, and approaches in monitoring and evaluation has led to the heterogeneity in the definition of concepts around entrepreneurship, including entrepreneurship competence, entrepreneurial education, and entrepreneurship practice. Entrepreneurs have been described by a variety of terms, and various studies have concluded that there is no scientific definition that has been agreed upon for the concept. The ever-growing engagements in entrepreneurial competence in research and practice has led to a diversity of perspectives and models that all make a contribution to the field. While referring to early entrepreneurial literature, studies have concluded that individual intentions and subsequent behaviors bring the emergence of new business organizations, and as this process evolves over time, entrepreneurial intentions are witnessed across business formations.
Within the global agenda of "Sustainable AI and Education," mainstream AI educational systems are predominantly built upon cognitive and behaviorist paradigms. These systems emphasize efficiency, predictability, and immediate feedback, presupposing the learner as a quantifiable and optimizable cognitive subject. However, this technological imagination of a "transparent subject" obscures the fundamental condition of subjective existence revealed by psychoanalysis as early as the beginning of the 20th century—namely, split subjectivity, the insatiability of desire, and the continuous illusion of unconscious processes from structures of meaning. Adopting a Lacanian critical perspective, this paper argues that current AI educational systems, in their attempt to algorithmically satisfy learners' "demands," systematically repress "desire," which constitutes the core dynamism of subjectivity. Lacan emphasizes that the essence of human desire is an eternal pursuit of "lack," rather than a "need" waiting to be fulfilled. When existing AI educational systems operate on learners merely through a cyclical "satisfaction-feedback" pathway, they effectively induce a narcissistic loop akin to the "Imaginary order." This process deprives learners of the opportunity to confront the traumas, unknowns, or gaps of meaning associated with the "Real," thereby obstructing the potential for "symptoms" manifest in the learning process—such as frustration, dissonance, and confusion—to be transformed into creative forces. Based on this analysis, this paper introduces the Lacanian concept of "desire" as a critical entry point for examining the numerous ethical controversies in sustainable AI education. It proposes an ethics of desire for educational practice, positing that AI should not be viewed merely as a technical tool for addressing learners' demands. Instead, it should precisely function as an "Otherness" ethical medium that reveals the structural lack within the subject and guides learners into a dialogue with their own desire. Thus, as an "irreducible heterogeneity" for the learner—that is, an ethical other in the Lacanian sense—AI education can persistently evoke the learner's awareness of the fundamental (lack) inherent in knowledge and the self. This transforms education from an object of technical optimization into a sustainable ethical practice of desire. Within this practice, AI ceases to be a technological tool for narcissistic collusion with the learner and becomes an ethical partner that facilitates the learning subject's continuous transcendence of established cognitive boundaries towards unknown possibilities through the endless dialectic of desire.
China, the country where the first cases of COVID-19 were detected and which was profoundly impacted by the global pandemic, has been a focal point for scrutiny and research regarding governmental performance and infection management. In the early stages of the epidemic, China swiftly implemented stringent lockdown and control measures, which proved effective in rapidly controlling the number of infections and maintaining them at a very low level for an extended period. However, following the official announcement on December 7, 2022, marking the end of the "Dynamic-Zero-COVID policy," China experienced a significant surge in infections. This outcome appears to have deviated from the Chinese government's initial plans, primarily due to the difficulty in balancing strict containment measures with economic stability. Consequently, the intensity of these policies was gradually relaxed until their complete cessation. The case of China demonstrates that the government's capacity to manage national crises is constrained by fragmented state power and increased autonomy among local administrative units. It is therefore inappropriate to view China through the lens of traditional West- philia assumptions. Instead, we must adopt a more open and contemporary perspective when analyzing the impact of COVID-19 in China. It is necessary to recognize that the Chinese government operates as a complex system characterized by decentralization, fragmentation and internationalization. Therefore, this paper aims to explore two questions through qualitative research: 1. How should we make sense of the Chinese government's prompt shift from a Dynamic Zero-COVID policy to an Opening-Up policy? 2. How did the local authority contribute to the decision-making of central government on the removal of Dynamic COVID–19 policy? I argue that the theory of securitization can serve as a valuable framework for understanding and explaining China's comprehensive policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, given the dispersion of power and interests among various units, deviations in objectives and conflicts are inevitable. Consequently, the process of securitization does not conform to a simplistic or idealized model. Instead, “contestation” occurs throughout the process, and the roles of “actors” and “audiences” are fluid rather than fixed, undergoing constant transformation. Furthermore, the research perspective applied in this article has value for the study of issues in other authoritarian countries.
