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Introduction Clinical trials must include diverse participants to ensure the wide applicability of results. However, people from ethnic minorities are included in clinical trials at rates lower than expected given their share of the population. Working with South Riverside Community Development Centre (SRCDC), Talking Trials used public engagement to foster discussions around the underrepresentation of those from minority ethnic communities in clinical trials and to identify and address concerns surrounding trial participation. Methods We conducted three workshops with 13 co‐researchers from minority ethnic backgrounds. We explored perceptions and understanding of clinical trials alongside participatory art activities to help move away from verbocentric methods of communication. These artworks formed an exhibition that was presented to the community, prompting further discussions and engagement. Findings Co‐production workshops were an effective tool to introduce the public to trial research. With little knowledge of clinical trials at the beginning of the process, our co‐researchers formed a cohesive group, sharing initial fears and mistrust towards trials. As conversations progressed these attitudes clearly shifted. Artwork produced during the workshops was incorporated into an exhibition. Quotes and creative pieces from the group were included to reflect the themes identified. Presenting the exhibition at Riverside Festival enabled further engagement with a wider diverse community. The focus on co‐production helped build a network of individuals new to research and keen to become involved further. Conclusion Inclusive and democratic co‐production, enriched by participatory art practices, provided a powerful means of enabling our group to create new insights and foster new relationships. Projects like Talking Trials can diversify the research process itself—for example, four co‐researchers have commenced lay research partner roles on trial management groups and a lay advisory group is in development. Patient or Public Contribution Three members of staff at SRCDC were on the project delivery group and involved in the initial project design, subsequently helping to connect us with members of the Riverside community to work as co‐researchers. Two of the SRCDC staff are co‐authors of this manuscript. The project had 13 public co‐researchers guiding the direction of this research and creating the artwork displayed in the art exhibition.

Through a global comparative approach, Amy Sodaro uses in-depth case studies of five exemplary memorial museums that commemorate a range of violent pasts and allow for a chronological and global examination of the form: the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC; the House of Terror in Budapest; the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Rwanda; the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile; and the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York. Together, these case studies illustrate the historical emergence and global spread of the memorial museum and show how this new cultural form of commemoration is intended to be used in contemporary societies around the world emerging from widely divergent forms of political violence.

In modern Russia, the memory of the Cossacks is perpetuated in monuments and museum exhibitions; their culture and history are described in school textbooks, including specialized ones; some regions open special Cossack classes; and hundreds of social media groups discuss the history of the Cossacks. Central and regional authorities as well as Cossack organizations, both official and unofficial, take an active part in the politics of remembering the Cossacks. However, there are practically no specialized studies exploring memory politics regarding the Cossacks. Nevertheless, this topic deserves attention and careful analysis not only because a variety of intensive processes are taking place in this area, but also because this case has a number of specific features and allows one to take a fresh look at some dichotomies widely used in memory studies such as victim and heroic narratives, official and unofficial memory, and local and national memory politics.

In this paper, we report ethnicity trends in student participation and experience in high school science and engineering fair (SEFs). SEF participation showed significant ethnic diversity. For survey students, the approximate distribution was Asian-32%; Black-11%; Hispanic-20%; White-33%; Other-3%. Comparing the SEF level at which students competed from school to district to region to state levels, we observed that black students made up only 4.5% of the students who participated in SEF beyond the school level, whereas students from other ethnic groups were more equally represented at all levels. The lower percentage of Black students resulted from a combination of lower overall participation in SEF and lower percentage of those students who did participate to advance to SEFs beyond the school level. Students who advanced to SEFs beyond the school level frequently received help from scientists, coaching for the interview, and were not required to participate in SEF. Black students received the least help from scientists, were least likely to receive coaching for the interview, and were most likely to be required to participate in SEF. They also were most likely to receive no help from parents, teachers, or scientists. Asian and Hispanic students (63.8% and 56.8%) indicated a greater interest in careers in science and engineering (S&E) compared to Black and White students (43.7% & 50.7%). In addition to career interest, the most important experiences that correlated with students who indicated that SEF increased their interests in S&E were getting help from the internet, books and magazines; getting help fine tuning the report; and overcoming obstacles by doing more background research, making a timeline, and perseverance. Black students did not report a positive effect of any of these strategies but experienced time pressure as more of an obstacle than did other students. Our findings identify a wide range of student experiences associated with positive SEF outcomes that could be enhanced for all students but especially Black students. More involvement of scientists in helping students who participate in SEFs would be particularly valuable.

Kara Walker’s art, known for its stark depictions of race, history, and power dynamics, offers an invaluable entry point for discussing race in higher education. Integrating Walker’s work into the humanities classroom allows for critical engagement with historical and contemporary issues of race, ethnicity, and systemic oppression. Through her use of silhouettes and narratives that expose the brutal legacies of slavery, racism, and colonialism, Walker’s art challenges students to confront uncomfortable truths and foster deeper conversations about intersectionality. Discussing Walker’s art can lead to explorations of how race intersects with class, gender, sexuality, and disability, revealing the layered and compounded experiences of marginalized groups. Through the flipped classroom approach, students were introduced to Kara Walker’s work outside of class through assigned readings and materials. During class time, discussions were facilitated by students themselves, enhancing peer-to-peer learning. The session was led by a pupil responsible for elaborating on Walker’s work and guiding the discussion. In-class time was dedicated to small-group discussions where students critically engaged with the themes in Walker’s art. These groups provided space for more intimate, reflective conversations. After small-group discussions, insights were shared in a larger panel discussion format. This allowed students to synthesize ideas, compare perspectives, and engage with a wider range of interpretations of Walker’s art. By engaging with Walker’s work, students develop a more nuanced understanding of oppression and social justice, making her art a powerful tool for transformative education.

