Social Lens
Journal articles - Social Lens
All articles: 36
Proportional Representation in Bangladeshi Election System for Democratic Sustainability
Scientific article
This narrative review investigates how the Proportional Representation (PR) may be a solution to the Bangladeshi election system, as a way of enhancing democratic sustainability. The First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system that Bangladesh uses now has repeatedly given disproportionate results between the number of votes and the number of seats, leaving smaller political parties, women, minority groups and various political viewpoints unrepresented. These imbalances have helped in polarizing politics, poor representation of opposition and decreasing citizen confidence in elections. Based on academic sources, policy reports, media articles, and comparative international experiences, this review will examine the theoretical underpinnings of PR, its benefits in democracy and whether PR is applicable to the Bangladesh political environment. The paper has pillared the relevance of PR in promoting fairness in elections, inclusive representation, less win-takes-all politics, and post-election conflicts. The study examines reform efforts underway in Bangladesh, such as those of the civil society organizations and the Electoral Reform Commission, political and constitutional issues relating to switching to PR. The review provides an analysis of the criticisms of PR, including the issue of stability of governance, complexity in administration, and constitutional viability and outlines the possibility of a hybrid and a staged reform as possible avenues to implementation. PR is not a panacea, but its slow and gradual implementation may lead to dramatic effect on democratic consolidation, political accountability, and long-term democratic sustainability in Bangladesh.
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Queering the Classroom: The Lived Experiences of Drag Queens in a Public Educational Space
Scientific article
Drag performance, while often seen as entertainment, serves as a transformative and political act within academic settings. This study investigates the lived experiences of drag queens in a public university, focusing on the socio-educational effects of their visibility. Grounded in Queer Theory, the research explores how drag intersects with identity formation, resistance against institutional norms, political expression, and the need for community and institutional support. Utilizing a qualitative descriptive-phenomenological method and online written interviews, four major themes emerged: engaging in drag for personal development, challenging restrictive academic structures, using drag for cultural and political advocacy, and seeking peer and institutional support. Drag is more than performance as it is a tool for empowerment, activism, and educational inclusion. This research highlights the need for academic institutions to move more than just symbolic gestures toward genuine structural change. When drag is embraced within educational institution, it transforms schools into inclusive spaces that affirm gender diversity and challenge oppressive norms. The literature to date offers a start, but strong evidence is required for a full understanding. This research gap calls for an in-depth study to fill the absence of empirical data and the population gap in this field. The specific lives of drag queens demand in-depth research to appreciate their challenges and contributions to society properly.
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Regarding the Pathology of Others? Narrating Female Hyper-sexuality in Nymphomaniac (2014)
Scientific article
This article analyzes the therapeutic discourses in Lars von Trier's film Nymphomaniac (2014), exploring the deconstruction of the boundary between pathology and normativity, as well as the reconstruction of the relationship among audience, creator and film text. This article points out that Nymphomaniac consistently challenges the boundary between normativity and pathology through consciously engaging with the therapeutic discourses in the film, notably constructed through the dialogue between Seligman and Joe, and the reflexive gaze of the self in the group therapy scene, inviting the spectator into the meta-narrative game of the film. The ending of the film further challenges its own therapeutic structure: not only does the nymphomaniac narrative subject fire at the creator, the nymphomaniacal creator also shoots back at the spectator who expects a shocking ending from a transgressive art film, revealing that the audience has long participated in constructing the purpose and meaning of the artwork. This article thus argues that Nymphomaniac provokes spectatorial reflection not merely through the transgression of its content, but constructs a spectatorial game on the meta-level: by regarding pathology and madness as the source of creativity, the film forces the audience to face a dilemma—either forfeit the creative act to avoid the risk of falling into madness, or recognize that madness is actually part of normativity and they are already enmeshed in it. This article further suggests that the blurring of the boundaries between pathology and normativity, self and other in Nymphomaniac also reflects the relationship between extreme cinema and mainstream cinema: the transgressiveness of the former is defined by the norms set by the latter, and the gradual adaptation of the audience to the visual spectacle of extreme cinema has gradually weakened the provocative power of cinematic extremism. The reflexivity of Nymphomaniac provides a way out of this dilemma: instead of relying on the novelty of content to achieve subversion, the film implicates the spectator in the textual construction through reflexive re-examination of pathological sexuality, which is a narrative trope of transgressive cinema, and ultimately transforms the reflexive negotiation of hypersexuality between pathology and normativity into a reflexive spectatorship. This article holds that this negotiation completes the contested encounter between self and other not only in the cinematic space, but also beyond the silver screen, and provides a new approach for transgressive non-mainstream cinema to maintain its subversive potential.