This paper is based on the project work developed by the authors for the executive master's in strategic management and leadership of health organizations, which was attended at the University of Pavia in 2021-2022.The relationship between regulatory and organizational complexity in the healthcare context and the relationship with the patient/citizen is deemed to require i) the implementation of new leadership styles, ii) the dissemination of non-technical skills, iii) the implementation, structured and specific, of participatory processes so that public action is implemented in a tailor-made way for the need of the community for which it was thought, iv) a new mode of communication between stakeholders and institutions so that the ethics of the relationship and communication, transparency, and accountability become the pivot of a new mode of interaction. The project work started by describing the difficulty of managing and interpreting a health context's regulatory and organizational complexity (particularly for hospitals). It then traced a possible mode of interaction between stakeholders and institutions. This article condenses the conclusion of our project work. The content of this article expresses only the views of the authors. None of the opinions can be linked to the organizations the authors work for.
Social resilience is a fundamental aspect for multicultural societies, such as Indonesia. The cultural richness of a country is a gift because it has the potential to become a national strength. The diversity of religions, cultures, and customs can contribute to tourism and academics. However, the diversity that exists in a society can be a threat if it is not balanced with an attitude of mutual respect, tolerance, and openness. Social diversity is prone to excessive ethnocentrism, the emergence of identity politics, and social polarization. The massive use of social media in the current digital era increases the risk of social friction that can trigger conflict. Therefore, civic engagement in national life has an important role in fostering an attitude of mutual respect and tolerance. In Indonesia, civic engagement has a wide scope, ranging from deliberation activities at the local level to activities at the national level, such as elections. This study answers the question of how effective civic engagement is in creating social cohesion and strengthening social resilience. The purpose of this study is to examine how civic engagement can increase social resilience in multicultural societies in Indonesia. The method used in this study is qualitative, based on a literature review. This study is expected to provide theoretical contributions in strengthening social resilience through community participation in multicultural countries on a global scale, especially to face challenges in the ever-growing digital era.
This paper explores how open-source 3-D printing enhances engineering skills, education, and professional development. Originally dominated by proprietary systems, 3-D printing has been democratized by open-source platforms like the RepRap project and Prusa i3, which allow engineers to rapidly prototype, experiment with materials, and collaborate. These platforms advance innovation by providing access to affordable tools, encouraging creativity and problem-solving. The paper examines how universities have integrated 3-D printing into their curricula, offering students practical, hands-on experience in design, manufacturing, and interdisciplinary projects. This shift bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world application, preparing students for careers in industries such as aerospace, healthcare, and automotive. Professionally, open-source 3-D printing offers engineers ongoing opportunities to update their skills and remain competitive. Despite challenges like quality control and scalability, technology continues to evolve, driven by collaborative innovation. Open-source 3-D printing is expected to play a pivotal role in advancing engineering by enabling complex designs, cost-effective manufacturing, and novel applications across various industries.
The enduring interplay between scientific paradigms and literary expression continues to shape our understanding of reality and narrative. While classical literary analysis often presupposes deterministic plot trajectories and clear causal chains, the revolutionary insights of quantum mechanics have introduced fundamental indeterminacy into our understanding of the universe. This paper argues that the conceptual framework of quantum indeterminacy, as initially explored in Modernist "quantum poetics" by figures like Daniel Albright, has profoundly influenced the non-deterministic plot progression and ambiguous narrative closure characteristic of contemporary science fiction, particularly in narratives featuring highly autonomous artificial intelligence. Drawing on the philosophical implications of quantum theory, as articulated by thinkers like Carlo Rovelli and Slavoj Žižek, this study has analyzed how select works of contemporary science fiction particularly the trending Murderbot Diaries construct plots that resist singular, predictable outcomes, mirroring the inherent probabilistic nature of quantum reality. By examining the manifestation of quantum indeterminacy in narrative structure, this paper seeks to illuminate the sophisticated engagement of modern science fiction with cutting-edge scientific and philosophical thought, contributing to the interdisciplinary dialogue between literature and science.
