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A surge in demand for ethical products, including cruelty-free products, has been well documented in recent years, with direct ramifications for businesses. This trend towards ethical consumption seemed to be swiftly replicated in Eastern countries, especially in South Asian nations, as a result of westernisation. Based on the theory of planned behaviour and the concept of the attitude-behaviour gap, this study aims to investigate the impact of westernisation on the purchase intention of cruelty-free cosmetic products.

A positivist research paradigm was utilised in this study. Accordingly, an online self-administered questionnaire was shared among 242 consumers of cosmetic products in Sri Lanka in order to collect responses. The statistical techniques of correlation analysis, the Sobel test and moderator regression analysis have been utilised in this study.

It was found that there seems to be a positive impact of westernisation and the cruelty-free purchase intention of consumers. Moreover, consumer empowerment appears to mediate this relationship, while the attitude behaviour gap tends to further impact the relationship between consumer empowerment and the purchase intention of cruelty-free products.

This study seems to shed light upon the impact of westernisation on the purchase intention of consumers, especially from an ethical dimension and this study is likely to extend existing studies which have focussed on consumer empowerment, attitude-behaviour gap as well as the theory of planned behaviour, especially in the context of South Asia, where there seems to be a dearth of such investigations. Moreover, this study has attempted to contextualise the construct of “Westernisation” to the South Asian region in line with the tone set by an editorial article Dewasiri et al. (2021).

Background: This work is a situation analysis of reported human rights abuses that have characterized the COVID-19 controls and lockdown in some countries of the world. This is as documented by reliable mass media sources, relevant international organizations and human rights non-governmental organizations between January 2020 to April 2020.

Methods: A combined content analysis, critical analysis, and doctrinal method is applied in this study in line with the reproducible research process. It is a secondary-data-based situation analysis study, conducted through a qualitative research approach.

Findings: The findings revealed among other things that: COVID-19 lockdowns and curfews' enforcement by law enforcement officers contravened some people's fundamental human rights within the first month. Security forces employed overt and immoderate forces to implement the orders. The lockdown and curfew enforcements were not significantly respectful of human life and human dignity. The COVID-19 emergency declarations in some countries were discriminatory against minorities and vulnerable groups in some countries.

Research limitations/implications: This report is based on data from investigative journalism and opinions of the United Nations and international human rights organizations, and not on police investigations or reports. The implication of the study is that if social marketing orientations and risk communication and community engagement attitudes were given to the law enforcement officers implementing the COVID-19 lockdowns and or curfews, the human rights and humanitarian rights breaches witnessed would have been avoided or drastically minimized.

Originality: The originality of this review is that it is the first to undertake a situation analysis of the COVID-19 lockdowns and curfews human rights abuses in some countries. The study portrayed the poor level of social marketing orientations and risk communication and community engagement attitudes amongst law enforcement officers, culminating in the frosty police-public relationships.

University students are a unique population with great potential to adopt eating habits that promote positive human and planetary health outcomes. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the current perceptions of sustainable eating behaviours among the students and to examine the determinants of sustainable eating behaviours.

Data were collected from December 2020 to May 2021 through focus group discussions among university students in Ontario, facilitated through synchronous online sessions. There were 21 student participants during the course of five focus group sessions (4–5 participants per session) from various departments within the university. The discussions were transcribed and analyzed for main themes and concepts using open coding; deductive coding based on the framework by Deliens et al. as well as the literature; and inductive coding for emerging themes.

The students had different perceptions about what constituted sustainable eating behaviours, some of which were not based on fact. A variety of individual, environmental (macro, micro and social) and university characteristics were mentioned as factors influencing sustainable food choices, with “food literacy” and “campus food” being the top two factors.

This study presents a novel and holistic overview of how sustainable eating behaviours and sustainable foods are perceived among university students and identifies the perceived determinants of adopting sustainable eating behaviours. This study helps with identifying opportunities to promote sustainable eating behaviours among university students and the design/implementation of informed interventions and policies aimed at improving eating behaviours.

The sustainability of the global food system hinges on its environmental resiliency and safety, including the health and well-being of its labor force. Single disciplinary courses in liberal arts or science often fail to highlight the overlap between environmental and social vulnerabilities that lead to food insecurity and diminish the sustainability of food systems. This paper aims to present the design and delivery of a successfully co-taught, interdisciplinary module on agricultural labor and sustainable food systems as a case study.

