ABSTRACT This paper explores how respect is interpreted and integrated into early childhood education curricula in China and Aotearoa New Zealand, through a comparative analysis of the Early Learning and Development Guidelinesearly childhood curricula and Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa Early childhood curriculum (Te Whāriki). Using a social constructionist lens, respect is conceptualised as contextually situated curricular construction. In China’s ELDG, respect is framed as a traditional moral virtue while also foregrounding children’s individuality, autonomy, and opportunities to have a voice. By contrast, Te Whāriki embeds respect within reciprocal relationships with people, places, and communities, underpinned by a synthesis of socio-cultural theories, Māori theory and Pasifika approaches. Rather than treating the two curriculumframeworks as binary opposites, the analysis highlights sharedground and culturally specific emphases shaped by distinctcontexts. The findings inform a culturally responsive understandingof respectful pedagogy and children’s rights in early childhoodeducation.

This qualitative study examines the lived experiences of a small purposively selected sample of women in Israel who had consciously chosen to remain childfree within a strongly pronatalist context. Informed by a constructivist feminist approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with participants who self-identified as childfree by choice. Thematic analysis yielded three themes. The first of these - redefining femininity and the embodied self - shows how participants challenged assumptions that equated womanhood with motherhood, framing femininity as rooted in autonomy and bodily integrity. The second theme - relationships, sexuality, and navigating social expectations - highlights how participants managed reproductive intentions, relational boundaries, and stigma. The third theme - autonomy, freedom, and the validation of choice - demonstrates how participants described childfreeness as a fulfilling life pathway aligned with personal values and emotional freedom. Interpreted through a social constructionist lens, the findings suggest that voluntary childlessness should be understood not as a lifestyle preference but as a consciously articulated identity shaped by moral reasoning and negotiation with social norms. Study findings offer an in-depth account of meaning-making among women who actively claim a childfree identity within a collectivist society.

Childlessness is an increasingly visible phenomenon. Once predominantly associated with high-income settings, it now spans diverse cultural, economic, and political contexts, including the Global South. Among recent demographic shifts, childlessness has emerged as one of the most ideologically charged and widely debated topics in public discourse, particularly through media narratives. Although media are often overlooked in mainstream public health models, they play critical roles as structural and intermediary determinants of health - shaping issue framing, amplifying voices, and legitimizing solutions. Yet little is known about how childlessness is represented in global media, especially outside the Global North and in the post-pandemic era. This study analysed news media representations of childlessness from a public health perspective, drawing on 131 news articles from 101 outlets across 86 countries (2015-2025). Articles were identified through systematic keyword searches in English and 12 additional languages, screened for relevance, and analysed thematically using Braun and Clarke's inductive method. Our approach was discourse-sensitive, drawing on a social constructionist lens and informed by framing theories and reproductive justice. Five themes were identified: The guinea pig of the state; Crazy rich selfish animal lovers; No baby, no cry; Bringing children into a broken world; and Winter regret and loneliness. These narratives operate across structural, intermediary, and individual levels, fulfilling four discursive functions: politicising, moralising, pathologising, and humanising. By examining how childlessness is problematized or legitimized, this study highlights the media's role in shaping reproductive narratives, stigma, and health equity across diverse contexts.

Using a social constructionist lens, this research explored gender dynamics in extracurricular activities among Eswatini high school students. The study used a qualitative narrative inquiry methodology and included semi-structured interviews with 24 purposively selected participants (12 boys and 12 girls) aged 16 to 18 years from four high schools. We gathered data through individual interviews and focus groups. The data showed that cultural expectations and gender stereotypes have a strong influence on extracurricular activities, resulting in considerable inequalities in participation and support for boys and girls. While boys are encouraged to participate in competitive sports and frequently receive stronger institutional support, girls are typically consigned to supportive roles with little options for competitive involvement. Activities like rugby are primarily reserved for boys, supporting traditional gender standards. The study identified the mechanisms by which gender inequalities persist in school settings and recommends structural adjustments to promote greater inclusivity and justice in extracurricular programming.

