Sociocultural Differences Research Articles

Fostering the clinician as teacher: A realist review.

Clinician-teachers, physicians with educational responsibilities in either classroom or clinical setting, are assumed to add value by virtue of their dual role. The clinical responsibilities are often prioritised over the educational tasks. How and under which circumstances clinician-teachers are able to perform their educational role and create added value for different stakeholders is currently unclear. To identify for whom, how and under which circumstances educational activities executed by CTs by virtue of their dual role add value to others. CTs activities linking the system of education and clinical practice beyond direct patient interactions and purposefully executed. A realist review was conducted. Databases were searched in two stages: a narrow conventional search, followed by a comprehensive artificial intelligence-aided search. Studies concerning clinician-teachers' dual role were included. Realist analysis was applied to identify in which contexts resource mechanisms triggered reasoning mechanisms, which led to specific outcomes for different stakeholders. Sixty-six studies were included. In contexts where clinician-teachers' dual role was formally recognised and valued, clinician-teachers benefitted from the credibility and legitimacy bestowed on them, making the transfer of domain-specific knowledge more impactful. In contexts where sociocultural differences between both systems existed, CTs were able to mediate and adjust recommendations aligned with stakeholders' perceived relevance. Also, contexts organised to support both roles made resource mechanisms more impactful. Clinician-teachers added value to students' clinical competency and learning environment, and to educational organisations' curricular innovation. In their clinical workspace, clinician-teachers added value by enhancing colleague physicians' teaching expertise, implementing educational innovations and recruiting students for scarce specialisms. Clinician-teachers add value to students, colleague physicians and the clinical and educational contexts at large. Domain-specific knowledge of both systems was important to gain credibility and achieve added value. Openness, formal recognition and allocated time for both roles in educational and clinical contexts towards the dual role are important to strengthen the impact of the dual role.

Exploring Chinese international students’ critical thinking skills: A systematic literature review

AbstractMost graduate students in higher education are classified as adult learners, being 24 years old, and have responsibilities and commitments outside of higher education. This literature review presents how Chinese international graduate students face challenges in the US due to sociocultural, ideological, and educational differences. This systematic literature review explores these students' critical thinking skills, which are crucial factors for academic success but have been underexplored. Three themes were identified as follows: (1) critical thinking education in China, (2) stereotypes of perceived lack of critical thinking, and (3) comparative views of critical thinking between Chinese and American college students. Each theme presents a landscape of how critical thinking is interpreted. Themes suggest several trends, including cultural variations that may impede Chinese international students from showcasing their critical thinking abilities, notwithstanding their inherent capacity for critical thinking. Recommendations include ways to improve critical thinking among international students and call for more comparative studies between Chinese and American college students. The findings offer valuable insights into the internationalization of higher education curricula and the promotion of global learning.

Contextualising Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP): considering Caribbean countries

ABSTRACT Caribbean nations have leaned on and undergirded their early childhood programmes with Developmentally Appropriate Practices promulgated by the NAEYC. For many years the guidance provided by DAP has been used in both the development of standards of practice for early childhood professionals as well as curriculum development. In recent years however, as Caribbean nations have attempted to employ more Caribbean-centric approaches and understandings of Early Childhood Care and Education, the role of DAP and its applicability to Caribbean Early Childhood Care and Education systems have been questioned. Now that DAP has evolved to provide greater consideration to socio-cultural differences across settings, the role of DAP must be re-examined. This paper focuses on the evolving role of DAP in Caribbean early childhood settings. Importance will be placed on presenting the work of Caribbean early childhood educators in relation to the new philosophical and theoretical tenets of the fourth version of DAP. This paper identifies ways in which the revised DAP position guidelines more readily address cultural and social nuances of ECCE practice in the Caribbean. It also identifies areas where specific focus should be highlighted to ensure that DAP represents the Caribbean reality.