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Return to the Source: Education, Sankofa, and the Genealogy of the Black Diaspora
Scientific article
Numerous scholars have suggested that the high school history curriculum acts as a hindrance to Black students' achievement of their full potential. While historical knowledge is foundational to a people’s self-understanding and survival, most U.S. history curricula elide the history of Black Americans. The purpose of this qualitative, interpretive-phenomenological paper was to explore perceptions of the history curriculum from the perspective of selected Black high school graduates in the Southeastern United States, using sankofa as a theoretical framework. Findings revealed that Black voices were underrepresented in the curriculum, and a lack of discourse existed on their historical knowledge, leading to an inferiority complex among Black students. Furthermore, participants perceived most history textbooks as tedious and incomplete, lacking comprehensive coverage of the historical narratives of all ethnicities in the United States. Students who had a deeper understanding of their historical knowledge reported that it contributed to their academic success. The study’s implications highlight the need for educational decision-makers in the USA and beyond to review the representation of all students in history curricula critically and to incorporate counter-storytelling. Future research should include more stakeholder perspectives as data sources, and should also be replicated in other countries and courses.
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Scientific article
This study was designed in Contingency Theory to explore the leadership struggles, strategies, and contextual influences experienced by female instructional leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing a semi-structured, researcher-developed interview guide, the research aimed to uncover how cultural and institutional factors shaped their crisis leadership, filling in the limited research regarding the lived experiences of female instructional leaders during said pandemic. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with five purposely selected female instructional leaders from various schools. Thematic analysis was performed following Braun and Clarke’s six-phase approach. The analysis yielded three major themes, namely gendered leadership challenges, cultural and institutional influences, and adaptive crisis management strategies. These were further categorized into eight sub-themes and twenty thematic categories. Female instructional leaders exhibited a relational and context-responsive leadership style marked by emotional resilience, equity-oriented practices, and collaborative innovation. Findings highlight the need for gender-sensitive support systems and inclusive policy reforms to strengthen educational leadership in times of crisis.
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Scientific article
Post-independence India has witnessed significant political, social, and religious transformations. Amid the evolving landscape of a multi-religious and pluralistic society, Indian Muslims encountered numerous challenges related to identity, education, and communal relations. Maulana Abu al-Hasan Ali Nadwi (1914-1999) was known in South Asia as Ali Mian. He was a profound scholar of Islam and held a prominent position in India and the Islamic world. He was a great Islamic thinker, preacher, writer, and socio-religious reformer of the twentieth century. He had a profound influence on the entire Muslim world and deserves special attention. It is, therefore, essential to be familiar with his significant works on various aspects of Islam, many of which provide reliable analyses of the multiple problems facing the Muslim Ummah. Maulana Abul Hassan Ali Nadwi has written over two hundred books that revive the faith in the hearts of millions of Muslims, addressing diverse aspects. His primary focus was on improving Muslim society, particularly in its social, religious, and educational aspects, and reviving the glorious past of Muslims worldwide. Maulana Nadwi's socio-religious reform works revolutionized the thinking process of post-independent India. By adopting a qualitative approach and revisiting Nadwi's vision, the paper contributes to broader discussions on religious coexistence, minority rights, and the role of Islamic scholarship in democratic contexts.
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Shifting Market Power: The Role of Supply Chain Disruptions in Redefining Global Trade Dynamics
Scientific article
Global supply chains have recently faced intense disruptions, especially due to COVID-19, exposing vulnerabilities across industries. This study explores how large-scale shocks such as pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, and environmental crises are transforming global market power and trade patterns. Analyzing sectors like technology, automotive, and pharmaceuticals, the research highlights how developed economies, traditionally dominant, are increasingly dependent on emerging markets, which are gaining influence. Factors like digital innovation, rising logistics costs, and trade restrictions further drive these shifts. The findings underscore the need for resilience, localization, and adaptive strategies, offering guidance for policymakers and industry leaders to strengthen trade stability.
