The consumption of wholegrains (WG) is encouraged worldwide, but the lack of a common legal definition of such products leads to an unclear classification and identification on the grocery store shelf. In Italy, several products are generally sold as WG, but it cannot be determined if they are made entirely with all WG cereal(s) or if they are partially produced with WG ingredients (PWG). The aims of this study were to (a) survey the number of cereal-based food items formulated with WG, PWG, or refined (RG) present on the Italian market; and (b) analyse the nutritional quality, intended as nutrition facts, of WG products in comparison to PWG and RG. Nutritional information and declarations were retrieved from packs of 3040 products belonging to five different categories: breakfast cereals, biscuits, sweet snacks, bread, and bread substitutes. A descriptive analysis of the products and comparison of energy, macronutrients, fibre and salt among RG, PWG and WG products within each category was performed. In all categories, a major portion of the products did not contain WG ingredients. Results showed that the nutritional quality of RG, PWG, and WG products varied in relation to the product category and that WG inclusion cannot be always considered a marker of the overall nutritional quality of foods. Instead, it is necessary to evaluate the global product characteristics, and it is important to pay attention to differences between WG and PWG products that can be perceived by consumers as equivalent. Several cereals are key ingredients of many of the foods consumed worldwide on a daily basis. These cereals have a common kernel structure and are composed of a starchy endosperm surrounding the germ and external hard outer layers called bran, which particularly rich in micronutrients and bioactive compounds other than fibre . In agreAs a result of this different nutritional composition, dietary patterns rich in WG and WG-based products have different effects on nutritional status and health outcomes compared to the ones including refined cereal . For insIn this regard, even if WG products are supposed to be healthier than refined ones, the overall nutritional quality of commercially prepacked WG products sold on the Italian market have been barely investigated, and the hypothesis of the presence of the WG claim as a proxy of the total nutritional quality of the product has not been verified. Therefore, the aims of the present work were (a) to provide a descriptive analysis of WG products present on the Italian market, and (b) to investigate the overall nutritional quality of such products in comparison with products either only partially formulated with WG cereals or completely refined in nature.Data were collected from the online surveys conducted in previous studies of the same project ,25,26 anThe complete images of all the sides of the pack were analysed and all information was extracted for each eligible product. For each item, the quali-quantitative and specifically regulated  informat®  and performed at p < 0.05 of significance level.Data distribution was assessed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Data are expressed as a percentage or reported as median (interquartile range) for nutritional values. Differences in terms of energy, macronutrients, fibre and salt contents per 100 g of products for each item among WG, PWG and RG were analysed with Kruskal–Wallis non-parametric one-way ANOVA for independent samples with multiple pairwise comparisons. A Principal Component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation was performed in order to evaluate the inter-product nutritional variability of products in terms of energy, macronutrients, salt and fibre contents per 100 g. In particular, score plots were organized to highlight product characteristics, i.e., category and presence/absence of wholegrains. Statistical analyses were carried out using IBM SPSS StatisticsFrom a total of 3284 products initially retrieved, 244 products were excluded based on the exclusion criteria. In detail, among categories, “biscuits” was the one with the highest number of excluded products (18%), while in all other categories the % of exclusion ranged from 1 to 8%. As a result, a total of 3040 products were included in the analysis and grouped into the five different categories considered . In n = 52 out of 337), representing the 16% of products in this category, followed by “bread substitutes” (n = 120 out of 1016), representing the 12% of total samples. Conversely, the categories with the lowest number of WG items were “Sweet snacks” (n = 21 out of 510), corresponding to the 4% of the total category, “breakfast cereals”, and “biscuits”, with 31 and 57 items (8% and 7%), respectively.Both WG products and products formulated with PWG ingredients represent a limited part of the total considered products: 24% for “breakfast cereals”, 17% “bread substitutes”, 17% for “bread”, 11% for “biscuits”, and 6% for “sweet snacks”. The categories with the highest % of WG products were “bread” , which can be related to WG inclusion, was analysed. Interestingly, the majority  but not all WG and PWG items carried these claims on the packaging. A further analysis was conducted to quantify the number of products without a claim concerning fibre that were potentially eligible for this declaration. About 62% of products in total showing a content of fibre higher than 3 g/100 g were found to be potentially eligible to make a fibre-related claim, without presenting this nutrition claim on the packaging.p > 0.05) energy content for “Biscuits”, “Bread”, “Bread substitutes”, and “Sweet snacks”. Particularly, the latter was the only category in which WG and PWG products did not differ either from each other or from RG products. On the contrary, WG “Breakfast cereals” presented lower energy compared to RG and PWG products, which resulted in them being not significantly different each other. For total and saturated fats, differences among RG, WG and PWG were not consistent among categories. “Biscuits” and “Bread substitutes” were the only categories showing a lower fat content for WG products than RG, despite that for “bread substitutes” a similar fat content was found for WG and PWG items. Total carbohydrate content was similar for WG and PWG products in the “biscuits”, “sweet snacks” and “bread” categories, while WG “bread substitutes” presented a lower carbohydrate content compared to both PWG and RG products. The protein content was higher in WG products for “breakfast cereals” and “bread substitutes” than in PWG and RG products, while for “biscuits”, “bread” and “Sweet snacks” categories a similar content of protein for WG and PWG was found (p > 0.05). The salt content was lower for RG “breakfast cereals”, “biscuits” and “sweet snacks” compared to the respective WG-containing products. Instead, the salt content was similar for RG, PWG, WG “bread”, and among “bread substitutes” was the highest in RG items and the lowest in the PWG ones (p < 0.05). The fibre content was similar among PWG and WG products, and higher with respect to the RG ones (p < 0.05) in most categories. The only exceptions were registered for “breakfast cereals” in which PWG products presented a similar fibre content to RG, and for “bread substitutes” in which PWG was lower in fibre than WG but higher than RG products.Considering the nutrition facts reported on the pack, differences among RG, PWG and WG products within each category were analysed . PWG andThe variability in the nutritional composition of the considered products was deepened by means of a PCA, as shown in To the best of our knowledge, this is the first survey focusing on prepacked wholegrain cereal-based products sold on the Italian market by dividing items into wholegrains, with at least one wholegrain ingredient , and refined products. In particular, this study gives an overview of the characteristics and nutritional composition of more than three thousand products from several food categories, such as “breakfast cereals”, “biscuits”, “sweet snacks”, “bread”, and “bread substitutes”, as well as to the mandatory and voluntary information reported on the packaging of products.Overall, and as expected, the main load of prepacked products considered in this survey was prepared with refined cereals . These data reflect the scarce demand and in turn the low consumption of WG-formulated products by Italian consumers, as previously reported . In factIn this study, we compared the nutritional declaration of RG, PWG, and WG products for a better understanding of whether the WG presence in product formulation, as an exclusive source of cereals or as one of the product ingredients, can be a marker of product quality. In fact, it is important to reiterate that the lack of a shared legal definition of the WG product leads to a heterogeneous scenario in which WG products can strongly differ in their product formulation and nutritional characteristics. Therefore, in Italy and in Europe, due to a lack of regulation on the percentage of WG cereal that has to be included for the “claimed” WG product, it is interesting to comprehend whether nutritional characteristics of products only partially formulated with WG ingredients may have a nutritional profile similar to that of 100% WG products. By comparing the nutritional characteristics, WG-formulated products (both WG and PWG) presented differences and similarities that were not consistent among categories. In general, as expected the fibre content was the lowest in RG products but did not differ between PWG and WG, except for “breakfast cereals” and “bread substitutes”, in which PWG products contain less fibre than their WG counterpart. Interestingly, not all WG and PWG products presented a fibre content sufficient for bearing a fibre claim on the package. Energy, macronutrients and salt varied across WG, PWG and RG products depending on the category. For instance, WG and PWG “sweet snacks” and “biscuits” presented a similar nutritional profile, except for simple sugars, which were lower only in WG products. Interestingly, the salt content, whose consumption represents an urgent nutritional issue in Italy  and worlThe present study showed that, likely due to the lack of a non-binding definition, WG products cannot be considered a marker of product quality a priori, but it is necessary to take into account the overall nutritional quality of products, especially for