This paper investigates the funerary landscapes of rural settlements along the Syrian coast during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Spanning the 1st–6th centuries CE, lebanit examines how burial forms and mortuary rituals reflected broader transformations in social, religious, and cultural identity. Drawing on epigraphic evidence (Aliquot, 2010; Gatier, 2005), national archaeological surveys (Badawi 2010, 2015, 2016-2019), and the author’s own field documentation in the Jableh hinterland, the study develops a typology of rural tombs. It situates them in relation to settlements, agricultural installations, and sacred sites. Case studies from Khirbet al-Mirdesiya, Bishman, Barsoomah, Arab al-Milk, and al-Rahbiyya highlight the predominance of rock-cut tombs, the selective use of Greek funerary inscriptions by rural elites, and the gradual Christianization of mortuary space. By comparing these practices with funerary traditions in Lebanon and the Syrian Limestone Massif, the paper demonstrates both regional continuities and unique coastal developments. The analysis highlights how burial spaces were not passive residues, but rather active social and symbolic constructs. They encoded kinship, memory, and belief into the physical landscape, thereby offering a valuable lens into the cultural identity of rural communities in Late Antiquity.
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) created The Great Wave off Kanagawa, a renowned example of Japanese ukiyo-e art, during the Edo period (1603–1868). This iconic masterpiece subtly reflects the philosophy of yin and yang as embodied in the Taiji Diagram. Known for his preference for the S-shaped composition, Hokusai employed this form masterfully—the curling wave and the sky together trace a dynamic S-shape, evoking the Taiji’s symbolic balance. Some Western art historians suggest that The Great Wave was influenced by the Taiji Diagram, a claim supported by compositional and thematic parallels in Hokusai’s other work, The Raging Wave. In that piece, the interplay between male and female wave figures echoes the harmony of opposing forces, similar to the visual and conceptual elements seen in The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Although Hokusai never explicitly mentioned the Taiji Diagram in relation to this ukiyo-e, in my paper I identify five indirect forms of evidence to argue that he may have been inspired by the Diagram when creating this work.
This study examines the implementation of Indonesia’s Mixed Marriage policy for Indonesian citizens residing in China. The rising number of mixed marriages between Indonesian women and Chinese men has brought about legal and social challenges, including cases of exploitation, human trafficking, and unclear legal status. A notable phenomenon is the emergence of informal Mail Order Bride arrangements, where Indonesian women relate to foreign spouses through unregulated networks and digital platforms, often bypassing official procedures and facing significant risks. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, the research analyses the effectiveness of existing policies, identifies structural, legal, and social barriers, and evaluates the roles of both Indonesian and Chinese authorities in safeguarding citizens’ rights. Data was collected through interviews, document analysis, and field observations. Findings reveal that weak inter-agency coordination, limited institutional capacity, and unclear bureaucratic procedures hinder effective policy implementation. These gaps leave Indonesian citizens vulnerable to rights violations and legal insecurity. The study recommends strengthening bilateral legal frameworks, providing pre-marital legal education for prospective spouses, and establishing joint verification and protection mechanisms to ensure the dignity, safety, and legal certainty of Indonesian citizens in transnational marriages. This study investigates how Indonesia’s policies on mixed marriages are implemented for its citizens living in China. The increasing trend of marriages between Indonesian women and Chinese men has triggered a range of legal and social issues, including exploitation, human trafficking, and ambiguous legal standing. A particularly concerning development is the rise of informal “mail-order bride” arrangements, wherein Indonesian women connect with Chinese partners via unregulated digital channels and informal networks—often circumventing official legal processes and exposing themselves to serious risks. Adopting a qualitative descriptive methodology, the research evaluates the efficacy of current policies, pinpoints structural, legal, and societal obstacles, and assesses the roles played by both Indonesian and Chinese governmental bodies in protecting their citizens’ rights. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews with embassy staff, analysis of official documents, and on-site fieldwork. The findings indicate that ineffective coordination among government agencies, insufficient institutional resources, and vague bureaucratic protocols significantly impede policy enforcement. These systemic shortcomings leave Indonesian nationals—particularly women—in vulnerable positions, susceptible to rights abuses and legal uncertainty. To address these challenges, the study proposes several key interventions: reinforcing bilateral legal agreements between Indonesia and China, instituting mandatory pre-marital legal education for couples entering transnational unions, and creating joint verification and protection systems. These measures aim to uphold the dignity, safety, and legal security of Indonesian citizens involved in cross-border marriages.