Sex and gender differences in adverse events following influenza and COVID-19 vaccination

IntroductionActive and passive surveillance studies have found that a greater proportion of females report adverse events (AE) following receipt of either the COVID-19 or seasonal influenza vaccine compared to males. In a predominately young adult female population of healthcare workers, we sought to determine the intersection of biological sex and sociocultural gender differences in prospective active reporting of vaccine outcomes, which remains poorly characterized.MethodsThis cohort study enrolled Johns Hopkins Health System healthcare workers (HCWs) who were recruited from the mandatory annual fall 2019–2022 influenza vaccine and the fall 2022 COVID-19 bivalent vaccine campaigns. Vaccine recipients were enrolled the day of vaccination and AE surveys were administered two days post-vaccination for bivalent COVID-19 and influenza vaccine recipients. Data were collected regarding the presence of a series of solicited local and systemic AEs. Open-ended answers about participants’ experiences with AEs also were collected for the COVID-19 vaccine recipients.ResultsFemales were more likely to report local AEs after either influenza (OR = 2.28, p = 0.001) or COVID-19 (OR = 2.57, p = 0.008) vaccination compared to males, regardless of age or race. Males and females had comparable probabilities of reporting systemic AEs after either influenza (OR = 1.18, p = 0.552) or COVID-19 (OR = 0.96, p = 0.907) vaccination. Hormonal birth control use did not impact the rates of reported AEs following influenza vaccination among reproductive-aged female HCWs. Women reported more interruptions in their daily routine following COVID-19 vaccination than men and were more likely to seek out self-treatment. More women than men scheduled their COVID-19 vaccination before their days off in anticipation of AEs.ConclusionsOur findings highlight the need for sex- and gender-inclusive policies to inform more effective mandatory occupational health vaccination strategies. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential disruption of AEs on occupational responsibilities following mandated vaccination for healthcare workers, a predominately female population, and to more fully characterize the post-vaccination behavioral differences between men and women.

Exploring the Multidimensional Characteristics of Selected and Non-Selected White British and British South Asian Youth Cricketers: An Exploratory Machine Learning Approach

Selection into a County Age Group (CAG; under 10–18) programme is the first step for young aspiring cricketers on their journey to achieving professional status. Recognising that the British South Asian (BSA) community represents 30% of those who play recreational cricket compared to less than 5% of those who are selected to play at the professional level in England and Wales, it is important to better understand the characteristics of selected and non-selected players based on ethnicity to identify potential sociocultural differences during selection. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the multidimensional factors that differentiated between selected and non-selected adolescent male cricketers as well as between White British (WB) and BSA selected players into a CAG programme. A total of 82 male participants aged between 14 and 17 years were included (mean = 15.3 ± 1.1 years: selected n = 33 and non-selected n = 49: WB n = 34, BSA n = 44, Other n = 4). In total, 104 characteristics were measured over nine tests, which were subsequently placed into five overarching factors: (a) physiological and anthropometrical, (b) perceptual–cognitive expertise, (c) psychological, (d) participation history, and (e) socio-cultural influences. A Bayesian binomial regression was performed in rSTAN using a weak normal prior to highlight differentiators in selection as well as differences between WB and BSA selected players. The results highlighted that athleticism, wellbeing and cohesion, the number of older brothers, and being born in birth quarters two and three were positively correlated with player selection into a CAG. Conversely, increases in psychological scores, a greater number of younger brothers and older sisters, as well as antisocial behaviour resulted in a reduced chance of player selection. Finally, several developmental factors (i.e., athleticism, wellbeing and cohesion, psychological distress, and levels of anti-social behaviour) differed based on ethnicity. These exploratory findings serve as a useful opening to highlight there are important differences to consider based on selection and ethnicity in CAG cricket.

Changing selection on amino acid substitutions in Gag protein between major HIV-1 subtypes.

