Social Sciences

18 open-access papers in Social Sciences, free to watch.

3:44

Development and validation of the Upstream Social Interaction Risk Scale (U-SIRS-13): a scale to assess threats to social connectedness among older adults

Matthew Lee Smith, Matthew E Barrett

Social disconnection often becomes visible only after it has taken hold. This study looks earlier, at whether someone can reach people, and whether those encounters actually leave them feeling connected. Social disconnection is usually measured after it has become obvious. This study takes a different approach: use thirteen questions to detect threats to connection earlier, before isolation and loneliness fully take hold.

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4:11

Integrating ICT in education: A scoping review of pre-service teachers’ ICT beliefs

Honghuan Li

A classroom can be filled with modern technology and still teach in the old way. This review finds that what future teachers believe about technology may shape whether it actually changes learning. Future teachers’ beliefs about technology can shape whether ICT reaches the classroom effectively. Yet this review finds a research landscape concentrated on general ICT attitudes, with limited attention to newer technologies and regional differences.

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5:00

Primary and middle-school children’s drawings of the lockdown in Italy

Michele Capurso, Livia Buratta, Claudia Mazzeschi

When children were asked to draw their lockdown lives, many did not draw the outside world at all. And among older children, the child in the picture was often missing, or had no face. What happens when children are asked to draw lockdown from memory? These pictures often show cheerful, colorful moments, but older children frequently leave their own faces, or even themselves, out of the scene.

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5:00

Factors Associated with Fertility Intention among Chinese Married Youth during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ruicheng Peng, Wei Mou, Peng Xu

Why would married young people want fewer children even when governments encourage larger families? This study points to an unexpected answer: pandemic-related worries may matter more than money or job security. During the COVID-19 pandemic, having more money or a stable job did not necessarily mean stronger fertility intentions. The most stable influence came from pandemic-related changes in marriage and delayed pregnancy preparation after vaccination.

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3:59

A qualitative quantitative mixed methods study of domestic violence against women

Mina Shayestefar, Mohadese Saffari, Razieh Gholamhosseinzadeh, Monir Nobahar, Majid Mirmohammadkhani, Seyed Hossein Shahcheragh, Zahra Khosravi

Domestic violence is not only a private crisis. This study finds that it can be widespread, hidden by silence, and tied to beliefs that make harmful behavior seem ordinary. In this study, nearly two-thirds of the participating women were classified as experiencing severe violence. The mixed-methods design also shows how social norms can keep that violence unspoken.

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4:02

Language endangerment: Using analytical methods from conservation biology to illuminate loss of linguistic diversity

Lindell Bromham

A language can disappear even while its community grows. This paper asks what the science of disappearing species can teach us about protecting the words, stories, and knowledge carried by human languages. What if methods designed to predict species extinction could help explain disappearing languages, but only after being carefully redesigned? This review shows where the analogy is powerful, and where it breaks down.

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