some product categories. Similar results have been recently underlined within the same project (FLIP project) in which the authors also stated that fibre-related nutrition claims, which can in some cases also be related to WG products, should not be considered as a marker of a better nutritional profile for breakfast cereals . Other sTo help consumers in clearly identifying WG products, it would be desirable to reach a clear definition of WG products that is shared by the scientific community worldwide. In our opinion, cereal-based WG products should be produced only with WG ingredients, as is done in the WG category considered in this survey, and they should contain a relevant amount of WG ingredients in the products as recently proposed . This woThis study clearly demonstrated that the nutritional profile of PWG and WG is strictly dependent on the category of product. In fact, PWG products generally showed similar characteristics to their 100% WG counterparts, but there are some cases where PWG were more similar to refined products. Certainly, due to a lack of a clear WG product definition at the national level, it is difficult to investigate the best criterion for classifying and fixing the standard of quality of WG products. As a consequence, it is challenging to promote WG product consumption through correct and regulated declarations on the packaging and therefore to correctly help consumers during a purchase. Previously, other authors underlined the need to find the best criteria for WG product classification and for supporting consumers in identifying the WG products with the best nutritional characteristics during purchase . This isAn additional tool to promote WG consumption is through international and national dietary guidelines. As already pointed out, dietary guidelines include a variety of starchy foods in wholegrain form  and onlyThe present study has several strengths and limitations worthy of mention. Among the former, this is the first study investigating the characteristics and the nutrition facts of a wide large of WG and not WG products currently on the market, including almost all categories of cereal-based products. Secondly, by collecting information on the food labelling, we were able to simultaneously focus on the nutrition declaration but also on other aspects  which may be of interest for the consumers. Among limitations, it is noteworthy that the information reported on the pack does not allow, for instance, for the inclusion of some nutrients not mandatory in the nutrition declaration, such as micronutrients, which may be higher in WG compared to not WG products. Moreover, it was not possible to take into account other characteristics of products, such as the quality of the starting ingredients, which may be rich, for instance, in other components not accounted for in the nutritional declaration, but potentially abundant in WG products . Lastly, although a large part of the products have been collected through the home shopping websites of the major retailers, not all food items present on the market have likely been evaluated. Finally, since a barrier to WG product purchase can be the price, it would be interesting to investigate, in the future, differences among the cost of WG, PWG and RG products.The results of the present study suggest that wholegrain products included in this survey have only limited beneficial nutritional characteristics than refined products, mainly in terms of fibre content and, only in some cases, to products partially formulated with wholegrain ingredients.These data certainly support the lack of a need to consider a WG “declaration” on the pack as a synonym of a healthy product without taking into account the general quality of the products. Moreover, data highlight the need of introducing a legal definition of “wholegrain” that will avoid the current heterogeneity of products on the market, which also causes misunderstanding among consumers. This would promote a clear and regulated WG product formulation and labelling.Reaching this goal would be useful to the food industry for reformulating food products with the purpose of improving the nutrition profile. Likewise, this will also be beneficial for consumers, who would be able to more easily identify WG products on the shelf. In turn, this will likely lead to increased consumption of these products and the reaching of dietary guideline goals that may positively influence dietary intake and human health.


Li et al.; Scientific Reports 10.1038/s41598-017-16623-8 (2017).In “Exposure to Magnetic Field Non-Ionizing Radiation and the Risk of Miscarriage: A Prospective Cohort Study”, De-Kun Li and colleagues purport to find strong association between Magnetic Field (MF) exposure and prevalence of miscarriage in women with “high” MF exposure. From a large sample of women (n = 913), MF exposure was passively measured for 24 h, and the 99th percentile of those individual scores was treated as each woman’s ‘exposure index’. Within the indexes, any score over 2.5 milligauss (mG) was classified as “high” exposure, a cut-off reported as the 25th percentile of the MF indices. The experimenters then atrophied the groups, removing participants who did not deem their recorded day to be ’typical’ of their usual exposure. With just over half the subjects eliminated after self-reporting atypical recording days (n = 453), a comparison between low and high exposure groups . Likewise, the comparison group should contain three-quarters of all participants. Instead, the lowest quartile (before attrition) contains 219 subjects when it should contain approximately 228, a discrepancy of about 9 women. These cases are incorrectly coded, and this greatly affects the significance of the result, as illustrated in Fig. There is a further issue in terms of both the reported data and how the analysis was designed. Returning to Table entclass1pt{minima3, while a 2020 paper seeking a link between MF and ADHD was retracted for similar reasons2. While the source of this error is clear, it does not circumvent the issue this quantification error introduces.In response to this, the authors clarified that erroneous quartiles were due to round-off error, based on reduced a three decimal place value for first quartile (2.525 mG) to one place of decimals (2.5 mG). This may explain the genesis of the incorrect quartile value, as similar issues appear in other papers on the topic by the authors; a 2011 paper exploring a link between MF and asthma has the lowest 10th percentile containing 19 excess participants  dose-relationship effects would be more apparent and testable with the continuous, non-dichotomised data available, and (b) dichotomising data without valid reason to do so is not good practice.All the data gathered in the original paper and the author’s associated works are continuous, and should be analysed as such. There are an array of methodological reasons why it is inappropriate to force a dichotomy on a continuous data set8. The problem is that this is a loaded inference which could readily lead to selection of false positives11. There is no clear biophysical rationale for this metric, which differs even from that used in the author’s related works. Nor were other reasonable exposure metrics considered; the integral of a continuous dose can be very different to its extreme percentiles, as illustrated in Fig. The author’s technique for ascertaining harm threshold is also suspect. With 913 women wearing an ’EM meter’ for 24 h, recording at 10 s intervals, one would expect approximately 8640 measurements recorded per woman. The authors compressed this rich data to a single metric, assinging the 99th percentile of these recordings as a woman’s MF index. There is little evidence for this, bar a reference to a previous paper by the same author group, which did not find an association between miscarriage risk and average magnetic field level. The authors found however that arbitrarily stratifying subjects in deciles by maximum level of a 24 h MF exposure suggested a higher risk in some cohorts, although the dose-response curve was non-monotonic and the 12.A repeated problem in the work is the conflation between different physical phenomena, particularly magnetic fields and non-ionizing radiation. Magnetic fields are not a form of radiation under any accepted conventional definition of the term, yet the central thesis of the paper conflates this with non-ionizing radiation several times. This is patently false—non-ionizing radiation refers to photons in the electromagnetic spectrum below a threshold frequency, lacking the requisite energy per quantum to eject an electron from an atom or molecule. The ionization threshold is usually given conservatively as 10 eV, with light below this threshold  deemed non-ionizing. Magnetic fields are not a form of radiation, so invoking them in this context is, again, misleading. While it is true that electromagnetic (EM) fields are comprised of oscillating electric and magnetic fields, in light-matter interactions, electric fields utterly dominate and magnetic effects are negligible “..found that the cancer risk due to MF exposure observed in their experimental animals matched the cancer cell types that had been reported in previous epidemiologic studies in human populations”. This is patently untrue—the NTP study did not look at MF at all, focusing instead on exposure to radio-frequency EM radiation. In addition, its central conclusion has been roundly criticised for questionable methodology13. The sample conflation error occurs again when the author’s state “the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified MF as a possible carcinogen”—again, this is false. The IACR designated radio-frequency radiation as a group 2B agent, a designation frequently misunderstood as implying evidence of harm. This interpretation is however incorrect, as reiterated in the most recent IARC communication14.The issue of the above inappropriate conflation leads citations and inferences which simply do not apply. Some examples: the authors refer to a National Toxicology Programme (NTP) study which they claim15—a factor of> 2-million fold greater the MF field frequencies detected in this work. It is biophysically implausible to treat such different frequencies as equivalent, even if the conflation between MF and EM could be justified, which it cannot be. More strikingly, the authors do not offer any convincing reason why they might expect these relatively small exposures fixated upon in the paper to be harmful, nor do they offer proper context for these claims. The Earth’s magnetic field, for example, varies across the Earth from 250–650 mG16—roughly 100–260 fold the threshold for provoking increased miscarriage that the authors suggest. In response to this query, the authors posited that this can be disregarded as the Earth’s magnetic field is static, but this is not true at the mG scale considered. Not only is the Earth’s magnetic field constantly perturbed by geomagnetic events17, secular variation18, and other daily influences19, but also displays significant geographical variation. The variation suggested as dangerous in this work is orders of magnitude below typical variation of the Earth’s magnetic field strength, and this is not sufficiently justified in the text or theory discussed.