This article presents an intersectional view of how gender influences the joint production of migration and statelessness, leading to different types of precarity that cannot be understood through any of the single axes—legal status, nationality, or gender—only. Based on Crenshaw’s definition of intersectionality and critical feminist citizenship literature, the confrontation regards statelessness as an unexclusive legal flaw but an empowered position within the overlapping regimes: patriarchal nationality laws that limit the intergenerational passing of citizenship; migration regulations that make the movement and providing protection dependent on employer sponsorship, family status, or heteronormative recognition; and political economies that direct women migrants to informal or care work. These regimes together produce three interrelated mechanisms: (a) legal discontinuity, where female and non-binary migrants get lost between family law, citizenship statutes, and asylum systems; (b) administrative opacity, where red tape and recognition criteria of one’s identity (for instance, name, marital, or gender markers) convert official rights into practical exclusion; and (c) economic subordination, where unstable jobs and limited access to services render legal actions virtually impossible. The paper combines doctrinal analysis of nationality and asylum frameworks in the context of case-based evidence on groups made stateless or "functionally stateless" in migration, such as minority women displaced across borders and transgender asylum seekers facing documentation mismatch. The argument goes in three stages: first, it demonstrates how gendered norms are integrated into citizenship transmission and identity recognition; second, it follows the trail of migration controls that boost those norms at borders, in camps, and in labor markets; finally, it shows how economic dependence and violence risk giving rise to legal non-recognition, thus creating intergenerational exclusion. The contribution is twofold: conceptually, it delineates intersectional precarity as a set of mechanisms rather than a descriptive label; normatively, it shifts the focus of reform from the mere granting of status to the transformation of the gendered rules of recognition- birth registration, gender and parentage markers, and access to work and justice- without which formal nationality cannot guarantee substantive belonging
This study is an empirical investigation into the effects of service quality, customer satisfaction, and brand image on customer loyalty in high-end health management centers affiliated with medical centers in Taiwan, and to provide management strategy recommendations for healthcare institutions to enhance customer loyalty. A survey method was used, analyzing customers of high-end health management centers as the research subjects. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed, with 446 valid samples collected. The questionnaire was reviewed by experts for expert validity, and the data met the required standards after reliability analysis. Statistical analysis was conducted on the questionnaire content to test the research hypotheses. Regarding demographic variables, age showed differences across all Dimension. Education level and monthly income showed significant differences in the loyalty construct. Customer satisfaction and brand image have a significant positive impact on customer loyalty, with customer satisfaction having a stronger influence. However, service quality did not have a direct significant impact on customer loyalty. Additionally, both service quality and brand image had a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction, indicating that service quality indirectly affects loyalty through customer satisfaction. It is worth noting that customers with a higher frequency of health checkups had lower loyalty. In the highly competitive health checkup service market, customer satisfaction and brand image are the key drivers of customer loyalty. Although basic service quality is a necessary condition, it does not directly affect loyalty. This suggests that customers take basic professionalism and service for granted. Therefore, if healthcare institutions can go beyond basic services by optimizing the process experience and building a professional yet humane brand image, it is recommended to shift the marketing focus from "quality promotion" to "brand value creation" to establish a long-term competitive advantage in the market.
Refugees are vulnerable groups, and those based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) are even more vulnerable, due to their intersectional identities. Dr S. Chelvan created the Difference Stigma Shame Harm (DSSH) model that focuses on the SOGIESC grounds of the applicant and not their actual sexual practices. The phallometric test was banned as it was deemed to be ill treatment. The ABC case examined the right to dignity and prohibited videos as evidence, and the F case addressed the right of privacy and prohibited the homosexuality tests as evidence of someone’s SOGIESC. Thus, several methods of assessing someone’s SOGIESC have been prohibited, as they were not compliant with human rights standards. This paper argues that human rights law can be used as a preventive tool in assessing credibility. The DSSH model may seem more human rights-compliant, but it does not offer all the answers to the existing challenges in this field. The element of Shame seems not to be as inclusive as it should be, as it cannot be expected of every person to have developed the feeling of Shame, and the absence of this feeling has led to rejections of such claims. Thus, this paper suggests the replacement of that element with “feeling”, as people could have the fear of being persecuted based on their SOGIESC, but still experience different feelings that a heterosexual/cis person might not.