Amino acid preferences at a protein site depend on the role of this site in protein function and structure as well as on external constraints. All these factors can change in the course of evolution, making amino acid propensities of a site time-dependent. When viral subtypes divergently evolve in different host subpopulations, such changes may depend on genetic, medical, and sociocultural differences between these subpopulations. Here, using our previously developed phylogenetic approach, we describe sixty-nine amino acid sites of the Gag protein of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) where amino acids have different impact on viral fitness in six major subtypes of the type M. These changes in preferences trigger adaptive evolution; indeed, 32 (46 per cent) of these sites experienced strong positive selection at least in one of the subtypes. At some of the sites, changes in amino acid preferences may be associated with differences in immune escape between subtypes. The prevalence of an amino acid in a protein site within a subtype is only a poor predictor for whether this amino acid is preferred in this subtype according to the phylogenetic analysis. Therefore, attempts to identify the factors of viral evolution from comparative genomics data should integrate across multiple sources of information.

Evidence for the use of atropine to control myopia in children

To describe the effectiveness of using atropine as a method of controlling the progression of myopia in children. This is a systematic review study of literature, which search strategies in the Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS) and PubMed, through different combinations of the descriptors “Myopia”, “Control”, “Children” and “Atropine ” in the 2020-2023 timeframe. After selecting the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 30 articles compose the sample corpus. Atropine concentration is directly related to efficacy, with higher doses being more effective, however, also is associated with the appearance of adverse effects, especially photophobia. The most used dose is 0.01%, which presents positive results in control and fewer side effects; most of these studies involve the Asian population. There is a variation in results between populations, due to the different level of pigment in the iris, in addition to sociocultural differences between ethnicities. The lack of intervention can result in complications, with an increased risk related to the degree among children, and is not reduced with optical correction alone. The use of atropine is promising for controlling myopia in children, however it must be tested in association with other control methods and in different populations, so that the treatment is individualized and carried out in a way that presents results, in addition to reducing complications related to refractive disorder.

Acesso à saúde por mulheres migrantes internacionais e refugiadas no município de São Paulo no contexto da pandemia de Covid-19

The present study is a narrative literature review aimed at understanding the specificities of access to healthcare for international migrants and refugees, with a focus on migrant women, and reflecting on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on this population. Articles were searched in databases in the Virtual Health Library, refining by sources from the Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS), MEDLINE, PubMed Central (PMC), and the Scientific Electronic Library (Scielo). From the articles found, after reading the abstracts, 35 met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed according to the principles of thematic analysis. The literature shows that access to healthcare for international migrants and refugees has specificities that can contribute to a situation of health vulnerability, potentially exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to social inequalities, sociocultural differences, the burden of domestic work, and different forms of violence accentuated during the pandemic, migrant women constitute a severely affected group by the setbacks of the socio-sanitary crisis caused by Covid-19. The scarcity of focused public policies makes it difficult to confront this challenge, which, to be solved, must take into account the socio-economic, cultural, symbolic, and linguistic barriers existing between them and the service, as well as the central role they play in family care, acting as a bridge between the migrant community and the healthcare system

Toury’s Norms as Applied to the Translation of Arabic Literary Texts Into English

This study investigates the applicability of Toury’s norms to the translation of Arabic literary texts into English. It also tackles the translation of sociocultural terms from Arabic literary texts into English and highlights the sociocultural differences between the two languages. Moreover, it uses Toury’s norms to analyze the translated selections of texts by two translators to determine whether each decided to be loyal to the target reader and explain the expression, or if they decided to be loyal to the source text, translate it, and then explain the influence of each decision on the other norms. For this purpose, the researchers selected 40 excerpts from the novel Midaq Alley (1960) by 1988 Nobel Prize winning author (and the “Father of Arabic Literature”), Naguib Mahfouz, along with two translations by Trevor LeGassick (1966) and Humphrey Davies (2011). These 40 texts contained 74 cases or expressions concerning religion, clothing, food, tools, places, and binomials. The study concluded that Toury’s norms (that is, initial norms, preliminary norms, and operational norms) do, indeed, apply to the translation of Arabic literary texts into English. The study shows that the norms are applicable and that the English-translated texts from the Arabic language can be assessed by using these norms.