*Even if* one could treat the magnetic fields considered in the author’s work as EM radiation, it would not circumvent another serious issue within this work. The frequency range of magnetic fields recorded in the study was 40–1000 Hz. But Wi-Fi, cellular, and mobile frequencies operate in the radio-frequency spectrum, typically at frequencies of 2–6 GHz20, but a lay-reading of the conclusions of Li et al. would likely leave an impression of a clear link between radiofrequency radiation and miscarriage.It is critical that health effects of new and emergent technologies are carefully monitored, and that the thresholds of safety are updated as the evidence base grows. Yet based on the issues raised here, we feel the conclusions of Li et al’s paper are not justified by the data reported. It is not our intention to criticise the researchers on any personal level, as we feel such investigations are vital. However, for public trust in science to be maintained, strong scrutiny into matter of strong harms caused by common exposures is demanded. With topics of public contention, methodologically unsound work has the potential to do severe harm, even if conducted with good, peripheral, or unwitting intentions. In this instance, we only became aware of this paper after we were contacted by major international media outlet to comment on it. The contacting producers relate that they came across this work on a digital anti-5G platform, where it was shared as “proof” of the irreparable harms of radiofrequency. This is not the fault of the authors, of course, and it is far from a new experience for researchers to be frustrated with inaccurate or out-of-context interpretations of their published work21, the loss of power within subgroup analysis23 and so on. In short, the criticisms contained here are not unusual, nor particularly novel, but are couched within a long intellectual tradition of scientists improving each others methodological rigour over time.It is also important to point out that the methodological and statistical issues raised herein afflict a great deal of published science and medicine, and one of our motivations in outlining our concerns was to illuminate why certain research practices can readily give rise to misleading results. Issues raised here are broadly reflective of many past debates within the life and social sciences—dichotomising a continuum of measurement (CITES), setting a category of interest after inspection of the data, the dangers of ’over-correcting’ outlier or unusual data according to decision rules related to an expected distribution


The majority of companion animals seen by veterinary practitioners will die by euthanasia. Yet euthanasia can be a source of moral stress for veterinary team members, even when ethically indicated. In this discussion, I explore when euthanasia is ethically indicated and discuss the potential impact of ethically indicated euthanasia on veterinary team members. In particular, I challenge the analogy that the veterinarian performing ethically indicated euthanasia is akin to an executioner, arguing that this analogy is both inappropriate and potentially harmful. Finally, I discuss how we can support ourselves and our colleagues in relation to euthanasia, so we can attend to and maximise the welfare of our patients at the end of their lives. As it turns out, that gift is a double-edged sword.When I first saw this image, it hit me. As a lifelong owner, or guardian, of companion animals, I can relate to that visceral experience of loss. The enormity of seeing an animal’s final breath, crying tears into the fur of a body that will never be reanimated. But as a veterinarian, I know exactly what it is like to exercise that gift.The artist’s naïve depiction readily flickers to life in my imagination. After auscultating the dog’s chest and confirming the absence of a palpebral reflex, I declare softly: “she’s gone”. The owner, who it seems has been holding his breath until this moment, audibly sobs, folding himself over the dog, feeling the warmth still in her body. We are both relieved that the adverse euthanasia events I warned about-agonal gasping, vocalization-did not occur.There is silence in the room, except for the occasional sniffle. I pass the client a box of tissues and tell him that I am so sorry. And I am. As he wipes his eyes, he says to me “this must be the hardest part of your job”.How do I respond? The truth is, performing ethically indicated euthanasia is not the hardest part of my job. My mind swirls with potential alternative candidates. Being in proximity to suffering . Interpersonal conflict. Decision-making in the face of incomplete information. Causing unintended harm. Unexpected complications. The difficulties of addressing animal welfare compromise on a broader scale. Triage. Time management. Attending to self-care. Trying to comprehend the global loss of biodiversity and why some animals receive veterinary care while the vast biomass of animals on the planet will not.Performing ethically indicated euthanasia does not feature on the list that springs immediately to mind because I struggle more with these other job demands and because it alleviates animal suffering. Ethically indicated euthanasia is the work of a compassionate clinician, not an executioner.And yet, anecdotally, some veterinary team members feel like executioners when they perform ethically indicated euthanasia. Indeed, the 2021 Mars Society of Veterinary Medical Ethics student essay topic stated that “even when animal euthanasia is ethically indicated, many veterinarians and vet staff become stressed because they feel like executioners”  to induce death in a manner that is in accord with an animal’s interest and/or because it is a matter of welfare;”“the use of humane techniques to induce the most rapid and painless and distress-free death possible” .The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals describe two co-dependent, necessary conditions for euthanasia, notably:Killing must be by the most painless means possible;That it must be believed to be in the animal’s best interests, and this must be a true belief;One who kills must be motivated by concern for the interest, good or welfare of the animal involved .The late animal rights philosopher Tom Regan proposed stricter criteria for ethically-indicated euthanasia, notably:Unlike the AVMA Guidelines, Regan’s criteria preclude the use of the term “euthanasia” to describe the humane killing of healthy animals. His criteria imply that the impact of euthanasia on animal welfare should be positive  in that it eliminates actual or potential suffering. While the focus of this discussion is companion animals, it is worth noting that Regan’s criteria preclude the slaughter of animals, for example, for food, because this is performed against the interests of an animal, as a subject of a life.Another approach that may be applied to decision-making is the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council’s quality of life assessment, by which animals are determined to be leading “a life worth living”; “a life not worth living” and “a good life” . ApplicaBut quality of life is challenging to assess objectively. Who decides, and importantly, how is that decision made? Unlike medical euthanasia, veterinary euthanasia—like all veterinary procedures-is carried out without the consent of the patient, or direct knowledge of the patient’s interests. Different stakeholders  may have different views about an animal’s quality of life, prognosis and interests. According to the AVMA, “what constitutes a good life and what counts as an impoverished life, or one that has limited quality such that the death of the animal is the most humane option, are research areas in need of further study by the veterinary and ethics communities” .In an attempt to aid decision-making, the latest AVMA Euthanasia Guidelines incorporate both a decision tree to help veterinarians decide whether euthanasia is warranted in situations where this is not clear, and a decision matrix to evaluate the morality of their decisions in relation to patient euthanasia. They prompt the user to consider alternatives (“can it be rehomed?”) and the decision itself  .Indeed, the addition of these decision-making tools to the AVMA Euthanasia Guidelines is contextualised as potentially assisting “veterinarians who may be struggling with what may seem to be gratuitous euthanasia, the acceptability of certain procedures, and the sometimes routine nature of performing euthanasia” .While these tools may be helpful, they do not provide answers. Like all ethical frameworks, they ultimately rely on the professional and personal judgement of the decision-maker. What constitutes ethically indicated veterinary euthanasia is by no means clear-cut.is not. Humane killing that is not in the best interests of the individual animal may include but is by no means limited to, convenience euthanasia, economic euthanasia and objectionable euthanasia.Ethically indicated euthanasia may be better defined by what some argue that it Convenience euthanasia has been defined as “euthanasia…based on human needs, such as economics, changes in personal circumstance, lack of time, capacity or desire to care for the animal, rather than animal welfare”  or “euthEconomic euthanasia has been defined as “a condition in which euthanasia is elected based primarily, principally, or to a large degree on the cost of veterinary medical care; a condition in which veterinary care is bypassed based on the anticipated cost of care, and the progression of