Journals
2026 EN
McPeake Emma · Lamore Kristopher · Boujut Émilie
+6 more
Whilst the prevalence of autistic students attending university in France is increasing, limited research has explored the experiences of university professors and disability support staff in French higher education. The current study sought to fill this gap in the literature using a qualitative research design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 university staff members (14 university professors, 8 disability support office staff, 4 ‘other support professionals’). Data was analysed using thematic analysis. Six main themes were identified: (1) Taking a holistic approach, (2) Adapting communication, (3) Relying on intuition, (4) What diagnosis? (5) The benefits of inclusion and (6) Navigating levels of support. Themes describe how participants engaged autistic students in higher education, their challenges, and their successes. Whilst professionals sought to provide personalised support to students, the analysis indicates more training and support is required as university staff reported a range of difficulties supporting autistic students at university. Results from the current study can contribute to the development of policy and practice with regard to the implementation of inclusive practices in French higher education. Of note, participants highlighted the need to access more holistic support from a range of professionals in addition to further training.
Journals
2026 EN
Harkin Lydia · Stevenson Clifford · Fino Emanuele
+7 more
Older adults face an elevated risk of social isolation, loneliness, and poor psychological health. This mixed methods study evaluates a trial of an intervention app designed to protect against loneliness by raising older adults’ awareness of their social relationships. A 4-week online mixed methods randomised 2 (condition: app use vs waitlist) x 3 (timepoint: baseline, 2 week, and 4 week wellbeing) trial, with follow up qualitative interviews. Older adults ( N = 99, Mean Age = 68) completed a survey at three timepoints (baseline, two, and four weeks) reporting loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Forty-five post-trial interviews were conducted with the app users and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. A significant interaction effect was found; participants using the app reported a significant reduction in depression scores between baseline and four-week follow-up. There was no significant effect on loneliness or anxiety scores. Interviews revealed ways app users were (1) Holding up a mirror to feelings about their social groups, (2) Re-appraising loneliness; and (3) Acting as analysts. The digital intervention reduced reported depression by enhancing positive appraisal of social groups. Further work is required to understand how to overcome risks of reflection-based apps for loneliness.
Journals
2026 EN
Labonté Katherine · Nielsen Daiva E. · Dubé Laurette
+1 more
The present study evaluated associations between social environment profiles and cognitive outcomes among generally healthy adults using cross-sectional data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) Comprehensive Cohort ( n = 19,793). Latent class analysis classified participants into social environment profiles based on social network size, social support, social cohesion, and social isolation. Three profiles emerged, which were labeled as representing weaker, intermediate, and stronger social environments (16.6%, 40.4%, and 42.9% of the sample, respectively). Scores on eight cognitive tests were combined into three domains: executive function, episodic memory, and prospective memory. Analyses of covariance assessed associations between the social environment profiles and executive function and episodic memory, while prospective memory was assessed with logistic regression. Significant associations between the social environment profiles and the three cognitive domains were observed among all statistical models (all p ≤ 0.001). Executive function and episodic memory scores significantly differed between all three profiles, while prospective memory differed between the weaker and stronger profile. The effect sizes of associations were weak, potentially reflecting the generally cognitively healthy sample. The social environment is linked with cognitive functioning, but further research is needed to assess the clinical relevance and utility as a target for health promotion.
Journals
2026 EN
Therrien Catherine · Phipps Catherine
This interdisciplinary article examines mixed families in Morocco from French colonial rule to the present day, focusing on experiences and perception of mixed individuals within Morocco. Our comparative approach considers a 1949 French colonial study, post-independence magazine articles, and 73 in-depth interviews from 2018 to 2022. We focus on how concerns around social cohesion, the transmission of Islam, and racial categories construct symbolic boundaries around children of mixed couples. We argue these symbolic boundaries are partially the result of colonial rule and power structures present in Morocco since slavery. Experiences of discrimination have changed since the colonial period, when French authorities believed mixed marriages would threaten colonial power. But religion, racial hierarchies and white privilege still shape social perception of mixedness and impact daily life for mixed individuals and their families. In post-independence Morocco, they were considered a neo-colonial threat, and today, mixed marriage is believed to threaten social cohesion despite increasing openness to mixedness. Concerns continue within Moroccan society about the transmission of Islam, but freedom of choice is fundamental to mixed families’ religious identities. We conclude by addressing how mixed individuals in Morocco continue to navigate racial discrimination that has historical roots, but functions differently than in the colonial period.