Latching Medical Students onto a Virtual Breastfeeding Elective During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objectives: To describe the implementation of a successful two-week virtual breastfeeding elective for medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic and characterize student demographics, objective knowledge, and perspectives on breastfeeding before and after the elective. Study Design: We adapted the Santa Rosa Kaiser Permanente Family Medicine breastfeeding residency curriculum to create a two-week virtual medical student elective using Kern's six steps of curriculum development and a competency-based education framework. Educational components included self-paced modules, shadowing experiences, and group didactics. Objective knowledge was assessed with multiple-choice tests before and after the elective compared using a paired t-test. Reflective writing pieces were qualitatively analyzed using the six phases of thematic analysis developed by Braun and Clarke. Results: From 2020 to 2023, 40 medical students completed the elective. Breastfeeding knowledge increased significantly from the pre-test 72% (95% CI: 52-92%) to post-test 91% (95% CI: 81-100%) (p < 0.001). Over 90% of students felt that learning objectives were met well or very well and agreed or strongly agreed that the elective increased their knowledge and confidence in providing anticipatory guidance to breastfeeding parents. Similar themes were shared across students' reflective writing pieces, with nearly 30% (n = 23) of the student essays addressing socio-cultural and racial differences in beliefs surrounding breastfeeding. Conclusion: A virtual breastfeeding curriculum for medical students is well-received by stakeholders (patients, lactation consultants, students, etc.) and improves breastfeeding knowledge and confidence. A virtual elective is an innovative and effective way to deliver breastfeeding education and can be used even when institutional breastfeeding or lactation support is unavailable.

What makes a “distinguished global scholar” in global education? : (Trans)formative experiences toward global mindedness

Having an international experience, often through study abroad, has been a consistent theme in global education. There are a multitude of research studies on how international experiences foster global mindedness. In these studies, it is common for researchers to ask participants to reflect on their international experiences. In contrast, we took an alternative and slightly experimental qualitative approach to dig into the processes of becoming globally minded. Using existing and documented narratives as data, we examined the life-long learning processes of thirteen “distinguished global scholars.” Our study illuminates the (trans)formative experiences that contributed to their global mindedness. Four common themes emerged from our analysis: (1) Experiencing war and/or political tension; (2) Encountering social injustice; (3) Engaging with socio-cultural difference; and (4) Leaving the familiar / reaching out to the unknown. The findings and discussion deepen the understanding of how global mindedness is developed and offers insights for educational interventions.

Образ мира сквозь призму оценочной лексики: трендовое исследование

The article describes the subjective semantics of the associative fields of two axiological stimuli and their role in the formation of the image of the world of Russian speakers of different ages in the trend mode. The associative fields “good” and “bad” are explored in the aspect of sociocultural changes in the axiological part of the image of the world among students of four generations. The research material was taken from the corresponding associative fields of the Dictionary of Associative Norms of the Russian Language ed. by A.A. Leontyev 1977), Russian Associative Dictionary ed. by Yu.N. Karaulov (2002), Russian regional associative base (Siberia and the Far East) ed. by I.V. Shaposhnikova 2008–2023), as well as the results of free associative experiments conducted by the authors in 2023. The purpose of the article is to analyze the associative fields of the stimuli good and bad in the indicated dictionaries and in the free associative experiment (2023); to identify common and different perceptions of these stimuli by native speakers of the Russian language from the point of view of time (the line of generational changes); determine the features of the subjective semantics of the vocabulary under study taking into account stable / dynamic components and the specifics of reflecting changes in the image of the world (the general line of trend research in semantics). The use of a trend approach to establish zones of constant response and possible reasons for changes in the subjective semantics of stimuli made it possible to consider the “associative profile” of images of consciousness that is “specific” to a given culture and language (N.V. Ufimtseva), to identify the sociocultural differences of respondents that influenced their image of the world, connect with changes in life and the historical situation in Russia, the expansion of civil liberties and freedom of speech, the transformation of interests, value guidelines, attitudes towards work and education, the active introduction of foreign cultural values, the spread of borrowed and slang vocabulary. It was found that some of these differences can be traced in dynamics from generation to generation and show in which direction the axiological part of the image of the world is changing.

