📄 social science

Teachers as Guardians of School Belonging and Resilience among Left-Behind Adolescents: A Qualitative Case Study of a Chinese High School

This qualitative case study of a Chinese high school reveals how teachers actively foster school belonging and resilience among left-behind adolescents by recognizing specific risk ecologies and implementing targeted relational and academic practices that translate environmental support into students' internal adaptive capacities.

Meizhu LYU, Huan Liu2026-10-07
📄 social science

Constructing Welcome: Refugee Origin, Regional Socio-Political Culture, and Willkommenskultur in German Media

This paper argues that Germany's "welcome culture" is not a coherent national discourse but a contested symbolic field shaped by the intersection of refugee origin and enduring regional socio-political cultures, with former East German media consistently framing migration through anxieties about national identity regardless of whether refugees are from Syria or Ukraine.

Min Ji Kim, Eugene Chiou2026-10-07
📄 social science

When Silence Is Not Exit: What Publication-Affiliation Traces Can and Cannot Reveal About Researcher Mobility in Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates

This paper proposes a refined bibliometric framework to distinguish between actual researcher emigration, temporary publication gaps, and administrative censoring, revealing that traditional indicators significantly overestimate permanent mobility in Oman, Qatar, and the UAE by failing to account for the frequent resumption of research activity and return to local affiliations.

AHMED Shehata2026-10-07
📄 social science

The role and impact of artificial intelligence in the development and evaluation of doctoral theses: a qualitative analysis

This qualitative study examines the dual impact of AI tools on doctoral thesis creation and evaluation, revealing that while they enhance efficiency and writing quality, they also pose significant challenges to critical thinking and academic integrity, thereby necessitating clear institutional guidelines, updated evaluation standards, and transparent policies to ensure a balanced integration of technology in higher education.

Fakher Jaoua2026-10-07
📄 social science

Peer Review Trajectories of Disruptive Research: Evidence from Reviewer Comments, Review Rounds and Author Responses

By analyzing peer review histories from PLOS ONE, this study reveals that disruptive research undergoes slightly longer acceptance trajectories driven by author response times and faces a higher proportion of negative comments regarding clarity, substance, and originality, suggesting a selective challenge in evaluative legibility before publication.

Chenggang Yang, Chengzhi Zhang2026-10-07
📄 social science

Coverage of care workers in national labor laws and policies: a comparative legal study of 10 countries

This comparative legal study of 10 countries reveals that while many national laws recognize protections for care workers, most fail to fully cover them, with only the United Kingdom meeting all four key indicators of access to protective equipment, anti-discrimination safeguards, unemployment insurance, and union rights.

Vishakh Unnikrishnan, Eric Friedman, Matthew M Kavanagh, Catherine Kane2026-10-07