Journals
2026 EN
Li Vigni Fabrizio
This article analyses Tunisia’s E-istichara digital consultation platform, launched in early 2022 by President Kaïs Saïed, within the broader framework of constitutional transformation. Drawing on political and digital sociology, it demonstrates how the platform served not as a tool for genuine democratic participation but as an instrument of authoritarian legitimation. By examining its design, implementation, and political context, the article identifies E-istichara as an instance of ‘participatory authoritarianism,’ a concept developed by Catherine Owen to describe forms of state-managed participation that maintain the appearance of inclusion while reinforcing authoritarian control. It also draws on Paolo Gerbaudo’s notion of ‘plebiscitarianism 2.0,’ which refers to the use of digital platforms to stage top-down consultations that simulate direct democracy while concentrating decision-making in the hands of a charismatic leader. Drawing on heterogeneous materials composed of press coverage, official communications, press releases, and a key informant interview with a civil society activist from the anti-corruption NGO I-Watch, the study shows how, under Kaïs Saïed, digital participation was carefully staged and constrained to manufacture popular legitimacy while bypassing pluralistic debate and institutional accountability.
Journals
2026 EN
Edwards-Groves Christine · Grootenboer Peter · Attard Catherine
+1 more
This article examines the dynamic flow of influence from leading to student’s learning practices in schools, reconceptualising leadership as a multifaceted complex of interrelated and ecologically integrated practices. Rather than privileging any single leadership role, it conceptualises leading as a coordinated social ensemble in which leaders work interdependently to shape the professional and educational conditions that support teaching and learning. Qualitative analysis of two in-depth ethnographic case studies conducted as part of a national Australian research focused on studying the influence of middle leadership aiming to show how leading practices reach learners in classrooms. It traces how practices travel from policy to principals to middle leaders to teachers, subsequently influencing student′s practices. Drawing on practice theory, findings illustrate ways leading practices create practice architectures which influence teachers′ and students′ learning. By tracing the ‘trail of evidence’ concerning specific school development initiatives being implemented in school sites, results reorient debates about the efficacy of leading school-based change towards understanding how a composite of leading practices emerges relationally and temporally through shared language, activity and responsiveness to local contexts. Findings offer an ecological interpretation of educational leadership influence, illuminating how coordinated leading practices contribute to professional learning, teaching, and student learning practices.
Journals
2026 EN
Debliquy Noémie · Coppe Thibault · Deschepper Catherine
+1 more
Internships are perceived by pre-service teachers as significant activities in their training and, for some, as a test of endurance, given the difficult realities of the field. To support trainees in improving practical performance, internships often involve writing reflective texts, such as a self-evaluation report. In this study, the authors investigated the links between trainees’ performance and their writing of a report concerning that performance. They analysed 100 reports written by 20 pre-service primary school teachers. They used a mixed-methods approach to examine changes in the text itself and in the quality of their reflexivity over three years of training, for each practical performance-related profile. Their study suggests that practical performance influences the quality of reflective writing in the self-evaluation report. Results revealed that students improve their writing when they experience stronger internship difficulties, which require them to provide justifications, evaluate effects of their practice, and highlight strengths to build on.