Social Determinants of Health and Well-being: An Analysis of the Northeast Migrant Workers Living in Delhi

This research article aims to analyze migrants’ health and well-being in the context of Northeast Migrant Workers Living in Delhi. The World Health Organization (WHO) has considered the health of migrants as an important area of inquiry for policy making and the paper is post-migration lived experiences of the workers, which is related to the policy making agenda. An Existing conceptual framework of the social determinants of health and well-being are corroborated. The research design is an empirical work based on the selection of seven urban villages and five residential localities in Delhi. The study population is the Northeast migrant workers working in six occupational groups in the last 1-10 years in the age group 18-44 years with a sample of 120 respondents of both genders male and female including transgender persons. The data was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire followed by in-depth interviews from January 2017 to February 2018 and used qualitative and quantitative data analysis in my research. Among 120 migrant workers, 77.5% reported anxiety, 75.83% life insecurity, 70.83% alienation, 53.33% developed anger, 47.5% vulnerability, 43.33% lack of motivation, 42.5% loneliness, 41.66% feeling of resentment, 40.83% back and joint pains, 39.16% emotional crisis, 38.33% low self-esteem, 35.83% poor concentration, 33.33% self-depreciation, 25.83% poor vision, 2.5% miscarriage. The study shows that the distributions of self-reported health and well-being consequences are unevenly distributed and anxiety is to be found more reported among the migrant workers. The result was cross-checked among the Northeast migrant workers and it was found out that the social determinants such as socio-cultural differences, social discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes against the migrants play important determinants influencing the health and wellbeing of the migrants at the place of destination. Post-migration experience has both positive and negative consequences of health and well-being. The more social networks there are, the better is resilience to adapt to the new environment for better health and well-being and its coping mechanism.

Impact of Sex and Gender Differences on Heart Failure, Especially in Elderly Patients

Heart failure is one of the major health threats in Western societies, and its prevalence is steadily increasing. Many data show the important impact of sex (biological) and gender (sociocultural) differences on most aspects (diagnosis, etiology, treatments, and outcomes) of heart failure. For example, compared to men, women with heart failure are older, have more co-morbidities, and develop different phenotypes of heart failure. Postpartum cardiopathy is unique in women. The iatrogenic effects of cancer therapies are more frequent among women compared to men. Currently, the integration of sex and gender differences into the therapy of heart failure is rare. Consequently, women derive disadvantages from a nonspecifically adapted therapy for heart failure, get worse outcomes, and have more iatrogenic adverse effects than men. This situation is medically unfortunate and increases medical expenditures. A sex-guided approach to the correct evaluation of patients with heart failure should become the cornerstone for the correct management of these patients.

Variation in Dispreferred Responses among Rural and Urban Saudi Arabic Speakers: A Socio-pragmatic Analysis

The study investigates the socio-pragmatic variation in refusals among rural and urban communities speaking Saudi Arabic. A total of 60 male Saudi Arabic speakers participated in a DCT questionnaire, assessing their refusals to invitations and requests. The results showed that both rural and urban speakers primarily use indirect strategies to refuse, involving softening elements to mitigate the impact of the refusal. However, rural speakers tended to use more indirect strategies and show a higher level of concern in their refusals compared to urban speakers. The study also found that individuals in Saudi Arabia are sensitive to social status and relationship distance when engaging in refusal situations. Those of higher social status were less likely to use indirect and softening language. The rural community demonstrated a higher level of concern in their refusals by employing more elaborate responses and greater levels of mitigation compared to the urban community. Understanding these socio-cultural differences in refusal strategies can help prevent misunderstandings and enhance cross-cultural understanding in Saudi Arabian communities.

Phraseology and Culture in Terminological Knowledge Bases: The Case of Pollution and Environmental Law

Despite its importance, environmental law has largely been ignored in environmental knowledge bases. This may be due to the fact that legal issues may not, strictly speaking, be considered scientific knowledge in environmental knowledge resources, which may in turn relate to the complexity of reflecting the cultural component (which includes different legal systems) in the description of terms and concepts. The terminological knowledge base EcoLexicon has recently begun to include information on environmental law. This paper takes the methodological perspective of frame-based terminology to analyze typical verb collocations in environmental law that will be added to the phraseology module of EcoLexicon. Corpus analysis was used to compare the behavior of verbs collocating with pollution in environmental science and environmental law. Verbs were classified based on lexical domains and semantic classes through definition factorization, as described in the Lexical Grammar Model. The differences were mostly based on the specificity of the arguments and the emphasis on the polluter in environmental law. This resulted in a proposal for the inclusion and configuration of environmental law phraseology in EcoLexicon, showing sociocultural differences across environmental subdomains.

