Results: Of the women, 35% were White, 35% Latina, 18% African American/Black, and 18% LGBT. Half of all participants said in qualitative interviews that they witnessed violence against women, and/or experienced unwanted harassment/sexual exploitation; one in three described suspected human trafficking. Of the women interviewed, half struggled with mental health symptoms, feelings of hopelessness, and nearly all reported isolation; approximately one-third had substance use issues. Many described an inadequate number of emergency and long-term shelters Available for women facing homelessness; many had to wait or saw other women waiting to get into shelters and faced abuse on the streets in the meantime. Conclusion: The emergent themes showed that women face a “cycle of perpetual vulnerability” with three relational pathways: iterated trauma from chronic abuse/violence inflicted on them, a state of paralysis due to inadequate availability of supportive services, shelters, and mental health resources to cover all women living on the streets, leaving women susceptible to being a target phenotype for predators.Background: Homelessness among women and the multiple vulnerabilities they endure  is a perpetually unresolved issue in the U.S. and globally. Methods: This study is based on qualitative in-depth interviews accompanied by brief socio-demographic surveys conducted among 32 total participants, consisting of cisgender females ( In the 2019 Annual Assessment Homeless Report (AAHR) to Congress, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development completed a point-in-time study where 8102 individuals were captured as experiencing homelessness in a large southern California city, ranking the city among the top five in terms of homeless residents in the nation  never felt comfortable. I was always afraid to lay down and sleep because I wouldn’t know what would [happen] … I didn’t feel good and [was] always upset and outside. But this time when I left, I would not go back.”The intimate partner violence theme stemmed from interviews with only female participants. Several of the women found themselves displaced overnight by their partners. One female interviewee had returned home from a trip and was locked out by her husband.  The waitlists for the region’s temporary housing and bridge shelters averaged from 8 to 15 years, though nearly all of these are for men and women. Only one of these shelters specifically serves women and took only 35 occupants at a time in its night dormitory. When asked how many come through the women’s day center, a female respondent stated “100 women or more”, highlighting a critical gap in services because the majority cannot get into the night dormitory.When asked about their barriers to stable housing, the female respondents cited an inadequate number of Available shelters and the high cost of living in the city.  She continued:“The temporary [shelter] wants us to look for apartments when we’re ready. When I look at apartments, it’s like a thousand or something. I’m low income. My son doesn’t make income because he’s a four-year-old. There’s nothing I can do.”Five out of 15 women worked part-time or full-time, yet they struggled to make ends meet. One mother spoke on the challenge of having to work multiple jobs in order to afford rent and the issue of being turned away by landlords. (“…[Women] over in this center at the night shelter—they don’t shower…I don’t get that. Why would you not want to shower in the morning and night? Why won’t you wash your clothes if you have opportunity to wash your clothes?”)The conditions at the shelters were described as crowded, filthy, and “horrific”. A female responded elaborated,  Another mother was hesitant to contact social services for welfare benefits, out of fear that Child Protective Services (CPS) would take her son away.  One of our mothers fighting for custody of her son had turned to social services for help and was only given a 1-week voucher for a hotel.When it came to welfare programs, one woman described criteria barriers. When asked about their current feelings of isolation—“…Well for a lot of us that depression it just gets worse and worse and worse. I’ve gone through a lot of suicide attempts as a result and being out here just kind of drives that home even more….”)Eight female interviewees stated they were struggling with depression, five described hopelessness, and nearly all felt despair from isolation and loneliness. Suicide was also mentioned. (“…It certainly interferes with my ability to have intimate relationships with people…”) They cited wanting to talk to someone regarding their trauma yet struggling to trust service personnel. , you just really don’t know who to trust, so everybody’s a threat at all times….”)Five of the women had a history of childhood abuse, with two sharing personal accounts of childhood sexual trauma and how it continues to impact their ability to have healthy relationships.  For the mothers in our study, the stress of securing custody of their children was a prominent mental health theme.  Women escaping intimate partner violence described overwhelming seclusion.  Similarly, the woman who had been sexually assaulted felt she had no one to talk to about the incident, which she cited as the “scariest experience” in her life.  One mother was 18 years old when she became pregnant and homeless. She described her mental state as “scared out of [her] mind.” Female respondents observed that homeless women often had low self-esteem due to their history of trauma and abusive relationships. (“…I couldn’t regulate my emotions very well…”) The woman who had been sexually assaulted observed that chronic homelessness resulted in severe mental health symptoms.  She emphasizes her own sense of hopelessness:“I guess the homeless mental illness is all wrapped together or whatever but, but uh, …cause like really, like at the end of my life on the street, like, like I was pretty despondent. I had given up on everything.”Several women felt that the longer people lived on the streets, the more socially and emotionally despondent they became.  Another respondent spoke on the fear of being rejected or turned away.  While some shelters provided counselors, respondents felt that the counselors did not provide the quality of care that could be helpful to those experiencing hardship. They emphasized the need for “compassion training,” particularly as they have faced so much trauma.  A mother shared one of her most distressing experiences, and how a counselor could have helped:“There are counselors in the day shelter, there are counselors in the night shelter…It would, ideally, it is supposed to work that you are, that when you come in, you are given a counselor in the day shelter and one in the night shelter as well…But in reality, it’s not. Like I was never spoken to in the night shelter. It would have been nice. I mean there was one time in particular I came in from court and it had not gone well for me and I was just devastated and I didn’t necessarily feel like reaching out so it would have been nice if the person assigned to me would have said “oh wow, it’s your court date, do you want to talk about it?”Many of the women in our study recommended more mental health services and counselors. Some felt discriminated by services and resources, which fueled their distrust, hopelessness, and fears.  women and their children are no longer on the streets, therefore less likely to be a visible and a target for violence, to be exposed to violence, and to be in an environment where they are approached for sex trafficking or exploitation; (2) agencies with adequate staffing could protect women by patrolling shelters and regulate socially sanctioned acts, interfere with inappropriate behavior, and serve as a point-of-contact for protection should women and their children feel at risk. In addition to shelters, resources such as childcare, job training programs, or low-income housing that prioritizes homeless families would be instrumental in serving mothers facing homelessness, particularly if they have been turned away, exhausted resources, or lack social capital for support or opportunities for economic mobility. Shelters, state relief for mothers such as childcare services, job training, low income housing, and standardized policies for domestic violence eligibility could all help protect mothers and their children from a state of paralysis.Our Cycle of Perpetual Vulnerability theory views this absent infrastructure as a major contributor to This study was limited by its sample size and convenience sampling, but intended to expand on the existing literature on women facing homelessness by contextualizing the results into a new framework reflective of the issues women seem to perpetually face. It was also difficult to find women who directly experienced human trafficking; more research is needed on this hidden and vulnerable population. Future research could also further explore the protocols in shelters that pose social and structural barriers. For example, our study found that one woman seeking domestic violence shelters was turned down due to lack of proof of domestic violence. Future research could also investigate the efficacy of the cycle of perpetual vulnerability with larger populations. The study was conducted in an urban southern California region, thus may reflect some characteristics unique to the region. Some participants helped recruit others from a specific women’s shelter, so that more participants came from one shelter, though they all frequented the library and had varied experiences being homeless prior to living in the shelter.Between 2009 and 2019, the United States experienced an overall 10% decline in homelessness, though the figures have been steadily rising since 2016 . In the The objective of this study was to explore and investigate the experiences, perceptions, and critical needs of women experiencing homelessness. Our aims included, (1) investigate vulnerabilities for women, including violence, sexual assault, and sex trafficking risks; (2) identify existing barriers for women, including shelters, childcare, and domestic violence resources; (3) explore the relationship between mental health and homelessness for women. We found that the inadequate number of shelters and supportive services increased the risk of violence, sexual assault, and mental health trauma for women facing homelessness in this large U.S. city. We further proposed a theory known as the Cycle of Perpetual Vulnerability, which informed the interdependent variables known as “Target Phenotype”, “Iterated Trauma”, and “State of Paralysis” in the experience of homelessness for women. The theory suggests that women who experience repeated acts of violence or trauma are targeted and then re-traumatized, a cyclical pattern that makes it difficult for women to escape