This paper examines how cross-cultural encounters shape student learning and development in higher education. Guided by the local adage “If you don’t know, you cannot love,” the study situates intercultural contact theory within Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation and the largest Muslim community. It highlights the experiences of interisland students, who face linguistic, academic, and social challenges similar to those faced by international students. Using grounded theory methodology, the study encompasses document analysis, observations, surveys, and interviews with 650 administrators, professors, and students at a public university. Region of origin, ethnicity, and religion emerge as key markers of identity. Positive contact is the most memorable aspect of college and is fostered through friendships, student organizations, service learning, and the encouragement of authorities. Negative contact is related to religious fundamentalism, minority resentment, and inadequate institutional support.

ABSTRACT Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with an array of physical, psychological and social changes. Adopting positive coping mechanisms following a TBI is important in maximising recovery outcomes including psychological wellbeing and quality of life. Using grounded theory methodology, this study explored the lived experiences of individuals recovering from severe TBI and the development of coping strategies. The research responds to a recognised gap in survivor-centred literature by prioritising the voices of individuals living with the long-term consequences of TBI. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight participants who sustained severe TBIs, capturing rich qualitative data on the psychological, social and cognitive challenges encountered during recovery. Five interrelated factors emerged as critical to the development of coping strategies: Purpose, Management and Acceptance which were found to interact dynamically, with Support and Understanding determining to adoption of Effective TBI Coping. The resulting TBI Model of Coping offers a survivor-informed framework that provides new insights into recovery processes following severe TBI. This research highlights the importance of tailored psychological support and the need for interventions that consider the multifaceted nature of coping. The model has practical implications for neurorehabilitation services and contributes to the advancement of personalised care for TBI survivors.

This study aimed to immerse itself in the most important cultural aspects that tourists see as the main part of their food experience in Chongqing, a city with an active culinary life. We used semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 50 tourists who had recent culinary travel experience in Chongqing. The interview data were systematized with the grounded theory coding process. It was found that six essential themes characterizing the cultural climate of the culinary experience in Chongqing can be taken as Sensory Immersion, Atmospheric Energy (Yanhuoqi), Communal Dining, Procedural Knowledge, Historical Symbolism, and Authenticity Seeking. The research adds a multi-dimensional and granular paradigm for perceiving cultural aspects of a food destination. Through the deconstruction of the taste of place, it gives detailed, contextual information about the manner in which the tourists both interpret and experience food culture. The results have profound practical implications for both destination marketers in relation to the manner in which they can develop powerful cultural narratives and to policymakers on the role of maintaining intangible culinary heritage.

(Mis)using grounded theory in translation and interpreting studies: a meta-method review

Ground State Theory Study of Aircraft Fuel Tank Cool-Oxygen Reductive Inerting System

This grounded theory study examines how socioeconomically disadvantaged and predominantly Black fathers construct fatherhood identity amid systemic adversity. Drawing on 11 focus groups with 40 fathers enrolled in a U.S. Midwestern fatherhood program, the study explores the multidimensional nature of fatherhood and the ways in which structural, interpersonal, and identity-based factors shape paternal engagement. Using iterative coding and comparative analysis, findings reveal three central themes: (a) evolving dimensions of engaged fatherhood that transcend biological ties and traditional patriarchal norms; (b) navigation of intersecting structural challenges, including incarceration, racism, and financial instability, that constrain father involvement; and (c) the role of trauma, social support, and cultural identity in fostering resilient fatherhood. Using a trauma-informed, life-course framework in combination with intersectionality and critical race theory, this study develops a conceptual model illustrating how marginalized fathers balance systemic pressures with sources of strength, such as peer support, co-parenting, and emotional growth. The analysis challenges deficit-based narratives by highlighting fathers' adaptive strategies and internal motivations to remain present in their children's lives. Implications include the need for culturally responsive, trauma-informed programming and policies that affirm marginalized fathers' capacity to nurture, guide, and advocate for their children despite structural inequities.

This study explores how high school teachers adapt and continue education amidst the dilemmas of the Achievement Standards-Based Assessment System (ASBAS). Twelve high school teachers with three or more years of ASBAS experience were interviewed, and the data were analyzed using grounded theory approach. The central phenomenon emerged as “the paradoxical process of adapting and coexisting with unresolved assessment dilemmas”, with the core category as “surviving as a high school teacher in the ASBAS dilemma.” The dilemma was triggered by the system's mixed structure and teachers' skeptical views, and sustained by insufficient peer collaboration, lack of guidelines, and excessive workload. The key finding is the identification of three adaptive mechanisms: curriculum and assessment expertise, educational beliefs and assessment philosophy, and situational awareness and judgment. Based on these mechanisms, teachers were differentiated into three types: Formal Acceptance, Practice Maintenance, and Creative Reconstruction. The outcomes were paradoxical, showing both positive results (expertise expansion, emotional fulfillment) and negative ones (burnout, fatigue), indicating that the dilemma transforms and cycles rather than being resolved. The study revealed teachers as adaptive implementers who reinterpret and reconstruct policy. Theoretically, it extends Berman's (1980) policy adaptation typology with a ‘mechanism-centered’ approach, explaining why and how teachers adapt differently. It conceptualizes the ASBAS dilemma not as an object to be solved but as a continuous tension that teachers must coexist with and manage. The study suggests reforms in entrance exam structure, clear separation from relative grading, reduction of administrative burden, and practical qualitative support.