illness leads to euthanasia; or a condition in which veterinary care is sought and minimal or no testing/treatment is elected based on the costs of care, resulting in eventual euthanasia” .n = 58) found that 81 per cent had refused to perform euthanasia, with the median frequency of euthanasia refusal “yearly or less” [n = 484), 80 per cent reported declining a euthanasia request at some point in their career . Common reasons for euthanasia refusal were concern that a client may seek alternatives that worsened animal welfare, difficulty declining a request when the client had made a decision, and concerns about jeopardizing client relations [n = 889), the majority  had received what they considered to be an inappropriate request for euthanasia, although 63.67% (n = 531) reported that this was rare [n = 308, 39.74%) or rarely  complied with these requests. Finally, a study of 183 veterinary anaesthetists found that 4% (n = 9) raised euthanasia of healthy animals or animals with diseases they perceived to be readily treatable as concerns [Objectionable euthanasia has been defined as “euthanasia that the veterinarian disagreed with” . Veterinor less” . In the elations . In a suwas rare . Of thesconcerns .n = 253, 32.81%), moderate distress  or severe distress  [The animal welfare outcomes of euthanasia refusal by veterinary team members have not been investigated. “Inappropriate” requests to perform euthanasia on animals were associated in variable stress levels among veterinarians in one study, causing mild distress , almost 40 per cent had “high” or “very high” scores on the Compassion Fatigue Short Scale (CFSS), yet there was no significant correlation between CFSS scores and frequency of euthanasia [However, as discussed in the previous section, the humane killing of animals for reasons not in the interests of these animals is not the same as ethically indicated euthanasia, and the use of the term “euthanasia” in these contexts may not be appropriate . The impthanasia .In the study of Australian veterinarians by Crane and colleagues, while performing euthanasia, in general, was the most frequently reported stressor, it was the least morally significant stressor . Performn = 58), clients wishing to pursue treatment despite poor animal welfare or poor quality of life was rated as the most stressful ethical challenge, more stressful than a request to euthanase a healthy animal [n = 889), 56.95% sometimes and 21.58% often managed cases where they felt an owner requested treatment which they perceived to be futile [Failure to perform euthanasia when ethically indicated is a reported stressor among veterinary team members. In a study of UK veterinarians , 40 per cent of respondents reported that their mental and/or physical health were impacted by interactions with clients grieving the loss of a companion animal [Euthanasia, including ethically indicated euthanasia, involves emotional labor for veterinary team members, who must manage their own emotions while supporting the client ,34. In an animal .One of the challenges in determining the true impact of ethically indicated euthanasia on veterinary team members is that the impact of euthanasia may be confounded by many potential job demands that may be experienced concurrently .It may be first useful to ask, is a veterinarian or veterinary team member performing euthanasia, ever akin to an executioner? Historically, the analogy may have been appropriate.In the Middle Ages, executioners carried out stray animal control among their duties, playing a role that was later fulfilled by veterinarians . In addiInsofar as veterinarians and shelter staff are involved in the destruction of animals for reasons including population control or public health, it could be argued that they—like executioners—engage in society’s “dirty work”, that is work that is perceived as “disgusting”, “degrading” or “objectionable”. Engaging in dirty work poses a threat to one’s identity and has potentially harmful effects on an individual’s wellbeing .While there are no published studies suggesting that veterinarians and staff feel like executioners, a survey of 177 veterinary clients in Ontario reported that 16 per cent agreed with the statement that “I felt like a murderer having my pet euthanased” . WithoutIt is possible that in situations, which for the purposes of this discussion do not meet the criteria for ethically indicated euthanasia, that veterinary team members involved may feel akin to executioners. However, the analogy is problematic, and failure to challenge this could lead to unintended consequences. These might include a negative impact of performing ethically indicated euthanasia on veterinary team members and even avoidance of euthanasia by these individuals, which may prolong animal suffering. It may lead to a negative self-perception. On the other hand, challenging this analogy may improve self-perception and may ultimately allow veterinary team members to reframe euthanasia as a tool in preventing suffering.n = 130 cats, 68 dogs, and N = 26,986 dogs, respectively), only 8.3–9 per cent had an unassisted death [Execution is heavily contested and is not carried out in all jurisdictions . In conted death ,44.An executioner has the role of taking human life in effecting a legally sanctioned death penalty imposed as punishment for a crime . VeterinMethods of execution may lead to suffering. In fact, the AVMA Euthanasia Guidelines were contrasted with methods of execution by lethal injection to highlight that the methods of lethal injection anaesthesia in executing prisoners were cruel . While tExecutioners function as technicians who carry out their actions on behalf of society via the legal system. In contrast, veterinarians typically have a role in advising the client around euthanasia decision-making, through which they can advocate for their patients. Furthermore, veterinary team members increasingly engage in shared decision-making, such that ethically indicated euthanasia is the result of informed discussion between the veterinary team and the owner .Finally, there are many who would argue that the world would be better without capital punishment. In contrast, veterinary team members report refusal of euthanasia recommendations by a client, or requests for futile care despite a poor quality of life, as among the most stressful ethical challenges encountered in companion animal practice ,15,29.It may be useful for veterinary team members to engage in a thought experiment, imagining a world in which veterinary euthanasia does not occur. In this world, a high proportion of companion animals would be at risk of experiencing protracted and potentially extreme suffering, with compromised quality of life. This would lead to moral stress in veterinary team members, who may feel that their skills and resources are being used to facilitate compromised animal welfare.Veterinary team members are generally not trained in human psychology and are not in a position to diagnose or treat themselves or colleagues for mental illness, including depression. However, our behaviour impacts the wellbeing of those around us ,50. We kn = 98) who accessed the Vetlife Health Support (VHS) telephone service found that 97 per cent had a positive experience, and 98 per cent felt respected and listened to [Veterinary social work services are offered in some settings, in particular, veterinary teaching hospitals ; howevertened to . While tHelp-seeking should be role-modelled and normalised in workplaces, and structural barriers to help-seeking removed. For example, it has been suggested that employees be permitted to schedule meetings with mental health professionals, such as veterinary social workers or counsellors, in work hours if required . Mental We can create psychologically safe spaces in which we can discuss, without judgement or criticism, concerns about euthanasia. Questioning the ethical basis for decision-making and considering potential alternatives are important in ensuring that euthanasia is performed for appropriate reasons and not just “because it is always done this way”. We need to get into the practice of articulating and sharing our ethical justifications for decisions, including euthanasia, clarifying our reasons for potential discomfort . It is iDiscussion can lend perspective: every living being will stop living, at some point, whether medically assisted or not. No single veterinary team member can change that fact. Our job is not to cheat mortality on behalf of our patients but to work with their owners to ensure their quality of life is maximised to the best of our ability. We cannot avoid death, but we can facilitate a good death.We can accept that euthanasia is complex and that death when it represents the end of suffering, can be a positive, while sad, experience for veterinarians and animal owners . We can We can refine our techniques to ensure that we achieve the most humane death possible and minimise side-effects   which maWe can work on improving the euthanasia experience for veterinary team members. This may involve developing communication skills and decision-making around euthanasia and engaging in continuing professional development. Matte and colleagues found that veterinarians struggled more with navigating the euthanasia decision-making process, particularly if this required multiple or prolonged consultations . They spAt times our stress or grief may cause us to forget our reasons for performing euthanasia. Through preventing the suffering of animals and having the time, resources and skills to facilitate a good death, it can provide opportunities for self-actualisation and be a source of meaning, which in turn may improve the wellbeing of veterinary team members .According to Persson, “euthanasia does present a unique option for veterinarians to bring relief to both the patient and the owner in many cases and leaves the veterinarian with a powerful tool that physicians in human medicine are missing” .If we reflect on the sources of moral distress, if we can share our thoughts and feelings with colleagues, and if we can give ourselves space to experience grief as well as satisfaction on facilitating a good death, then we pave the way for compassion satisfaction.When I see that dog resting on the table, peacefully, no longer fighting, no longer in pain, having died in the presence of her human family, I can see ethically indicated euthanasia for what it truly is: a gift.


