I briefly review the key gifts of the essays and then try to imagine how a social psychology of precarity could be theorized and engaged  Imagine Otherwise, Kandace Chuh draws on postcolonial and transnationalism studies to make visible how strategically Asian American literatures and US legal discourses are structured through normative claims about race, gender and sexuality. Chuh representation of precarity, by obscuring the structural/colonial/historic behind the psychological. But perhaps as compelling, these articles posit our responsibilities as critical scholars to name the conditions that produce precarity and the stratified consequences that unfold. The writers offer a travelogue of precarity forms—from occupation of lands and homes in Palestine to job loss, to being mis‐raced or confusingly raced as white—a range of disturbing destabilizations of place, economics and self. At the same time, these articles gesture towards the radical possibilities for a critical psychological praxis grounded in epistemic justice, decolonizing and participatory commitments, aligned with movements for justice; social psychology, As these incredibly rich and wildly creative articles reveal, precarity is multi‐scalar; the perfect object of inquiry for social psychologists eager to theorize and track how the economy, politics, ideologies, environmental crises, racial capitalism seep under the skin, invade our homes, workplaces and our sleep, render some of us mute, some of us resigned, many of us despairing, lots of us activist and rageful and an elite few willfully ignorant.Lewin  might saTo establish a common working definition, let us assume precarity to be constituted through systemic disinvestment in/disruptions of taken‐for‐granted opportunities and material conditions, colonial and corporate land grabs, state violence enacted in drag as ‘protection’, everyday violations of living/learning and the unnerving predictability of impending disaster. These disruptions are metabolized through racial and class hierarchies, with profoundly differential consequences for elites and those surviving in what Harney and Moten call the ‘undercommons’  daughter to the state border, the parent of an elementary school child in Florida calls the authorities because you ‘said gay’, a border agent decides to rip your child from your arms after a long and treacherous journey from Central America to the US border, you called the police for help with a mentally ill child, and they shot her, while Black. Precarity is a downstream cattle prod for humans, mobilized these days, maybe always, as a sadistic weapon of capital, empire and colonialism, landing with painful regularity along well‐trodden lines of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, caste, disability… No coincidences here. Precarity lives in our bones and, grows in triplicate in the academy—as we witness, endure and reproduce its cascading and destabilizing tremors.conceptually these authors obligate scholars to theorize and reveal how precarity attaches to material conditions, institutional betrayals, racialized traps, histories of colonialism and to refuse the ‘coloniality of knowledge’ that aligns with power  class, top students are treated with dignity, invited to engage in inquiry and praised for their creativity—but not when she is in a ‘low track’ (low stream) class. ‘High achieving students’ are segregated from the mass student body. In ‘low track’ classes, as she sits with struggling students, we see images of children in cages, and she speaks of armed personnel in the halls.An embodied sense of uncontrollable and persistent change has been called ‘root shock’ by psychiatrist Fullilove , who hashow external stressors move under the skin, into the bloodstream and nerves of children. With a range of physiological indicators, McEwen tracks ‘allostatic load’—the ways in which external conditions penetrate bodies, including noise, lack of heat, over‐crowding, police presence, exposure to violence, affecting children's hyperactivity, hypertension, blood pressure, diabetes and other health conditions. More contemporary work on socio‐economic disadvantage and youth development, how oppression crawls into our blood and nervous systems, can be found in the writings of Raffington et al.  a fundamental advancement in social psychology; these writers understand subjectivities as entangled with structures of class, labour, gender, sexuality, race, human (in)securities, borders and show us how to theorize and research with multi‐scalar lines of analysis. As noted by Adam‐Troian et al. As a more specific interrogation of how the demands of ‘flexible capitalism’ wears on the bodies of working‐class people, the Schmitt et al. Mahendran et al. A few articles focus specifically on the academy, as an instance of structural precarity, making visible the neoliberal waters in which we swim. The researchers place the academy under an analytic screen, tracking neoliberal logics that saturate and corrode our universities, leeching off contingent labour and students' dreams, particularly troubling as universities circulate, enforce and legitimate exclusions and hierarchy in the pernicious name of ‘merit’.academic precarity at the nexus of ‘subjective experience and as an organizational practice’, that ‘bolsters an inequality regime’ in the academy reliant on ‘precarious academic positions and practices’. They call for scholarship/policy/organizing across institutions to ‘make inequalities more visible and decrease perception of legitimacy’ (of the existing system). Rooted in the United Kingdom where 72% of full professors are male, 125 of the 19,285 professors are Black and only 35 of these Black professors are women, these writers cast a powerful shadow over the academic regime striated with neo‐liberal logics and temporary contracts, racial and gendered disparities, and self‐legitimated through the impenetrable construct of ‘merit’ as if ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’.Albayrak‐Aydemir and Gleibs subject to the corrosive impact of neoliberal logics; students and faculty experience, witness and collude in (by desire or not) the slow violence of neoliberal penetration (even as many of us protest/resist) and, third, the academy as an institution valorises capitalist, colonial, white supremacist and patriarchal metrics of ‘merit’ and productivity.A number of articles in the volume trouble the academy as a space of tripled precarity blues: the university is of course epistemology of colonial obfuscation, when the authors ask: ‘How does colonial violence manifest in knowledge production about conflict?’ They conclude, ‘Our findings highlight how the investigation of the context can carry a colonial standpoint that reflects and serves interests of ongoing domination. A more effective social psychology of precarity in the case of Palestine or elsewhere requires great attention to such dynamics of the coloniality of knowledge’.While the academy is an object of scrutiny across a number of papers, many also drill down into the intellectual and political project of social psychology, a discipline rooted in Western eyes and white gaze and aligned with colonial projects and troubling categories. Turning inward onto social psychology as a neoliberal disciplinary engine within the university, Hakim et al. otherwise, by engaging participatory inquiry, generating visions of a world without borders, inspiring global consciousness and reorienting ‘hegemonic social psychology with the aim to disrupt the politics of knowledge production and eradicate precarity.’  reflexivity, the writer reflects on ‘culture specific inner eyes’, borrowing from Sylvia Wynter , asking Finally, Reddy and Amer otherwise: surfacing questions about whose knowledge is centred? To whom are our projects accountable? What can be learned and kneaded in critical research collectives perched at the margins between community and academy? Can critical psychology speak at once to communities under siege and policymakers largely ignorant to the struggles on the ground? How can we interrupt the western worldview so sedimented in our disciplinary traditions, and invite a ‘view from the cracks?’These three articles advance a sharp disciplinary critique–naming the harms of our discipline—but also elevate a powerful set of images of critical social psychology And so, in the sweet morning after reading and appreciating powerful interventions into critical psychology by these articles, I will pose a few loving challenges on how the authors have stirred me, and where we all—authors and readers—might wander.critical bifocality . At the same time—I want to introduce some of the thinking that Lois Weis and I have done, in an essay on sistance  to ask uconspiratorial to think the state and global capital are out to get you?). However, social psychologists have an obligation to peer upstream to understand who is pumping money and ideas into the air we breathe, the churches we attend, the candidates who will spew and inflame hatred of immigrants, queers, people with disabilities, Muslims, BiPOC persons, women… Social psychology has an obligation to tell a thicker, more complex story of how these conspiratorial and hateful viruses enter our collective bloodstream and not reproduce the myth that only white working class carry the hate. In 2016, according to exit polls, it was America's white and wealthy voters—white college graduates and white female voters—who brought Trump to victory. As noted in The Guardian, ‘Far from being purely a revolt by poorer whites left behind by globalization, who did indeed turn out in greater numbers for the Republican candidate than in 2012, Trump's victory also relied on the support of the middle class, better educated and well off…. Of the one in three Americans who earn less than $50,000 a year, a majority voted for Clinton. A majority of those who earn more backed Trump’ . In the United States, economic precarity clearly predicts the endorsement of MAGA ideologies, election lies, xenophobia and conspiracy beliefs in white working class and poor people in the United States . But these same empirical relationships between economic precarity and conservatism are not found, for the most part, among African Americans, Native Americans or Latinos. While these dynamics are quite complicated, the visuals of white working‐class male mobs, domestic terrorists, swarming and assaulting the US capital tell one important story, perhaps about white economic precarity. We are still left without understanding the implications of how communities of colour, poverty, sexual marginalization, engage in healing, arts, activism, protest and mutual aid—often through aesthetics and healing , have mobilized a city‐wide research collective rooted in the community demands for divesting in policing, abolition of prisons, investing in mental health/restorative justice, and building safety in communities of colour. Led by residents and activists from communities of colour that endure massive levels of racialized police violence , the Black Law Project, Communities for Police Reform and Raise the Age projects are rooted in knowledge production/organizing and policy reformation, situated in struggle. A third example comes from Jennifer Ayala et al. (http://bxcrrb.org/team‐showcase/dr‐monique‐a‐guishard/) where community members review and critique, challenge and hold accountable grants submitted to Einstein Hospital asking about who gets the money? What language will the researchers use to describe participants? Are you only studying diabetes, or will studies of schizophrenia or STDs suddenly pop up in your work?Finally, as a vision of what critical psychology might be otherwise or put differently what is the obligation of university researchers, I want to lift up rich examples of what we have been calling solidarity studies. At the Public Science Project in New York City, and the Inside/Outside Prison project at the University of South Africa, I have had the joy/opportunity to collaborate with women in prison and just out of prison, living in the hell of incarceration and the deeply troubling fog of ‘freedom’. In New York, we are a research collective of women still inside, many outside, two lawyers and two researchers. We have been documenting and organizing around the ‘doubled violence’ that links domestic violence and the criminalization of survivors, particularly women and femmes, particularly Black and Latina ious freedom dreams.All authors declare no conflict of interest.


