Thematic Session 5
Bridging the Divide: Interdisciplinary Research at the Intersection of Social Sciences and STEM
Moderator
Dr. Cristina M. Bautista
Associate Professor, Department of Economics
April 23, 2026 (Thursday)
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
This session integrates social scientific questions with approaches traditionally rooted in the natural sciences, technology, and engineering (STEM). This includes applying social theories to technological problems and vice versa.
Topics of Interest: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) informed by sociology/psychology, environmental sociology/economics using geospatial data, behavioral science and sustainable energy, the social implications of climate modeling, and collaboration models for interdisciplinary research teams.
Key Question: How do social scientists effectively translate their insights and methodologies to collaborate with and inform disciplines outside of the humanities and social sciences?
Nature as a Moral Educator
Reynand Dumala-on
The University of Auckland (New Zealand)
Science as a way of knowing, primarily based on measurement and observation, is often treated as morally neutral, while ethical or moral considerations are presented as separate add-ons; yet there is limited empirical understanding of how moral dispositions emerge through everyday teaching and direct engagement with the natural world, especially in science. This study investigates how such moral qualities are cultivated through embodied, sensory encounters with nature within a Steiner school’s science education. Using an ethnographic design that includes classroom observations, interviews, analysing documents, student Main Lesson Books, and photo-elicited field notes, the analysis shows that dispositions such as reverence, respect, care, humility, and compassion cultivate organically through lived, experiential engagements rather than through the transmission of rules or discrete ethical lessons. Three recurrent mechanisms were identified: (1) respect for living beings fostered through practices of restraint and careful attention; (2) cultivation of reverence for the natural world through embodied rituals that settle attention and orient learners toward their environment; and (3) reverence for learning developed through open-ended investigations, calm laboratory conduct, and arts-based documentation that sustain attentiveness and care. Furthermore, findings from this study advance a nature-as-co-teacher framework that specifies how ritual, restraint, sensory encounter, and artistic representation mediate moral learning in science. The contribution is a theory-linked, evidence-based account of morally formative science education, with implications for curriculum design, assessment practices, and teacher education that integrate cognitive achievement with moral sensibility in and with nature.
Assessing Knowledge, Attitudes, and Consumption of Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine among Filipinos Post Covid-19 Pandemic
Dr. Jane Yugioksing
Assistant Professor, Chinese Studies Program​
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Pakikipagkapwa and discrimination are two-sides of the same coin. While the former emphasizes inclusion and empathy, the latter highlights exclusion and bias. This paper made an in-depth investigation of the Filipino concept of pakikipagkapwa or treating others as fellow human being, using data science methods. The researchers scraped data from various virtual chat groups and online communities and the gathered data were preprocessed and analyzed using the topic modelling technique. Results revealed that the phenomenon of pakikipagkapwa has several dimensions namely, channels, moderators, manifestations, and enablers. Channels refer to modes through which pakikipagkapwa is expressed. Moderators are factors which affect the extent that pakikipagkapwa is exercised. Manifestations are the tangible representations of pakikipagkapwa. Enablers are the catalysts of pakikipagkapwa. Aside from presenting an emergent model of pakikipagkapwa, this work also unearthed the various factors that are relevant in understanding the prevalence of discriminatory behaviors in the Philippines i.e., family upbringing, religious beliefs and practices, education experience, and influence of famous personalities. Awareness of such factors can guide government decisionmakers in developing policies that can address the proliferation of biases which promote discriminatory practices in the country.
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Violence Against Nature, Cascading Disasters and Ethics: Bridging Science-Policy-Practice Nexus in the Philippines
Emma Porio, PhD
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
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Manila Observatory
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This paper examines how prolonged violence against nature—through mining, quarrying, upland urbanization, and weak environmental regulation—has amplified climate-related and geophysical hazards in the Philippines, transforming them into cascading disasters with disastrous impacts on already disadvantaged communities and urban-rural populations.
Examining recent events in Cebu, including the 2025 earthquake and Typhoon Tino’s widespread flooding, the analysis demonstrates how ecosystem degradation, institutional fragmentation, and political corruption undermine resilience and disproportionately affect vulnerable groups such as women, children, older persons, PWDs, LGBTQ+ communities, and urban poor settlements. Global-National assessments, including the IPCC (2022) and the World Risk Index (2025), situate the Philippines among the world’s most disaster-prone countries, where structural inequality and overlapping crises constrain coping and adaptive capacities. Empirical evidence from Metro Cebu highlights the impacts of accelerated upland development, with satellite imagery showing built-up areas expanding from 10% in the early 1990s to 28% by 2019. These land-use shifts have compromised watershed functions and intensified downstream flooding. Failures in major flood-control structures, compounded by allegations of corruption, illustrate how governance deficits directly translate into higher disaster losses—echoing global findings that corruption magnifies disaster fatalities in developing countries.
The paper argues for reframing disaster risk as an ethical and governance challenge. Drawing on UNESCO (2015) climate ethics and EUR-OPA disaster principles, it underscores the need for solidarity, equity, precaution, and humanity in climate risk governance. To bridge the science-policy-practice divide, it advocates for knowledge co-production and research approaches grounded in care—collaboration, accountability, responsiveness, and empowerment—ensuring that resilience measures are both scientifically robust and socially just. In closing, this paper proposes an agenda of hope anchored in ethical governance, community stewardship, and harmonized action toward resilient, sustainable, and equitable societies.
Preparing for an Ageing Population
Dr. Fernando T. Aldaba
Department of Economics
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Charlon B. Mayo
Department of Economics
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TBA