homelessness.Furthermore, by conducting qualitative interviews, we were able to hear the personal stories of women experiencing homelessness and to give voice to this hidden population. In the same vein that our women shared accounts of unimaginable hardship and trauma, they also shared their resilience and their strengths.Based on our findings, our recommendations are to increase the number of women-only shelters, supportive services, and research on women experiencing homelessness. It was unanimously cited among the female participants that there is an unmet need for women-only shelters, which corresponds with the rising statistic of unsheltered women and girls in the U.S. Many of the women in our study experienced intimate partner violence, childhood maltreatment, and violent victimization, thus women-only accommodations can help address safety concerns in co-ed shelters. Supportive services such as childcare services, job training, low income housing, and access to mental health counseling would serve mothers and women experiencing homelessness. Many of the women in our study were mothers, some traveling with children or fighting for custody of their children, and many cited the need for more assistance, such as subsidized or state provided childcare and mental health services. Lastly, more research is needed on this growing subpopulation within the homeless community. As mentioned above, qualitative research provides a space to explore and learn from the direct accounts and perceptions of those being served ,37,38. WAs homelessness continues to grow, a response needs to evaluate the issue as a whole—what experts deem as a “whole person—whole agency—whole community—whole system approach” using both micro and macro interventions in leadership, policy, and integrated services . Homeles


Purpose: Self-reliance and social participation are strongly promoted by social policy. Both concepts are linked to the concept of vulnerability, for people who do not meet these standards are labelled “vulnerable people”. In this paper, the insider’s perspective takes central stage by seeking to explore what it means to be labelled a “vulnerable person”, and through this to further our insight into the meaning of the concept of vulnerability.Method: Thirty-three in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 allegedly vulnerable people. The data were subjected to thematic content analysis.Results: Our analysis revealed three main dimensions and eight sub-dimensions of perceived vulnerability, outlining an insider’s concept of vulnerability. This concept includes manifestations of vulnerability, feelings coexisting with vulnerability, and the image of vulnerable people.Conclusion: The perception of vulnerability changes when interacting with others in society, especially with social policy implementers. In this interaction, the perceived vulnerability increases and becomes societal vulnerability. It concerns a dependency situation in which one’s strength and self-determination are not recognized, and the help needed is not provided. By acknowledging the insider’s perspective, social policy can fulfil a more empowering role towards “vulnerable people” and contribute to people’s well-being. Self-reliance and social participation are top priority issues in the policy of the Netherlands. This is in line with the policy of the European Union (EU), of which the Netherlands is a member state. The EU strategy is to contribute to the achievement of smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth  accumulation of problems or limitations (multi-complex problems); (2) feelings of powerlessness and distrust; (3) disrupted communication; (4) limited or no access to resources; (5) marginality; (6) imbalance in burden and capacity; (7) dependency situation; (8) low self-esteem  in which the perception of allegedly vulnerable people on vulnerability takes central place. The study was conducted in a medium-sized city in the Netherlands (217.259 inhabitants) as part of a PhD research project that started in 2015.A qualitative method was used, as qualitative methods help researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the research topic  and eight co-researchers, four persons from vulnerable populations and four professional social workers; all of them being more or less familiar with an insider’s perspective on, and experiential and/or practice knowledge of vulnerability.The research team was assisted by an external researcher—an anthropologist with extensive experience in conducting qualitative (grounded) research. The external researcher started as a member of the sounding board group in the research project and during the research project became a “critical friend” (mentor) for the principal researcher and co-researchers  level.In interview 2 the theme “Others and process” was central, focusing on the actors and factors that play a role in perceiving vulnerability, also over time. The second interview started with a summary of the content of the first interview and a check of its correctness (member check). Subsequently, the respondent’s social life was discussed: which persons and what elements play a role in the origin, continuation, aggravation and reduction of the perceived vulnerability? When and how? And how does the respondent himself or herself deal with perceived vulnerability? In addition to the individual level, interview 2 also covered the interactional level and aimed at gaining insight in possibilities for improvement to reduce perceived vulnerability.In total 33 interviews were conducted: 2 interviews with 13 respondents (interview 1 & 2), 3 interviews with 2 respondents (interview 1 & 2), and 1 interview with 1 respondent (interview 1). Deviations from the standard 2 interviews procedure were made with the consent of the respondent.As we selected a qualitative explorative research approach, the sample size was limited to 16 respondents and based on purposeful sampling  eligible respondents meet the current definition (common denominators) and/or characteristics of “vulnerable persons” as indicated in the Introduction of this paper; (2) are at least 23 years old (from the point of view of (assumed) “wisdom of life” and/or life experience and reflective capacity; (3) understand the Dutch language and can express themselves verbally; (4) respondents perceive vulnerability: a personal feeling of vulnerability and/or the perception of feeling vulnerable in a certain domain and/or aspect. Diversity in age distribution and gender were also taken into account. Eligible respondents who were under medical or specialist psychological or psychiatric treatment were excluded from the study, in order to prevent that participation in the study could in any way have a negative impact on the treatment received by the person concerned.Pre-selection of eligible respondents took place by members of the advisory board group of the research project who work with and/or are in touch with people from vulnerable populations (n = 4). The defined selection criteria were leading in the pre-selection. Eligible respondents who were pre-selected by advisory group members were discussed with the principal researcher to determine if they were suitable for participation. The principal researcher decided the final selection based on the selection criteria, richness of the case, and variation. Based on the final selection by the principal researcher, the respondents selected were recruited by advisory board members through personal contacts with respondents. When recruiting, an information letter was provided to the participant by the advisory board member. In case of consent to participate in the study an interview was planned.The 16 respondents ranged from 31 to 75 years of age (mean 49), and included 7 men and 9 women. Of the 16 respondents, 8 were respondents who had no complete status of psychological well-being, but suffered from mental illness such as personality disorder, borderline disorder, depression, panic disorder, and hypersensitivity. The other 8 respondents were persons who had no complete status of physical well-being, but suffered for instance, from progressive muscle disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), cerebral palsy (CP), blindness, and heart and lung disease. 3 respondents had an income from employment; the other 13 respondents received social benefits.The respondents decided where and when the interviews took place. Most of the interviews took place in the respondents’ own homes. The interviews lasted approximately 2 hours (varying between 61 and 178 min).Our analysis was guided by Thematic Analysis, in which patterns or themes within qualitative data are identified systematically researchers were involved (check-coding): the principal researcher (first author), a co-researcher with a scientific background and familiar with data-analysis, and the external researcher (fourth author). All transcripts were coded by the principal researcher and independently co-coded by the co-researcher and the external researcher.Our analysis was based on the collected data and these in turn were streamlined by the topic list, aimed at answering the research question. We started our analysis by using a combination of interpretation and open coding, assisted by ATLAS.ti (version 7 for Windows). As a starting point, we discussed some preliminary ideas about the codes and developed some initial codes as point of departure for the coding based on reading some transcripts. We did not have pre-set codes or a pre-existing model or frame in which we tried to fit the data. On the contrary, our analysis was driven by the data itself.We developed and modified the codes as we worked through the coding process by regularly comparing our codes. In case of inconsistencies, doubt and/or disagreement in co-coding, the coders discussed until consensus was reached about a code. This process led to a final code-tree. Main themes on the code-tree are for instance, vulnerability as experienced by participants, process of vulnerability over time, perception of contacts in relation to vulnerability, and suggestions for improvement to institutions.The next step in our analysis consisted of moving back and forth between identifying, reviewing and defining themes. This step was executed by the first and fourth authors. The earlier involvement of the co-researcher was discontinued due to lack of time. Coded segments of coherent data under each (sub)code were grouped to discern patterns and define themes.During this phase, we also went back and forth between our coded empirical data and theory. In order to (re)construct theory and concepts driven by our empirical data, and gain further insight in empirical data, we searched for relevant theories and concepts in literature. The literature functioned as “sensitizing concepts”: not as prescriptions of what to