A growing body of research has clarified that sleep is influenced not only by biological factors but also by social factors. While studies have shown that social norms can affect sleep behavior and sleeping arrangements, including when, where, how, and with whom people sleep, researchers still know relatively little about how social norms affect sleep health, especially among adults. The current study explores the association between social norms and sleep health in the Israeli context.Data were drawn from semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 66 Israelis—including women and men, Arabs and Jews, and religious and non-religious persons—conducted between February 2020 and February 2022. This article focuses on responses to a set of questions about the comments people make or hear from others about their sleep. Exploring how people comment on the sleep of others highlights prevalent social norms around sleep.Findings indicate that how sleep is “done” is policed by family and community members who react to norm violations by commenting on what is perceived as “inappropriate” sleep behavior. Comments were made in jest or earnest in response to breaches of social norms regarding sleep timing, duration, continuity, and alertness/sleepiness, indicating that social norms and expectations shape each of these sleep health dimensions.This article expands the scholarly understanding of the social determinants of sleep health. The study concludes that since individuals may opt to conform to current social norms, which are enforced by members of the family and community, interventions aimed at promoting sleep health should target not only individuals but also the family and community. Sleep research has expanded since the 1960s, enhancing our knowledge of many aspects of the subject, including the links between sleep and various individual and public health outcomes . InsuffiSleep duration: The total amount of sleep obtained per 24 h.Sleep continuity or efficiency: The ease of falling asleep and returning to sleep.Timing: The placement of sleep within the 24-hour day.Alertness/sleepiness: The ability to maintain attentive wakefulness.Satisfaction/quality: The subjective assessment of “good” or “poor” sleep.In recent years, sleep scientists have given increased attention to “sleep health” rather than focusing merely on sleep disorders or sleep deficiency , 10. In These dimensions can be described in positive terms and facilitate a more holistic approach to the study of sleep. They also align with the World Health Organization’s conceptualization of “health” as a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” . Sleep hStill, an emerging body of studies offers important insights. Researchers have identified associations between sleep parameters and sociocultural and environmental factors such as perceived discrimination , neighboWhile the extant body of sleep research has several limitations, a related vein of sociological and anthropological research complements this literature by exploring how sociocultural factors, including social norms, affect sleep. Scholars have explored the different ways in which people around the world have thought about and practiced sleep in various historical periods –28, empiFurthermore, Simon Williams  notes thDespite these enlightening studies, there is a need for further empirical research to explore in more depth the sociocultural factors that affect sleep health, particularly how social norms and expectations, and their day-to-day enforcement, shape the various dimensions of sleep health. Such a nuanced understanding would enhance researchers’ knowledge of the social determinants of individuals’ health and well-being, which, in turn, would help researchers and practitioners to design tailored, more effective sleep health interventions.This article is based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted between February 2020 and February 2022 as part of a study on the sociocultural patterning of sleep in Israel. Participants were selected using a non-probability purposeful sampling design that sought to include individuals with a wide range of sociodemographic backgrounds in terms of gender, ethnonationality, socioeconomic status, religion, and religiosity, as well as the quality of sleep . The intIndividuals had to be between 40 and 60 years old to be eligible for the study. The sample was limited to individuals in midlife because sleep varies across the life course and intertwining sets of (somewhat competing) roles, responsibilities, and expectations are more likely to affect sleep during midlife than at other times . In addiRespondents were recruited in multiple ways. Three trained research assistants (RAs) and I created and distributed a flyer describing the research to various Facebook and WhatsApp groups. We also asked friends and colleagues to circulate the flyer to their acquaintances. In addition, the RAs posted the flyer on physical message boards in cities in the northern and central parts of Israel. Finally, we used snowball sampling, although to a limited extent. The flyer included a phone number to allow interested individuals to contact the RAs and inquire about the study. During the resulting phone conversations, the RAs provided additional information about the study and referred callers to an anonymous online questionnaire (written in Hebrew and Arabic) that allowed the research team to assess their suitability for the study. Fifty-four Arabs and 90 Jews completed the screening questionnaire. We approached suitable applicants while ensuring that those we contacted had a range of sociodemographic characteristics to provide a heterogeneous sample, as mentioned above. Recruitment continued until data saturation was reached, i.e., until new interviews did not reveal novel information.Interviews were conducted in places and at times that were convenient to the respondents, such as homes or workplaces, public parks, and coffee shops. Interviews with Jews were conducted in Hebrew and transcribed verbatim, and those with Arabs were conducted in Arabic and translated into Hebrew. I translated the interview excerpts that appear in this article into English. Interviews ranged from 41 min to 2 h and 23 min, with an average of 1 h and 31 min. The semi-structured interviews encompassed a range of open-ended questions about participants’ views and practices of sleep and napping, quality and quantity of sleep, factors that affected their sleep, and more.This article focuses on a specific set of questions: Participants were asked if people commented on their own sleep and whether they commented on the sleep of others. If they answered yes, they were asked to describe these comments, who made them, and why, and to depict recent conversations on sleep-related matters. The three main prompts and follow-up probes were as follows: Does anyone comment or has previously commented on your sleep? Please tell me about it (Probes: Who made the comment? What did they say? How did you respond? Please describe one of these conversations). Do you comment, or have you commented on someone else’s sleep? Please tell me about it (Probes: What did you say? To whom? Why did you say that? How did they respond? Please describe one of these conversations). Have you talked about sleep with friends, family, or colleagues? Tell me about these conversations.These questions were chosen to explore how people discuss and respond to others’ sleep and thus shed light on prevalent social norms around sleep. Interviewees were also asked to describe if and how the spread of COVID-19 had affected their experience, management, patterns, or perceptions of sleep in any way. This article focuses on aspects that remained unchanged despite the pandemic.Data were collected and analyzed following the principles of constructivist grounded theory, including simultaneous collection and analysis of data, constant comparison, coding, and memo writing . In accoThe analytic process began with inductive reasoning: I first explored all theoretical possibilities in the data through open coding and then grouped responses that recurred into themes. The initial themes included sleep timing, sleep duration, dozing off, and disrupting sleep. No differences were found between sociocultural groups regarding these themes. The next phase of the analysis focused on abductive reasoning: The iterative process of making sense of the data included moving back and forth between the data and both pre-existing and developing theories . This stThis study received ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board at the Faculty of Social Sciences, the University of Haifa . Before the interviews, participants were informed of the overarching research goal and the voluntary nature of the interview. All participants signed informed consent forms. Careful measures were taken to ensure respondents’ anonymity and confidentiality, including removing identifying data and using pseudonyms.The final sample included 66 Israelis aged 40–60 (mean age = 49.48). Twenty-eight respondents were Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel and 38 were Jews. Since the current study did not ask respondents about their ethnonational self-identification, which prior studies have shown to differ among Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel , the texAs the inductive analysis shows, how sleep is “done”  is policAlthough modern Western societies are, to a large extent, non-stop 24/7 societies –51, the Everyone laughs at me for going to bed early. My nephews live in the houses near our house, and sometimes they stay up late, especially in summer, and if they listen to music or something, I call them and say, “You might want to stay up, but others want to sleep.” Sometimes, I shut the windows and turn on the air-conditioner just so that I don’t hear the noise until they go inside, I don’t know precisely when, and then I open the windows again. They always tell me, “You all sleep so early!” [Laughs].According