Cultural Construction Research Articles

Three-Dimensional Organotypic Systems for Modelling and Understanding Molecular Regulation of Oral Dentogingival Tissues

Three-dimensional organotypic models benefit from the ability to mimic physiological cell–cell or cell–matrix interactions and therefore offer superior models for studying pathological or physiological conditions compared to 2D cultures. Organotypic models consisting of keratinocytes supported by fibroblasts embedded in collagen matrices have been utilised for the study of oral conditions. However, the provision of a suitable model for investigating the pathogenesis of periodontitis has been more challenging. Part of the complexity relates to the different regional epithelial specificities and connective tissue phenotypes. Recently, it was confirmed, using 3D organotypic models, that distinct fibroblast populations were implicated in the provision of specific inductive and directive influences on the overlying epithelia. This paper presents the organotypic model of the dentogingival junction (DGJ) constructed to demonstrate the differential fibroblast influences on the maintenance of regionally specific epithelial phenotypes. Therefore, the review aims are (1) to provide the biological basis underlying 3D organotypic cultures and (2) to comprehensively detail the experimental protocol for the construction of the organotypic cultures and the unique setup for the DGJ model. The latter is the first organotypic culture model used for the reconstruction of the DGJ and is recommended as a useful tool for future periodontal research.

Naming, labelling and the cultural construction of the identity of persons with albinism in East, Central, and West Africa

ABSTRACT Names and labels attributed to persons with albinism (PWA) in East, Central, and West Africa, reflect deeply rooted cultural beliefs, superstitions, and etiological and historical narratives. In these regions, the identity of the black PWA differs by his/her black/white duality – Black but not black, white but not White. Using Labelling and Symbolic Interactionism frameworks, we address three questions: (i) How are PWA named and labelled across East, Central, and West Africa? (ii) How can we categorise the predominant names and labels? (iii) How do these names and labels reflect socio-cultural conceptions, affect behaviour towards PWA, and contribute to the external construction of the identity of PWA? Principal categories emerge: supernatural affiliation, pigmentation, association with economic capital, vegetal and earth affiliations, zoosemic metaphors, and ambiguous/undetermined labels. These categories reflect cultural sentiments ranging from adulation to ostracisation, influencing social behaviour and identity construction. While some cultures regard PWA as celestial entities, others link them to curses or tragedy. Labels that commodify PWA render them targets for exploitation and violence, while vegetal, zoosemic, and ambiguous terminology contribute to alienation and identity crisis. This research demonstrates how cultural constructs of identity through language reinforce stigma and prejudice against PWA, worsening their social marginalisation.

Travel and Hospitality in Josephus’ Representation of the Essene Community (Judean War 2.124–127) and Its Literary and Cultural Contexts

Abstract In his description of the Essenes in the Judean War, Josephus asserts that members of this group settled in many cities, and, in doing so, formed an interregional community with members travelling between and visiting each other in different places. Individual travellers, in turn, travel light because they can enjoy the hospitality of the host community in the cities which they visit (War 2.124–127). How can we explain Josephus’ emphasis on the Essenes as a hospitable community in view of a first-century readership of War and in the wider socio-cultural context of the Roman Mediterranean? This article has two interlocking aims. The first is to examine the emphasis on travel and hospitality in Josephus’ description of the Essenes. To draw out this emphasis, we situate this passage in its wider narrative context and compare it to descriptions of the Essenes in other classical sources, especially the writings of Philo of Alexandria. Our second aim, taking the image of the Essenes as hosts and travellers as a departure point, is to elucidate the cultural constructs undergirding Josephus’ descriptions of hospitality throughout his writings. Starting from the premise that Josephus’ language of guest-friendship would be recognisable to local audiences in and around Rome, we consider how Josephus’ diction of travel and hospitality participates in broader cultural practices.