Recent decades have seen an increase in the popularity of international education. Approximately 500,000 international students were in Canada in 2018 and this number is projected to grow. While we know that many international students decide to stay in Canada, we do not fully understand the decision-making process employed by international students regarding staying in Canada or going back home after completing their education. The purpose of this study was to explore how international students make decisions about their post-graduation destination and what factors they see as pivotal in shaping their decision-making process. We utilized a symbolic interactionist approach to analyze qualitative semi-structured interviews with 60 international students enrolled in post-secondary programs in Canada. Our findings suggest that the meaning students attach to staying in Canada varies from obtaining permanent residency to working for a few months upon graduation. We also demonstrate that for most students, the decision to stay in Canada is formed gradually and is shaped by familial obligations, cultural climate they experience in Canada, employment opportunities available to them upon graduation, and the possibility of obtaining permanent residency. Over the last few decades, there has been a considerable increase in the popularity of international education worldwide  and attract them to receiving countries (pull factors)  and graduate (n=42) students who self-identified as female (n=39), male (20) or non-binary (n=1) individuals. In order to explore how the field of study may shape migration-related decision-making process for international students, we purposively recruited 20 students per field (10 students per site) studying in the general fields of (1) social sciences and humanities (SSH), (2) health sciences (HS), and (3) STEM . Our participants came from 23 different countries, with the highest number of students coming from China , India , and Iran . All participants were in their last year of study. Table After receiving ethics clearance from [BLINDED FOR PEER REVIEW], participants were recruited from two universities located in two different Canadian provinces by placing advertisements about the study on university campuses and utilizing snowball sampling. In total, 60 participants took part in the study (30 students per university). We aimed for diversity in our sample, recruiting undergraduate n=8 and graTrained research assistants conducted semi-structured interviews with the students during 2017–2018 utilizing an interview guide which explored students’ decision-making prior to coming to Canada, their experiences in Canada, and their considerations about staying in Canada or returning back home upon their graduation. All interviews were conducted in English. As an incentive to participate in the study, students were offered a $30 gift card to a local grocery store. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using NVIVO 11 software for qualitative data analysis.The qualitative data from this study were analyzed inductively, utilizing Charmaz’s  guidelinI plan to stay in Canada for a few years before I go back to China. I’m not sure if I will really go back to China after I stayed in Canada for, like, many years. But for now, my plan is [to] stay in Canada for about, like, three or four years, if possible... [I am] planning to stay in Canada and find jobs and gain some working experiences and then, probably, go back to China. And kind of, like, bring new skills –new knowledge, to my country. [Laughing] Something like that. The vast majority of students who took part in our study had some plans in place following graduation to either stay in Canada or return back home, with most hoping to stay. But the meaning of “staying” varied considerably among the participants, ranging from short- to long-term planning. While over 50 students planned on “staying,” only 10 of them saw “staying” after graduation as permanently relocating to Canada. Conversely, over one-third of the participants planned to “stay” in Canada for a few years and then move back home. For example, Alix, a 23-year-old undergraduate student from China, said:So,.. I think ah, yeah. [For] short … period of time, I will… like, find a job and … get more working experience here in Canada. And maybe, in two years I will return to China to … build my career back there. Because all my … family are in China. And many of my friends are also in China. So, I hope I can return there.As Alix suggests, while she has a “plan” to stay in Canada, she is not set on how many years she will be here—her plan is flexible, with the possibility that it will change considerably as she continues to live and work in Canada. Her notion of “staying” is not linked to the permanent desire to remain in Canada. Rather, it is built on her intention to prolong her stay for a few additional years. Similarly, Chang, a 24-year-old, STEM graduate student, talked about staying for a period of time in Canada before going back to China as a general plan that does not have specific, well-defined timelines:The uncertainty of Chang’s plan is evident in his hesitation to define what “staying” means to him. He refers to thinking about “maybe” staying in the receiving country for a “period of time,” but is also hoping that eventually he will go back home. Like Chang, many participants talked about their intention to stay in Canada for some time in order to gain work experience or pay off student-related debts prior to returning home, signaling a possible desire to return home in a position of improved financial security or increased employability.I mean, I would… ideally like a form of residency that allows me to leave [Canada] and come back… ‘Cause, like, [work] in academia is an inherently transient career. … it would be nice to have the option to kinda go and do a post-doc, you know, say somewhere in Europe or something.For more than half of participants, staying in Canada included a plan to apply for Permanent Residency (PR) at some point following graduation. The students often identified a few benefits of obtaining PR status, including improved access to scholarships, education and increased job opportunities. Students also discussed how obtaining PR status would increase flexibility in decision-making and their ability to move in and out of Canada. Thus, applying for and getting PR status in Canada was seen as a way to keep the doors open, but did not necessarily indicate a firm decision to stay in the country. Betty, a 25-year-old from England working on her PhD research in a STEM field, noted:Betty’s account suggests that the meaning she attached to getting permanent residency cannot be equated with a decision to stay in Canada full time—her goal is not to continuously and permanently live in Canada, but to expand her options for future travel and perhaps come back to Canada later. Betty’s position was similar to the sentiments shared by most of our participants—“staying” in Canada was not defined as a unidirectional trajectory of permanently settling in the new country. For some students, the meaning of staying meant delaying the return home for a few months or a few years. For others, “staying” signified obtaining permanent residency and having a legal right to stay and work in Canada. In both cases, however, students wanted to keep the door open and their view on “staying” or “going” had been sketched only using general contours, reflective of the uncertainty about their future plans.I know, like, some of my friends, even though they wanna stay, they can’t really stay because… their family – their family don’t support [them staying], and they have a business in the country. And they want the kid to come back to take over the business.Our analysis revealed that there was considerable variation in how international students made decisions about staying in Canada. Four students had contractual agreements with their countries that necessitated their return. A handful of students remained adamant that they had always planned to go back home after completing their education. These students usually cited family reasons and financial obligations as key factors in going back home. Hung, a 22-year-old undergraduate student in the Health Sciences field from Vietnam, said:According to Hung, students’ personal desires are not necessarily a key factor in their ability to stay in the country. Coming from cultures that emphasize filial piety, some students saw their familial obligations as pivotal for their decision to go back home, even when their own preference would be to stay in Canada. As such, the mobility of these students was not necessarily defined by the decision-making process, but by a set of obligations related to students’ family roles. For others, the autonomous decision-making was still a part of the process, even when it included familial pressures. “I’m really torn. I… want to stay. I do. But I also made a vow to my parents years ago that I would take care of them as they were aging,” noted Layla, a 30-year-old graduate student in Health Sciences field from the USA, reflecting on this personal struggle.I think I’ve made up my mind even before I came here for my first year… Because I visited Canada back in 2009 when I was still in the middle of high school… I really like it here. So…that’s why – that’s also – big reason why I chose to study at [UNIVERSITY], is to… stay close to family and also stay here.While some of our participants did not plan to stay in Canada upon completion of their degree, ten students had a strong desire to remain in Canada, which was formed long before their arrival. For this group, the decision to immigrate upon graduation played a key role in choosing Canada as a country of destination. Rania, a 