to participants’ accounts, one of the most teased sleep behaviors was going to bed at an hour that was deemed early. Early sleepers said they were often the butt of jokes made by family members and friends. Ayesha, an Arab woman, for example, remarked,Everyone constantly jokes that I “switch off” and sleep and that my eyes become red. They have been telling the same jokes about me for 20 years: that I sleep early and cannot stay up till late.Whereas Ayesha said she and her household members all go to sleep relatively early, other early sleepers alleged they were unique in their own homes. Their partners or children would mock their tendency to go to sleep at hours perceived as too early. Moonia, an Arab woman, recounted:Mamdooh: My friends always comment on my sleep. They say, “You are like the chickens. You are not the only person who has to wake up at 4:30 am. Other people have to wake up at 4:30 am too!”Interviewer: They say “like chickens” because you go to sleep early?Mamdooh: Yes, but I don’t care. My body is more important.This respondent’s account, along with others, indicated an expectation of sleeping at an “appropriate” time and combatting tiredness or sleepiness successfully. Not adhering to this norm is interpreted as a failure, a comical weakness deserving of mockery. Similarly, Mamdooh, an Arab man, said his friends do not appreciate his early bedtime,This interviewee prioritizes his sleep health but at the social cost of being derided. His account indicates the social expectation to refrain from sleeping at an early hour, even if one has to wake up early in the morning. By mocking early sleepers, significant others conveyed their displeasure with participants’ non-compliance with social norms and consequent premature retirement from social duties and interactions.Sometimes, my family members say, “Enough!” if I stay up working, my husband would say, “Enough! Enough! Go to sleep! Stop working!” He always says, “Stop working, go to sleep. The work never ends.” If we have a messy house and I have lots of housework, then I can’t sleep, but he would say, “Stop that. It will not end. Go to sleep, rest a little, and you can continue doing it tomorrow.”On the other hand, several respondents said their family members scolded them for going to bed too late. Comments were made when late bedtime became a habit rather than a one-time thing. Raghad, an Arab woman, recounted,This respondent’s husband encourages her not to stay up late but does not offer to do the housework. Thus, she continues to go to sleep only after she finishes cleaning the house, even if her husband criticizes her for doing so. Another participant who hangs out with friends several nights a week said his wife reprimands him for going to sleep too late too frequently. Comments about late bedtimes were not made in jest but rather out of concern for sleepers’ health and safety. That is, whereas early sleepers were teased about their inability to stay awake, late sleepers were admonished for surpassing the normative time for sleep. Both early and late sleepers encountered a social response because they breached social norms around what is considered the appropriate sleep timing.Abe: I have this thing that I nap in the afternoon for half an hour or an hour. All my friends laugh at me.Interviewer: Why do they laugh at you?Abe: They find it strange; but I got used to it. They see 5 pm as the middle of a workday. It’s the end of the workday for me but the middle for them.Not only night-time sleep but also daytime napping aroused a social reaction. Despite growing recognition of the benefits of daytime napping e.g., , 53, 54,Adina: It really annoys me that my husband sleeps in the middle of the day. He can sleep everywhere. He has no problem with that.Interviewer: Why does that annoy you?Adina: Because it’s the middle of the day! Why are you asleep?!Interviewer: But what is the problem with that?Adina: It bothers me. Do something else; don’t sleep! [Laughs] I’m talking to him, and he is asleep! He has no problem dozing off everywhere. It’s funny.As this and other accounts indicate, the workday is often perceived as a time to be awake and productive, and therefore daytime napping is seen by some as a mismanagement of precious time. While several respondents adhered to this view, others said napping after work is a helpful way to manage tiredness and prolong the day to get more things done. Some of these respondents had knowledge of recent medical research that found associations between napping and multiple health and performance gains. However, most nappers emphasized their own experience of the benefits of napping. The variety of views regarding napping was also manifested in respondents’ accounts of how they reacted to their partners’ sleep. Adina, a Jewish woman, shared:This excerpt sheds further light on why some individuals object to daytime napping. Sleep is characterized by reduced consciousness and thus essentially means social absence. A sleeping person is largely (though not entirely ) “dead tI mock her. I have a sense of humor. I tell her, “You are the longest sleeper in the entire world.” I tease her. Sometimes, I drive around the house [during his work hours] at 8 or 9 pm, and I see that everything is turned off. She is asleep! Already in another world! I tell her, “You say you don’t sleep, but you sleep more than everyone else in the entire world. You sleep at 9 pm and wake up at 6 am. You sleep twice as much as my sisters or I do!”Sleep duration is another dimension of sleep health that is shaped by social norms. Both short and long-sleepers recalled getting comments on their quantity of sleep. Nasri, an Arab man, described how he derided his wife for sleeping too much:As with this participant, others compared their sleep with that of those around them, especially their partners. Those who believed their spouses slept longer than they did often commented on this. Sometimes they simply said they were envious of their partner’s lengthy sleep, but others mocked their partners for sleeping “too long,” indicating an expectation that sleep should not exceed an appropriate time length. Such excess is seen as a norm violation worthy of social reaction. A few participants explicitly stated that oversleeping is a waste of time, which they do not accept or appreciate.I comment on my husband’s sleep because I am shocked by how little he sleeps. I am afraid it might hurt his health. He suffers from heart issues, and I don’t know if they’re connected to his short sleep, but I think they are. Along with a proper diet, good, sufficient sleep is vital for maintaining physical balance.While long sleepers were laughed at and taunted, short sleepers received grimmer comments, warning of the consequences of their insufficient sleep duration. For example, Dina, a Jewish woman, said,Dan: After a night with little sleep, just because I didn’t want to go to sleep, I become tired, exhausted, and then my wife gets upset when I say that I am tired, tired, tired.Interviewer: What does she say?Dan: “Enough of that! Why did you stare at your cell phone for an hour?” Or “Why did you surf the internet for an hour and also spent two hours on the computer?!”This participant commented on her spouse’s sleep in an attempt to encourage him to extend his sleep duration and thus improve his overall physical health. Like other accounts, this narrative indicates knowledge of the proven associations between sleep and general health. Likewise, Dan, a Jewish man, detailed his wife’s responses to his occasional habit of curtailing his sleep:This participant’s wife criticized him for using his cell phone and computer at the expense of his sleep, reflecting on sleep hygiene recommendations to avoid screens before bedtime and to prioritize sleep. These examples indicate that some of the medical knowledge about sleep has become part of lay knowledge and perhaps has begun to (re)shape prevalent social norms. In any case, respondents’ accounts indicate that both over-sleeping and under-sleeping are unappreciated and that attempts are made to regulate sleep duration in this sociocultural context.My husband and I watch movies together in the living room, but I fall asleep, so my husband laughs at me, “You barely watched 10 minutes!” Sometimes he would push me gently […] My kids laugh at me too. Sometimes, I go to sleep at around 8 or 9 pm. These are days that I am so tired, but my kids laugh at me when I do that.Falling asleep outside the bedroom in the presence of others was another experience that aroused teasing. For some, this became a regular occurrence at home or family members’ residences. Although Abeer, an Arab woman, feels sleepy in the early evening hours, she insists on watching some TV with her husband. Yet often she fails to stay awake:Everyone laughs at me. They know I have a bed ready at my sister’s, and if I stay up, they are all like, “Wow! Yara stayed up today!” Like it’s an achievement. But I can stay up only if I nap in the afternoon. There is no other way that I could stay up after waking at 5 am and running around all day.In the same way, Yara, an Arab woman, falls asleep not only in her own home but also at her sister’s:Gabby: Sometimes, I wake up and realize that I dozed off during Friday dinner or when we [he and other family members] sit in the living room together.Interviewer: Did someone notice you when you dozed off at dinner?Gabby: Yes.Interviewer: How did that make you feel?Gabby: [Laughs] I was a little embarrassed. I made fun of it. They laughed at it.As these excerpts clarify, when early sleepers attempt to stay awake, the people around them react in ways that expose social norms and expectations regarding sleep and the body. Praising individuals for staying up later than usual highlights the appreciation of wakefulness and socializing over dormancy. Mocking individuals for failing to stay awake reveals the expectation that a person will control tiredness and drowsiness and overcome sleep. In other words, there is an expectation that the mind will triumph over the body. Inability to control sleepiness and stay alert can sometimes cause embarrassment. As Gabby, a Jewish man, said:This interviewee felt embarrassed because he realized he had breached civilized codes of conduct by falling asleep at the “wrong” time and place. His embarrassment indicates the internalization of relevant social norms and expectations.After 9:15 pm, I can’t hold on. They say, “Mom, now you are definitely going to fall asleep” [Laughs]. The other day, my little girl said, “I want to change back to Arabic because you are dozing off, and you don’t explain things to me.” It was about 10 pm.Respondents’ children were particularly derisive when such norm deviations occurred. Bushra, an Arab woman, and her children watch TV nightly, but despite her best efforts, she keeps falling asleep:As with this respondent, others also indicated that their absence due to sleep was commented on as they breached the normative expectation that they stay awake and functional even in the early night hours. Although biologically individuals cannot always resist sleep, norms and expectations demand that individuals avoid such behavior and maintain alertness until specific hours and places considered appropriate for sleep.