see, but as directions in which to look Blumer, . We starAt various times in this stage, we briefed the co-researchers on preliminary interpretations and findings as a form of member check. At one time we performed a member check with the advisory board group. All input was taken into account and, when possible, also processed. This is in line with Lincoln and Guba  who consAll interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim with respondents’ permission. All persons who participated in the study gave written informed consent for each interview. In providing consent, respondents were given the option to withdraw their consent at any time. This did not occur. The confidentiality of the respondents was ensured by replacing the respondents’ names with codes. Only the principal researcher (first author) has access to these codes. Respondents received a compensation of € 20 for participating in the study. The research protocol was approved by the Ethics Review Board of Tilburg University (EC-2017.35t).In our findings section, we present how vulnerability and being labelled a “vulnerable person” are perceived by our respondents. Starting point is the subjective experience of respondents, outlining the respondents’ perceptions on vulnerability. In our discussion we reflect on our findings and compare the respondents’ perceived vulnerability with the concept of vulnerability as described in literature. In addition, we discuss the social political concepts of “social participation” and “self-reliance”. The results of this comparison can contribute to the further completion of the concept of vulnerability.The cited quotes of respondents are translated from Dutch by the first author.manifestations of vulnerability, understood as how vulnerability manifests itself and what it means for everyday life. Sub-dimensions found in the data contained (1) type of vulnerability as expressed by the respondents in mental illness or physical defects, (2) dealing with manifestations of vulnerability (behaviour), and (3) limitations in social participation.When exploring the respondents’ perceived vulnerability we found three main dimensions in the data that reflect their perception. Our data also revealed sub-dimensions within each main dimension. First, the main dimension feelings coexisting with vulnerability, understood as the way in which vulnerability in itself—the illness or defect—is experienced by respondents, and how vulnerability is experienced in interaction with others in society. Subsequent sub-dimensions found in the data were (1) feelings at the individual level and (2) feelings at the interactional level.Second, the main dimension image of vulnerable people. Here sub-dimensions that were revealed in the data include the way in which respondents think (1) about themselves (self-image), (2) about other people from vulnerable populations, and (3) how respondents think that others in society—non-vulnerable people—see them.Third, the main dimension We will describe our findings, using these main dimensions and present the sub-dimensions within each of the dimensions. In the discussion, we end our findings with a reflection on these dimensions. Our key findings are summarized in Respondents expressed the type of vulnerability in mental illness and physical defects, for example, personality disorder, borderline disorder, depression, panic disorder, hypersensitivity, progressive muscle disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), cerebral palsy (CP), blindness, and heart and lung disease. Respondents also mentioned financial deficits or problems. Translating this to the type of vulnerability we found three main types of vulnerability: mental  vulnerability, physical vulnerability, and financial vulnerability. Respondents also expressed that these types of vulnerability do not exist separately from each other, but often in combination. All respondents who mentioned mental illness as a cause of experienced vulnerability also suffer from physical disorders, for example, fatigue, muscle strain, and dizziness. Some of these respondents also have to deal with financial deficits as a consequence of their illness and disorder, for instance, through not being able to work. Some respondents who mentioned physical defects as a cause of experienced vulnerability also mentioned psychological issues and financial deficits. However, the combination of experienced physical vulnerability and (leading to) mental vulnerability seems less self-evident than vice versa.With this sub-dimension, we refer to the way respondents react to or deal with their mental illness and physical defects or shortcomings. This type of behaviour is directly linked to these manifestations. Illustrations of expressions of dealing with manifestations of vulnerability in daily life: not indicating or discussing that you feel bad, planning your daily life and making informed choices about what you are able or not able to do, such as withdrawing from social life, not going beyond your limits, and adapting to the situation by asking for help, using new (care) technologies for people with disabilities, and/or using (specific) medical devices such as a walker, wheelchair, mobility scooter, adapted bicycle, and orthopaedic shoes.The majority of the respondents mentioned both reduced participation in social activities such as forest walks, outings, visits, and curtailment of their social network (including education and paid work), resulting from the illness, defects and/or shortcomings. On the other hand, reflecting on the theme “contacts” and “daily activities”, all respondents indicated that they have social contacts, interact with others in society, and participate in various life domains. Contacts include family members, friends, neighbours, participants in organized social activities and/or (voluntary) support groups, colleagues in volunteer work, sometimes fellow students, in a few cases work colleagues, and contacts with professionals from service and care delivery organizations. Subsequently, life domains retrieved from the data concern family life, leisure activity, volunteer work, education, paid work, and institutional life. Most of the respondents related that their contacts are structural and that they vary from telephone contact, personal contact, social media contact and/or written contact . None of the respondents indicated that they did not participate socially. On the contrary, most of the respondents expressed that they are active in volunteer work—some of the respondents in multiple forms of volunteer work—and leisure activity such as sports, shopping, acting (theatre group), and playing music.Respondents’ feelings at the individual  level concerns how it feels to be vulnerable; to have an illness, defect or shortcoming? All respondents expressed negative feelings at the individual level. Although the data revealed a wide spectrum of feelings expressed by respondents’, we found common denominators such as fear, anxiety, shame, loneliness, insecurity, anger, and feelings of emptiness, brokenness, and heaviness. In the wide spectrum of feelings expressed the data also revealed that these common denominators are nuanced differently by the respondents. For example, some of the respondents described the denominator “fear” as fear of relapse (of homelessness and depression), while other respondents described “fear” as fear of the continuing physical decline and the resistance felt to accepting the use of medical devices such as a wheelchair. Other respondents linked “fear” with “insecurity”. For example, feelings of fear and insecurity about not having diplomas and work, or feelings of fear and insecurity about the availability of care and a disabled toilet when going out. Another example is the denominator “anger”. One respondent described this as follows: “I am very angry about the things I have not done, like having children and a job. I am upset by the diagnosis and help coming too late” . In the expressions of other respondents the denominator “anger” was accompanied by feelings of frustration and discouragement. One respondent described this as follows: “I feel anger and I can’t blame anyone. That is frustrating. The disease is an obstacle to the life I wished for” . Another respondent: “I feel discouraged. Due to my illness, there is no solution. If there is a solution for vulnerability then you are not vulnerable, for example, in the case of homelessness. But illness, it happens to you, because there is no solution” . And another respondent: “I am trapped in my body. Physically I can’t do anything anymore and I don’t see any improvement. Out of frustration I sometimes throw things around” .The data also revealed differences in expressed feelings between respondents who mentioned mental illness as a cause of experienced vulnerability and respondents who mentioned physical defects as a cause of experienced vulnerability. In the first group a number of respondents expressed feelings of inferiority in society and a lack of self-esteem due to their mental illness. Some of the respondents also mentioned feelings of deep and old pain. In contrast, these feelings were not addressed by respondents whose experienced vulnerability is caused by physical defects. In this group a majority of the respondents expressed sadness and feelings of physical deterioration and loss of function and grip due to physical disorders. For example, “It is a process of surrendering, from walking to rolling [in a wheelchair], of always needing help instead of sometimes” . Another respondent expressed this as follows: “It feels like slowly sliding down the tiled roof, stepping into the abyss” . Some of these respondents compared these feelings to a grieving process, while others mentioned feelings of dependence: dependence on others, transport, medical devices, services and care to be able to live life with physical disorders.Remarkably, besides negative feelings, a few respondents also expressed positive feelings at the individual level. This concerns the feeling of victory when something succeeds, and the feeling of satisfaction. For example, “Despite my condition I live a fairly complete life, I live like a normal person: I am married, I have children and I am divorced” .Respondents’ feelings at the interactional level concern how their vulnerability (vulnerability in itself) feels in interaction with others in society.All respondents expressed that their vulnerability felt solely negative at the interactional level. Their feelings concerning vulnerability differ in comparison with the feelings at the individual level. In the respondents’ expressions, we found the following common denominators: feelings of being inferior in society, of dependency and not having self-determination, of powerlessness, of frustration, of being misunderstood, of disappointment, and of being patronized. In line