Leadership styles have traditionally been conceptualised as stable, individual traits or behaviours that determine leadership effectiveness. However, this perspective often overlooks the socially constructed nature of leadership itself. This paper critically reviews the leadership style literature and reinterprets it through a social constructionist lens. By drawing on social constructionism, the study argues that leadership styles are not fixed attributes of individuals but are co-constructed through personal histories, interactions, shared meanings, and organisational contexts. The review highlights how dominant leadership style paradigms implicitly assume universal applicability while neglecting the role of cultural, historical, and discursive influences in shaping leadership perceptions and practices. Through this re-examination, the paper challenges essentialist views of leadership style and instead proposes that leadership emerges dynamically within social processes. It further emphasises how language, power relations, and institutional norms shape what is recognised as effective leadership in different contexts. This perspective has significant implications for leadership development, suggesting that instead of training individuals to adopt pre-defined styles, organisations should focus on fostering reflexivity, adaptability, and contextually grounded leadership practices. From an individual perspective, prospective leaders should focus on understanding their own implicit leadership theories and determining their approach to authenticity.

Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) is a chronic, recurrent inflammatory skin condition that significantly impacts quality of life. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of women diagnosed with HS by amplifying a more integrative, strength-based understanding of the condition. We explored the lived experiences of 25 Canadian women with HS, focusing on their challenges with HS and how they overcame them through strategies of resilience and meaning-making. Reflexive thematic analysis techniques, situated with a feminist social constructionist lens, generated four major themes: (1) Developing Agency in Symptom Management, (2) Cultivating Methods to Cope, (3) Harnessing One's Voice for Advocacy and Change, and (4) Gaining Insight and Growth Through Life-Long Learning. This study provides critical insights into improving care and support for women with HS, emphasizing the importance of patient-centered and holistic approaches to HS care that prioritize resilience and address systemic inequities.

This scoping review explores how the social positioning of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ+) persons impacts their bereavement experiences. Drawing on the key concepts of minority stress and intersectionality, LGBTQ+bereavement is examined through a social constructionist lens. Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) scoping review method is employed to map the existing research on LGBTQ+bereavement published between 2003 and 2023, with specific interest in how this research discusses the impact of identity on bereavement. Findings are presented in four themes: (1) Systemic barriers, (2) Complexities of (not) disclosing identity, (3) Minimising of loss, and (4) LGBTQ+community dis/connection. Employing reflexive thematic analysis to support critical interpretation, findings are explored through the lens of social constructionism, before critiquing the evident lack of intersectional approaches to research in current LGBTQ+bereavement literature. Findings indicate several gaps in the LGBTQ+bereavement literature, and the need for further research in this area to be conceptualised and guided by an intersectional approach.

The training of clinical psychologists is conducted by staff, trainees, service users and carers. Often those working in clinical psychology do so due to their own lived experiences. These stakeholders may require having to navigate both personal and professional identities. Whilst there is motivation to make visible their lived experiences, this action may differ dependent on the roles they are in. This study aimed to understand identities within UK clinical psychology training and to enable effective teamworking. Focus groups were used to socially construct and explore identity constructions of groups in clinical psychology training. The data were thematically analysed using a social constructionist lens. Four themes were found. Theme 1 identified 'dynamics of identity' where personal and professional identities were 'integrated', 'separated', 'permeable' or 'visible/invisible'. Theme 2 found the 'impact of language and labels to rebalance power', encompassing, 'expectations and invalidation of a label' and motivations to 'rebalance the power'. Theme 3 constructed 'learner' and 'expert' identities for each group, and Theme 4 found 'Them & Us divisions' that speak to the 'Barriers', between groups that participants wanted to bridge through modes of 'Connections'. This is the first study to use focus groups to socially construct and explore identities in clinical psychology training. The research gives clarity to identities in clinical psychology training, identifying the unique and common ways different stakeholders negotiate professional and personal identities that can promote understanding between stakeholders and better collaboration.