[I tell him], “Get up and move quickly to your bed! Don’t sleep uncomfortably like that. Your body and neck are bent for two or three hours, and then you wake up complaining of neck, shoulder, and arm pain because you sleep inappropriately.”Nevertheless, some comments were stern in tone and motivated by concern. Falling asleep outside the bedroom sometimes involved uncomfortable positions, leading people to urge the sleeper to move to the “appropriate” place to sleep. Nadia, an Arab woman, described pleading with her husband to move from the living room to the bedroom when he fell asleep on the sofa at night:Similarly, other participants reported making comments that indicated that sleeping outside the bedroom involves “wrong” or “bad” sleep positions that eventually cause pain and may result in weariness. Notably, whereas several respondents had received comments that they looked tired, no respondents described instances in which falling asleep involuntarily was identified as pathological or as requiring medical care.Respondents reported that they received comments on unruly behavior in sleep  when this behavior disrupted the sleep continuity of those around them. These comments revealed the expectation that sleep should be uninterrupted and consolidated into one nightly block. While this expectation seems reasonable in contemporary Western societies, it would be deemed unreasonable in other sociocultural contexts where punctuated sleep is unavoidable and normalized  and in dNaif: They recorded me once.Interviewer: Who did?Naif: My oldest daughter and wife. They said, you snored so much, and I responded, “No, I don’t snore. There’s no way” [Laughs].Interviewer: You denied it.Naif: Yes, I was kidding around.Interviewer: So why did they record it?Naif: My sleep was funny. It was amusing.The most recurrent sleep behavior that interfered with achieving this goal was snoring, which prevented sleep partners from falling asleep or returning to sleep after waking up. Comments sometimes took the form of mockery, but often they were stern and cautionary. Naif, an Arab man, described how his wife and daughter teased him for snoring:Abeer: At one point, I had to record him so he would hear his snoring.Interviewer: He denied it?Abeer: He didn’t realize how bad it was. I had to record him. I still have the tapes. I said, “Do you realize how badly you snore? Do you hear your own sounds? Do you understand that I am worried about you, that you might have sleep apnea?”While some saw snoring as a simple, even amusing, nuisance, others saw it as a severe problem affecting the health and functioning of the snorer and those around them. Abeer, for example, lamented not being able to share a bed with her spouse . ThOther participants provided similar accounts, indicating that the sound of snoring infringed the social ban against disrupting the sleep continuity of others. Mocking and remarking on snoring were thus social sanctions meant to goad snorers into action, encouraging them to seek solutions for their disruptive sleep behavior, which imperiled themselves and others.This study shows that over and above what prior studies have shown , 37, 38,Specifically, social expectations shape what is considered an early or late bedtime. There are expectations to get what is perceived as sufficient sleep while avoiding over- or under-sleeping, indicating that sleep is seen as a means to an end  rather than an objective in and of itself. Too much sleep is considered inappropriate because it is interpreted as social absence. At the same time, too little sleep is unacceptable because it is seen as dangerous both to the short-sleeper and to the people around them. Findings further indicate that there is an appropriate time and place for sleep—certain hours at night and in one’s bed—which makes sleep in other places and times worthy of social reaction. The expectation is that individuals will control their body’s impulses and not give in to sleep. They are expected to stay in command of their bodies, fulfill social roles and duties, and protect social interactions. Yielding to sleep is seen as a display of weakness; though understood, it is frowned upon, causing some embarrassment among sleepers. Even when sleep is voluntary, and despite growing recognition of the benefits of napping , 53, manThis qualitative study focused on comments that recurred in interviews with this heterogeneous sample of Israelis. While the heterogeneity of the sample increases the likelihood that these findings are generalizable to the general population , given tThis study has practical implications as well. In contrast to multiple health problems that are seen as inevitable, sleep is viewed as a behavior that could be modified, at least to an extent . This is


Screen mediated shared reading (SMSR), which involves an adult reading a child a book through video-chat, is a recent development in shared reading. In this study, we investigated whether, as in in-person shared reading, children could learn new words from SMSR, and whether having a physical copy of the book to follow along with impacted children’s novel word retention and engagement in this setting.n = 34) were read an 8-page rhyming, “Meet the Friendly Monsters” story by a researcher over Zoom, via screen sharing an e-version of the story used in previous studies. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: SMSR with or without a paper copy of the book to follow along with. The session was recorded to measure children’s engagement behaviors during the reading. Novel word learning from the story was measured with both a multiple choice identification test and a monster naming test, both administered immediately after the initial reading, then re-administered 10–14 days later. Engagement during the SMSR sessions was measured every 30-s on a scale of 1 (low engagement) to 5 (high engagement), and then averaged for each child.Three- to 5-year-old participants (increase the challenges posed to children’s attention during SMSR, potentially making the word learning task more difficult.Results show that children overall performed slightly above chance on novel monster name retention from the SMSR. However, retention was not as strong as seen in other in-person shared reading studies using the same story. Additionally, while children remembered monster names with equal efficacy regardless of condition and level of engagement, there were still qualitative differences in the reading sessions depending on whether children had their own paper copy of the book to follow along with – in general, the ‘with book’ condition appeared to The findings of this study have implications for how to approach shared reading with young children in new contexts with the use of emerging technology. We raise future research questions for a better understanding of best practices for screen mediated shared reading. Shared book reading, which involves an adult caregiver reading, and a child listening and actively participating in children’s book read-alouds, has long been considered beneficial for preschool-aged children’s linguistic and socio-emotional learning . Learninand child) engagement with 1–3 point scales of parent involvement, mutuality of communication, parent initiated story engagement and turn taking, and found both that parent engagement was higher during e-book reading, but also that parent–child engagement positively correlated with children’s story comprehension. In a more recent study, This work highlights both the positive relationship between engagement and learning as well as the nuances of measuring engagement and learning in these contexts . In a stWhile there are many potential benefits of shared reading for young children and learning outcomes from a read-aloud that can be measured, such as emergent literacy skills , or storThe growing prevalence of e-reading in the past decade has allowed for more research on its effectiveness not only in isolation, but also relative to more traditional print-book reading in terms of children’s retention, engagement, and interaction in shared book reading settings . To undeDue to school closures and social distancing in 2020, preschool children as young as 3 and 4 were required to grow accustomed to the implementations of technologies such as video-chat into their daily learning, and even specifically in their at-home reading routines . This inIn one of the first studies to consider the specific context of screen mediated reading, The increased utilization of live video-chat reading as a result of the pandemic has created an elevated focus on research involving screen mediated shared reading in recent years. Emerging research from The transition to more frequent screen mediated reading typically eliminates physical books from