with the individual level the expressed feelings by the respondents often were interrelated.The main common denominator addressed by the respondents is the feeling of being inferior in society and not taken seriously. For example, “I feel written off by society. They don’t expect anything from me anymore because I’m in a wheelchair. You are taken for a fool when you are in a wheelchair” . Or another example: “I am not seen as a person, but as a poser or an alcoholic” . Some of the respondents connected the feeling of being inferior and not taken for full of the feeling of being stigmatized. As one respondent quoted: “A disabled person will be ill a lot” . Or: “I cost a lot, I’m unprofitable” .The main common denominator is followed by a feeling of dependency and not having self-determination. In the expressions of a majority of the respondents who mentioned physical defects as a cause of experienced vulnerability, this denominator was accompanied by feelings of powerlessness. For example regarding social benefits, help and medical devices: “Your fate is in their hands. You are not in charge. You depend on the other person who can play God” . The data also revealed that the expressed feelings of powerlessness and not having self-determination are linked to the feeling of being patronized. For example, “Caregivers who treat you like a baby ” .Some of the respondents who mentioned mental illness as a cause of experienced vulnerability also expressed feelings of powerlessness, often accompanied by feelings of despondency, injustice and frustration due to a lack of adequate psychological and social assistance. For example, “It is a scar, but you can pull the string out with tweezers. The wound opens. There is a little pus, but it is not enough to heal the real wound. In the wound lies a request for help, but it is not treated, it is not really addressed. I am snowed under in an avalanche of what is important to the caregiver” .Feelings of frustration were also mentioned by some of the respondents who deal with physical disorders, caused by the difficulty of getting the necessary social benefits, adequate care and medical devices. For example, “I feel frustrated because I constantly have to prove that I need medical devices because of my illness. I get tired of fighting for my rights” . Although the form of the needed help differs, respondents from both groups expressed feelings of frustration because the help  does not arrive or does not arrive on time.Another common denominator retrieved from the data concerns the feeling that the vulnerability is misunderstood. According to a number of respondents this feeling is caused by a lack of empathy. For example, chronic fatigue which is compared by others to “I also get tired sometimes”. Or a blind respondent being dropped off by a taxi, but not escorted to the front door. In the expressions of respondents who mentioned mental illness as a cause of experienced vulnerability, the feeling of being misunderstood was accompanied by a feeling of disappointment.Some of the respondents who suffer physical disorders also expressed a feeling of disappointment. In their experience this is due to a lack of adequate help, others who do not see the respondents’ struggle, and promises that don’t come true. For example, “They promised physical improvement, but it does not happen” .On the other hand, despite these negative feelings of for instance, being misunderstood and lack of empathy, some of the respondents expressed their understanding for being misunderstood by other, non-vulnerable people, reminding themselves of the time when they had no illness or defects. They expressed that before their illness or defect, they also found it difficult to empathize with what it really means to have and deal with an illness or defect in daily life.Self-image was indicated in terms of positive or negative personal competencies described by the respondents (addressed in terms of “I am” or “I have”). All respondents expressed perceptions of a positive self-image. Illustrations of “I am” are: “an expert by experience”, “very helpful”, “a world citizen”, “powerful”, “proud and satisfied with what I have achieved”, “an ordinary person in society, not my disease.” Illustrations of “I have” are: “I have a sense of humour”, “a fairly high level of intelligence”, “self-confidence and self-esteem”, “endurance and angelic patience”, “nerve and guts to get things done”, “knowledge of complicated regulations”.Although all respondents indicated a positive self-image, a few respondents also expressed perceptions of having less positive personal characteristics. For example, “I am insecure and struggle with my self-confidence”, and “I have a lack of self-confidence to present myself”.Respondents reflected also on their perception of other people from vulnerable populations. In line with self-image, respondents’ image of other “vulnerable people” was also expressed in terms of positive or negative personal competencies described by the respondents. A majority of respondents expressed a less positive image of other allegedly vulnerable people than their perceived self-image. Respondents mentioned for example, that other allegedly vulnerable people are lonely and isolated, not good at articulating the help they need, not active in society, not good at overcoming barriers, less articulated and unable to stand their ground. Respondents also mentioned shortcomings in terms of “lack”: allegedly vulnerable people have a lack of tools and self-knowledge, of making the right choices, of energy, of insight into complicated regulations and laws, of expressing their vulnerability, of grip on life, of money, and of the ability to enter into social contacts.Regarding the perceived image that others in society—non-vulnerable people—have of allegedly vulnerable people, none of the respondents expressed perceptions of a positive image. On the contrary, the data revealed exclusively negative expressions of respondents indicating stigmatizations. In respondents’ expressions of the perceived image that others in society have of allegedly vulnerable people, we found the following common denominators: vulnerable people are seen as a) inferior , b) a target group, c) stupid, d) expensive , e) dangerous, and f) crazy.Examples of expressions of these common denominators given by the respondents concerning “inferiority” are: “We do not participate in the participation society because of our physical disabilities. We are weak” . “As a Wajonger [type of social benefit] you can’t do anything. Especially don’t try anything, because you won’t achieve anything. You are not complete” . Concerning “target group”: “You are a certain target group instead of a person” , and “You are manoeuvred into a box. You have to belong to a club that you do not feel like belonging to” . Concerning the common denominator “stupid”: “Wheelchair users are physically and mentally disabled. People talk louder. They see us as stupid” . Concerning “expensive”: “People with disabilities are too expensive, they cost too much” . Concerning “dangerous”: “Psychologically disturbed people are dangerous” . And at last, concerning “crazy”: “Vulnerable citizens who are hospitalized, go to the madhouse. Mentally vulnerable people are crazy” .In this paper, we presented the perceived vulnerability as expressed by the so-called “vulnerable persons”. The data collected were disentangled and reveal a layered concept of vulnerability as perceived by the respondents themselves. In looking for commonalities, three main dimensions, each with two or three sub-dimensions of perceived vulnerability were identified see . Our finThe main characteristic of persons labelled as “vulnerable” manifest themselves in mental illness or physical defects—sometimes together, and in combination with financial deficits—which impact respondents’ handling of vulnerability in their daily lives. Respondents’ daily confrontation with vulnerability affects their social participation as well as their ability to build and keep up social networks. Nevertheless, all respondents accounted for participation in several life domains and they all mentioned a small or wider range of social contacts. Surprisingly this seems to contradict with respondents’ negative feelings found in the sub-dimension of both individual and interactional level, because here we would expect less social activity of our respondents in various life domains. However, in the sub-dimension “dealing with manifestations of vulnerability”, with respect to planning, making informed choices and adapting, respondents showed that they eventually can find their own way in daily life, including social participation—even if felt reduced or limited—as well as in social networking, even if felt curtailed.The sub-dimension of self-image is in harmony with this. According to respondents, they feel themselves well-endowed with competencies and capabilities. In contrast to the competencies ascribed to themselves, they see exactly these competencies lacking in other allegedly vulnerable people. It seems as if the shortcomings of other vulnerable people are underlined by respondents, because without such competencies it is apparently impossible to maintain oneself in society, to participate socially and be self-reliant.At this point, it is also worth noting that although respondents feel that they are being stigmatized, they refrain from participating in the social process of stigmatization Goffman,  and do nMoreover, by emphasizing competencies, it seems as if respondents see more potential in themselves to contribute to society: they count in society and must be taken serious, despite their limitations and shortcomings due to illness and disease. In short, they accept being vulnerable, but they do not accept being of no value to society, as findings prove that our respondents are socially active in several life domains.The notion of being socially active leads us to discuss the social political concept of “social participation”. Social policy aims at paid work as the preferred form of social participation, specifically addressed in the Participation Act 2015  accumulation of problems or limitations (multi-complex problems); (2) feelings of powerlessness and distrust; (3) disrupted communication; (4) limited or no access to resources; (5) marginality; (6) imbalance in burden and capacity; (7) dependency situation; (8) low self-esteem  positive self-image can diminish disrupted communication and by this provide access to resources—especially resources in the immediate social environment—which in turn can contribute to a balance in burden and capacity. In this regard literature does not fully meet the reality experienced at the individual level. Competencies play a crucial role in the view of our respondents. This aspect is not taken into consideration in literature as a main characteristic