Developing an Innovation Culture Measurement Construct for Healthcare Organizations

Objective: To develop an innovation culture measurement model specific to healthcare, by amending the original scale items of the Dobni innovation culture construct and model developed in 2008. Design: The project performed exploratory factor analysis from data collected on surveys, using redesigned scale items from the original Dobni innovation culture measurement. Setting: Managers and administrators from a Provincial Health Services Authority in Canada. Results: An exploratory factor analysis was performed on the 43 scale items used in the survey. The scale items were reduced to 31 and loaded on to new factors creating an Innovation Culture Measurement Model specific to healthcare. Conclusion: Although exploratory, the new model and scale items provide a foundation for researchers to advance innovation culture measurement in healthcare. Academically, measuring innovation culture has created a rich research stream, but to date has not exclusively focused on healthcare. Pragmatically, measuring innovation culture provides healthcare leaders and policy setters a benchmark to assess internally over a period of time or towards other entities.

“Doing” and “Undoing” power as critical intercultural assessment: Original teaching idea—semester for the core intercultural communication course

ABSTRACT This essay highlights a critical assessment approach for intercultural communication courses that engages in a “doing–undoing” practice for instructors, with the aim of “doing” culture as learned through society and traditional intercultural communication instruction with the limited, romanticized, and settler colonial presumptions and representations about culture and then subsequently “undoing” these constructions of culture. Students engage in a traditional intercultural communication assignment staple—the cultural interview—in order to traverse and trace how culture is framed and the presumptions and ideologies based in power are deeply embedded. This essay seeks to share this “doing–undoing’ practice via an explication of this original teaching idea for a semester through one activity.

Variables influencing students' learning motivation: critical literature review

This study presents a critical literature review exploring the variables influencing student learning motivation between 2017 and 2023. The study analyzes 84 empirical studies to identify trends and patterns across diverse demographics, including varied age groups and cultural backgrounds, focusing on contrasting Eastern and Western educational contexts. This study aims to fill the existing gap by examining a wider range of populations in recent years to assess the relationship between learning motivation and the factors that influence it. Six pivotal factors influencing learning motivation were identified: psychological values, cognitive factors, social and environmental influences, demographic factors, academic background and study habits, and interventions and programs, each contributing uniquely to the understanding of student motivation. Moreover, the findings underscore the predominance of psychological values in Eastern countries, whereas the Western literature focuses on social and environmental influences. This review acknowledges the nuanced relationship between cultural constructs and learning motivation research, emphasizing the need for culturally sensitive educational policies and practices. Additionally, by taking into account the recent advancements in technology and the effects of global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, this study considers additional motivational factors, presenting a holistic view that could inform future educational interventions and academic policies. For example, the revised categorization in our study emphasizes the complex and interconnected nature of the factors affecting learning motivation, highlighting the interaction among psychological, social, cognitive, and demographic dimensions.

Study on the Functions and Design Techniques of Urban Parks in the Context of Post-1949 Urban Development - Case Study of Xian, China

The urban park is an important part of the urban green space system and an essential factor in promoting sustainable development and urban transformation. The functions and corresponding design methods of urban parks also reflect the background and development requirements of different periods. In response to the requirements of urban development in different periods, parks in Xian have gradually changed from a single function of recreation to a function of cultural exchange and, in recent years, to a function of habitat protection. In order to better discuss and analyze characteristics and provide inspiration for further study, the article aims to divide the period from 1949 to 2020 into four stages according to the historical background, and make a comparative analysis according to the corresponding overall planning requirements and examples. The study will combine data with field visits to representative parks from four periods and analyze the relevance of their design and impact to the requirements of the times.The renovation of ancient gardens lays the foundation for the construction of parks, the protection and development of cultural heritage sites increases the role of parks in cultural construction, and the development and construction of ecological wetlands increases the function and role of parks in the construction of ecological civilisation. It can be concluded that the function of the park is also correspondingly related to its design approach.