a shared reading experience in favor of e-books. The removal of physical books is a unique condition of screen mediated reading, that adds a new aspect to the shared reading experience for children. However, research has shown benefits of the presence of a physical book for children in a shared reading setting . When chCritically, shared reading with paper books may offer less distraction than synchronous reading over video-chat. According to Can children fast map and remember new words from screen mediated shared reading (SMSR)?Does the addition of a physical book influence the extent to which children can fast map new words from SMSR?Does the addition of a physical book influence children’s engagement during SMSR?Does children’s engagement during SMSR predict their ability to fast map new words from a story?Given this prior research on the ability of children to learn new words from shared reading experiences, and the rapid advent of a new medium for engaging with and reading with young children remotely – screen mediated shared reading, the aim of the present research is to address the following questions:The experimental protocol described below was approved by the Santa Clara University Institutional Review Board for Social Behavioral Educational Research . Consent was obtained from the guardian of each participant before any information was collected. The hypotheses and analysis strategy were pre-registered with AsPredicted (#66228).n = 34) between the ages of 3–5 years  completed the study. They were identified as 13 male and 21 female, and all were English dominant. One participant completed only the first session of the study, but data from the first session is included in the results. We did not collect information regarding race, ethnicity, SES, or other demographic factors.Participants , and typical learning ability  to ensure comprehension of the story and the questions asked in the procedure. All participants had a level of familiarity with shared reading and with some form of video-chat, but not necessarily a combination of the two as utilized by our study. In a between-subjects design, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions – a screen mediated story reading (SMSR) with access to a physical book vs. a SMSR without an additional physical book.This study employed the same “Meet the Monsters” storybook that has previously been used in experimental research on vocabulary learning from shared reading, and that children in this age range have demonstrated that they understand and enjoy e.g., , 2021. TThe layout of both the on-screen version and the paper copy of the book were the same – a centered illustration of each monster on a white background with the text of the rhyme placed individually on each page. The physical copy was printed on glossy, 8 × 10 inch photo paper in landscape orientation to look and feel like a typical softcover children’s book that closely matched the screen version. See We utilized the video-chat platform Zoom to conduct each session of the study. Zoom allows for live presentations by the research assistant over video-chat, while simultaneously sharing their screen to show the “Meet the Monsters” book. Since the pages of the story were already created as individual slides using PowerPoint software, the screen share function was utilized to share the storybook and the related retention measures for all conditions, while both the video of the reader (researcher) and the child’s video were also visible.After obtaining informed consent and basic background information from the caregiver and assent from the participant, the study commenced with the first of two video-chat sessions. The first session typically lasted about 10 min. Participants had Zoom downloaded prior to participating in the study. Caregivers were instructed to limit any interaction and commentary during the reading. The researcher shared their screen via the video-chat platform to show the “Meet the Monsters” book to the participant. The researcher introduced herself, welcomed the child, and obtained verbal assent from the child that they were ready to hear a story and then answer some questions about it. The researcher then proceeded to read the book to the child, forwarding the screen to the respective page as they read aloud the rhymes describing and naming each of the eight novel monsters in turn. The same female researcher read the same book in the same age-appropriate reading style throughout the story for all participants in both conditions.In the ‘without book’ condition, the reader shared the story on a screen and read it to the child over video-chat. In the ‘with book’ condition, the reader shared the story on a screen, and the child had their own physical copy of the book. Participants in the ‘with book’ condition were asked if they had their book present for the reading, but were not given further instructions regarding how to use or interact with the physical book. At the completion of session 1, participants in the ‘with book’ were instructed to have no interaction with the storybook until the completion of session 2 which would take place 10–14 days later.Following the reading of “Meet the Monsters,” the child completed two short monster name retention tests – first, a multiple choice test that measured novel word identification, in which participants were tested on their ability to identify a particular monster image according to the novel name provided by the researcher; and second, a monster name recall test that measured novel monster name production, which tested participants’ ability to verbalize the monster name of a provided monster image. Approximately 10–14 days later, a second video-chat session was held in which the researcher conducted the same retention tests, without reading the story. Since session 2 did not include as much introduction from the researcher or a reading of the story, it typically only lasted a few minutes with each participant. At the end of the second session parents and children were thanked for their participation and sent an electronic gift card to an online children’s book retailer.Novel word retention and learning were measured through accuracy on monster identification and production tests. These tests were adapted from previous studies to a powerpoint presentation that was shared during the Zoom session . SimilarTo measure production, the same procedure from previous studies was used in both the first and second session. Participants were shown an additional eight slides, each with a picture of a single monster, and asked “What’s this monster called?” Children received one point for each monster correctly named, and a half-point if they gave a monster name that was a close approximation , again resulting in possible scores ranging from 0 to 8.In all cases higher scores indicated participants’ greater success in remembering the monster names heard within the story and a greater potential for long-term novel word retention and learning.Participants’ behavior throughout the shared reading was coded using an adapted version of the Leuven Scale of Active Engagement to better comply with the screen mediated setting of this study . The LeuThe original Leuven Scale of Active Engagement was created for in-person tasks to be completed by children in the presence of a researcher or parent. This study used an updated dynamic measurement version of the Leuven Scale of Active Engagement , which iResearchers measured engagement from the recorded reading session, attending to the following behaviors: verbal comments and questions from the children, looking at the screen or away, nonverbal gestures and facial expressions that were responsive to the story being read aloud. Two coders independently watched each recording and coded the participants’ engagement behavior, then met to discuss any discrepancies in coding in order to converge on a single score.To normalize scores across the varying lengths of reading time, each participant was assigned a single engagement score derived from the average of scores across their session at the completion of the coding session. The average length of storybook reading was 164.7 s (range: 150–330), or just under 3 min across the 34 participants. When divided into 30-s increments for engagement coding, this meant children’s mean engagement score was derived from an average of 5.5 increments (range: 5–11). Participants were given an engagement score for the last increment range, even if the increment did not last a full 30 s .p-values all >0.44, d’s all <0.30), and subsequently did not include gender as a predictor variable in any of the analyses described below. Age, however, was positively correlated with children’s total identification scores  and their total production scores . As may be expected, older children tended to be more successful in their retention of the new monster names, although age was not correlated with participants’ average engagement scores . Age was, therefore, included as a covariate in the relevant analyses of children’s retention that follow.In order to understand which individual participant factors may be relevant to children’s responses in this study, we conducted exploratory analyses on the impact of participants’ gender and age (in months) on each of the three main outcome variables – total identification scores across both sessions, total production scores across both sessions, and engagement averages while listening to the stories. We found no effect of gender on any of these outcome measures  were significantly greater than chance, p = 0.050, but this effect was small, d = 0.29, and approximately 2 weeks later, participants’ identification scores decreased  to a level no longer different from chance, p = 0.499, d = 0.02.In order to address the first research question of this study, both the mean identification scores and mean production scores of all 34 participants were compared to chance levels of responding after both the first shared reading session and after the second. For