of vulnerable people and we recommend that it be added.Second, negative aspects (common characteristics) are mainly felt during interaction with others in society. In this respect, at the interactional level, theory and experienced reality agree, at least to some extent. With respect to interaction we discovered three sublevels in the interactional level in respondents’ narratives: (a) the interaction with others from their own social environment; (b) the interaction with others—non-vulnerable people—in society; and (c) the interaction with others who operate in the institutional life domain in which respondents move, such as care professionals and social service providers—the so-called social policy implementers. In line with Janssen et al.  we interSuch negative feelings in interaction with others are not mentioned by respondents when interacting with people in their own social environment, and mentioned less when interacting with non-vulnerable people in society (with the exception of feeling stigmatized). In other words, others at the political-societal level, who would be expected to contribute to reduction of the common characteristics of vulnerable people, seem to achieve the opposite: prolongation of the common characteristics mentioned in literature. For instance, characteristic (3) disrupted communication is only at play at the political-societal level in respondents’ narratives. In addition, the common characteristics also seem to have different meanings in the different interactional levels. For instance: characteristic (7) dependency situation exists both in the interaction with others in respondents’ own environment and in the interaction with social policy implementers. However, dependency on people in their own environment is not perceived as negative, in contrast to the interaction with others at the political-societal level.The distinction between different interactional sublevels and the felt impact of the type of interaction on vulnerability we derived from an insider’s point of view, is not made in literature concerning common characteristics of vulnerable people, and should be taken into consideration.However, the role and importance of the interactional level in the experienced vulnerability is mentioned in literature concerning the concept of “societal vulnerability”  deficits, which makes someone dependent on help from others. If that dependency in the interaction with other people is accompanied by feelings of inferiority in society, of not having self-determination, of powerlessness, of frustration, of being misunderstood (lack of empathy), of disappointment, of being patronized, and of being stigmatized, then we speak of “societal vulnerability”. In short, “societal vulnerability” is an interactional state in which a person is not seen and treated as a full person and in which a person does not get the appropriate help he or she needs and has a right to. Perceived vulnerability increases and it undermines self-reliance and social participation.The issue of dependency mentioned earlier is crucial for respondents. It increases their perceived vulnerability. This brings us to discuss the social political concept of “self-reliance”.According to the Dutch government self-reliance includes the ability to carry out the necessary general daily life activities and to run a structured household  that the interviews were very pleasant and that they were pleased that they were really listened to. This indicates that the interviews were also valuable to the respondents.In our study we aimed at maximal variety and therefore included persons from different age groups, sexes, and with different illnesses and defects. Unfortunately we were not able to include allegedly vulnerable people from different ethnical and cultural backgrounds in our study. All respondents were white people with Dutch nationality and background. Further research involving interviews with allegedly vulnerable people with different backgrounds is needed to investigate the influence of ethnical and cultural diversity on perceived vulnerability.In addition, our respondent group consisted of people with mainly physical disability, chronic psychological problems and psychosocial problems. In order to explore the influence of other (main) problems on perceived vulnerability, for example, being excluded due to sexual orientation or being involved in domestic violence, further research involving interviews with allegedly vulnerable people from other groups of vulnerable people is needed.A limitation of our study is that we did not include other stakeholders, such as non-vulnerable people, social policy makers and practitioners who work with and/or are in touch with people from vulnerable populations, to explore their perceptions on the concept of vulnerability. In order to gain more insight into the interactional level of vulnerability, we recommend that future work should include interviews with these stakeholders.Finally we hope that with our findings we can pave the way for more two-way traffic; for the mutual adaptation of different perspectives (insiders and outsiders). When this becomes the case, we recommend to research what the consequences would be for people from vulnerable populations.


Studies have characterized high school students as bored, alienated, and disconnected with their class and the learning process. In order to address this problem to improve student learning engagement, this study explores the impact of philosophical inquiry (PI) on the development of adolescents’ academic engagement and adds to the scholarly research on Philosophy for Children (P4C). In determining an appropriate and holistic approach to investigating students’ learning engagement and motivation from the perspective of psychology, this study involves multiple forms of data collection, specifically including surveys, student work, focus group interviews, classroom discussions, and reflective notes. Applying a qualitative method, this multiple case study developed a deeper understanding of the classroom contexts, conditions, discourses, tools, and practices that promote positive adolescent learning experiences. The study developed a conceptual framework of student academic engagement in a PI class and summarized reasons why the participants engaged in learning. First, students believed that maintaining a safe and positive classroom environment is a fundamental condition for learning. Second, they reported that asking questions, sharing ideas, listening attentively, thinking deeply, and making connections are the manifestations of an engaging classroom. Third, students reported that they transcended their learning experiences by living a new philosophy that was acquired in the process of the community of inquiry. The study found that PI enhanced social inclusion and active participation of the participant in the learning process. Philosophical inquiry (PI), or the practice of “thinking together” and “thinking about thinking together,” is an educational approach that originates from philosophical pragmatism. It upholds that knowing is not merely an acquisition of knowledge that is external to the knower, but arises from a community of inquiry that students engage with and construct together. This pedagogical approach involves logical questioning and broad discussions among students and their teachers. The teacher is the students’ coparticipant. In the process of constructive dialog, students and their teacher clarify thinking, raise questions, record discussions, explore meanings, listen carefully, and respond to the ideas of others respectfully and non-judgmentally . ConsideThe PI course is grounded in the Philosophy for Children Hawaii (p4cHI) approach to education and helps students and teachers to create a more thoughtful, compassionate, and ethical educational experience. p4cHI is an outgrowth and unique expression of Matthew The purpose of this qualitative research is to explore how a PI course that utilizes p4cHI educational approach featuring a community of inquiry, philosophical thinking, and reflection contributes to adolescents’ engagement to learning. It is hoped that the theoretical and academic engagement frameworks developed from this project will be able to assist educators to develop curriculum and pedagogy, and classroom practices and learning environments that foster increased academic engagement and intrinsic motivation in a social studies classroom and beyond.Academic engagement decreases significantly from the early grades of elementary to high school. One reason for disengagement is that adolescents do not fully appreciate the value of academic achievement and successful schooling experiences . Many hiAlthough there has been a growing awareness of the significance of adolescents’ engagement in education, there has been little scholarship documenting p4cHI or PI’s effects on student learning engagement and motivation. To fill the void, this research examines how the PI course and p4cHI approach to education promote involvement of economically disadvantaged youth in academic engagement.Adolescence is a critical psychological stage between childhood and adulthood that deserves particular attention. The onset of adolescence is a time of rapid physical growth, sexual maturation, and social and emotional changes, and it also implies a wide range of behavioral and emotional health problems. Pubertal development and brain maturation shape adolescent development and presumably later behavior . This woThe major research question driving this study is: In what ways does the PI course influence high school students’ learning engagement? Do students feel more engaged in their learning during and after taking the PI course? If so, what reasons for this do they report?Vygotskian and Deweyan educational theories are used to support this study. It informs the research questions, methodology, and data analysis of this study. Over the last 30 years, research on p4cHI has been viewed through a variety of theoretical perspectives: multicultural educational theory, social constructivism learning theories, learner-centered ideology, identity exploration theories , 2013, cparticipation in the learning process  the emotional aspects center interest, value, and feelings (negative and positive) toward the school, the class, and the teacher, and (iii) cognitive engagement  includes motivation, effort, and strategy use of students. These views see student engagement as something students do and that teachers can organize for them (p. 1769).Engagement is “the student’s psychological investment in and effort directed toward learning, understanding, or mastering the knowledge, skills, or crafts that academic work is intended to promote.” Students show engagement by seeking out activities and displaying their curiosity, a desire to learn, and positive emotional responses to the