This article argues that the notion of Iranian culture employed in the public discourse of Zoroastrians allows them to tackle the dilemma of Shiʿi-dominated Iranianness without provoking Shiʿi authorities. The piece offers an analysis of ethnographic data, including detailed speech acts documented in Zoroastrians’ ritual spaces and cultural exhibitions. It explores the Zoroastrian configuration of an Iranian culture that summons and encodes pre-Islamic tropes and modern nationalist sentiments by constantly maneuvering around national, religious, and ethnic categories. This configuration's underpinning assumptions, narratives, and texts have powerful platforms in Iranian nationalist imagination. I propose that this arrangement attempts to carve out a space for Zoroastrians’ distinct identity by connecting the history of the Muslim Arab invasion of Persia to the Shiʿi hegemonic norms of Iranian culture today. It further invokes Zoroaster's indigeneity and teachings as the foundation of authentic Iranianness to establish Zoroastrians’ survival as a cultural system.

Background Although multiple studies advocate the advantages of participatory research approaches for ethnoscience, few provide solid contributions from case studies that involve residents in all of the project phases. We present a case study of a participatory approach whose aim is to register ethnobotanical knowledge on the use of plants in two quilombola communities ( maroon communities ), an important biodiversity hotspot in the Atlantic Forest, Southeast Brazil. Our aim is to provide tools that will empower decision-making related to sustainable use and management among residents. Methods In phase I, the objectives and activities were defined in meetings with residents to carry out ethnobotanical surveys between two quilombola communities—the Quilombo da Fazenda (QF) and Quilombo do Cambury (QC) . In phase II, we offered community partners training courses on how to collect plants and ethnobotanical data. In coordination with the university team and using ethnobotanical methods, community partners interviewed specialists on plants and their uses. In phase III, using the participatory mapping method, residents indicated plot locations and collected plants to calculate the Conservation Priority Index for native species recorded in phase II. Results In 178 days of fieldwork, two community partners from the QF and three from the QC selected 8 and 11 respondents who reported 175 and 195 plant species, respectively, corresponding to 9 ethnobotanical categories. Based on requests from the local community, booklets and videos with these data were collaboratively produced. A large percentage of species were found to be of great conservation priority—82.1% in the QC and 62.5% in the QF . Virola bicuhyba , Cedrela fissilis , Plinia edulis , and Tabebuia cassinoides are the species most at risk and will be the focus of phase IV, when a participatory management plan will be carried out. Additionally, we present both challenges and opportunities with the hope that others can learn from our successes and failures. Conclusions Our experience shows that it is possible to train community members who wish to document their knowledge to support the process of ensuring that local knowledge is highly regarded, further ensuring its perpetuation. In this context, the project may be of great interest to development programs in promoting community-based management strategies for useful plants.

Background Central Myanmar is located in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, and the Bamar people are the main ethnic group, which settled there over 1000 years ago. Despite being the core region of the country, central Myanmar has been ignored in previous ethnobotanical studies. Local healthy foods and knowledge are regarded as treasures for resource development and pharmaceutical drug discovery, and market surveys are a good strategy in ethnobotanical research. Thus, we collected and documented typical vegetables and local knowledge in local markets and then analysed the diversity and local knowledge of these vegetables. Materials and methods Observations and interviews were used in the field study, and 10 markets and fairs were selected in central Myanmar. A total of 277 vegetable stalls or shops were visited. We compared the local knowledge we collected with selected important and typical herbal books on traditional Myanmar medicine. Quantitative analysis, including frequency of citation (FC), relative frequency of citation (RFC) and use value (UV), was used to assess the diversity and local knowledge of these vegetables. Results A total of 132 plant taxa from 47 botanical families and 116 genera were collected. Most (106 taxa, 80.3%) of these vegetables were cited by the informants as functional foods that had health benefits, while others were regarded as merely “good for health”. The main health function of the vegetables was treating digestive problems. Sixty-four species were recorded in selected herbal books on traditional Myanmar medicine, and forty-seven taxa were not recorded in these books but were nonetheless used as healthy vegetables by local people. Twenty-eight species of vegetables were collected from wild places. Conclusion The diversity and local knowledge of healthy vegetables in central Myanmar were rich. Nevertheless, the diversity of wild vegetables was seemingly relatively low. The possible reason was that we counted only the vegetables that were from entirely wild sources as “wild vegetables”. The most frequently cited vegetables were commonly cultivated species, which reflects the fact that plants cultivated on a large scale comprise the major source of vegetables. Some lesser known vegetables could reflect the unique food culture of local people, but most of these were cited only a few times by the interviewees, which caused low UV and RFC rankings for them in the league table. In addition, future research should pay more attention to the food safety of these vegetables.