ABSTRACT Study abroad is laden with socially constructed expectations informed by discourses of place, people, and culture presented through social media, pop culture, word-of-mouth, and marketing. These discourses can shape how students approach and interpret their host countries and study abroad experiences. To better inform language and culture curriculum in study abroad programming, this qualitative case study explored how 13 U.S. students in an introductory Italian language and culture summer course perceived their host country and culture before, during, and after a short-term study abroad programme in Italy. Framed by Urry’s notion of the tourist gaze through a social constructionist lens, the study examined multiple data sources including interviews, participant observation, questionnaires, social media, and course artifacts. Findings identified that students curated their own Italian reality by filtering their experiences through existing frames of reference. They conceptualised Italy through a romanticised lens fuelled not only by stereotypes and singular narratives, but also by sheltered exposure to the broader country. Further, students perpetuated the tourist gaze by reproducing the same discourses that they themselves referenced. The implications support curricular intervention strategies to challenge existing frames of reference and to expose students to broader representations of the host country and culture.

BackgroundDignity is integral to palliative care. Illness can diminish it, causing hopelessness and the wish to hasten death. Yet, dignity is a complex multidimensional phenomenon, influenced by values and context. Understanding its varying interpretations can inform practice and policy. The aim of the study is to explore the understanding of dignity in adult patients with palliative care needs from a Lebanese perspective and how it is preserved during illness and while receiving health services.DesignQualitative interview study underpinned with a social constructionist lens. Fourteen patients recruited from home-based hospice and outpatient clinics in Lebanon. Data analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were developed across all the interviews: (a) Dignity anchored through faith in God and religious practices; (b) Family support in maintaining physical, psychological wellbeing, and social connectedness; (c) Physical fitness, mental acuity, and healthy appearance through which patients may escape the stigma of disease, (d) accessible, equitable, and compassionate healthcare.DiscussionDignity is elusive and difficult to define but faith and religious beliefs play a significant contribution in this study. For the participants, illness is seen as a natural part of life that does not necessarily diminish dignity, but it is the illness related changes that potentially affect dignity. Findings show the importance of family and children in preserving dignity during illness and how their active presence provide a sense of pride and identity. Participants aspired to restore physical, social, and mental well-being to reclaim their dignity and normalize their lives. Challenges related to physical appearance, memory loss, vitality, and social stigma associated with illness diminished dignity. Accessible, equitable and compassionate healthcare services are also crucial in preserving dignity. Participants valued clear communication, respect, and empathy from healthcare providers and identified affordability of care essential for maintaining dignity.ConclusionFaith in God, and strong family ties are dominant elements to maintaining dignity in the Lebanese context. Relational connectedness with family, children or God is also a need in maintaining dignity in other communal countries with variations in emphasis. The study indicates that religious and cultural context shapes the needs and perceptions of dignity during illness. These findings are likely to be transferable to many Middle Eastern countries but also countries with strong religious and family ties globally.

A persistent challenge for Australian higher education policymakers and researchers has been to understand why policies and practices have met with limited success in widening the participation and attainment of non-traditional students. This paper explores theorising Narrative Identity as a constructive methodological framework for understanding non-traditional students’ experiences in higher education. Using this approach, I critically analyse the contrasting experiences of three non-traditional students who successfully transitioned to university via an enabling program but who had significantly different (and unanticipated) levels of engagement and success in their studies. ‘Transformation’ emerged as a recurring theme in students’ perceptions of becoming academically capable students. Applying a social constructionist lens, I explore the intersections and interactions between discourses of disadvantage and transformation within the context of neoliberal higher education structural discourses. Interview data conveys students’ changing values and behaviours, revealed in their rejection of prior ‘not capable’ identities and performance of their new ‘capable student’ identity. Students’ understandings of self provide insights relevant to the sustainability of their ‘capable student’ identity and, therefore, the quality of their engagement and success. The paper concludes with a consideration of Australian higher education policy and urges greater consideration of identity challenges faced by non-traditional HE students.