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Streams in Arab Literary Criticism
Scientific article
The language of criticism and its artistic frameworks is based on cultural, linguistic, and literary contexts that align completely with the major change in cognitive perception of critical texts. Cognitive criticism views Arab criticism as sequentially and interrelatedly connected to the traditional viewpoint that the world is composed of independent critical units, capable of objective evaluation, and can be read in more than one way. This is because it ensures an acknowledgment of acculturation and its literary dimensions towards describing the complete model of organized critical frameworks between writers and critics, in a homogeneous model through taste and critical art. Criticism and the reader, during critical reading, assigns a functional role to the reader and an artistic contribution to accomplish criticism with complete freedom to accept or reject the text. Current research explores artistic contributions, namely; dormant criticism, journalistic criticism, cinematic criticism, and criticism of image culture, using the descriptive–analytical method, and I concluded my research with the conclusion and its most important sources and sections. This research highlighted the critical streams in Arab criticism in realizing Arab critical models. The study aimed in returning to the classical and modern Arab criticism and fusing them with the Western criticism, to document modern Arab criticism through the quantitative and qualitative perspective for Arab literary texts (poetry and prose). The research explored critical terms and their poetic and prose status, making it easy to understand by the Arab reader. The text came is fragmented in books of various disciplines of sciences. Modern critical terms are abundant in literary production.
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Students’ Views on Extracurricular Activities in Enhancing Social Skills and Self-Concept
Scientific article
Extracurricular activities (ECAs) play a vital role in students’ overall development by extending learning beyond the classroom and supporting personal and social growth. This study explored how high school students perceive the influence of ECAs on their social skills and self-concept. A qualitative descriptive research design involving high school SSLG Presidents or Council Governors from Grades 7 to 12, selected through purposeful sampling. Data were collected through interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Through participation in ECAs, students experienced the personal growth through increased self-confidence, clarified self-concept, and a shift from external to internal motivation; social integration through improved communication, expanded peer networks, and interaction with diverse groups; emotional development through managing pressure, navigating emotional highs and lows, and building resilience; leadership growth through hands-on responsibilities and collaboration; and life preparedness through better time management and exposure to real-world tasks. Students viewed ECAs as important in developing social and personal skills that go beyond academics. This study highlights the positive impact of ECAs on students’ self-awareness, leadership, and emotional maturity, especially in relation to self-concept, an area still underrepresented in current research.
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The Role of Children’s Literature in Teaching the Holocaust and Intergenerational Trauma
Scientific article
This paper examines the role of children’s literature in teaching about the Holocaust and intergenerational trauma. We explore the role of children’s literature in transmitting and preserving the memories of the Holocaust. We also discuss Adorno’s essay titled “Never Again: Education after Auschwitz” and the ways he viewed early childhood education as the ideal stage for the type of education essential to address antisemitism. We then discuss the resources provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for selecting appropriate Holocaust literature. We also explore the educational challenge of teaching about the Holocaust to preserve its memory. We conclude by showing how historical fiction is one of the many resources for teaching about difficult or sensitive topics to guard against genocide, trauma, and the Holocaust.
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Traditional Families in Georgia and The Liberal Paradigm
Scientific article
Strong families are one of the foundations of the state's strength. Georgia is one of the countries with the oldest civilization, where traditional family values are preserved, because it is important for the majority of the country's population. Traditions in general, including family traditions, are valuable for most of the population in Georgia. Since Georgia is one of the oldest countries in the world, the preservation and conservation of family traditions is of particular importance. This happens not only among Georgians, but among all the ethnic groups, including Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Russians, and Ossetians, that have been living in this country for centuries. All of them protect family traditions, which is guaranteed by the Constitution of Georgia, as "the family is the unity of a man and a woman." It was added to the Constitution of Georgia due to the challenges that traditional families may face. With advancing liberalization, traditional families are facing serious challenges in Georgia. The research will discuss the intersection of traditional family values and liberal ideologies in Georgia.
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Use of Color in Holy Qur’an and Arabic Prose
Scientific article
Current study explores the use of “color” in Holy Qur’an and Arabic prose. Classical and modern Arabic writers use colors not merely as visual descriptors but as symbolic markers that convey emotional, psychological, and cultural meanings. Different colors in Arab-Islamic literature symbolizes purity, innocence, and clarity, grief, mystery, dignity, connotations of life, fertility, and spiritual blessing depending on context. In eloquent prose, colors are used metaphorically to intensify imagination, create contrast, and guide the reader’s emotional response. This symbolic layering enriches narrative texture and reflects the Arabic language’s affinity for vivid, sensory-rich expression. In the Holy Qur’an, color imagination assumes a more profound theological and rhetorical dimension. Colors are used not only for descriptive realism but also to reinforce divine signs and moral reflection. For example, the Qur’an refers to the diversity of colors in nature, such as in plants, mountains, and human appearances, as evidence of Allah’s creative power and wisdom.