22-year-old female student from Malaysia studying in Social Sciences and Humanities field, explained:My original purpose was actually to immigrate to Canada and I was trying to find the best or the easiest way of doing it. And after doing some research, I realized that one of the best strategies for me would be to come and study here.As Rania pointed out, her decision to stay in Canada was made prior to arriving in the country. Participants who said they had made a firm decision to stay in Canada even before they arrived often entwined the decision to study in Canada with an intention to emigrate from their home country. Marina, a 25-year-old Social Sciences and Humanities student from Russia, explained:For Marina, studying in Canada was a means for obtaining permanent residency. Later in the interview, Marina also explained that, in Canada, the partner of an international student can get a work permit, whereas in other countries she explored this option was not available. As a result, Marina and her partner decided to choose Canada for their studies. Marina’s decision-making process about immigrating to Canada, therefore, was the one that prompted her to choose to study in Canada as an international student. Mei, a 30-year-old graduate student in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities who came from China, said “I know some of my classmates just come here for the PR. And the degree is just a way to get the PR,” suggesting that Marina’s immigration strategy is not unique. For students who arrived in Canada with a plan to stay in the country, the perceived complexity of the path from international studies to permanent residency was a key consideration in deciding to study in Canada, and the decision to immigrate was made prior to becoming a student.I guess, in the first… two years, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay. Because – well, that was my first two years and I was still doing a lot of adjustments and everything. And, so I was thinking maybe other options are okay, as well. But then… after things got settled down, I just um – I just started to like this place and just wanna stay.Although nearly a quarter of the students made the decision about immigration prior to arriving in Canada, most students who took part in our study were not entirely certain what their plans for the future were before they had a chance to live in Canada. Exploring life in Canada while adapting to the local education and culture was seen as a strategy to make a more informed choice. Lin, a 28-year-old Social Sciences and Humanities PhD student from China, recalled:Lin’s description of her decision-making process is typical of the majority of students whom we interviewed. Most of our participants were not necessarily settled on a decision before arriving in Canada and felt that their experiences in Canada would provide a better platform to make an informed decision. Arriving at the final decision was tied to a number of factors that we describe in the following section.Um, I will say over the time I… willing to stay, get stronger and stronger. Yeah. Hmm, I think the more I learn, [the more] I find … like, opportunity I have is in Canada.Nearly two-thirds of our participants noted that while they had made an initial decision to stay/go back home before arriving in Canada, these decisions were either reaffirmed or changed after they began their studies. For instance, Moon, a 20-year-old female, Health Sciences student from Bangladesh, said that her decision to stay in Canada “solidified” after she arrived in Canada and “saw first-hand that this really is a great country. And it really is, you know, quite welcoming.” Twenty-six-year-old Arjun, an Engineering student from India, noted that his desire to stay in Canada “has actually increased over the period of time.” Wei, a 20-year-old female undergraduate student from China, explained:You know, … before you come, you have this romantic view… I will never leave… Before you start, you don’t know exactly how things are going to go, and you think it’s going to be… you know, smooth forever. You know, I wasn’t exactly aware that Canada wasn’t one of the biggest countries in my field, you know, to stay after graduation. So yes, in – in the beginning I thought, wow, Canada forever. Um, but then again, I’m maybe too pragmatic.But not all students had positive experiences. Some students found that Canada lost its initial allure. Reflecting on the change in his decision to stay in Canada, Diego, a 27-year-old male PhD student from Brazil, commented:As Diego pointed out, with time, his view of Canada has changed from being “romantic”—feeling committed to stay in Canada “forever”—to a more “pragmatic” view, which considers opportunities for future employment in the high-tech industry. For Diego, therefore, the decision to stay in Canada was altered by his view of the employment opportunities in Canada and in the global high-tech industry, and opportunities available to him for professional growth.Okay, so… initially when I came, I was thinking of staying. Because I felt this place was more peaceful. And then, you have the opportunity to develop yourself. You understand? But then, as time went by, and then I became exposed to the realities here, I feel very discouraged from staying here.For other students, the decision to leave Canada upon graduation was tied to their experiences of social interactions with others. Mary, a 27-year-old Health Sciences student from Ghana, said:In her interview, Mary talked about the difficulty of fitting in as a visible minority student. She recalled her challenges of getting used to what she termed a “Canadian” culture—a type of social interaction that Mary interpreted as distant and impersonal, “totally different” from the “community based” culture that was familiar to her. Mary felt that in Canada “people are in their individual space,” which, she admitted, came to her as a “shock.” Learning about Canada through social interactions with other students, Mary felt that she might not be welcomed in Canada. As with some other students who self-identified as members of visible minority groups, Mary recalled a number of instances where she experienced racism and discrimination. These encounters prompted her to re-evaluate her initial decision to stay in Canada and consider going back home.The first year, which is the – the year that I got homesick… It’s my first year. Leave my parents. And living alone… is hard for me. So, at that time, I was wish[ing]… after I finish my university here… go back to China. I’m gonna stay with them [my parents]... Well, after the first year, everything [is] getting better, ‘cause, like, I get into like local environment. I get used to speak up... [to] local people. And I got used to the lifestyle here. Ah, it’s getting easier for me to… enjoy the life here. So, after I get into university, I found that, “Wow, it’s a nice place. I want… I want to like, stay over longer.Students identified a plethora of factors that shaped their decision to stay or go. These included ties to family members who were either in Canada or abroad, perceptions of employment opportunities in Canada and in one’s home country, and the perceived complexity of the immigration process. Some students also talked about feelings of social isolation and loneliness that they experienced in Canada. Chun, a 21-year-old female, STEM undergraduate student from China, recalled:Similar to some other participants, after spending the first few years in Canada, Chun found herself to be more immersed in the local life—she got used to the “local environment” and adapted to the Canadian culture by learning to “speak up” and to communicate with “local people.” Chun noted that being in university made her realize that she likes Canada and, as a result, Chun has been leaning towards staying in Canada for longer than she originally planned.Initially, I was, like, I’ll complete my degree. I’ll go back. But then, like, after my first year, perhaps halfway into my second year, I was, like, it’s good opportunity over here. Like, it’s different, but it’s good. So, I want to stay. That’s – that’s kind of when I started appreciating the system and the health care benefits I got.While some students attributed their decision to their feelings towards and attitudes about Canada, for others, the decision was linked to the economic and social conditions in Canada. “Quality of life is way better here. And quality of education – that was my first priority why I came over here,” noted Aisha, a 20-year-old undergraduate Health Sciences student from Pakistan. Banhi, a 26-year-old from India studying towards the completion of a Health Sciences graduate degree, identified another factor that swayed her decision in favor of staying in Canada:First year I was there, I [said] … “I’m not staying.” And my friends were all laughing at me, the Zimbabweans, are, like, “Uh huh. But that’s how we all were when we came.” But after, you know, so many years, then they… want to stay. So, I think mine [decisions about staying] have changed, cause now I’m no more so… “I’m going back.” Now I’m like, “Okay”… I think there’s lots of possibilities… which is different from when I came over.Banhi described how her growing knowledge about Canada has shifted her decision about returning back home. This process is similar to the gradual change that was described by Jessica, a STEM PhD student from Zimbabwe:Although Jessica is not completely sure that she is planning to stay in Canada, her initial conviction that she wants to go back home after completing her PhD has somewhat faded. Similar to Banhi, her experiences in Canada compelled her to re-evaluate her original decision.So, I think – but people definitely do change. Like, you often – like I think