Media construction of pseudo-events: Lula da Silva at the Portugal’s parliament during a historic annual celebration

The Carnation Revolution (25th April 1974) has changed the course of Portugal, leading it to transition from an autocratic to a democratic Government. Every year, celebrations are conducted at the national Parliament. In 2023, it counted with another guest: Lula da Silva, Brazil’s ongoing president. Considering the notion of cultural memory and media construction of social reality through media events, this article notes Lula da Silva’s presence and exceptional address was portrayed on newspaper front pages of several journalistic media outlets. Therefore, it aims at understanding meaning and discourse production with Lula da Silva’s visit to Portugal on the 25th April 2023 through media coverage and first page highlight. Lula da Silva is noticed by the front pages under analysis as a controversial, entertaining, and eventful celebrity linked to specific positioned actors that is invited to the Parliament and prompts indirectly and directly discontentment and, at the same time, support. Also, it discusses how such spotlight over Lula da Silva turned that visit and Parliament’s address it into a pseudo-event. Adopting a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis approach, this research work intends to offer a multimodal eye upon those front pages and critically reflect on populism, coloniality, cultural memory, and journalism.

Coloring in the world of others: color use in visual orientalism, 1890–1920

This study investigates the impact of media on color sense: our ability to see different colors and use them to interpret the world. Specifically, we examine the role of color in the cultural construction of the Orient—an ‘imagined geography’ used to justify colonial domination—in two turn-of-the-twentieth-century types of color(ed) photographs: photochromes, where a printer added color, and autochromes, where colors were captured during exposure. While most research on visual Orientalism has focused on content, we use machine learning methods to study the most important formal element of visual Orientalism: color. After using K-means clustering to extract sixteen dominant colors from each photograph in our dataset, we train three different random forest classification algorithms to make a distinction between (A) the two color media (B) photochromes of the Orient and the Occident; and (C) autochromes of the Orient and the Occident. Subsequently, we apply Shapley Additive Explanations, an explainable AI method, to interpret the output of the classifiers. This allows us to examine how specific features (colors) impacted the classifiers’ predictions. While the algorithm can easily separate photochromes from autochromes (0.95) and Oriental from Occidental photochromes (0.93), it struggles with the same task in the autochrome collection (0.68). These findings support three interconnected conclusions: (1) color sense became mediated in the late nineteenth century, (2) in photochromes, the presence and absence of specific colors was a vital aspect of visual Orientalism, (3) the autochrome, where color was derived from light, provided a more objective picture of countries in the near and middle East than the photochrome.

La formación inicial del profesorado de primaria en educación para la ciudadanía. Estudio de casos en Latinoamérica

This article identifies, analyzes and interprets what happens with citizenship education in the initial training of generalist teachers, in university programs in Latin America. The methodological strategy is the documentary analysis of the citizenship education curriculum in three academic programs in Chile, Argentina and Colombia, which train primary school teachers and who agree to participate voluntarily in the study. The results identify that the purposes and objectives of the programs for the initial training of generalist teachers focus on global citizenship. In the study plans, the contents planned for teaching the area are few and focused on theoretical concepts related to national citizenship, which do not favor the development of critical thinking or the political training of teachers, which are essential aspects to train students future teachers and transformative intellectuals (Giroux, 2006). The analysis concludes that general teachers are not being trained to educate primary school boys and girls as critical and democratic citizens. Academic programs have the challenge of proposing problematizing curricula, in which future teachers acquire the professional skills to analyze and understand the complexity and interdisciplinarity of social knowledge and, to guide the area of ​​citizenship in primary education in the construction of democratic culture and social justice.

A critical discourse study of cultural and national identity (re)construction in Taiwanese high school EFL textbooks

ABSTRACT In foreign language textbooks, cultural representations embedded in texts and images not only facilitate the acquisition of linguistic knowledge but also construct ethnic or political identities. Over the past century, the mainstream ideology in Taiwan has changed due to the rotation of ruling parties and generational shifts. This change is also evident in contemporary English-as-a-Foreign-Language textbooks. In light of this emerging issue, this study employed critical discourse analysis to examine three sets of textbooks that are widely used in high schools in Taiwan. The study reveals that textbooks produced in Taiwan generally: (1) highlight the indigenous culture of the island, (2) extensively depict contemporary Taiwanese celebrities, specialties, and natural landscapes, (3) embellish the period of Japanese and Dutch-Spanish colonisation, and (4) strategically differentiate between ‘China/Chinese’ and ‘Taiwan/Taiwanese’. The findings expose the Taiwan-centric perspective of the textbooks while downplaying the significance of the national title – ‘the Republic of China’.