Some gender diverse young people (GDYP) socially transition-a process of changing from living as the gender that they were assigned at birth to another gender, through social means. Whilst the role of the whole family in the social transitions of GDYP has been indicated, there is a lack of applicable theory and research on the processes of social transition within UK families. The aim of the current study was to address this gap by building a grounded theory of the social transition of young people within the family context. We conducted one-to-one, semi-structured interviews with nine participants from four UK families (four GDYP and five parents). All participants were recruited through the UK Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Data were analysed using grounded theory methodology. The developed theory suggests that the social transition of young people within the family context is a young person-led family resilience process, through which families work towards the young person experiencing greater acceptance and belonging. The process consisted of several adaptive subprocesses and was influenced by contextual factors. In managing the challenges of social transition and particularly non-affirming responses, families increased in resourcefulness and developed the understanding and tolerance of their communities. Further research is needed, particularly in families of different racial backgrounds, and to assess the applicability of the model to families without an affirming parent. Implications are considered within the context of recent changes in UK clinical service provision and developments in educational guidance.

This study examines the decision-making processes of young Iranian adults who intentionally delay marriage. In recent decades, economic shifts, expanded educational opportunities, and evolving cultural values have transformed marriage patterns in Iran, challenging traditional expectations of early marriage. Using a grounded theory approach, qualitative interviews were conducted to explore participants’ lived experiences. Analysis identified key motivations for postponing marriage, including financial independence, educational attainment, emotional maturity, and personal growth. Findings reveal that delaying marriage is a strategic response to modern life complexities rather than merely a reaction to hardship. Two major consequences emerged: empowerment through independence, enhancing life choices and agency; and emotional sacrifice, including loneliness, suppressed emotions, and tension with traditional norms. Overall, marriage delay reflects young adults’ active negotiation of uncertainty and societal expectations. Policies supporting education, employment, housing, and more flexible cultural narratives may assist youth in navigating diverse pathways to adulthood and family formation.

Not knowing whether a loss has occurred imposes a profound burden on families. To explore lived experiences of older Iranian parents of missing-in-action martyrs and develop an explanatory grounded theory of their grief. Using Corbin and Strauss’s grounded theory approach, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 older parents in central Iran. Data were obtained via purposive and theoretical sampling and analyzed using constant comparative methods. The core concern was a persistent state of uncertainty—termed “endless grief”—manifesting as a cyclical tension between hope and despair in the absence of a body or grave. The central phenomenon, labeled “Incomplete Grief in the Shadow of Hope,” integrated key categories: waiting and searching; informational contradictions; ineffective institutional and social support; maintenance of symbolic bonds with the martyr; acceptance and spirituality; and diverse coping strategies. Coping ranged from adaptive (reliance on spirituality, family responsibilities) to maladaptive (social withdrawal, suppression), often providing temporary relief while sustaining hope. Unresolved grief produced psychological, social, emotional, and physical consequences, including depression, anxiety, isolation, strained relationships, and declining health. Findings align with and extend ambiguous loss theory by showing how grief can be socially, spiritually, and institutionally maintained over time. The results underscore the need for culturally sensitive, age-appropriate interventions that acknowledge unresolved loss and support dignity and emotional well-being in later life.

This qualitative study explored what motivates urban students in an accelerated honors high school to learn. Forty-four students in grades 9-12 responded to a single, open-ended question: “What motivates you to learn?” Using grounded theory, the findings indicated that family was the primary motivator. Intrinsic motivation increased from grades 9-10 to 11-12, was higher among females, and was positively correlated with GPA.