identification scores, chance performance was set at 2 correct out of 8 (or a score of 2.0) on a 4-alternative multiple choice test. One sample M = 0.25, SD = 0.51) were significantly greater than 0, p = 0.004, d = 0.49, and approximately 2 weeks later, participants’ production scores increased  and were also significantly different from 0, p < 0.001, d = 0.61.Children’s mean production scores were tested against 0 in order to know whether there was any evidence that children recalled the novel monster names across conditions. One sample t-tests showed that after hearing the monster story read once, participants’ production scores , d = 1.21  impacted their retention, first an omnibus 2 × 2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on identification and on production scores with condition (with or without paper book) as a between-subjects factor, and session (first or second test session) as a within-subjects factor, and age in months as a covariate.F = 7.362, p = 0.011, η2 = 0.11; a main effect of condition only approaching significance, F = 3.697, p = 0.064, η2 = 0.05, suggesting marginally higher identification scores in the without book condition; and no significant main effect of session, F = 0.013, p = 0.909, η2 < 0.001. In addition, there were no significant interactions between condition and session, F = 0.105, p = 0.748, η2 = 0.001, between age and condition, F = 0.014, p = 0.912, η2 < 0.001 or between age and session, F = 0.082, p = 0.776, η2 = 0.001. See Participants’ identification scores in each condition at each testing session are shown in F = 7.513, p = 0.010, η2 = 0.15, but no significant main effects of condition, F = 0.104, p = 0.749, η2 = 0.002; or session, F = 0.153, p = 0.698, η2 = 0.001. There were also no significant interactions between condition and session, F = 0.040, p = 0.843, η2 < 0.001; condition and age, F = 0.139, p = 0.713, η2 = 0.001; or session and age, F = 0.519, p = 0.477, η2 < 0.004. See Participants’ production scores in each condition at each testing session are shown in n = 17). This included 5 participants from the with book condition (36%) and 12 participants from the without book condition (60%). While proportionally more children performed above chance on monster name identification from the without book than from the with book condition, a Chi Square test revealed that these frequency differences were not statistically significant, 𝛸2 = 2.882, p = 0.0896 (two-tailed).Given the generally low performance of participants across conditions and sessions in the retention task, to further probe whether there might be some differences between the two conditions that were masked by floor effects, we also conducted a nonparametric analysis of the identification scores for just those participants who scored above chance (> 2.0) on identification in the first test session (n = 8), we found that only 3 children with books and 5 children without were able to name a monster themselves after hearing it labeled in the story, a nonsignificant frequency difference between the two conditions, 𝛸2 = 0.500, p = 0.4795 (two-tailed).In addition, following the same procedure for the participants who scored above zero on the production task in the first session  and without book  conditions, t(32) = 0.113, p = 0.911, d = 0.039. Thus, variability in children’s engagement in SMSR was not reliably related to whether or not they were provided with the additional paper copy of the story , or nonverbally pointed and showed the researcher or a parent who was sitting nearby to them off-screen their own copy of the book with the matching monster. In fact, most verbalizations that were made by children in the ‘with book’ condition were about finding or trying to find the matching monster in their own copy of the story. Whereas, in the ‘without book’ condition children were also engaged in the SMSR, making verbal comments  and nonverbally reacting directly with the monster presented on the screen and described by the researcher. Quantitatively, this summed to equal r’s all <0.18, p’s > 0.320. Even when we combined children’s correct identification scores across both their first and second testing sessions, and partialed out condition, there was still no significant correlation between children’s engagement and identification, r = 0.011, p = 0.954  over video-chat. This study revealed both how children’s engagement was affected by reading in an SMSR setting, as well as what new factors we must consider when measuring children’s retention of new information from SMSR. These data indicated that 3- to 5-year-old children’ novel word mapping and retention scores were slightly above chance. However, when compared to findings from previous in-person studies using the same story and same retention tasks e.g., , childreThese findings raise several questions to consider as we evaluate the benefits and challenges of screen mediated shared reading with young children.One of the main findings from this study in our view was that children appeared to perform less well on this novel monster name mapping and retention task via screen mediated reading than they typically have done in a very similar version of the task in in-person shared reading settings. This may not be because of something inherently challenging about the use of screens in shared reading, as several other studies have found successful learning outcomes from e-books and screen mediated reading . Rather,Moreover, the potential distractions are not limited to the physical space around the child, but may also involve the use of and configuration of the screen mediated activity itself. While there was a baseline for participants in this study in their familiarity with video-chat in general, there was still potential for participants’ varied range of experiences with screen mediated shared reading. This varied familiarity could, in turn, have impacted their responses (and distraction around) SMSR. Just as in previous studies comparing e-book reading to traditional print book reading, we must consider the role that novelty of the task can play for young children e.g., . On the Thus with many other places to look and other possible distractions present in the immediate environment competing for preschool-aged children’s attentional resources, success in learning from SMSR of this kind may be more sensitive to many developmental factors. Children in this age range have varied and developing levels of attentional control, working memory, and language processing and comprehension skills; any or all of which could impact their success in this kind of fast-mapping task in a noisy environment. While an important limitation of the current study was that we were not able to collect measures of participants’ individual differences in cognitive development, we did find that children’s age in months, which is typically correlated with development in language, memory, and attentional skills, was positively correlated with their overall retention of new words from the stories. Thus, future research including additional measures could help parse out the effects of these factors on children’s potential for learning in situations like SMSR where the potential for environmental distraction is high.Children may also have been less successful at the specific task of fast-mapping new words in a video-chat setting compared to prior in-person reading studies, because of the focused attention to unique word-picture pairings that was required within a more potentially distracting environment. Even though other recent screen based shared reading research has found more promising results, our 8-item 4-alternative-choice vocabulary test may have been more challenging than other measures of vocabulary retention and story comprehension used in recent studies e.g., . Given tIn the current study, to our surprise no correlations were found between children’s measured engagement levels and their mapping and retention of the new monster names from the SMSR. This raises the question of whether engagement is truly disassociated from learning in this setting, or perhaps more likely, our measure of engagement may not be sensitive enough to capture such a link.type of engagement matters for the specific goal of any learning task. In an e-book reading study by and child mutually reinforcing behaviors, and positively predicted learning from the stories that were shared. In the current study, engagement was measured differently, and how children engaged in SMSR differed individually. Some were verbally engaging with the reader, apparently trying to make a connection by pointing out features of or asking questions about the monsters described in the story she was reading. Some children were physically engaged with the book (if they had their own copy), flipping ahead of the page and playing with the paper. Other children appeared to be only passively engaging, listening quietly and observing the reader through the screen.Engagement should generally be a positive correlate of learning. Certainly attending to and interacting with new ideas, like the names of novel monsters, should help them be maintained in a child’s memory. However, it is also likely that the not engaging in extra-textual dialogic reading practices  either during or after the story read aloud. This was, of course, meant to control the reading experience to make it as similar as possible for each child regardless of condition, but it also became a limitation both to the ecological validity of the SMSR as well as to the support for engagement and learning available to the children. Measuring overall engagement may not capture the nuances or consequences of these different approaches to SMSR. For instance, listening carefully or repeating monster names may help children remember them, but engaging physically with the book, matching behaviors, or laughing and smiling a lot might all be signs of engagement with the activity but distraction from the subtask of vocabulary learning.In addition, it is of note that