ABSTRACT Clinically significant psychological distress affects approximately 29.3% of Australian adolescents and 80.6% of sexuality and/or gender diverse youth (SGD-Y). Often, SGD-Y experience inadequate access and lower satisfaction with mental health services, stemming from age- and sexuality and/or gender diversity-status. Accordingly, exploration of factors affecting SGD-Y’s access to, and satisfaction with, mental health services is critical. Using a social constructionist lens, we explored factors supporting SGD-Y’s satisfaction with mental health services, and how these needs are or could be met. Seven LGBTQA+ youth aged 15 to 21 who received counseling in Western Australia in the last year, recruited via a university student participant pool and community organizations, participated in semi-structured interviews via video-conference, phone call, or SMS. Reflexive thematic analysis was inductively applied to participants’ verbatim accounts. Satisfaction was tied to participants’ sense of control over their healthcare-system experiences, shaped by four themes: person-centered support during the service-access process, resources to guide the search for services, confidence in therapists, and healthcare-system organization. Practices and policies supporting SGD-Y’s self-determination during their service access may allow for empowering and personally meaningful therapeutic experiences. Developers of policies and initiatives may need to adopt a systems approach to foster SGD-Y’s self-determination as they access services.

Perspectives and value systems inform our views of antenatal care and childbirth, influencing how they are understood and how care is organised. Professional, academic, institutional and cultural views all influence what we consider maternity care to be, how it should be delivered, and how experiences and outcomes associated with it are measured. The objective of this study was to analyse women's lived experiences of antenatal care within NHS England during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, I sought to understand how the continuity of the care women received influenced women’s experiences, with the aim of identifying areas for improvement with respect to well-being and satisfaction with care. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 6 women who had given birth up to 24 months prior. I analysed transcribed texts using a reflexive thematic approach, undertaken through a social constructionist lens. I developed three themes in the analysis. These were: the impacts of poor communication, the impacts of not being heard, and fear of the unknown. Participants emphasised the need for a person-centred care model and more specifically, a midwife-led continuity of care model. Early antenatal care and late antenatal care were identified as two critical periods of care when women require the greatest levels of advocacy and support. Based on this analysis, the NHS maternity framework could make improvements to information organisation and sharing, the encouragement of active patient participation in care, and the promotion of shared decision-making. Greater attention to how holistic perspectives and medical perspectives could be blended to broaden understandings of what successful birth experiences could be, is required to validate women's antenatal needs and subsequently improve maternity care outcomes.

Social media technology not only affords opportunities for digital activism and global liberation, but it also poses threats to the freewheeling of democracy. The emergence and prevalence of conspiracy theories on social media stem from communal processes of online political debate or social movements that degenerate into conspiracy beliefs. This study views the online formation of conspiracy theories as a socially emergent process. Subscribing to a social constructionist lens and synthesizing extant literature on social movements and social media affordances, we conducted discourse analysis on discursive data collected from Twitter for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Fraud Conspiracy Theory. Through the analysis, we delineate the formation of conspiracy theory into four stages and characterize each stage according to its mobilizing structure, participants, mode of interaction, content created, and discernible collective action. We also identify social media affordances facilitating the formation of conspiracy theories within and across stages. Findings of this study advance contemporary knowledge on conspiracy theories by not only extending our understanding of the role of social media in conspiracy theory formation, but they also aid practitioners in comprehending the formation process of conspiracy theory formation, the latter of which constitutes the foundation for devising appropriate prevention and mitigation strategies.

Recently, scholars have looked at the ethnic press through a social constructionist lens, examining the process through which immigrants developed a sense of identity and the role of print culture in forming “imagined communities” (Anderson). Here, I analyze the coverage of the 1909 assassination of police Lieutenant Petrosino in both mainstream and Italian-American press and popular culture. This shocking event ignited a debate over the nature and origin of the Mafia and the dangerousness of the Italian community, a debate involving discourses of racial difference, immigration restriction, and the capability of Italians to assimilate. This debate became an important arena in which Italian immigrants defined themselves and their place in America. Italians were represented predominantly in the context of criminality, so immigrant writers constructed their own counter-representations in newspapers, re-coding stereotypes and negotiating a collective Italian-American identity. In the press, Petrosino became a contested symbol: on the one hand, of the rhetoric of the inclusiveness of the American melting pot and, on the other, of the possibility of redemption from the discredit that the actions of a small minority threw on the whole community.