The authors designed a co-taught module in which they joined each other’s respective history and science class sessions at the undergraduate business college where they teach. Innovating the cross-disciplinary content of food security, immigration status, labor exploitation and pesticide exposure, they approached sustainability from the disciplinary perspectives of labor history and environmental science to show how these elements had both unique and overlapping impacts across food systems levels. Comparisons between pre- and post-module survey responses, alongside assessments of a co-authored exam question, measured the effectiveness of this module is changing students’ perspectives as food consumers and as citizens.

This module altered students’ understanding and perspectives around issues of food systems sustainability. Assessments indicated that students increased their awareness of agricultural workers at the front end of the food system, during production; students also gained awareness beyond consumption as they came to see the connections between workforce invisibility and ecosystem degradation.

These insights are valuable to educators at all institutional levels who seek to collaborate on sustainability initiatives and teaching, both in the singular, robust modules and in building modules that will lead to the development of entire courses focused on sustainability. The module described here builds on previous demonstrations of the value, significance and effectiveness of cross-disciplinary collaborations; it pioneers the use of the food system as the link between social and environmental sustainability education.

High levels of child obesity alongside rising stunting and the absence of a coherent food policy have deemed UK’s food system to be broken. The National Food Strategy (NFS) was debated intensely in media, with discussions on how and who should fix the food system.

Using a mixed methods approach, the authors conduct framing analysis on traditional media and sentiment analysis of twitter reactions to the NFS to identify frames used to shape food system policy interventions.

The study finds evidence that the media coverage of the NFS often utilised the tropes of “culture wars” shaping the debate of who is responsible to fix the food system – the government, the public or the industry. NFS recommendations were portrayed as issues of free choice to shift the debate away from government action correcting for market failure. In contrast, the industry was showcased as equipped to intervene on its own accord. Dietary recommendations made by the NFS were depicted as hurting the poor, painting a picture of helplessness and loss of control, while their voices were omitted and not represented in traditional media.

British media’s alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system. Media firms should move beyond tropes of culture wars to discuss interventions that reform the structural causes of the UK’s broken food systems.

As traditional media coverage struggles to capture the diversity of public perception; the authors supplement framing analysis with sentiment analysis of Twitter data. To the best of our knowledge, no such media (and social media) analysis of the NFS has been conducted. The paper is also original as it extends our understanding of how media alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system.

The purpose of this study is to know the effect of religious values that the Jordan Political discipline adopted and were mentioned in the Jordan political discourses (Amman Message 2005, discourse of King Abdullah II in the European Parliament 2008 and his discourse in United Nations 2015) on the public opinion of the university students, especially their attitudes toward terrorism and extremism. Defending Islam is the responsibility of the Jordan political leadership according to Hashemite legacy and promoting Islamic values that rejected terrorism and extremism to Jordanian youth, especially tolerance and moderation values, to counter defamations and claims against Islam and correct its image in the West.

A political discourse analysis approach was used by analyzing the Amman Message and identifying the most important religious values contained therein. Also, a quantitative research method was used in this study. The study population consisted of university students, particularly Jordanian University students because being one of the high-bred Jordanian universities, it is characterized with gender, age, regional affiliation and family income diversities. This study depends on a purposive sample containing 350 students (175 males and 175 females). The survey was conducted in the academic year (2018-2019). A questionnaire that was reviewed by three jurors was used in data collection.

The results of the analysis of the political discourse showed that the values of tolerance and moderation are among the most valued in the Amman Message, where they were frequently repeated. Also, findings have shown that the religious values adopted by the Jordanian political system mentioned in the political discourses had an impact on public opinion of university students on terrorism and extremism causes in a large percent. When gender differed (males and females), the impact ratio of the public opinion for males was higher than that for females. When the age group differed (18-22 and 23-30 years), the effect ratio with the old age group was higher than the effect ratio for the students with the youngest age group. When regional affiliation differed (Jordanian and Jordanian of Palestinian origin), the impact ratio of the public opinion for Jordanian students was higher than that for Jordanian students of Palestinian origin. When regional family income differed (500 dinars and less, more than 500 dinars), the impact ratio of the public opinion for students with family income more than 500 dinars was higher than that for students with family income 500 dinars and less.

This study represents an approach to recognize the effect of religious values that were adopted by the Jordanian political system mentioned in the political discourses on public opinion of university students on terrorism and extremism causes, considering that university students represent the influential youth group in the Jordanian society.