Metaphors Realized in Narrative: A New Direction for Biblical Metaphor

ABSTRACTAn insight of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) is that metaphor is more than a mere literary device; it influences readers through cognitive connections. Yet biblical metaphors have most often been studied in poetic, theological contexts and within linguistic rhetorical devices like “YHWH is my shepherd.” In contrast, some of the most ideologically powerful metaphors are those that shape the Hebrew Bible's prose stories. These metaphors reify cultural constructs and experiences, making them seem “natural.” The study of realized metaphor—metaphor embodied as a literal narrative feature—offers a new pathway for applying CMT to narrative texts, even those without overt linguistic metaphors. This article surveys the history of realized metaphors in literary theory, then provides some brief examples of biblical texts where a CMT approach reveals metaphors embedded in the fabric of the narrative. It concludes with a challenge: how can we extend metaphor theory to the full range of biblical texts, poetry and prose alike, in order to understand how metaphor shapes human perception in the past and the present?

Mediating Effect of Leadership and Cost Control between External Environment and Organization Structure the Tourism Industry in Tongliao City Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region the People’s Republic of China

This research aims to study the objectives of this study are as follows: (1) to purpose mediating effect of leadership and cost control between external environment and organization structure of the tourism industry in Tongliao city inner Mongolia autonomous region the people’s republic of china. (2) To investigate the factor direct and indirect among external environment and organization structure of the tourism industry in Tongliao city inner Mongolia autonomous region the people’s republic of china. This study adopts a mixed- method approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative study surveyed 2,851 employees from 35 SMEs in the tourism industry in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, through questionnaire surveys, with a sample of 400 employees. The qualitative research method involved in-depth interviews with 3 senior management personnel.  Major Findings: To investigate and analyze the causal factors influencing the organizational structure of the tourism industry in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China, this study conducted a detailed analysis based on the structural equation model shown in the image. According to the model results, the Chi-square value is 248.663, the degrees of freedom are 106, the CMIN/df is 2.346, the sample size is 400, the CFI is 0.954, the NFI is 0.924, the GFI is 0.951, the IFI is 0.955, the RMSEA is 0.043, and the SRMR is 0.048. These indicators demonstrate a good model fit. Specifically, the key influencing factors include Leadership (LEA), Organizational Resources (ORS), Employee Efficiency (EE), and Cultural Construction (CCL). Among them, the impact coefficient of Leadership on Organizational Resources is 0.52, the impact coefficient of Organizational Resources on Employee Efficiency is 0.63, and the impact coefficient of Employee Efficiency on Cultural Construction is 0.75. Additionally, Leadership indirectly influences Cultural Construction through Organizational Resources. These causal relationship data provide important references for optimizing the organizational structure of the tourism industry in Tongliao City.

WEAVING THE HARMONY OF CULTURES INTO THE INFINITE TAPESTRY OF MATHEMATICS

This study explores Ethnomathematics as an innovative and transformative approach to teaching mathematics, highlighting its potential to promote inclusive and culturally relevant education. Ethnomathematics challenges the traditional view of mathematics as a neutral and universal science, proposing it as a cultural construct that reflects the practices, values, and needs of different social groups throughout history. By integrating students’ cultural realities into the school curriculum, this approach not only enriches mathematics education, making it more accessible and meaningful, but also serves as a catalyst for social inclusion and educational equity. Ethnomathematics promotes a dialogue between formal academic knowledge and diverse cultural practices, suggesting that mathematics education should be deeply contextualized and connected to students’ everyday experiences. This transforms mathematics education into something more relevant and engaging, while valuing and acknowledging the cultural traditions that shape students’ identities. This integration is seen as a form of social justice, as it challenges the hegemony of Western mathematical knowledge and values ​​the contributions of other cultures. To understand how Ethnomathematics can be effectively incorporated into the school curriculum, the study uses a rigorous bibliographical analysis, based on works by renowned authors such as Ubiratan D'Ambrósio, Milton Rosa, and Daniel Clark Orey. This detailed analysis allowed us to identify the main theoretical and practical contributions of Ethnomathematics, as well as highlight pedagogical strategies that value students' cultural traditions and adapt teaching materials for a more inclusive mathematics education. The study points to Ethnomathematics as a promising path for an education that respects and values ​​cultural diversity, promoting the development of critical and socially engaged citizens. This approach contributes to the construction of a more just and egalitarian society, where all forms of mathematical knowledge are recognized and celebrated.