This study examines the interplay between social and physical capital resources in shaping students’ perceptions, motivation, and academic performance across two rural community contexts—L County (high-performing) and F County (low-performing), Kentucky. The primary objective is to explore how community-level resources influence students’ educational orientations and how these dynamics vary between high- and low-achieving groups. Grounded in motivation theory and cultural models theory (D’Andrade & Strauss, 1992; Gee, 1996), the study conceptualizes social and physical capital as motivational structures that mediate students’ agency, aspiration, and achievement. Employing a pragmatic mixed-methods design, the research integrates quantitative analysis (n = 42) with qualitative interviews (n = 40). Quantitative findings indicate that in L County, students’ motivation was primarily shaped by teacher influence (r = 0.596, p < .01), whereas in F County, motivational drivers were dispersed across teachers, peers, and parents, reflecting weaker coherence. Qualitative evidence further reveals that deficits in physical capital—such as inadequate infrastructure, limited facilities, and restricted local opportunities—indirectly constrained long-term aspirations, while social capital, particularly through teacher and family relationships, exerted a more immediate influence on motivation and performance. Overall, the findings suggest that the quality and coherence of social relationships, rather than the quantity of available resources, are decisive factors in educational success. The study contributes to the sociology of education by integrating spatial and relational dimensions of capital into motivational analysis and by illuminating how students in resource-constrained settings mobilize social and physical capital to navigate structural inequalities and pursue academic advancement.
The launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022 marked a major milestone in integrating artificial intelligence into higher education. Its advanced natural language processing capabilities and user-friendly design have rapidly transformed study practices worldwide, sparking both enthusiasm and critical debate among educators. This study explores student satisfaction and attitudes toward ChatGPT over two academic years (2023–2024 and 2024–2025), drawing on data from a large-scale global survey involving 23,218 and 22,963 students from more than 120 countries. Employing descriptive statistics and independent-sample t-tests, the analysis reveals a steady increase in the adoption and integration of ChatGPT into everyday academic routines. Students most frequently used the tool for brainstorming, summarizing lengthy texts, research assistance, and study support. Satisfaction also improved over time, with more than two-thirds of respondents reporting that using ChatGPT was interesting and helpful, and over half perceiving it as more useful than traditional search engines. However, despite these positive perceptions, many students still preferred human interaction, citing the AI’s lack of social presence and its limitations in addressing complex, subjective academic content. Importantly, the study identifies notable differences across academic disciplines: students in applied sciences and technology fields expressed the highest satisfaction, valuing ChatGPT’s technical assistance and clarity of information, while those in the social sciences and humanities demonstrated a stronger preference for guidance from human educators. These findings underscore ChatGPT’s rapidly growing role in higher education and highlight the need for institutions to adapt policies and teaching practices to support responsible and effective use. The insights provided offer valuable guidance for educators and policymakers seeking to harness the benefits of generative AI while addressing students’ diverse expectations and concerns.
In this article I discuss the current situation in which many Western countries are reconsidering the supply chain and free trade policies they embraced until not so long ago, when leadership in technologically advanced products was firmly in their hands. This paradigm shift is claimed to be dictated by the need to protect Western economies from the potential threat from China in particular, rather than adopting protectionist policies with the simple (and understandable) motivation of shielding domestic producers from foreign competitors. This means that the change in the policies of Western countries is not the result of a revision of the theoretical principles that have guided their economic policies in the past, as these principles are believed to retain their full validity. Instead, the revision would be induced by an exception that has always been admitted by orthodox economic theory, namely protection from a military and external security threat. My main claim is that the need to adopt what can unequivocally be called standard protectionist policies, instead, should stem from a serious revision of the previously adopted theoretical paradigm, given the many negative outcomes derived from its blind application. Moreover, justifying the adoption of overtly protectionist policies with the need for protection, something that is far from proved, risks triggering a negative self-fulfilling process, thereby fuelling a dangerous confrontation between separate blocs, something which does not promise anything good for our future.
This study explores migrant single mothers’ access to housing and its crucial role in family reunification, wellbeing, and social integration. The analysis combines a comparative review of housing policies in three destination countries representing different welfare regimes—the United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway—with 30 semi-structured interviews conducted with Lithuanian single mothers who migrated to these countries. The findings reveal that, in formal terms, migrant single mothers enjoy similar access to housing as nationals (in the case of the UK, prior to Brexit). Nevertheless, they encounter a range of additional barriers, including limited awareness of their eligibility for housing support, language difficulties, discrimination in the rental market, and constraints associated with employer-provided accommodation in remote areas, which restrict independent housing searches. Despite these challenges, access to adequate housing emerges as a fundamental condition for migrant single mothers, particularly as it determines their ability to bring their children to live with them in the host country. Housing also represents their largest financial burden, and securing stable, affordable accommodation significantly reduces stress and economic vulnerability. Furthermore, living in quality housing in well-connected neighbourhoods—as opposed to marginalised or low-income social housing areas—enhances both mothers’ and children’s quality of life by ensuring access to essential services, education, and opportunities for social integration. The study highlights housing as not merely a material need but a cornerstone of social inclusion and family stability for migrant single mothers in Europe.
