Journal of Advanced Research in Social Sciences

Bridging the Gap between Social Sciences and Defense Studies

Samuel Vinck — 2025-09-21

This paper argues that, despite a robust interdisciplinary connection between social sciences and defense studies, a significant omission exists: the absence of social sciences in analyzing actual military operations and belligerents’ capabilities during high-intensity warfare. It emphasizes the importance of constructed identities and perceptions given to adversaries and one’s self-representation in relation to them. It combines an exploration of potential reasons for this absence and an exploratory theoretical constructivist framework applied to specific cases from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. It posits that such an approach can yield more accurate assessments of belligerents’ capabilities, ground realities, and enhance strategic decision-making. The analysis focuses on discourses surrounding “human wave tactics” and “combined arms”, suggesting they may have been distorted by identity perceptions, affecting capability assessments. This distortion may arise from the tendency to demonize adversaries while idealizing one's own capacities. Recommendations include integrating identity analysis tools in operational assessments.

A Corpus-based Analysis of Covid-19 Vaccine Metaphor in Egyptian Newspapers

Shaimaa Ibrahim Mustafa — 2025-09-21

This paper aims to investigate how the Covid-19 vaccine is metaphorically represented in English-language Egyptian online newspaper articles. It studies the main metaphors with their entailments, and seeks to uncover the hidden ideologies behind them. A web-derived newspaper corpus of +209000 tokens, collected from articles published between January 2020 and December 2023, has been compiled to provide a comprehensive view of a metaphorical representation of COVID-19 vaccine in Al-Ahram Weekly and Egyptian Gazette newspaper articles. To provide both quantitative and qualitative findings, Charteris-Black’s (2004) three-step corpus-based approach of critical metaphor analysis (CMA) has been employed as a framework to identify, interpret, and explain the metaphors in the corpus. The quantitative results show that the race metaphor permeated the analyzed corpus. Qualitative findings suggest that the race metaphor presents the COVID-19 vaccine as a competitive effort, a race against the virus, an unfair playing field, and a symbol of global solidarity and inequality. Moreover, it reflects the high stakes, complex challenges, and competing priorities in vaccine rollout. Research shows that the metaphors of war and journey are also used primarily to persuade people. The war metaphor creates a sense of urgency and places the vaccine at the center of a high-stakes battle. The journey metaphor, in contrast, has a more optimistic and collaborative tone. It acknowledges the task’s difficulty but frames it as a united effort with an achievable destination in sight. The widespread use of these persuasive metaphors in the vaccine corpus demonstrates the importance of the vaccine, mobilizes public support, and fosters a sense of hope and resolve in the face of the pandemic.

The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention: Its Evolution, Current Practices, and the Need for Reform

Zeynep Naz Oral — 2025-09-21

The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention laid the foundations of the modern international asylum regime and provided the most comprehensive legal framework to protect refugees. However, today, global migration dynamics and state security-focused policies have made the effectiveness and relevance of the Convention debatable. This article critically evaluates the historical development of the Convention, its fundamental articles, and its impact on today's asylum regimes. In the scope of the article, the fundamental articles of the Convention, 1 and 33 will be examined and the definition of refugee, the principle of non-refoulement, and the obligations of the party states will be analyzed through country examples. In addition, the sociological, legal, and political (theoretical) dimensions of the refugee definition, which are missing in the literature, will be addressed together and the existing gaps will be tried to be filled. Today, the emphasis on exclusionary migration policies and safe third-country practices instead of international protection mechanisms limits the capacity of the Convention to secure the individual. In this context, the capacity of the Convention to respond to the current global migration crises and the need for reform will be discussed. Finally, the need for updating the Convention will be evaluated in light of the current deficiencies and possible solutions will be presented.

The Need of Feminist Movement in the 21st Century: An Exploration Based on Islam

Mohammad Mozammel Haque — 2025-09-21

Feminism advocates for the equal rights of women—referred to as "The Second Sex"—across all spheres of life, including education, politics, religion, economics, society, culture, and ethics. The roots of feminist thought can be traced back to 14th-century France, where Christine de Pisan (1364–1430), regarded as the first feminist philosopher, boldly challenged societal norms by advocating for female education. Since then, feminism has evolved through various waves, each addressing specific gender-based injustices according to the needs of its time. This paper examines the premise that Islam, when properly understood and implemented, inherently upholds the principles that feminism seeks to achieve, regardless of religious or political identity. It raises the critical question: Is there still a need for feminist movements if Islamic principles concerning women's rights are genuinely practiced in modern society? The study further explores the root causes of the continued suffering, exploitation, and marginalization of women, identifying the key forces responsible for these injustices. Through a qualitative research approach employing textual, thematic, and content analysis, this research draws upon feminist theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712), Mary Wollstonecraft (1759), Begum Rokeya (1880), Simone de Beauvoir (1907), and Malala Yousafzai (1997). These feminist perspectives are critically compared and contrasted with Islamic teachings regarding women’s rights to evaluate whether feminism remains a necessary movement in the 21st century. The study concludes by offering potential solutions to bridge the gap between theoretical rights and lived realities, aiming for a just and equitable society for women.