you keep it at the back of your mind, like what are your long-term plans? … I like to plan things out. I like having lists. So, I guess, like, that could be… me. And then there are people just like – at this point, I’m thinking of just, like, okay, you know what? Let’s just go with it and see what happens. Like, if you decide to, like, go, you go. If you decide to stay, you stay. But you can definitely change – like, you change your programs. You change – life happens. Your choices change. Um, your desires change and stuff, so…Finally, eight students felt that making decisions about staying in Canada or going back home can or should be postponed. Adaku, a 20-year-old, Social Sciences and Humanities undergraduate student from Nigeria, noted:At this point… it’s very blurry. It depends on what [will] happen, okay? Because I feel …. when I’m done with my Master’s degree, getting that Canadian experience before I go [home] will be helpful, right? But then, if you don’t get any opportunity out there, then it’s better you go.Adaku discusses her thoughts about staying in Canada or going back home, but is somewhat reluctant to arrive at a specific decision. Reflecting on her experience, Adaku is questioning if her personality of liking to “plan things” and “having lists” can outweigh her appreciation of the fact that the future is very uncertain. Comparing a migration-related trajectory to the journey of studying, which often takes students onto unanticipated paths, Adaku suggested that the decision about migration may not be feasible during the time where students’ experiences are rapidly changing. For some, the refusal to commit to a decision was tied to the uncertainty about their legal status or family roles. For others, the lack of clarity about future employment was the reason for why the decision was not made. Reflecting on this state of uncertainty Mary, a 27-year-old Health Sciences Master’s student, said:Mary’s feeling that her future plans are “blurry” is consistent with what some other participants described when they discussed their thoughts about migration. Although about half of our participants kept an open mind about the possibility of migration, students like Mary were uncertain about whether or not they will be relocating to Canada. Making decisions about their prospects of staying in Canada seemed pointless to these participants given the fact that they had no knowledge about their chances of getting permanent residency or their opportunities for gaining employment in Canada. In this context, the “decision-making process” involved not committing to any decision, leaving it for the time when the overall picture of the future would be more complete.In this paper, we explored the meaning that international students attach to the decision-making process of staying in Canada or going back home upon graduation. We showed that the meaning of “staying” was defined by students in a multitude of ways—students saw “staying” not only as a permanent migration, but also as a temporary stay (for a few years) or a possibility of coming back to Canada as a permanent resident. Hence, “staying” and “going back home” were rarely seen by students as firm decisions with fixed definitions attached to them. Rather, students considered them as possibilities or opportunities which could represent short-term plans or long-term migration decisions.Our findings also demonstrate that international students’ decision-making process regarding migration is complex and can change over time. Students’ migration-related decisions can be understood as falling into three broad categories. Figure 1 summarizes these categories and demonstrates how students’ initial decisions may be altered by the contextual factors  that they encounter in Canada.Consistent with the findings from the literature . Given the interest of some countries to attract and retain international students to fulfill local human capital needs, it would be beneficial to establish clearly defined pathways that facilitate acquisition of work visas or permanent residency status for international students. Our study showed that some students choose to study in Canada because it offers options to either work or apply for permanent residency upon graduation (Government of Canada, Our findings demonstrate the contributions of symbolic interactionist perspective to the analysis of migration-related decisions made by international students. We showed that the meaning students attach to the notion of “staying” is complex, which may be missed in cross-sectional surveys examining international students’ plans to stay in the host country or come back home upon graduation. While traditional migration literature explored the process of international movement as unidirectional (Baruch et al., Our study has some limitations. Our participants came from 23 different countries with different social and cultural understandings about education, family obligations, or migration. Different laws regarding dual citizenship and ease of movement to and from the home country might have their own influences on students’ decision to stay in Canada. The diversity of our sample enabled us to identify some of the common factors shaping students’ decision-making process, but striving to summarize commonalities in the views of our participants, we did not delve into cultural differences that shaped students’ perceptions about their transition to Canada. We also did not explore how students’ level of study—undergraduate or graduate degree—shaped their decision-making processes about staying in Canada and how their duration of staying in Canada may have shaped their choices. Finally, we did not explore the role gender plays in shaping the decision to stay in Canada or going back home. Given the traditional gender roles assigned to familial responsibilities and the role culture plays in establishing these gender roles, it is possible that such nuanced analysis would have allowed us to explore the intersection between gender, culture, and migration, which is something that we aim to do in our future work.he qualitative nature of our study mandates that the findings from this study would not be considered generalizable to the general population of international students in Canada. Rather, summarizing the results from our study, we aimed to highlight the subjective experiences of those students who took part in our study. While the conclusions drawn from our study cannot be considered representative of all international students in Canada, we believe that they, nonetheless, shed some light on how the decision-making process regarding migration can be experienced by some international students.In this study, we explored how international students make decisions about staying in Canada or going back home upon graduation and what factors shape their decision-making process. We showed that students assign various meanings to “staying” in Canada, ranging from remaining in Canada for a few additional months to moving to Canada permanently. We also showed that only a handful of students remained firm in their decision to stay or go back home with the vast majority altering their decision-making process based on their experiences of studying in Canada. Overall, our findings suggest that the considerable range of students’ views on staying in Canada may be a reflection of how education and immigration are understood by these students—they see themselves as a part of a globalized and mobile workforce where the boundaries between countries can bend with the right education, professional qualifications, and employment experiences. And it is possible that countries competing for international human capital might need to consider what temporary and permanent migration opportunities should be developed to attract “the best and the brightest” Geddie,  who are


As a type of connective action, contributive action is based upon individual motivation to partake in unorganized personal action. However, its focus moves from connection-and-action (mostly impossible during lockdowns) to online projects where user participation-by-contribution turns an activity into socially and/or politically meaningful action. In Russia, activities based on contributive action, such as virtual protests or online Victory Day celebrations, came in place of connective action at a time when offline collectivity was unavailable or minor. They also served as a way back to normality in relations between the society and the state, as well as a means for social coping with the crisis.In April to June 2020, Russia passed through a major COVID-19 lockdown which, as elsewhere, has led to a rise of online connectivity and co-practice. We argue that several online mass-participation activities by Russians during the lockdown have grown into examples of  The outbreak of COVID-19 started to affect Russian public life in mid-March 2020. In April and May, all the regions were put under a 40-day lockdown, formally proclaimed as “days off.” Anti-infection policies varied by region, but, by 1 June, only a few regions had eased their anti-coronavirus regime, with Moscow and St. Petersburg only slightly reducing the strictness of their lockdown measures.contributive action; we also reflect upon the role of such activities both as political protest and forms of coping with the crisis.As with other locations throughout Europe, the Russian lockdown moved many activities online, from schooling to trade to art. Not only had the formal production of goods and services changed; in many areas, changes were qualitative and new forms of creativity and political action attracted attention much beyond their immediate participants. In this essay, we describe mass socially mediated activities that emerged in Russia during the lockdown and