Exploring Culturally Responsive Voice Care: Introduction

Purpose: The purpose of this introduction is to broadly discuss cultural responsiveness and serve as a prelude to the forum articles, which discuss specific aspects of cultural responsiveness within voice care. Conclusion: Cultural responsiveness encompasses practices that consider the patient's cultural beliefs, values, and perspectives in all aspects of the therapeutic process. Voice is a cultural construct, and as such, the presence or impact of a voice disorder is impacted by a patient's culture. Each article in this forum is briefly introduced.

Exploring the Construction of University Campus Culture in the Multi-Campus Educational Setting

The establishment of new campuses has expanded the educational space, while bringing about integration and connection issues in campus culture across different campuses, questioning the homogeneity of university campuses. The main issue facing the construction of campus culture in a multi-campus setting is how to address the coordination of cultural integration among multiple campuses to achieve uniform quality across campuses. Inheritance serves as the foundation of campus culture construction in a multi-campus setting, connection acts as the path, and innovation points the direction. Strategies such as cultural edification, value shaping, cultural exchange, and social interaction can be adopted to promote campus culture construction.

Early childhood education student teachers’ perceptions of implementing a bicultural curriculum

ABSTRACT This article explores how early childhood student teachers are developing competency to implement bicultural practices in New Zealand. It uses surveys and focus-group interviews to examine 162 student teachers’ understanding of the early childhood curriculum, and its implementation during their three-year degree initial teacher education programme. Results showed that the term “bicultural curriculum” was not well understood, and there was confusion over whether Te Tiriti o Waitangi or the Treaty of Waitangi forms the basis of the bicultural curriculum. Student teachers lacked confidence in competently using te reo (the Māori language) within their daily practices and articulating tikanga Māori (cultural constructs).

Research on the Construction and Management Strategies of Dormitory Culture for Students in Vocational Colleges

Research on the Construction and Management Strategies of Dormitory Culture for Students in Vocational Colleges

The correlative factors of enterprise culture and enterprise human resource based on data analysis and federated learning

Under the current big topic of enterprise management, how to cultivate, use, and maintain talents is the critical problem of modern human resource management. Based on big data mining, cloud computing, and other related model optimization technologies, this study explores the crucial significance of enterprise culture construction and enterprise human resource management in achieving the business objectives of the entire enterprise. The establishment of this model also means that the enterprise’s profit margin and business indicators have been improved and developed under a certain model. The case results demonstrate that the optimized competency model is significant to studying corporate culture management system behavior, policy analysis, and improving corporate human resource management policies.

Inne kobiety: lethal lesbians i lesbian chic – oblicza i ewolucje wizerunku homoseksualnych kobiet w hollywoodzkich thrillerach lat dziewięćdziesiątych

The article showcases different images and aspects of lesbian characters in 1990s, with special focus on the media landscapes and Hollywood neo-noir thrillers. Stereotypical themes like lethal lesbians and their impact in American cinema are tied with early 90s trends of media portrayal of lesbian chic. The author also highlights the various restrictions of lesbian characters in mainstream cinema, that allows only the visually attractive images of homosexual body to be shown on the screen. Whole article also depicts evolutions of homosexual’s images in 90s media and cinema, the role of male gaze and society fears after the previous homophobic decade in these cultural constructions.