in our study, participants were hearing the story read by an unfamiliar researcher, who was intentionally Engagement is a challenging construct to operationalize especially in this context of SMSR. Although an adapted version of the Leuven Scale of Active Engagement e.g.,  was usedengaging with SMSR seems to be the two-book condition where the reader and child both have physical copies of the book, as in this case there is more across-screen attention. However, in their study, it is not clear if this configuration would also promote the highest level of learning, especially in the form of a demanding novel word learning task. Further research into the impacts of various configurations with and without physical copies of the books or screen-sharing, is needed to untangle the impacts of how children engage with SMSR and what they ultimately can attend to and learn from it.In the current study, we compared two different types of screen mediated shared reading – screen sharing an e-book while children either had their own paper copy to follow along with or not. There are, however, other configurations for SMSR that may impact both children’s overall engagement and attention to specific aspects of the shared reading that could promote specific types of learning. For example, according to preliminary findings in a study by Whether or not SMSR is truly beneficial depends on several factors, one being the purpose of SMSR in the first place. SMSR is used when reading with a child is desired, but when physical proximity is not possible, i.e., it seems to largely be the “best alternative” when in-person shared reading is not an option. Thus, when considering its effectiveness, we must carefully consider what we are comparing it to and what is meant to be its purpose.Shared reading in general is a common activity in children’s daily lives that serves many purposes, not always pedagogical. While children can and do learn new words from shared reading, often the purpose behind reading a book with a child goes beyond vocabulary building. Shared reading can promote adult-child interaction and narrative development , preliteThe raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Santa Clara University Institutional Review Board for Social Behavioral Educational Research. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s), and minor(s)’ legal guardian/next of kin, for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.KR was the lead faculty supervisor on the project. KR and HH lead the writing of this manuscript with expert contributions and editing from BM and KY. All authors contributed to planning, running and analyzing the findings of the study.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.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


However, an explosive market, namely milk tea, has garnered the attention of certain famous tea companies, several of which have launched milk tea products through sub-branding or co-branding. However, there is a scarce amount of literature on consumers’ attitudes toward these marketing strategies of the milk tea market. (2) Methods: Utilizing the choice experiment (CE) approach, the aim of this study was to explore consumer preferences for milk tea and investigate consumers’ socio-demographic characteristics regarding the preference for milk tea. (3) Results: Firstly, although consumers show positive attitudes toward tea bases that come from famous tea companies, they barely pay attention to the types of tea bases of milk tea products. As for ingredients, consumers show significantly negative attitudes toward non-dairy creamers when compared with fruit bases. Moreover, new brands could undermine consumers’ evaluations of milk tea. Secondly, education, the weekly frequency of drinking milk tea, and monthly allowance have a significant influence on consumer preferences. (4) Conclusions: Tea bases from famous tea companies can enhance consumer utility and promote consumer preference for milk tea. Thus, famous tea companies could seek cooperation with milk tea manufacturers, which would be a win–win strategy for both sides. On the other hand, tea companies should make use of their established reputations to gain consumers in the milk tea market, and co-branding or sub-branding strategies could be cost-effective methods to achieve this goal in the highly competitive milk tea market. Tea is a significant cash crop in China . Not onlA recent study on the beverage market has found that milk tea is a popular product most frequently mentioned by consumers . Milk tePrevious studies on milk tea have mainly concentrated on two aspects. The first is related to the physiological aspects of milk tea: for example, how nutrients in milk tea are absorbed by human bodies ,24; whetOf all the internal attributes of milk tea, the tea base itself was usually ignored by consumers. However, with the diversification of milk tea products and tea companies’ co-branding strategies, the extrinsic characteristics, such as the type of tea or tea enterprises’ brands, as shown on menus, cause consumers to pay much more attention to the tea-based aspects . NeverthThe choice experiment (CE) method, an approach involving stated preferences used to determine consumer preferences for certain products or services, has been adopted in many recent studies on beverage products ,40,41,42All in all, the milk tea market is still developing rapidly and is highly competitive, which makes it crucial for tea companies to understand how to implement new and effective strategies to engage in the milk tea industry so as to reverse their falling profits from traditional sales of tea. This study attempts to explore consumer milk tea preferences through a CE method in order to help tea enterprises implement effective marketing strategies to improve profits. In other words, the aim of this study is two-fold. Firstly, it aims to determine the factors affecting consumer milk tea preferences, ranging from attributes such as the origin of the tea leaves, types of tea base, and added ingredients to the milk tea brands and the price. Secondly, it discusses how consumers’ socio-demographic characteristics impact their milk tea preferences. The results of this study could be useful for tea enterprises to understand young consumers and could help them make their marketing strategies more effective.Fujian plays a significant role in the Chinese tea industry, as the production of tea in Fujian is the highest in all of China , and manThe attributes examined in this study were obtained from real market research and previous studies. When conducting market research on milk tea, our research team recorded and analyzed the menus of famous milk tea shops in the Fujian Province, such as CoCo, Gongcha, Alittle, Nayuki, and Heytea, which are the most popular brands across China ,32,45. ATea is generally classified into three groups based on fermentation level, namely black tea, green tea, and oolong tea . StudiesAccording to the literature, product quality depends on the quality investment of the manufacturer and the supplier . A famouToday, young consumers are adventurous and tend to try new tastes . Most miAs for the various brands of milk tea products, the future milk tea market is predicted to bloom and continue to be competitive, and as such, there are various directions in which brands can develop, such as implementing personalized branding . Taking As the majority of milk tea consumers are Gen Z, this means that they are much more price conscious ,59. PricThe structure of the choice sets is vital to the accuracy of the CE method; therefore, the designed choice sets should explain the variance of attributes to a significant extent while minimizing random errors ,63. ThisA full factorial design for choice sets amounts to a total of 216 (4 × 2 × 3 × 3 × 3) factors, and choice sets grow exponentially for every two alternatives that are involved in one selection. However, it is impossible to conduct a full factorial design research due to limited funds and resources. On the other hand, a fractional factorial design is an improved method that maintains the efficiency of research but reduces the number of choice sets . TherefoMany studies stated that the main consumers of milk tea are the so-called Gen Z, defined as individuals born between 1996 and 2012 ,67, who We conducted a face-to-face questionnaire survey in nine public universities located in Fuzhou from November to December 2022. Fifty respondents were randomly chosen in each university. Nine questionnaire version of this study were provided online, and respondents were asked to fill in the questionnaire, which was accessed by scanning a QR code. Finally, we invited a total of 450 students to participate in our research. We set a “trap question” in the questionnaires, according to the suggestion by Wang et al. (2017). This method was used to identify careless respondents . The “trnitU is the utility of individual n from the given alternative i of the choice set t; nit(βn)V is the observable utility with parameter nβ; and nitε represents the random error. The observable utility derives from the attributes of the given alternative i, which is expressed as the vector iX. iP is the expenditure on the alternative i. ASC reflects the “none” option, where the value is 0, and the value being 1 indicates the selection of the designed choice sets.The Lancaster consumer theory states that consumer utility is derived from the attributes of the product rather than the product itself . Thus, cAmong the logit models, the formation is determined through the hypothesis of the random error distribution and heterogeneity . The muln chooses the alternative i in the choice set n, which is expressed as nit. Additionally, the parameter vectors β1 to β5n represent the degrees of the individual n’s preferences for the relative attributes that are necessary to determine. The “Price” attribute is the metric variable, while the other four attributes are nominal variables. “Types” and “Tea” attributes