may, we argue, be viewed as examples of connection-to-action to acting by contribution—adding your own lepta to a bigger project by reproducing someone else’s action that you liked or considered appropriate. We see these projects as based on contributive action, an extension to the idea of connective action  action and gain political weight, social relevance, and/or cultural significance.Earlier forms of online collective action, such as networked flash-mobs or signing online petitions, may also arguably be viewed as contributive action. However, for flash-mobs and petitions, it is the number of people and repetition of the same act that matter, while there is typically no focus on the growing body of content itself. In contrast, in a contributive-action project or initiative, both its essence and social relevance may evolve due to a growth and changes in the accumulated meaning of individual contributions.Such forms of public activity may become especially relevant when offline circumstances do not allow for the “online-to-offline spillovers” typical of connective action—for example, during the lockdown, but also when autocratic responses to street action may seriously endanger its participants. As the Russian COVID-19 experience shows, contributive action may include projects with clearly political or public memory agendas  to those more purely apolitical ones that, as they grow over time, become forms of social coping with a crisis. Below, we describe three examples of such projects and then elaborate on their wider social importance.During the 2020 lockdowns, several countries have featured street protests against the anti-coronavirus measures. In Russia, the protests initially seemed minor before participants diversified their protest strategies. They protested against the quarantine through disobedience, such as when dozens of drifters partied with prohibited hookahs in St. Petersburg and demanded better management of the crisis, or in Vladikavkaz where offline protests were eventually dispelled by authorities using water cannons.Russian protesters also developed a form of online-only rallying based on the participation of car drivers. On 20 April in Rostov, drivers started to spontaneously use Yandex.Maps  to leave protest claims while passing close to the city administration building. Within 24 hours, the rallies spread to at least nine other cities, from Moscow to Siberia. The protesters demanded not only the introduction of a regime of emergency and aid to those affected by COVID-19 but also the resolution of problems unrelated to the pandemic, such as smog (“Gimme clear sky!”) or high commodity tariffs.and un-coordinated, the virtual protests still became a fact of public life.The rallies started to receive attention by national media but were interrupted after 2 days as Yandex administrators started to delete the tags. The platform’s publicly announced reason for these deletions was that tags unrelated to traffic conditions were “obstructing the maps” for users. In Moscow, after tags were deleted in the Kremlin area, the “unsanctioned rally” moved to the map of the nearby Tverskaya street—exactly in the manner of an offline rally that runs into a police roadblock. Unorganized VK.com, and YouTube. Within several days, almost 2.4 million users uploaded their pictures of veterans and themselves to these interfaces in a rolling stream, making the “Immortal battalion online,” arguably the biggest lockdown-induced grassroots action in the world. By 1 June, these streams were still live, with new pictures appearing on screen, sometimes weeks after they were uploaded.The COVID-19 lockdown forced Russian authorities to cancel almost all the 75th World War II Victory Day celebrations on 9 May. This included peaceful rallies of the so-called “Immortal battalion” where people gather to carry the pictures of their dead veteran relatives. The “Immortal battalion” started as a grassroots initiative in 2012 and spread through Russia and abroad. Later, it was largely co-opted into the official celebration discourse and ceremonies and became organized by local administrations, enterprises, and schools. But in 2020, it regained its grassroots nature at 2020.polkrf.ru, VK.com, Russia’s major social network, appeared to be collecting the pictures of local veterans. Accompanied by residents putting veterans’ portraits into windows, while singing the “Victory Day” song at balconies at 7:00 p.m. on 9 May, and many smaller scale activities, the “Immortal battalion online” became the largest substitutive action during the pandemic and a major moment of national grief.In addition to this, hundreds of local communities on izolyacia” in Russian) and izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo—“fine art.” Here, reconstructions of visual art objects with improvised materials available at home were published. Initiated on 30 March 2020, the community reached over half a million followers worldwide by 30 April, with hundreds of art objects, from classic fine art to pin-up to film shots, reproduced with the help of people, animals, and interiors, as well as with everyday objects such as potatoes, burnt matches, and toilet paper. Some works reconstructed art pieces with a close attention to detail, some only metaphorically referenced such pieces, some directly referenced the COVID-19 realities while others praised the service of doctors, but many were simply expressions of pure fun.An act of creative coping also expressed itself in a Russian Facebook community called “Izoizolyacia.” Its name comes from “isolation” cultural practice of coping with stress and fear. Here, contributions were not only a form of self-realization but soon became a creative form of social support and expressions of gratitude.As noted above, potentially such contributive action may find wide application as an interpretive frame, as these kinds of contribution-based socially mediated activities do not necessarily draw upon clear political goals as their core motivation for individual participants. Our viewpoint is that the three actions—the virtual protest rallies, the Immortal battalion online, and “Izoizolyacia”—were, first and foremost, united by their socio-psychological role, which was, to put it broadly, bringing people back from a period of absurdity to one of common sense and reason. However, as soon as the state became concerned and responded, these initiatives inevitably gained a political dimension.Sistema (“the system” of formal and informal ruling entities and practices—see sistema, the latter being perceived as detached from everyday life and even from common sense. Thus, during the pandemic, virtual rallies with their demands of the proper management of the crisis by the authorities have looked like demands for rationality and a disregard of the interests of sistema. Admittedly, the appropriateness of such protest in times when an obedience to health safety measures and cooperation with the state has saved lives could be questioned.In a time of low trust to major institutions  and expaofitsioz—the officialist slant in bureaucratic discourse, media content, and public events. In turn, “Izoizolyacia” brought their participants and viewers back to irony and optimism, linking individual acts of creativity and an appreciation of culture to the circumstances of the lockdown. The initiative, even if intended ironically, insisted on a continuation of art consumption, a re-addressed appreciation of fine arts, and offered some relief from the stress caused by the COVID-19 lockdown. If “Izoizolyacia” returned its members to a sense of “pre-COVID” normality, the rallies and “Immortal battalion” movements helped regain a feeling of normality in the political domain through attempts to link decision-making and memory practices.If the rallies raised the demand for a normality in decision making, the “Immortal battalion online” returned the country to a normality in grief freed from Despite the protest nature of the virtual rallies, all the three initiatives noted above were clearly constructive in their appeal, rather than subversive, oppositional, or denialist. Perhaps this is why they prompted such a large grassroots response. With both “Immortal battalion” and “Izoizolyacia,” user activities spread beyond the Russian borders and even the Russian-speaking online population, demonstrating a high cross-cultural potential for such contributive action.cycle of contributive action included the starting of an initiative by a person or group, its viral spreading, a subsequent rapid growth in participation, and resultant increase in the attention of media, followed by counter-action or co-optation attempts by authorities, and an eventual “plateau” in public attention. The belated reaction by state officials did not alter the major significance and effect that such contributive actions achieved: amid the craziest times around, they provided a taste of normal living.The significance of prompting a “back to normality” sensation should not be under-estimated, and one sign of it was that the Russian state took their responses seriously. Thus, in Kazan, a woman attracted police attention for the announcement of an online rally on her Facebook page—prompted by new regulations that online rallies now demanded explicit approval from the authorities, in the same manner as offline rallies. Within a week after 9 May, authorities started to re-coopt the initiative by chasing “provocateurs” who sent Nazi leaders’ pictures to the “Immortal battalion online.” Of all the contributive-action-based activities, “Izoizolyacia” was the most fortunate: recognition by the state came after the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts announced a competition for “Izoizolyacia” creators. Thus, in each of the three cases, a