Reflective Practice in Pre-Service Educational Leaders

Dixie Abernathy — 2025-09-21

Providing opportunities for future school leaders to reflect and assess their communicative skills, their data leadership, and their ability to adjust and grow is critical to the development of strong school leaders. While the need for reflection is often linked to excellence in teaching (Schon, 1983), the building of professional competence and excellence in related educational roles, such as leadership, can also be linked to reflective practices. In recognition of the landscape of diverse schools and communities across the United States, cultivating leaders who stand ready to serve as reflective practitioners may be more critical now than ever before (Roberts, 2008). In addition, online programs, while often criticized for a lack of opportunity to practice speaking skills, stand in a good position to lead the integration of needed skills into reflective experiences. This study focused on such an opportunity within an entirely asynchronous online leadership program, and explored student perceptions on the impact of their leadership growth and the potential of reflective practice while using video capture and peer feedback.

Why Argentina is Politically Unstable

Carmelo José Felice — 2025-09-21

Argentine political instability is a subject of ongoing study in the scientific literature. Argentina is seen as a paradox, a nation that does not exhibit political stability in accordance with its level of socio-economic development. This paper demonstrates that the primary cause of political instability is a widespread contempt for authority throughout Argentine society, originating during the period of the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas and passed down from generation to generation to the present day. This claim is substantiated through a meta-analysis of historical, genetic, and legal information, where a set of propositionally logical statements derived from factual analyses is used to establish the causality of mathematical relationships between groups of genetic and legal data. The study is complemented by a set of solutions based on the entire analysis, taking into account social factors for each specific case.

The Translation of Transparent Scientific Terms from English to French and Vice Versa

Rania Ziouziou — 2025-09-21

Transparent terms are words that share the same spelling and the same meaning in different languages, such as: robot, hotel, zoo… All those words are the same both in French and English for example. Those words seem to be easy to translate both ways; However, some terms don’t apply to this rule, which are scientific terminology. In mathematics, ‘natural numbers’ in English refers to all the positive numbers starting from 1 to infinity, but in French, the set of ‘nombres naturels’ also includes 0. This example shows two terms that are similar in spelling but different in meaning, which may lead to a wrong translation if the translator doesn’t have a scientific background. Transparent terms are not reliable in scientific translation; translators should always know exactly the meaning of every term. Moreover, bilingual readers and scientists should be careful and never assume the meaning of these words based on their similarity, especially in exact sciences. This paper explores the different types of transparent words and the pitfalls of assuming their meaning based on their similarities, It also includes some difficulties and strategies of their translation.

Bridging Policy and Public Perception: A Multi-Criteria Evaluation of Elderly Urban Mobility in Amman, Jordan

Mohammad Thaher — 2025-09-21

In rapidly urbanizing cities with aging populations, aligning transport policy with the lived needs of older adults is both a social imperative and a planning challenge. This paper presents the findings of a field-based empirical study conducted in Amman, Jordan, aimed at evaluating stakeholder priorities related to elderly urban mobility. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the study compares preferences of two key groups: transport decision-makers (n = 28) and a demographically representative sample of elderly residents aged 60 and above (n = 384), proportionally distributed across Amman’s urban districts. Data collection was conducted between February and April 2024 through structured, face-to-face interviews, stratified household surveys, and facilitated AHP pairwise comparison exercises. Participants evaluated five core criteria: Accessibility and Infrastructure, Affordability, Safety and Security, Service Availability and Reliability, and Comfort and Convenience. Results reveal a significant misalignment in criteria prioritization. While policymakers placed the greatest emphasis on infrastructure and network expansion, elderly residents prioritized personal safety, financial accessibility, and everyday usability. The study highlights the critical role of participatory, multi-criteria decision tools in age-inclusive mobility planning. It offers concrete recommendations to close the perception gap between institutional frameworks and user realities, positioning Amman as a case for transferable lessons across Middle Eastern cities experiencing demographic transition.

School Education and the Transformation of Traditional Knowledge Structures in Late Qing China

Lujia Wang — 2025-09-21

The late Qing period (1840-1912) was a significant era of transition for Chinese society from traditional to modern forms. Following the Opium Wars, when the Qing government was compelled to pay indemnities and open treaty ports, the influx of Western natural sciences impacted China, disrupting the Confucian ethical and moral foundations that shaped the traditional academic structures of late Qing China. Under the influence of the eastward transmission of Western learning, China’s traditional knowledge structure—long centered on Confucian classics and historical texts—was reshaped and diversified as Western disciplinary systems, introduced through new schools, brought new subjects and methods. This study analyzes historical documents on the late Qing school curricula to examine how educational subjects were used to organized and classified Chinese and Western knowledge. It further investigates the evolution of discipline-centered education within modern academies and traces the broader transformation of China’s knowledge structure, ultimately revealing how it gradually integrated into the modern epistemic system.