Motherhood during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought forward a host of parenting challenges to the forefront and crystallized the already existing invisible workload and stress on mothers. With the usual support system in the form of schools, day-care, extra-curricular activities all vanishing overnight since March 2020, the process of mothering has been affected with higher physical and emotional labour and a greater responsibility for managing care of the children and household while playing a multitude of roles – mother, partner, guardian, friend, employee and employer – ensuring everyone is safe! Unfortunately, the pandemic has adversely affected professionally employed mothers around the world, often making them rethink their careers with the increase in overall workload and juggling the demands of work and childcare and household chores. This chapter is an endeavour using an autoethnographic method towards understanding the lived experiences of performing motherhood through the eyes of an Indian academic mother. As an academic mother, there have been challenges towards dedicatedly engaging with teaching online, learning, research and publishing, and productivity demands while actively mothering a young child and making sure the house runs like clockwork, all played out in the unfamiliar ground of pandemic survival. Even though there have been advances made in the current Indian sociocultural landscape, there are still tropes of patriarchy present within the system, which further exacerbates the mothering challenges. Using a social-constructionist lens, this personal account will present a slice of change within the traditional Indian family system through the lens of gender equality – equal parenting and shared responsibility within the household. Along with this, how building elements of self-compassion and mindfulness practices in the author’s daily routine aided in skilfully manoeuvring the grips of COVID-19 fatigue will also be presented. I hope this personal narrative will extend support to fellow Indian academic mothers towards advocating for more structural changes both within themselves, while highlighting the need for self-care and grace as well as within their homes towards a more balanced and shared responsibility of performing motherhood through the pandemic.

This paper explores androcentrism permeating theory and perception of Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). The author adopts a social constructionist lens, arguing that this androcentrism may cause harm to autistic girls. This matter is considered in light of the ethical duties of educational psychologists (EPs) in the United Kingdom (UK), relating to the self-identities of autistic girls as well as recognition of, and provision for, this demographic. Suggestions for EPs are offered in responding to this ethical challenge.

AimsThe aim of the study was to explore whether, and how, professional nurse educator identity is co‐constructed by a community of practice.DesignA critical participatory action research (PAR) methodology was used as it extends the principles of action research by seeking purposeful and sustainable social change that recognizes participants as researchers and generators of knowledge.MethodsTwenty‐two sector‐based nurse educators employed as either nurse educators or clinical nurse educators participated in the critical PAR. Multiple methods of data generation were pursued in a cyclic and sequential manner consistent in an action research process. Three distinct phases of the research across 2015–2017 involved the generation of data before, during and after the establishment of a nurse educator community of practice. A social constructionist lens of analysis was used to explore the social and relational outcomes. The COREQ checklist was used to appraise the study report.ResultsA sustained period of community of practice engagement enhanced the participants' relationships and shifted their perceived professional identities towards being validated nurse educators with a stronger collective sense of their roles.ConclusionFor this group of nurse educators, participation in the research resulted in collective meaning‐making, praxis, knowledge generation and the co‐construction of their professional identities.

Research seeking to understand and improve sexuality-related practice in mental health settings has paid little attention to the institutional context in which clinicians' practice is embedded. Through a social constructionist lens, we used thematic analysis to examine how 22 Australian mental health clinicians implicated the wider institutional context when discussing and making sense of sexuality-related silence within their work. Interviews were part of a study exploring participants' perceptions of sexuality and sexual health in their work more generally. Broader silences that shaped and reinforced participants' perceptions and practice choices were situated in professional education; workplace cultures; and the tools, procedures and policies that directed clinical practice. We argue that sexuality-related silence in mental health settings is located in the institutional context in which clinicians learn and work, and discuss how orienting to this broader context will benefit research and interventions to improve sexuality-related practice across health settings.

Abstract Based on a qualitative case analysis conducted in Shenzhen in 2020, this study explored how self-care and childcare as two parenting discourses influence the discursive practices of the parent education practitioner to design and implement a mother growth workshop. Through a social constructionist lens and Foucauldian discourse analysis, both dominant and alternative parent education discourses were identified. These discourses framed the available subject positions for the parent education practitioner, which further influenced her strategies for promoting self-care of mothers during practice. Moreover, this study theorised self-care as an example of the integration of disciplinary and constitutive powers which led to the production of normalised subjectivities for parent education practitioners and participants. Findings of this study offered theoretical and practical implications for future research and social work practice in humanistic- and social constructionist-oriented parent education.