process of learning . AuthentThis means that in addition to being interested in the academic needs of the students, teachers are deeply concerned with the social, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical state of learners. Teachers are acutely aware of the emotional aspects of learning  and desiThe National Research Council published a comprehensive study concerning the lack of engagement in today’s public high schools. Many of the students who are retained at schools attend irregularly, exert modest effort on schoolwork, and learn little. This situation can be changed if schools “help the young make sense of life, of experience, and of an unknowable future” , p.47. SThree empirical studies on adolescents’ learning, motivation, and reaction to the p4cHI were conducted in the past 10 years. Since the PI course is grounded in the theory and practice of P4C, it is important to introduce the conception of P4C in this part.Philosophy for Children began around 1969 when Matthew an intellectually safe community influenced by the Aloha culture, the “little p” philosophy, the activity of coinquiry between the teacher and students, the context and content sensitive intellectual safety is the most important feature of p4cHI approach to education. The concept of In an intellectually safe place there are no put-downs and no comments intended to belittle, negate, devalue, or ridicule. Within this place, the groups accept virtually any question or comment, so long as it is respectful of the other members of the circle. What develops is a growing trust among the participants and with it the courage to present one’s own thoughts, however tentative initially, on complex and difficult issues. (p. 460)aloha. Aloha in the Hawaiian language means affection, love, peace, compassion, mercy, goodbye, and hello, among other sentiments of a similar nature. It is this spirit that students can mediate multicultural tensions and build a sense of community between diverse groups of people in the islands .Agreeing with Plato and Aristotle, Although, in the beginning, the Hawaiian P4C practitioners used Lipman’s theories and concepts, soon, they found that Lipman’s model of using specific novels and his version of P4C made teachers very difficult to teach content-specific classes in regular classroom practice. It was not easy for teachers to move from the text to “Leading Ideas” to the use of “Exercises” and “Discussion Plans” provided in the manuals. Thus, they adopted a more concretely designed and flexibly implemented p4cHI approach, responding to Lipman’s insightful analysis of critical thinking, the “context sensitivity.” This approach takes the stance that philosophy is an instructive element of classroom pedagogy and a way of responding to “content” that begins with the questions of the students while it is sensitive to the content being taught and the cultural context of the learning environment .community, inquiry, philosophy, and reflection into a wide array of subject areas and diverse community contexts. It is based on a set of teaching strategies that can guide teachers to translate those theoretical foundations into classroom practices  District on Oahu. The rural communities of Kailua and Waimanalo each provide about 50% of the population of just under 1000 students at KHS , among those just under 60% of the students are native Hawaiian. As more than 40% of the student population comes from low-income families, KHS receives Title I funding. Many students are faced with domestic violence, discrimination, and substance abuse . The schStudents were recruited from the PI course at KHS in Fall, 2014. Pseudonyms are used to protect the identities of the four girls and two boys. Their ages range from 15 to 17. Five of them are mixed race, and one is Japanese ethnicity.This multiple case study uses multiple sources of evidence. The following documents help “uncover meaning, develop understanding, and discover insights relevant to the research problem” , p. 163.The PI class ran for 8 weeks. Five classes were held each week, for 65 min each in the late mornings, except on Wednesdays when class was only 45 min for a total of 35 classes. Students engaged in philosophical inquiries using the Good Thinker’s Toolkit and Plain Vanilla  on topicBesides CD, additional student work was collected throughout the semester including student handwritten responses in class to a set of open-ended questions or sheets provided to them in the workbook named The Daily Record, PI Student Resources, and Workspace . The folStudents used the PI daily reflection (DR) in every class. In the DR, they reflected on the prompt of the day (POD), which was a quote, a short video, a song, a poem, or movie related to the class. They needed to “use textual evidence and/or self-knowledge/experiences to support” their responses (p. 63).Students used philosophical insight paper (PIP) to continue thinking about the topic they philosophized about after each unit . The PIP was organized into five sections: (a) Evaluation of the Community of Inquiry; (b) Lenses of PI; (c) Constructed Response using Claims, Assumptions, Supporting Evidence, and Counter-example; (d) Personal Reflection and Action; and (e) References (p. 225). At the end of the semester, each participant submitted two PIPs.During each Plain Vanilla discussion, students used inquiry memos to record their questions and thoughts, as well as those of their peers. The inquiry memo data were collected after each Plain Vanilla discussion.In the final take-home reflection paper (FRP), students reflected on their experiences in the PI course at the end of the semester.A follow-up focus group regarding student academic engagement with four PI participants  using a semistructured interview approach  was condData from student written work, classroom discussions, and field notes were analyzed, as they were collected. While organizing and analyzing data, NVivo software, Mac trial version, was used.Analysis of qualitative data occurred in three phases. In phase 1, all qualitative data were entered into the NVivo software, and initial open codes were developed to highlight major themes occurring in each individual case study. The analysis made use of all of the relevant evidences, considered major rival interpretations, and addressed the most significant aspects of each case study. Salient themes that appeared in each individual case study are reported in the format of concept maps and narratives based on the occurrence frequency that was shown in the NVivo software.In phase 2, using the method of constant comparison , similarDuring phase 3, three types of qualitative data, the CD, daily written reflections, and observation notes; focus group interview; and PIP and final reflection paper were triangulated in order to increase the trustworthiness of the study. The final themes were refined and reread with critical friends.This multiple case study consists of six individual case studies of students in the PI class see . Each stNot being scared or worried that others will judge you. You can express your thoughts or feelings with others who will support you and listen to you. It’s a feeling like being with someone you trust or like being with your family who listen to you and hold you up. I see this class as a family and I know I can express myself freely. Nahele shared in the focus group that he was more engaged in learning in the PI course. The most important reason is that the PI course was interesting, and he could be able to say how they feel about the subjects they learned. For instance, he expressed that:I think we are more engaged [without doubt]. Because in other social studies classes, you are not allowed to say how you feel about certain things, you just learn it, you are supposed to read about it, and just accept what you read. While in this class…you get to make connections to your life, you get to listen to other people’s saying. Nahele commented after the PI course, he still wondered about the topics discussed in the classroom. He was motivated to come back to the classroom to talk about it again. Peleke believed that communications made learning engaging. Liko thought she was more motivated to learn in the PI course: “I think this class motivates me by like I am never challenged to think outside my own thinking, so yeah [I like this class].” She felt that History was boring, but in the PI course, she could “get to reflect how we feel about it [subjects]” . Makali liked the PI course, “because there are actual community” . He used a counterexample to describe a class he disliked: “In ethnic studies, last year I didn’t know anyone and I hated that class” . Kanani’s data indicate that peer acknowledgment and support had a strong positive impact on her academic engagement. She appreciated that the PI course inspired to her to think outside of the box.Based on the cross-case analysis, a conceptual framework of student perceptions of academic engagement in the PI class is presented in Maintaining a safe and positive classroom environment is a fundamental condition for learning. In the conceptual framework, this part is colored in green, representing that a positive classroom culture creates a nurturing foundation for learning. The intellectually safe environment developed a constructive, creative, and methodological culture of thinking and communication. For example, Kalani shared in the classroom that it was his own responsibility to maintain an intellectual safe environment. The intellectual safety set a foundation for a supportive and collaborative learning environment. Kalani explained that in the PI course, “No one was really putted down or felt unsafe, everyone gets along while in the discussion” . Peleke realized that even though he had a disagreement or argument against an idea or one person, he could still examine its benefits. He learned to be open-minded and think critically.In the PI course, the students and teacher cocreated a social–cultural learning context that ensured a deep PI could occur. Prior to the PI class, the students and teacher coconstructed a definition of intellectual safety and made a community ball to facilitate their turn taking. While making the community ball, they began to know each other personally. Participants considered the community ball as a tool that helped them to manage the classroom and engage in coinquiry with their teacher. According to Nahele, the uniqueness of the community ball was that students became respectful and attentive while sharing thoughts. “Because of this, not only does it represent our community, but it also represents the power to speak so that during inquiry, each person who receives the ball is allowed to express their opinion hopefully without interruption” .While engaging in a number of reflective activities and readings that reiterated the importance of intellectual