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Volunteer Performances and Funeral Services in Myanmar
Scientific article
Volunteers as individuals and groups contribute to the process of community development by committing time and energy for the benefit of society and the community, the environment, or individuals outside or in addition to one's immediate family. In the 1990s, Myanmar has grown exponentially in grassroots social organizations including independent funeral services. Since then, philanthropy "parahita" has expanded across Myanmar. Volunteering is one of the main conduits through which the principles and values of community development can be implemented. Hence, the current study explores the services of volunteers working in free funeral service societies in urban areas from a wide range of volunteering. Qualitative research methods such as key informant interviews and participant observation were applied in the data collection. The findings show that voluntary performances can also be seen as a plural performance, as volunteers practice many different religions and belong to many different ethnic groups. The good will-led manners, words, and activities of volunteers have reduced grief and burden of the bereaved family members requiring the funeral arrangements. The accurate performances and goodwill-based manners and activities of the volunteers and the staff lead to the growth and success of free funeral service activities. Therefore, volunteering in funeral services plays an important role and it has also been seen as an indication of citizen participation in the development of the country.
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Scientific article
Current study analyzes the formation, organization, and contributions of the resistance market system in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the period 1946 – 1954. Based on the exploitation of documents issued by the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Government of Vietnam, as well as primary archival materials from the National Archives Center III in Hanoi, the study argues that resistance markets were not merely spaces for commodity exchange but constituted a distinctive model of wartime economy. Through ensuring the circulation of goods, mobilizing social resources, stabilizing civilian livelihoods, and providing financial support for the resistance war, the market system played a crucial role in building a self-reliant and self-sufficient economy in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under wartime conditions.
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Āyatûllāḥ Mûrtazā Mûtaḥḥārī: The Intellectual Architect of Modern Islamic Thought in Iran
Scientific article
This research explores the life and contributions of Āyatûllāḥ Mûrtazā Mûtaḥḥārī, a pivotal figure in Iran's history and Islamic thought. As a distinguished cleric and philosopher, Mûtaḥḥārī, a key associate of Āyatûllāḥ Rūhûllāḥ Kḥomeīnī, played a crucial role in the intellectual renaissance that paved the way for the Islamic Revolution of 1979. By adeptly blending traditional Islamic teachings with contemporary philosophy, he significantly shaped Iran's sociopolitical landscape during this transformative period. This research provides a comprehensive biographical sketch of Mûtaḥḥārī, detailing his early life, education, and critical influences. It emphasizes his dynamic teaching career at the University of Tehran and explores the intellectual currents that informed his philosophical and theological contributions. Mûtaḥḥārī's innovative approach to reconciling Islam with modernity, integrating faith and reason, and critiquing Marxism is thoroughly examined, showcasing his impact on the intersection of religious and contemporary thought. Additionally, the research delves into Mûtaḥḥārī's political and social ideologies, particularly his role in the Islamic revolution, perspectives on Islamic democracy, and critique of materialistic ideologies. It highlights his enduring influence on post-revolutionary Iran, especially in shaping educational and political systems. In conclusion, Mûtaḥḥārī's legacy emerges as a guiding light in contemporary Islamic philosophy and Iranian society, fostering ongoing discussions about the role of religion in the modern world and inspiring scholars globally in the evolving dialogue between Islam and the complexities of the modern era.
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“You Don’t Have Anybody”: Failed Relationship, Guilt, and Psychological Cycles in BoJack Horseman
Scientific article
BoJack Horseman offers a psychologically rich exploration of how unresolved trauma, guilt, and maladaptive interpersonal patterns sustain cycles of self-destruction. Through an analysis of BoJack Horseman’s relationships with Todd Chavez, Herb Kazzaz, and Sarah Lynn, this paper examines how failed relationships both reflect and reinforce underlying psychological vulnerabilities, including unresolved childhood trauma, narcissistic tendencies, abandonment anxiety, and chronic shame. Drawing on psychological theories of trauma, cognitive distortions, moral disengagement, and interpersonal functioning, the paper argues that BoJack’s repeated attempts to seek redemption or alleviate guilt fail because they prioritize self-presentation over genuine accountability. Rather than presenting redemption as inevitable, the series demonstrates that unresolved psychological wounds can perpetuate destructive relational cycles unless individuals confront both the consequences of their actions and the underlying mechanisms driving them. Ultimately, BoJack Horseman portrays failed relationships not simply as narrative tragedies but as psychological case studies of guilt, emotional stagnation, and the difficult process of personal change.
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