ABSTRACT An interprofessional care model is crucial to advancing the quality of integrated, patient-centered care, particularly in critical situations. The purpose of this study was to develop an interprofessional care model for newborns and their families experiencing neonatal death and dying. This is an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design with three phases. Data were collected in two public neonatal units in Brazil. In Phase I, quantitative data were collected from 66 healthcare professionals using two instruments: demographic characterization and the Profile of Attitudes Toward Death – Brazilian version. In Phase II, qualitative data were collected and analyzed using Grounded Theory with 13 professionals. Phase III evaluated the proposed model. The model emphasizes sensitive and holistic care, tailored to the needs of newborns and families experiencing neonatal death and dying. It emphasizes adequate training for the healthcare team, along with a strong support network, solid teamwork, a supportive environment, clear and positive interprofessional and professional-family communication, time reserved for parents with the newborn, and a time to say goodbye. The model was evaluated as suitable for guiding interprofessional teams in the context of neonatal death and dying, with a Content Validity Index (CCI) above 80% in all categories. Although communication and family support are pillars of palliative care, the model proposed in this study stands out for its systematic approach to integrating team support, recognizing that the attitude and well-being of professionals are crucial to the provision of sensitive and holistic interprofessional care. Future research should apply, test, and adjust the model in real neonatal settings.

This study employed a secondary constructivist grounded theory analysis of qualitative data from The Rainbow Connections Study, a community-based system dynamics project. Data were collected through eight group model-building sessions conducted via Zoom with 28 LGBTQ+ participants, including older adults, youth, transgender and gender-diverse individuals, and staff from the LGBTQ+ community center who also held service and practitioner roles; analytic claims are framed to reflect this mixed-role sample. Sessions were audio- and video-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding procedures. Constant comparative methods, reflexive memoing, and member checking were used to support analytic rigor and trustworthiness. Analysis revealed a dynamic process in which LGBTQ+ individuals encounter external forces within healthcare systems that alternately support or fragment their sense of self. In response, participants engaged in four interconnected internal processes-interconnecting selves, intra-community support, self-determined care, and meaning-finding-that facilitated movement toward wholeness. These processes were non-linear, iterative, and present across diverse identities and life stages. The emergent theory of Constructing Wholeness in Connecting to Healthcare highlights that LGBTQ+ healthcare experiences extend beyond access and utilization to include identity integration, community reliance, and meaning making. Supporting LGBTQ+ health requires healthcare approaches that affirm wholeness, reduce structural harm, and recognize the central role of community in navigating care.

People with serious mental illness are at high risk for self-neglect. To develop effective intervention strategies, it is important to understand the participant's own needs to overcome self-neglect. This study aimed to create a theoretical framework revealing the structure of self-neglect based on the lived experiences of participants with serious mental illness. The study was based on the constructivist grounded theory approach. Data were collected from 24 participants using a semi-structured interview form and analysed using constant comparative analysis. The study was reported in accordance with the Guideline for Reporting and Evaluating Grounded Theory Research. Analysis yielded the core category navigating self-neglect in the context of serious mental illness, representing a dynamic process through which participants experienced a gradual erosion of self-care and agency. The core category interacted with three other categories: being drawn into self-neglect, health problems that turn the wheel of self-neglect, and overcoming self-neglect: the need for balancing and compensatory factors. This study provides a theoretical framework of self-neglect of participants with serious mental illness. It can help mental health nurses understand the structure of self-neglect and can facilitate the development of interventions that will prevent self-neglect and compensate for its effects.

ABSTRACT The work of third space practitioners, especially academic literacy practitioners (ALPs), has received little research attention in South African higher education. In this paper, I apply Felt and Fochler’s (2012) ‘epistemic living spaces’ (ELS) to explore ALP agency and professional identity. ELS provides ‘cultural categories’ to explore how researchers (ALPs) feel ‘at home’ in their space, how they understand their ways of being, and how they know what values matter [Felt, U., Ed. 2009. Knowing and Living in Academic Research, Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague]. I map out how ALPs occupy their ELS (their temporal, epistemic, spatial, symbolic, and social spaces) with data from my doctoral research. The participants were ALPs from 9 public higher education institutions in South Africa. Data were generated from questionnaires (n = 96) and semi-structured interviews (n = 15). I present a new way of conceptualising an ALP's centre of praxis [Hadley, G. 2015. English for Academic Purposes in Neoliberal Universities: A Critical Grounded Theory. Switzerland: Springer] and explore how working in the third space affects their agency and identity. I also challenge common-sense discourses about ALPs, which may assist higher education managers in making strategic decisions about academic literacies work.

The Experiences and Needs of Individuals with a Variant of Uncertain Significance on Genetic Tests for Hereditary Cancer Syndromes:A Grounded Theory Study.

Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder related to childhood maltreatment (PTSD-CM) show limited response to treatment on pre-post-symptom measures. While a nuanced understanding of nonresponse is crucial for improving treatment, quantitative measures may not fully capture clinically meaningful processes of change from the patients' perspectives. We therefore explored how individuals with PTSD-CM who showed no or limited numerical improvement after trauma-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy (TF-PDT) experienced change. This qualitative study was embedded in a large randomized controlled trial on PTSD-CM (DRKS00021142). From 75 qualitative post-treatment interviews, we purposively sampled eight TF-PDT recipients meeting criteria for numerical nonresponse, defined as current PTSD diagnosis and less than 50% reduction in the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5). Client Change Interviews were analysed using Critical-Constructivist Grounded Theory. We derived two clusters ('Progress-A Double-Edged Sword', 'When Building Trust Collides with the Therapeutic Framework') and one overarching core category ('Unfinished Business'), which captured a dialectic process. Within a responsive therapeutic relationship, patients began confronting their relational trauma, experiencing relief, increased emotional regulation and hope. However, this very engagement surfaced emotional challenges that exceeded what could be addressed within the limited therapeutic framework, leaving the process meaningful but unfinished. What is often labelled as numerical nonresponse in PTSD-CM may reflect a dynamic interplay of emerging improvement and emotional distress that needs more time to unfold. Moreover, the results underscore the value of integrating qualitative, patient-reported outcomes into treatment evaluation and relationship-focused treatment tailored to patients' individual needs.

To understand how human readers navigate a literate landscape that newly includes AI-generated prose, we asked participants (n=76) to read and make decisions about who and/or what is responsible for writing anonymized, “ambiguously-authored” texts. Findings suggest that readers’ assumptions about who and/or what wrote a text are rooted in “felt sense.” Prompting participants to make their “felt sense” explicit allowed us to catalog the evidential warrants participants relied on when making authorship decisions. Enabled by a modified grounded theory approach to analysis, we constructed two main themes. First, readers are “triggered” by certain textual cues that, when combined with prior experiences and knowledge, evidentially warrant assumptions about who and/or what wrote a text. Second, after recognizing the consequences of making one’s felt sense explicit, some readers experience what we call an “axiological crisis.” Axiological crises emerge when participants meta-cognitively hear or see themselves attributing certain characteristics and values to an AI text-generator or human author. We conclude by reimagining the axiological crisis as an opportunity for improving metacognitive awareness about how felt sense affects our reading practices.

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned the landmark case of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leaving abortion access up to individual states. Among others, Texas shut down all legal access to procedural abortion and abortion pills, posing dire risks to young adults engaging in sexual activity. Using grounded theory techniques to analyze qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 32 undergraduate students from a large public university in Texas, this article documents the emotional consequences of the abortion ban among a population that is known for their high rates of sexual activity, both casually in hookups and within relationships. This study focuses on the gendered ways college students emotionally react to the statewide ban on abortion. Results indicate that many women report experiencing the loss of reproductive rights as an emotional burden, sparking their fear, anxiety, and stress. This study details how students’ reactions to the abortion ban are shaped by gendered health inequalities and perceived roles in reproduction.

Although adolescent aggression has received increasing attention, existing interventions often lack specificity and fail to meet the needs of digital-native youth. This study developed a filmmaking intervention, grounded in the Social Information Processing model, art therapy, and narrative therapy, to reduce proactive and reactive aggression. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was used. Sub-study 1 was a randomized controlled trial with 82 adolescents assigned to an intervention group (n = 40) or waiting-list control (n = 42). The filmmaking intervention comprised ten sessions over two months, with assessments of aggression, emotion regulation, and empathy at baseline, post-test, and 3-month follow-up. Sub-study 2 qualitatively explored underlying mechanisms through analysis of 4 micro-films and interviews with 12 students and 4 facilitators using Grounded Theory. Quantitative analyses showed significant time×group interactions in overall aggression (F = 3.28, p = .047, ηp2 = 0.05), reactive aggression (F = 4.69, p = .013, ηp2 = 0.07), and emotion regulation (F = 7.54, p = .001, ηp2 = 0.11). Post hoc tests indicated reductions in overall aggression (MD = - 5.18, p<.001) and reactive aggression (MD = - 3.82, p<.001), and an increase in emotion regulation (MD = 3.97, p<.001) from pre- to post-test. Compared with the control group, the intervention group showed lower overall aggression (MD = - 4.57, p<.001) and reactive aggression (MD = - 3.30, p = .001) and higher emotion regulation (MD = 5.01, p<.001) after the intervention. Qualitative analyses identified 10 categories, suggesting that the intervention reduced aggression by enhancing cognitive competence, emotional intelligence, interpersonal competence, engagement, and psychological capital. Filmmaking was characterized as a narrative therapy approach integrating humanistic and art therapy elements, with recommendations for implementation identified. The filmmaking intervention is moderately effective in reducing adolescent aggression, suggesting its potential as an innovative approach for fostering multiple aspects of adolescent development. This study was retrospectively registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (TRN: ChiCTR2500113469; Registration date: 28/11/2025; https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.html?proj=289296).