safety and community building, the students began to build up a strong community and a good relationship with their teacher. For instance, the biggest takeaway for Kalani was “just making a bond, and making a strong community” . Like Kalani, Nahele appreciated that the class participants built up a strong community that encouraged the gifts and strengths of every participant and promoted a sense of belonging and purpose. He suggested that his peers “strengthen the community further…. we can keep it up. So it’s not boring” .Living the concept of intellectual safety, students transformed their learning into an art of democracy. They respected each other’s ideas, interests, and needs. They listened attentively to what others had to say, and shared their thoughts genuinely. They were continuously working on cultivating and nurturing a sense of belongingness and connectedness in and out of the class. This social context of learning sets a psychological foundation for students’ further learning in the PI.The learning process in the concept model is colored in yellow, representing the “aha” and mind “sparkling” moments that students experienced. Because the community ball is a symbol of empowerment, it is painted an orange color. The challenges take the shape of a cloud, which means that although the students experienced confusion and struggles, these could nurture new realizations. These activities are in the living area of the house model, representing the daily work of learning and realizing.The PI class worked to create a learning environment that maximized each learner’s ability to interact with each other, especially with the teacher. Kalani expressed his gratitude to his teacher and described that, “I feel good [studying in this classroom]. I love her [the teacher]” . Nahele reported that he built a better social relationship with his teacher, and described,I guess I feel afraid my teachers in a social level. Because you just walk in the class, you tell them, they just tell you this this, and then you go home, you don’t talk them. Miss Shiroma is like, I don’t know, you kind of like on a social level, because we know how she thinks and feels about certain topics. And I think it really helps with the whole community building thing. (12/18)Students were seated in a circle and engaged in PI through social interaction and communication. The class puts a premium on students’ inner interests and needs, so students were able to raise questions that they genuinely wondered about. Although there was not always a definitive answer to each question, students were eager to explore the solutions and think alongside each other, appreciating peers who were more able to articulate ideas and explain thoughts. Taking Nahele as a typical example, he explained, “It’s good to ask questions and strive to ask more, but even better if everyone make an attempt to answer them” . He enjoyed using Good Thinker’s Tool Kit to ask questions and used it beyond the classroom. He commented, “Within our community of inquiry, we get more by giving to expand on our discussion” . As a fortuitous byproduct of this newfound expanded perception, Nahele was more engaged in his thinking. He demonstrated new connections with his learning as he questioned: “Why does racism exist? Where did racism originate from?” . He showed insight into his own thinking when he said, “I’m taking away that maybe everything we do is subconsciously selfish, even if to the smallest degree. Is it purely for other people? Does altruism really exist?”  On another day, he explored ideas around morality. “We teach children certain rules of morality growing up. At what point do they become irrelevant in our lives? What are the reasons we disregard them in life?” . These internal dialogs indicated that the student had internalized good reasoning skills and were learning to think for themselves.Using the community ball to issue the invitation, students were empowered to share their personal stories, challenges, raw thoughts, and not clearly formulated ideas. Students enjoyed the academic freedom to explore meaningful and controversial issues that arose from their life and context. Peleke thought he actually was rewarded with more knowledge and more strength. He positively commented that, “From that it actually helps yourself and other people, you are not being one sided, relying that one information” . Their discussions were connected with their prior experiences, thoughts, feelings, and ideas, and learned through these experiences in the classroom. Because of this encouraging and safe community of learners, Liko was able to overcome her experiences of insults in other classes.The PI participants were sometimes confused by their own questions and by those of others during their discussions. They experienced challenges in organizing their thoughts and articulating their ideas. Peleke shared,I am walking away with that I need to try to understand more terms. I need to make people understand what I am saying. I just want to have clarification, examples, probably I have to look up some new words to understand and to figure out. Some students initially lacked confidence in sharing their thoughts. For instance, Kanani exhibited low self-efficacy in her thinking. “I wrote it, but…because I…I wrote it, I don’t think it’s a good reflection. I don’t understand” . She felt it was a risk to share her ideas in the classroom. She explained,“I said we need to take certain risk in order for us to move forward. When I didn’t wanna share, I think this is the first day in our class, I didn’t wanna share, but then I also feel I have to take the risk in sharing in order for our task to move on. Kanani had a unique challenge that other participants did not share in the PI course, which was that she had to work almost 10 h each day instead of focusing on studies. She appreciated that the PI course inspired to her to think outside of the box. Yet she also experienced many challenges she could not handle during the course, such as articulating her ideas and thinking deeply. All these challenges may result in Kanani’s absence from school.By the end of the semester, students all learned certain reasoning skills , as well as to make decisions and solve problems. Students expressed that they appreciated the multiple perspectives gained from their peers, teachers, and guests because they developed an understanding of ideas from a range of areas and obtained the skills, knowledge, and attitude to interpret these ideas and to live their lives better.When engaging in discussions, participants were exposed to multiple perspectives, which inspired them to reflect on their own thinking, examine personal beliefs, and then make changes in their lives. The class awakened students’ inner selves and helped them realize their own unique potentials. Peleke increased his confidence in expressing personal beliefs. For example, he wrote,I am starting a personal change from taking this course due to the interaction and participation in what p4c feels on a daily basis and also I have become less anxious due to me participating within in the community and sharing my opinions and ideas on the work we are given and at times on my own personal life. (12/18)They began to think about the purpose and meaning of their lives. Each student actively chose his or her own way to construct the meaning of his or her particular life. They created a living philosophy and applied new learning in how they made decisions and lived their lives. For example, they engaged in PI with friends, and brought the concept of intellectual safety to their family and community. For instance, Makali was involved in p4cHI activities outside of the classroom.I would say that this was the fun of this class in order to be able to take this outside.… my friend…started to really use all the terms, like what are the reasons, can I assume…. We ended up having this kind of discussions after lunch after school. It’s really interesting….That makes me think deeply about anything. The PI participants not only took into account their own inclinations and options for a meaningful life but also took into consideration the need for a more humane and democratic society. They started to build a more holistic and integral understanding of themselves and the society. They learned to put their engaging and dynamic reflections into practice. For instance, after learning ethical egoism and altruism, Liko asked, “What I realized is that talking about benefiting ourselves. We talked about having good or bad intentions. I thought, what makes you have these good or bad intentions, and why you act upon them?”  Liko began to question human nature and her self-knowledge; she asked, “When I heard everyone, I have more values. What I think is right? What makes me happier? What would I think human nature is?”  She also thought about “What is morally right and wrong?”  She related her learning to the world problems, and questioned, “Is there really a way to get rid of racism? WATRs [What are the reasons] why we can’t get rid of racism?”  She showed her care to the environment, and asked “WATRs [What are the reasons] people are so cruel to the environment?” They were interested in personal happiness and wanted to lead balanced and peaceful lives. They were inspired to strive for ideals of social justice, democracy, and multiculturalism, and to contribute to the public good. In class, they interrogated the social, political, economical, and moral imperatives of society, which helped them through the developmental transition period of adolescence. They discovered the hidden voices of women, children, minorities, nature, and of those who are marginalized. Many of them continued to think about the questions posed in class when they went back home and looked forward to coming back to this class again. These characteristics are placed just under the roof of the house, the highest place. The roof is shaped like a triangle, similar to Applying qualitative methods, this study developed a deeper understanding of what classroom contexts, conditions, discourses, tools, and practices promote adolescent learning experience. Referring to the PI Student Academic Engagement Framework , the sixIn the student qualitative data, the most important reason for students to engage in learning, or the most salient theme that appeared, was that the PI class created an intellectually safe environment that fostered students’ learning and development. Echoing Participants indicated that the circular seating format and smaller class size helped establish an environment that could free them from some social and emotional stresses. The intellectually safe community provided them with ongoing opportunities to build up connections and relationships among each other. The removal of judgment and fear created a space where, despite their different ethnic