American Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

Reframing the reintegration of trafficked children, centering the role of family and community

Ifeyinwa Mbakogu — 2025-09-15

Reintegration programs and policies informing them in West Africa are framed within Western notions of childhood and child development, which fail to account for relationships within family and community contexts that influence a child’s movement away from home. The paper is informed by ongoing research with trafficked children from West Africa, residing in shelters, or who have returned home to their identified family members or guardians. It draws on interview data and personal narratives that highlight both the diversity and complexity of children’s experiences across trafficking, rescue, and reintegration phases. The study found that on returning home, survivors are confronted with the trauma of their trafficking experiences, familial blame, silencing, shame, exclusion, and pressure to endure exploitation for the benefit of family honor and survival. The paper calls for reintegration practices for survivors of trafficking to be context-dependent processes that interrogate family and community interactions rather than assuming that they are supportive of survivors and their recovery. It emphasizes that reintegration efforts should be survivor-informed, culturally grounded, and designed to accommodate the unique needs of each child. The findings support family-and-community-inclusive interventions that transcend reunification to prioritize survivor narratives, address histories of power imbalances, stigma and coercion, and the nature of family obligations.

The teaching method of “siplaecec” in language learning: The conditional role subject to need climate within a self-determination theory framework

Qi Zhang — 2025-09-15

This study investigates, framed within Self-Determination Theory (SDT), how need climate (Need-supportive versus need-thwarting) and teaching method (“Siplaecec” featuring scaffolded interactive play, ludic autonomous engagement, and competence-embedded context versus “traditional method” through didactic instruction) interact to influence language learning outcomes. A two-way ANCOVA measures the interaction effect, controlling for pre-intervention performance, to examine the potential synergistic relationship between the need climate and teaching method. The results demonstrate that the need climate alone has a significant main effect on learning outcomes, with need-supportive environments outperforming need-thwarting conditions. In contrast, the teaching method alone reveals a non-significant main effect, indicating that innovative pedagogy does not necessarily facilitate learning in isolation. Notably, the results highlight a disordinal interaction effect. Explicitly speaking, learners in the group of “siplaecec” employed in need-supportive climates have achieved the highest outcomes, while those in the group of “siplaecec” employed in need-thwarting climates have achieved the lowest outcomes. Traditional methods have yielded relatively stable effects regardless of need climates. These findings suggest the conditional efficiency of pedagogical innovation, the potential persistence-stimulating role of need frustration, and the resilience of traditional methods in buffering against the debilitating influences of unsupportive environments. This study extends the principles of SDT and presents the climate-sensitive implementation of play-related pedagogies.

Papua New Guinean literature: A unique narrative under multiculturalism

Yan Yang — 2025-09-25

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic evolution of Papua New Guinean literature amid the collision and fusion of its indigenous traditions and diverse foreign cultural elements, and to further clarify how this literature articulates authentic indigenous voices and constructs a distinct national identity within a complex multicultural context. To achieve this goal, the paper adopts a literature research method: it systematically collects and analyses academic papers, literary monographs, and critical reviews related to Papua New Guinean literature, and based on this, conducts an in-depth analysis of three core dimensions of the literature—its historical development process from oral traditions to written works, representative authors and their works, and its evolutionary path under the dual influence of Western and Eastern cultures. The study finds that Papua New Guinean literary tradition not only vividly mirrors the country’s societal transformations and inherent national ethos but also plays a pivotal role in preserving, inheriting, and promoting indigenous cultures in the age of globalization. Furthermore, the practical implications are that this research on Papua New Guinean literature is expected to offer novel perspectives for understanding the diversity and unique value of Pacific Island literature as a whole, thereby enriching regional literary studies and providing references for the exploration of indigenous literary identities in global multicultural contexts.

Relational versus instrumental pathways of apology: The roles of performative sincerity, strategic presentation, and trust restoration in behavioral outcomes of relationship Repair

Qi Zhang — 2025-10-14

Apologies, as central components of relationship repair after interpersonal or organizational conflicts, are analyzable regarding their effectiveness based on the form and perceived apology intent. Thus, this study investigates how two contrasting forms of apology expression, i.e., performative sincerity (PS) and strategic presentation (SP), affect behavioral outcomes (BO) and to what degree these effects are mediated by trust restoration (TR). Adopting survey data and analyses through structural equation modeling (SEM), this study examines direct, indirect, and total effects of the proposed pathways. According to the results, PS exerts a significant indirect effect on BO through TR, whose mediation accounts for 72.5% of the total effect. In contrast, SP exerts a significant direct effect on BO, without significant mediation through TR. Additionally, the direct effect of PS on BO and the indirect effect of SP on BO via TR are non-significant. These findings offer empirical evidence for two distinct mechanisms of apology effectiveness. Explicitly speaking, PS operates a prompt of a relational-trust, spontaneity-oriented pathway, which can promote sustainable reconciliation through trust rebuilding. In contrast, SP functions as a trigger of an instrumental-behavioral, external-factor-driven pathway, which can drive immediate outcomes without substantial relational healing. This study contributes to theoretical differentiation between relational and instrumental logics of apology effectiveness and practical implications on the consistency between apology strategies and long-term goals of authentic relationship repair.