Husserlian Neurophenomenology: Grounding the Anthropology of Experience in Reality

Anthropology has long resisted becoming a nomothetic science, thus repeatedly missing opportunities to build upon empirical theoretical constructs, choosing instead to back away into a kind of natural history of sociocultural differences. What is required are methods that focus the ethnographic gaze upon the essential structures of perception as well as sociocultural differences. The anthropology of experience and the senses is a recent movement that may be amenable to including a partnership between Husserlian phenomenology and neuroscience to build a framework for evidencing the existence of essential structures of consciousness, and the neurobiological processes that have evolved to present the world to consciousness as adaptively real. The author shows how the amalgamation of essences (sensory objects, relations, horizons, and associated intuitions) and the quest for neural correlates of consciousness can be combined to augment traditional ethnographic research, and thereby nullify the “it’s culture all the way down” bias of constructivism.

The problem of calculating the prevalence of sexual dysfunction: a meta-analysis attending gender.

Sexuality is an integral part of human health, and sexual dysfunctions are prevalent issues that affect men and women. While reviews on sexual dysfunctions in various diseases have been conducted, overall data are scarce. To update the overall prevalence of sexual dysfunctions from available prevalence studies on both sexes. We used a 2-phase selection process to include cross-sectional studies that were conducted on the adult population and published between 2017 and 2022. The extracted data were prevalence, methodology, sample size, and location. Sensitivity and subgroup analyses were conducted to assess heterogeneity. This review analyzed 4407 studies. Twenty-three met the established criteria: 9 on the male population and 14 on the female population. The meta-analysis included 7 articles on males and 13 on females. The prevalence of sexual dysfunction was 31% in men and 41% in women, with significant heterogeneity among the studies. Sociocultural differences and use of varying measurement methods were identified as the main factors contributing to heterogeneity. Subgroup analysis revealed decreased heterogeneity among studies that used the Female Sexual Function Index as a diagnostic tool for females. The review highlights the notable variability in results due to methodological and geographic variations. Therefore, enhancing the training of professionals and standardizing the recording of patient data-through the Female Sexual Function Index and Male Sexual Health Questionnaire or by developing new ones for this purpose-could improve the consistency of research on sexual health.

Cultural aspects of model formation of socio-economic development in eu regions: a comparative analysis

The article reveals the actual problem of cultural influence on the socio-economic development of the regions in the European Union. The research goal is to compare socio-cultural differences, which are significant factors for determining the vectors of socio-economic development of European countries. The article presents the results of an empirical study of the cultural components of regional models of socioeconomic development on the example of some countries of the European Union. The research materials were official statistics and expert assessments obtained as a result of a survey of specialists from various academic research structures on the social network Twitter. The total number of respondents from 9 European universities was 900 people. The research methodology is based on a sociocultural approach, includes the methods of the general scientific group and of special methods: historiographic analysis of scientific literature on the research topic, the method of comparative analysis, the method of sociological survey, statistical analysis, quantitative and qualitative research methods. Based on the empirical study, the following results were obtained: as the main cultural components that determine the specifics of the socio-economic development of the EU regions, the experts identified the historical context, national mentality, as well as value attitudes of behavior.

Normative data for baseline and longitudinal neuropsychological assessments in Singapore.

Neuropsychological assessments play a vital role in the early detection of cognitive disorders. However, the lack of Singapore-specific norms has resulted in a reliance on international, usually Western, norms that potentially reduce the accuracy and reliability of assessments due to sociocultural differences.1 Moreover, the lack of longitudinal norms limits the reliable monitoring of cognitive changes over time.