backgrounds, beliefs, and worldviews, they could openly share their personal experiences and explore controversial issues with their peers . In the Research showed that “persons with significant difficulties relating to others interpersonally often have related academic struggles in the classroom particularly as they get older” , p. 4. FDescribed in the foundation part of the house model, when students’ basic psychological needs of safety, belongingness, and esteem are satisfied in the classroom, they developed better socially and cognitively in the PI class , 1987. IStudent academic achievement is positively influenced by the amount of active and collaborative participation in the learning process . The levOne current crisis in education is that students lack real interpersonal connections. Although contemporary formal education helps students gain tremendous external knowledge, accumulate skills and wealth to become good citizens, and become members of the working force, emphasis on the basics of human life and existence such as health, happiness, and human values is too often overlooked or entirely missing throughout the worldwide educational systems . While epersonhood is often ignored; their interests, questions, thoughts, personal experiences, beliefs, and curiosity have been disregarded in the process. Yet in the PI environment, students awakened their spirit to wonder, to question, to explore, and to experiment. In addition to being interested in the academic needs of their students, p4cHI teachers are also deeply concerned with the social, emotional, behavioral, and psychological state of learners. The class moved from the notion that their answers, thoughts, and questions were only “right” if students aligned with those of their teacher or textbook, and that only authority figures had correct answers and would explain “what is text about” and “how to answer this question” once they had finished reading (Many teachers now cannot fully satisfy students’ psychological and social needs in the class. That’s one reason that students do not feel engaged in their schooling, or cannot even construct meaning that guides and motivates their future development.  reading . As the Imagining a world, wouldn’t it be nice if educators could make classroom environments grounded in our human curiosity for exploration, own enthusiastic desire to construct our own self-defined meaning? The p4cHI community of inquiry creates the space and the opportunity for students to make fundamental connections within their individual selves and with other people. It assists students in making connections in their own thinking, between their emotions and their thinking, and other aspects of their self. It fosters better student-and-teacher connections as they participate in cooperative learning. The students were able to use the thinking tools practiced in the community of inquiry as a way to examine their own lives and frozen thoughts, and challenge their beliefs, which allowed them to create personal significance to the academic content.The study proved that education would cultivate a better self if we provide students with a time and space to reflect and reconnect within themselves, and with others and the world. Such insights may provide suggestions and implications for teachers to implement more effective P4C education in and beyond the Hawaiian Islands.The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.LL conducted the research and wrote this manuscript.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Molecular similarity is an elusive but core “unsupervised” cheminformatics concept, yet different “fingerprint” encodings of molecular structures return very different similarity values, even when using the same similarity metric. Each encoding may be of value when applied to other problems with objective or target functions, implying that a priori none are “better” than the others, nor than encoding-free metrics such as maximum common substructure (MCSS). We here introduce a novel approach to molecular similarity, in the form of a variational autoencoder (VAE). This learns the joint distribution p(z|x) where z is a latent vector and x are the (same) input/output data. It takes the form of a “bowtie”-shaped artificial neural network. In the middle is a “bottleneck layer” or latent vector in which inputs are transformed into, and represented as, a vector of numbers (encoding), with a reverse process (decoding) seeking to return the SMILES string that was the input. We train a VAE on over six million druglike molecules and natural products . The VAE vector distances provide a rapid and novel metric for molecular similarity that is both easily and rapidly calculated. We describe the method and its application to a typical similarity problem in cheminformatics. The concept of molecular similarity lies at the core of cheminformatics ,2,3. It www.rdkit.org/) [The most common strategies for assessing molecular similarity involve encoding the molecule as a vector of numbers, such that the vectors encoding two molecules may be compared according to their Euclidean or other distance. In the case of binary strings, the Jaccard or Tanimoto similarity (TS) is commonly used  as a metit.org/) , that prhighly variable, and are prone to both false negatives and false positives when it comes to attacking the question as set down above. What we need is a different kind of strategy.The problem comes from the fact that the “most similar” molecules to a target molecule often differ wildly both as judged by their structures observable by eye and quantitatively in terms of the value of the TS of the different fingerprints . As a veThe typical structure of a QSAR type of problem is provided in More recently, it was recognised that various kinds of architectures could, in fact, permit the reversal of this numerical encoding so as to return a molecule (or its SMILES string encoding a unique structure). These are known as generative methods ,53,54,55θ between some observed data x ∈ Rdx and unobserved or latent variables z ∈ Rdz [ϕ(z|x), to construct the latent variables with variational parameters ϕ, and a combination of p(z) and p(x|z) to create a decoder that has the opposite effect. Learning the posterior directly is computationally intractable, so the generic deep learning strategy is to train a neural network to approximate it. The original “error” backpropagated was based on the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence between the desired (log likelihood reconstruction error) and the predicted output distributions [VAEs are latent-variable generative models that define a joint density p z ∈ Rdz , given sibutions . A very ibutions ), and itibutions ,81,82,83ibutions , and mosibutions ,86) and ibutions ,88). Cruibutions ) is the ibutions  the crucA higher-level version of the above might state that a good variational autoencoder will project a set of discrete molecules into a continuous latent space represented for any given molecule by the vector representing the values of the outputs of the nodes in the bottleneck layer when it (or its SMILES representation) is applied to the encoder as an input. As with the commonest neural net training system  encode the molecule of interest and (ii) effectively represent where molecules are in the chemical space on which they have been trained, a simple metric of similarity between two molecules is clearly the Euclidean or other comparable distance  between these vectors. This thus provides for a novel type of similarity encoding, that in a sense relates the whole chemical space on which the system has been trained and that we suspect may be of general utility. We might refer to this encoding as the “essence of molecules” (EM) encoding, but here, we refer to it as VAE-Sim.Thus, the purpose of the present article is to describe our own implementation of a simple VAE and its use in molecular similarity measurements as applied, in particular, to the set of drugs, metabolites and natural products that we have been using previously ,103,104 Autoencoders that use SMILES as inputs can return three kinds of outputs: (i) the correct SMILES output mirroring the input and/or translating into the input molecular structure (referred to as “perfect”), (ii) an incorrect output of a molecule different from the input but that is still legal SMILES , referred to as “good”, and (iii) a molecule that is simply not legal SMILES. In practice, our VAE after training returned more than 95% valid SMILES in the test (holdout) set, so those that were invalid could simply be filtered out without significant loss of performance.Specifically, we partitioned the dataset into 50% for training , 20% for validation  and 30% for testing . The results for our VAE model for ZINC molecule reconstruction are as follows :Following training, each molecule (SMILES) could be associated with a normalised vector of 100 dimensions, and the Euclidean distance between them could be calculated.As previously described , we compFinally, we used our new metrics to determine the similarity to clozapine of other drugs. convolution (1D): size , ReLU, convolution (1D): size  ReLU, convolution (1D): size  ReLU, Linear (fully connected): size SeLU, with VAE mean—Linear (fully connected): size and variance—Linear (fully connected): size. For the decoder we used a Reparameterization (combined mean and sigma together) such that the output will be the same as the latent dimension (100 in our case), Linear (fully connected): size SeLU, RNN-GRU : size , Linear (fully connected): size Softmax. For the loss we used binary cross-entropy + KL-divergence. Neither dropout nor pooling were used. The optimiser was ADAM [https://pytorch.org/). Most of the pre- and post-processing cheminformatics workflows were written in the KNIME environment .https://docs.rapids.ai/api/cuml/stable/api.html#umap.For the UMAP settings, we used the default parameter settings implemented in the RAPIDS toolbox (ArcGIS v10.2.6), as detailed here Molecular similarity is at the core of much of cheminformatics e.g., ,124,125),125124,1Here, we leveraged a new method that uses only the canonical SMILES encoding of the molecules themselves, leading to its representation as a 100-element vector. Simple Euclidean distances can be used to obtain a metric of similarity that, unlike MCSS, is rapidly calculated for any new molecule, even against the entire set of molecules used in the development of the latent space.In addition, unlike any of the other methods described, methods such as VAEs are generative: moving around in the latent space and applying the vector so created to the decoder allows for the generation of entirely new molecules e.g., ,74,133).,133.74,1The ability of variational autoencoders to generalise is considered to be based on learning a certain “neighbourhood” around each of the training examples ,134, see