There are no races without a language or culture. Language serves as a mirror of culture, encoding the beliefs, values, and social practices of speakers. Language, either foreign or local, is a cultural carrier. Culture constitutes a conventional understanding and practices that establish a people as unique and distinct from others. Language and culture are both interwoven and inseparable. It would have been impossible to have a continuous or appreciative culture without language. Different aspects of culture are expressed through language, some of which are discussed in this paper. This study comparatively examines the cultural similarities embedded in the French and Yoruba languages, highlighting how both linguistic systems function as vehicles for transmitting shared human experiences, despite their different historical and geographical origins. Spoken predominantly in France and other Francophone regions, French reflects social hierarchy, politeness, and communal interaction through structured forms of addresses, proverbs, and idiomatic expressions. Similarly, Yoruba, which is widely spoken in southwestern Nigeria and parts of West Africa, embodies respect for age, kinship ties, and collective identity through honorifics, greetings, and rich oral traditions. The study identifies notable parallels, such as the extensive use of proverbs to teach moral lessons, elaborate greeting systems that reinforce social harmony, metaphorical expressions rooted in everyday life, and the role of language in preserving history and communal memory. Both languages also emphasize politeness strategies and social roles, demonstrating that communication extends beyond mere information exchanges to cultural affirmation. Apart from the issues of greetings and by analyzing these similarities, the research shows that linguistic forms often reflect universal cultural principles such as respect, solidarity, and moral instruction. Ultimately, this comparative perspective promotes intercultural understanding and demonstrates that French and Yoruba, although genealogically unrelated, share functional and cultural convergences that can facilitate cross-cultural communication and language learning. This study contributes to broader discussions on language, culture, and identity in multilingual and multicultural contexts.
Adolescence is a critical period for the formation of subjective well-being (SWB), and its developmental trajectory is profoundly shaped by multiple ecological systems, among which the school environment—especially teacher-student relationships—plays a pivotal role. Teacher emotional support (TES), defined as teachers’ provision of care, trust, and responsive emotional feedback to students, has been increasingly recognized as a nonacademic protective factor for adolescent development beyond academic performance. However, in China’s education system, characterized by high academic pressure and collectivist cultural values, the mechanism underlying TES’s influence on adolescents’ SWB remains underexplored, particularly regarding the sequential mediating roles of school belonging and self-esteem. Based on social support and self-determination theories, this longitudinal study aimed to examine the direct effect of TES on SWB and the indirect effects via school belonging and self-esteem among Chinese adolescents. A total of 1,542 middle school students (Mage = 14.2 years, 52% female) from 12 public middle schools in Eastern China were followed up in three waves (2022–2023). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data, with control variables including age, gender, and family socioeconomic status (SES). The results show that TES had a significant direct positive effect on SWB (β = 0.28, p < 0.001). Indirectly, TES influenced SWB through three pathways: (1) TES→school belonging →SWB (β = 0.17, 95% CI [0.12, 0.23], p < 0.01); (2) TES→self-esteem → SWB (β = 0.13, 95% CI [0.07, 0.19], p < 0.05); and (3) the sequential mediating pathway TES → school belonging → self-esteem → SWB (β = 0.09, 95% CI [0.04, 0.15], p < 0.05). The model fit indices were good (χ2/df = 2.18; CFI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.04). These findings not only enrich the theoretical understanding of the relationship between TES and adolescent SWB by verifying the mediating roles of school belonging and self-esteem but also provide empirical evidence for improving adolescent mental health in collectivist educational contexts. Implications for teacher training, school policymaking, and future research are discussed.
This study investigates how mediator neutrality is interactionally established in Moroccan televised mediation. While mediation is often identified as a conflict resolution mechanism supported by the facilitative practices of impartial third-parties, televised mediation embodies a hybrid interactional framework whereby institutional, legal, therapeutic, and entertainment expectations coalesce. Drawing on Conversation Analysis (CA) and participation framework approaches to mediation discourse, the study examines how mediators, “The Mediator” TV show, broadcast on 2M, solicit disputants’ position reports, formulate mitigated proposals, and re-establish participation balance under conditions of power-imbalance. The analysis of various mediation hearings reveals that disputants’ proposals are inherently not self-initiated; rather they are sequentially elicited through question and opinion-seeking adjacency pairs that assign entitlement and sustain disputant decisional authority. The research further indicates that neutrality is maintained through practices of agency redistribution, namely pre-sequences, delays, and evident disclaimers of influence, that reflect restricted deontic attitude and strengthen disputants’ rights to accept or reject the advance proposals. Alongside revoicing participants’ report positions to promote sustained engagement, the findings of this study report illustrations of mediator replacement in hearings where the involved parties are identified within relationships of interactional asymmetry and elevated stakes (self-harm). Regardless of the fact that replacement mechanism may emerge as a breach of neutrality, its position within the interactional sequence (e.g., subsequent to unsuccessful attempts of alignment) constructs it as a remedial procedure directed to achieve ethical accountability and balanced participation. At a broader level, the study advocated for reconceptualizing mediator neutrality not as a non-interventionist approach but as a context-sensitive, interactionally established custom that adjusts institutional formalities with social and relational outcomes.
