Culture Change Project – Iran War Response Discussion [03-2026]

Sociologist Moira O’Neil, PhD, and anthropologist Eric Lindland, PhD, break down how social science and social change come together to help make sense of culture, and how that deeper understanding can improve our communications. And later in the episode, FrameWorks CEO Nat Kendall-Taylor sits down with esteemed anthropologist Bradd Shore to talk about the origins and implications of cultural models theory.

Episode 1: How Does Social Science Explain Our Thinking on Social Problems?

Linguistics gives us tools for analyzing language, and through careful testing, linguistics can also give us the tools to help make social issues make sense. Linguists Julie Sweetland, PhD, and Emilie L'Hote, PhD, are joined by cognitive scientist, Rose Hendricks, PhD, for a conversation about the power of metaphors and other elements of explanation. Later in the episode, Rose chats with University of California San Diego professor and preeminent cognitive scientist, Lera Boroditsky, for a deeper exploration of cognition and language.

Episode 2: How Can Language Help Us Understand and Move Us to Care?

We have come to believe that explanation is so vital to achieving our organization’s mission that we have committed our 20th anniversary year to exploring it. Our Explanation Declaration lays out a case for why it matters, points to the risks of narratives that lack explanation, and highlights explanatory tools and techniques. FrameWorks' Senior Advisor, Julie Sweetland, PhD, shares more.

BONUS: An Explanation Declaration

Affordable housing won big in the 2018 midterms, but there is far more work to be done. Across the nation, communities are changing at a rapid pace, and the need for affordable housing is growing toward crisis levels. FrameWorks political scientists Drew Volmert, PhD, and Kevin Levay, PhD, consider how explanation could help raise people’s awareness of the problem and build wide-scale public support for more equitable policies and practices that benefit everyone. Later in the episode, Volmert talks with housing advocate Tiffany Manuel, PhD, of TheCaseMade to unpack the role advocates play in community development and why the field is primed for a new narrative.

Episode 3: How Can Affordable Housing Be Elevated as a Social Justice Issue?

Episode 4: How does understanding brain development lead to policy change?

Frame[s] of Mind explores how the FrameWorks Institute, a communications think tank based in Washington, DC, brings together different social science disciplines to make sense of social problems and better explain them.

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