were coded with the baseline category “none”, and the “fruit” and “established brand” categories were used as the baselines of the “Brand” and “Ingredients” dummy variables.The main effects of the attributes in this study can be expressed by Equation (2). Consumer utility is derived from the five chosen attributes in n’s WTP for attribute x is estimated as Equation (3):nxβ represents the coefficient of the non-price attribute x and npβ is the coefficient of the price attribute np.Individual Of the respondents, around 61.34% were female, which is in line with many studies, where female respondents slightly exceed male respondents ,30,32. OThe results of main effects of the attributes are shown in That consumers have heterogeneous preferences for different products has been confirmed by many studies ,40; thusConsumer WTP values for given attributes were also calculated and are shown in Seeking new markets is of great significance for Chinese tea companies in pursuit of profit growth ,15. The In this study, respondents showed positive attitudes towards tea bases from famous tea enterprises, which indicated that consumer utility enhanced through the use of tea leaves from famous tea companies, and consumers also showed a willingness to pay a higher price for such milk tea products. This result is in line with the study by Xu et al. (2019), who stated that the supplier also has an effect on the brand image of the final product, called the “brand halo” effect . This isRegarding the brand of the milk tea products, the results of this study show that participants were reluctant to buy milk tea products from new brands. This result is similar to the study by Choi et al. (2019), who found that consumers were willing to pay a higher price for a well-known global brand . SimilarMany ingredients added into milk tea can be found in the current Chinese milk tea market . We chosTaking the socio-demographics of participants into consideration, we found that consumers with higher levels of income are more inclined to choose milk tea with a tea base made from tea leaves provided by famous enterprises, but they are reluctant to purchase milk tea that provides information about the type of tea used. According to Wang et al. (2019), one of the factors that influences Chinese consumers’ purchasing intentions when buying tea drinks is that they tend to pursue novel experiences . This inMany studies have suggested that tea enterprises should start pilot development projects in order to revive the tea industry ,5,6. HowThe limitations and future research directions of this study are as follows. Firstly, this study places more emphasis on the attributes that are relative to the aspects of tea. However, as a type of novel drink, milk tea is now undergoing rapid changes in terms of taste, packing, texture, and so on, which also play important roles in explaining consumer’s milk tea preferences. These were not explored in this research. Although types of tea base seem to have no influence on consumers’ purchasing intentions, which we attempted to explain through their pursuit of novel experiences, in future research, it will still be necessary to analyze why young consumers pay no attention to tea types when they purchase milk tea, especially in a country that has a long history of drinking tea and a highly developed tea culture.Secondly, a study on the current brands in Chinese milk tea market found that brands should target consumers according to their income level . AlthougThis study demonstrates that tea bases made with tea leaves provided by famous tea enterprises enhance consumer utility when compared with those made with tea leaves from unknown suppliers. Moreover, the “non-dairy creamer” coefficient is negative, which means that compared with fruit, consumers show significant negative attitudes to non-dairy creamer and are reluctant to choose milk tea with non-dairy creamer. Furthermore, the “new brand” coefficient is significantly negative at the 5% level, which indicates that a milk tea product of a new brand reduces the utility of consumers. It is important for tea enterprises to establish a reputation before entering the milk tea market. In general, it is beneficial for famous tea enterprises to provide tea leaves for the milk tea industry, as this could be an effective extrinsic factor in consumer’s milk tea preferences.Moreover, socio-demographic characteristics also influence milk tea purchase. Education, weekly frequency of drinking milk tea, and monthly income all have a significant influence on consumer preferences. Our results found that people with higher education levels are inclined to choose milk tea from subsidiaries of famous tea brands. Regular consumers display a higher opinion of milk tea products when attributes are provided. Additionally, students with higher monthly allowances prefer milk tea made with tea leaves provided by famous companies, but a negative value was found for black and green tea bases. This study also shows significant negative values for non-dairy creamer.


In this commentary, we discuss three major themes that  James difference . This strand of research tends to highlight Muslims as a minority set against the backdrop of a supposed non-Muslim norm. We agree with Sidaway that, in this epistemological framework, engagement with Islamic scholars and knowledge production has been peripheral.An important part of Sidaway's article consists of a critical assessment of the existing social science literature on diasporic Muslims in the West e.g. . He emphAs Sidaway further points out, the way religion features in this literature has often been schematic. He argues that, in this regard, Islam has been inserted into a comparative approach to religion that ‘imposes a Eurocentric frame…that is then projected onto a range of categories and communities as though they are counterparts or analytically interchangeable’. While Sidaway is referring specifically to the role of religion in geography, the same could also be said about many other disciplines in the social sciences that have grappled with a perceived ‘return of religion’ to politics and public spaces in the 2000s . Sidawaydīn as one such central concept, referring to dīn as a ‘coherent system (of action and knowledge) and judicious power, inclination, habit, disposition, as well as obligation – which includes a related set of commercial forms associated with mercantile capital’ (dīn without historicizing its changing, time-bound interpretations runs the risk of once again essentializing and exoticizing Islam. This comes at the cost of downplaying Islam's internal diversity and Islamic scholars’ longstanding, creative, and productive engagement with religion and other universalist categories (Looking for a decolonial way to overcome this frame, Sidaway argues that instead of reducing Muslim geographies to mere religious geographies, we should turn to Islamic concepts. He identifies capital’ . On the tegories , 2018.This trade in concepts – Islamic and otherwise – has always been part and parcel of particular geographies that challenge the regional containers of area studies. In his article, Sidaway discusses, among other conceptual frameworks, the ‘Balkans-to-Bengal complex’, a term Shahab While he identifies lacunae comprising excluded geographical and intellectual histories – for instance, those of the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa – Sidaway overlooks the fact that other and feeds on a ‘modern materialization and transfiguration of older imperialist projects of comparison and classification’ that replicates colonial discourses.In his article, Sidaway also proposes to look beyond Asian geographies and toward Africa. He endorses definitive and constitutive authority [that] is necessarily vested in legal discourse – every law becomes an act of defining and constituting Islam, the state, and, thereby, the Muslim citizen’ (Accordingly, the move toward decoloniality should not bolster problematic concepts such as syncretism; it should, rather, aim to criticize, historicize, and denaturalize them. Moreover, postcolonial and decolonial theories have argued that hybrid forms of knowledge are generative and bear the potential to displace Western rationality from its position as the sole framework of social existence and thought . In findcitizen’ : 282 procitizen’ : 201.Our criticism notwithstanding, we find ourselves in agreement with many points raised in Sidaway's article. Perhaps most importantly, we are fully aligned with the larger, urgent endeavor of balancing concepts emerging from debates in the social sciences with those theorized and practised in Muslim settings. In the last paragraph, Sidaway argues that ‘the historical and geographical richness of Islam points the way to something even more expansive than the decolonial’. He observes a subversion of previous spatial and civilizational categories, and sees in the ‘richness of Islam’ the potential of invoking ‘something better, involving deeper scrutiny of circulations and intersections that crisscross humanity’. How exactly Islam fosters subversion and how this should result in ‘something better’ – perhaps a transformed discipline of human geography? – remains unsaid. Sidaway thus leaves it to his readers to come up with their own pathways that transcend the decolonial. Reflecting on this, we feel that going beyond existing decolonial discourse in this particular case would necessarily entail an acknowledgement of Islam's weight in global history. Wherever we look in the past and present, from Indigenous Australia to China to the Americas, from everyday culture in Europe to extinct empires in Iberia, Sicily, and the Balkans, Muslims and Islamic influences have played a prominent role. Islam's traces are to be found in all these spaces in, among other manifestations, material culture, legal history, and mapping. A more serious engagement with the multitude of global Islamic influences beyond Muslim communities could be a powerful force of decolonization.