Projective narrative assessment continues to play an important role in exploring emotional, relational, and symbolic meaning within psychological evaluation. However, many traditional apperceptive instruments rely on culturally and historically specific imagery that may not translate effectively across contemporary global populations. This study introduces the Global Apperception Picture Test (GAPT), a developing narrative assessment designed to provide culturally inclusive and demographically flexible stimuli while preserving the ambiguity necessary for symbolic projection. In this pilot investigation, nine foundational images selected from a larger library of forty-three stimuli were administered to sixty participants ranging from childhood to older adulthood across diverse cultural backgrounds. Participants generated narratives in response to standardized prompts, and stories were evaluated using a structured Symbolic Insight Scale measuring emotional expression, symbolic interpretation, and temporal organization within narratives. Findings indicate that the images consistently elicited coherent narratives containing emotional and symbolic content across developmental groups. Substantial interrater agreement further supports preliminary scoring reliability. Results suggest that reducing culturally restrictive contextual cues while implementing structured scoring procedures may contribute to modernization of apperceptive assessment practices within multicultural contexts. Nevertheless, broader validation involving larger and more geographically diverse samples remains necessary. Future research will examine the complete stimulus library and further refine scoring procedures to strengthen the clinical and research applicability of the GAPT across multicultural assessment settings.
Psychoafricalysis is presented as a culturally and historically grounded framework for understanding human behavior, cognition, emotion, and identity. Rather than replacing introductory psychology, it functions as a companion perspective that situates psychological functioning within relational, communal, and intergenerational contexts. Drawing on African and diasporic knowledge alongside Asian, Middle Eastern, Indigenous, and European intellectual traditions, the framework emphasizes how biological, cognitive, emotional, social, and historical forces interact in everyday human life. Within this perspective, topics commonly addressed in introductory psychology, including personality, learning, memory, motivation, emotion, and mental health, are interpreted through both empirical inquiry and culturally grounded practices. The framework also recognizes that behaviors considered problematic in one setting may represent adaptive responses in another, particularly where communities have experienced prolonged social strain or historical disruption. By widening the interpretive lens, Psychoafricalysis seeks to strengthen culturally responsive education, research, and clinical practice while maintaining the global relevance of psychological science.
Within the framework of Iranian social relationships, the family is positioned as a sacred institution under strict religious and legal jurisdiction. This cultural sanctity often functions as a barrier to the disclosure of internal abuses, prioritizing the preservation of the family’s “moral” image over the safety of its individual members. Consequently, conservative societal frameworks frequently marginalize instances of intra-familial child sexual abuse, inadvertently perpetuating a cycle of violence that shatters the foundational trust inherent in family bonds. Utilizing a Grounded Theory (GT) methodology and semi-structured interviews, this study engaged 452 survivors through purposive and snowball sampling to explore their childhood experiences of incestuous abuse. Analysis of the data—updated to reflect the socio-legal climate of 2024 and 2025—demonstrates that sexual violence within the home remains a minimized issue across legal and social strata. The findings reveal that dominant religious discourses often re-victimize the child by framing abuse through the lens of “dishonour” or “sin.” Furthermore, the state’s restrictive stance on sex education and the patriarchal legal structure contribute to a pervasive culture of silence. The study concludes that addressing this pathology requires a multi-dimensional strategy involving legislative reform, the de-tabooing of sexual discourse, and the creation of independent support services to redefine the nature of child protection within the Iranian family and society.
The work immersion program for senior high school students in the Philippines is a crucial bridge between academic learning and practical application, equipping students with essential skills and experiences for future professional endeavors. However, there is a limited understanding of how students, particularly those in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS), ascribe meaning to their work immersion, highlighting the need to explore their unique experiences. Thus, this study employed a qualitative descriptive phenomenological design to capture the shared experiences of HUMSS students during their work immersion in Leyte. Ten participants were selected through purposive sampling, and data were gathered via in-depth, semi-structured interviews, contextual field notes including participant background profiles, and reflections taken during and after the interview sessions. Thematic analysis by Clarke and Braun revealed five key themes that encapsulate the participants’ collective experiences: acquiring practical skills and knowledge, making self-adjustments to fit into the workplace, balancing enjoyment and learning in a professional setting, feeling pressured and work constraints, and valuing fairness in task assignments. These findings offer insights into educational institutions and partner industries, promoting equitable and skill-enriching work immersion programs that provide HUMSS students with diverse opportunities to acquire practical knowledge and skills aligned with real-world professional demands and their pursuit of higher education.
The primary aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of burnout syndrome among professionals working in educational institutions, including audiologists, speech therapists, special educators and rehabilitators, as well as teachers and other educational staff. In addition, the study aimed to identify sociodemographic and occupational factors associated with burnout, such as gender, age, marital status, number of children, level of education, workplace role, years of service, work schedule, type of work, employing institution, and type of employment contract. The sample consisted of 154 participants employed in primary and secondary educational institutions, special educators and rehabilitators, audiologists and speech therapists, class and subject teachers, and others. The Oldenburg Burnout Inventory was used to assess burnout syndrome, which was translated into our language using the double translation method. The instrument measures two dimensions of burnout: exhaustion and alienation. Data were analyzed using SPSS 24, applying both parametric and non-parametric statistical methods. The conducted research, data analysis, and obtained results enabled us to gain insight into the frequency and degree of burnout syndrome in professionals working in the mentioned professions. By identifying individual factors that contribute to or increase the level of burnout, we gained insight into possible strategies for overcoming it, which can serve as a basis for recommendations to individuals and relevant institutions on how to reduce this phenomenon. A lower incidence of burnout syndrome should contribute to higher employee productivity and efficiency.