Journals
2026 EN
Caldwell-Harris Catherine · McGlowan Tiffany · Garrity Meghan
+1 more
Analyzing online discussion forums allowed us to compare how autistic and neurotypical adults experience second and foreign language learning. We focused on the hypothesis that autistic learners more frequently use analytical strategies, which is defined as treating language as an object of analysis to extract linguistic generalizations. Analytical learning can compensate for social challenges and difficulties in attending to speech in conversational settings. Quantitative content analysis was performed on 169 posts from autistic forums and 309 posts from general public forums. Autistic posters reported more difficulties with speaking/listening, especially in noisy environments, but strengths in reading/writing. They were often motivated by intrinsic pleasure, frequently identifying as polyglots or having language as a special interest/hobby. Posts in autistic forums showed greater appreciation for grammar and language structure and mentioned being interested in learning a larger number of languages than did posts in neurotypical forums. These findings suggest that analytical learning and systemizing offer important pathways for language acquisition in autistic learners, potentially compensating for social learning challenges. Understanding these distinct approaches will be helpful for educators, parents and autistic learners themselves.
Journals
2026 EN
Bao Rong · Gilligan Robbie · Conlon Catherine
In recent decades, China has experienced a significant wave of rural-urban migration. Despite this trend, the theorisation of this phenomenon often lacks specificity and context. Research traditionally emphasises institutional barriers affecting rural migrants and their struggles at the lower end of urban society, with a particular focus on the marginalised position of female migrants. These women are frequently depicted as vulnerable or passive participants in family migration. However, most studies focus on unmarried women, leaving a gap in understanding the experiences of migrant mothers. This study addresses this gap by examining the experiences of young migrant mothers in Beijing to understand how they exercise agency in the context of intersecting positionalities of rural migrant mothers in Beijing through exploring how they portray their identity as mothers, how they carry out their daily mothering practices and how they imagine the future for themselves and for their children. By adopting Constructivist Grounded Theory methods, this study finds that migrant mothers actively exercise their agency via the strategy of ‘multi-local positionality’, which should be understood as a relational capacity congruent to their capabilities as a rural migrant mother and their aspiration to raise an urban child.
Journals
2026 EN
Qian Feng · Bensimon Arielle G. · Tzontcheva Anjela
+9 more
In the phase 3 KEYNOTE-689 trial (NCT03765918) among patients with resectable locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (LA HNSCC), perioperative pembrolizumab (pembrolizumab before surgery, then continued with standard-of-care [SOC] radiotherapy +/- cisplatin after surgery followed by pembrolizumab alone) significantly prolonged event-free survival vs. SOC alone, both in the intention-to-treat population and PD-L1 combined positive score (CPS) ≥1 subgroup. Perioperative pembrolizumab + SOC received Food and Drug Administration approval in June 2025 for resectable LA HNSCC expressing PD-L1 (CPS ≥ 1). The present study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of perioperative pembrolizumab + SOC versus SOC in this indication, from a US healthcare payer perspective. A Markov cohort model with four states (event-free, local recurrence, incurable recurrence/progression, death) was developed to estimate lifetime costs, life years (LYs), and quality-adjusted LYs (QALYs) with 3% annual discounting. Transition probabilities were fitted to patient-level time-to-event data from KEYNOTE-689 through parametric multistate modelling. Costs of initial and subsequent treatment, adverse events, disease management, and terminal care were estimated in 2025$ based on trial results, drug labels, public databases, and literature. Utilities were derived through analyses of EQ-5D-5L data collected in KEYNOTE-689. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed. Compared to SOC, perioperative pembrolizumab + SOC increased total costs by $82,311 and provided gains of 1.47 QALYs and 1.77 LYs. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of perioperative pembrolizumab + SOC vs. SOC were $55,863/QALY and $46,406/LY. Higher initial treatment costs of perioperative pembrolizumab (incurred mainly in Year 1) were partially offset by lower recurrence-related costs. At the typical $150,000/QALY threshold, perioperative pembrolizumab + SOC was cost-effective in 96% of probabilistic simulations. Survival extrapolations beyond the available trial period are subject to uncertainty. Perioperative pembrolizumab + SOC was found to be cost-effective versus SOC for the treatment of resectable LA HNSCC with CPS ≥ 1.