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Much rhetoric around the construct of a work-ready graduate has focused on the technical abilities of students to fulfill the expectations of the future workplace. Efforts have been made to extend from the technical skills (e.g., skills in calculation for engineers) to include soft or behavioral skills (e.g., communication). However, within previous models of understanding of the work-ready graduate there has been little done to explore them as critical moral agents within the workplace. That is, whilst the focus has been on being work-ready, it is argued here that in current and future workplaces it is more important for university graduates to be profession-ready. Our understanding of the profession-ready graduate is characterized by the ability to demonstrate capacities in critical thinking and reflection, and to have an ability to navigate the ethical challenges and shape the organizational culture of the future workplace.

This chapter aims to explore a movement of thinking away from simply aspiring to develop work-ready graduates, expanding this understanding to argue for the development of profession-ready graduates. The chapter begins with an exploration of the debates around the characteristics of being work-ready, and through a consideration of two professional elements: professional identity and critical moral agency, argues for a reframing of work-readiness towards professional-readiness. The chapter then considers the role of work-integrated learning (WIL) in being able to support the development of the profession-ready graduate.

A number of commentators have noted significant changes in the American polity over the last half century. More interest groups with more issues are active in the polity now (Dahl, 1994). There is more ideological polarization among political elites (DiMaggio, Evans, & Bryson, 1996, 2004). Participation in voluntary associations has declined among the post 1945 generations, weakening civil society (Putnam, 2000). The new organizations in the polity are more hierarchical in structure, unlike the older voluntary associations that were built on lateral ties (Skocpol, 1996, 1999). Rising education levels have produced lower voter participation rates (Brody, 1978; Nie, Junn, & Stehlik-Berry, 1996). Finally, a number of observers have noted that public opinion, constructed in part by extensive polling, has become a significant force in the polity and this has helped fuel the rise of a media centered politics (Herbst, 1993; Schudson, 1991). This is not an exhaustive list of changes that observers have noted, but it is enough to suggest that the older Tocquevillian polity and the civic culture of the U.S., portrayed so effectively by Almond and Verba (1963), have been transformed in significant ways.

This chapter aims to analyze the interrelationships between the elements of sustainability, socio-interculturalism, and governance. This analysis advances from the assumption that the sustainable socio-intercultural governance requires to be supported by the development of systems that enable the economic growth, the social development and environmental socio-ecosystems of communities, institutions, organizations, and individual levels. The method employed is the reflective-analytical based on the review of literature. It is concluded that the new geographies of sustainable socio-intercultural governance are affected by the coexistence that have solutions to the capacity deficits and dysfunctionalities of processes, institutions, and knowledge systems which have many systemic failures on the capacities of the natural resource management systems. This analysis proposes a new model of socio-intercultural sustainable governance.

This study aims to determine the impact of health-related views on mobile payment adoption in Sri Lanka from a broader viewpoint. The scale used to quantify each construct was based on earlier research, with modest alterations to fit the pandemic situation. First, an online survey was administered to undergraduates using convenience sampling to acquire appropriate replies. Eliminating incomplete and unusable questionnaires, 266 responses were gathered with an 88.7% response rate. Finally, after removing incomplete and ineffective questionnaires, 243 responses were selected for the analysis. Health consciousness, perceived ease of use, and usefulness have a significant positive relationship between attitude and behavioural intention to mobile payments. Moreover, the attitude has a significant positive relationship with mobile payment usage. As the health consciousness increases the usefulness and intention to use mobile payments, bank managers can focus on this new customer segment. Accordingly, they can use their promotional campaigns to highlight the importance of shifting towards m-payments during the pandemic times. This is the first study that investigates the role of health-related perceptions on the mobile payment adoption in Sri Lanka to the best of the authors’ knowledge.

The chapter defines social capital and explains its relationship to the broader concept of traffic safety culture. It lays out the conceptual case for a causal connection between social capital and positive traffic safety outcomes and describes recent work that has examined that connection. Implications for the practitioner include current policy options based on existing research results and promising new directions that require further exploration.

In May 2016, Aleks Eror’s op-ed article ‘Dear fashion industry: Stop making up bogus subcultures’ on the HighSnobiety website accuses the fashion industry of creating ‘quasi-subcultures’, such as Normcore, Seapunk and Health Goth to promote specific fashion trends via the Internet. Eror argues that these fashion subcultures do not exist in resistance to mainstream culture (as he understands subcultures), but instead offer the specific fashions and their designers cache for being associated with a counterculture and connecting with alternative trends. Setting aside Eror’s narrow understanding of subcultures, he raises questions of authenticity and the current state of virtual fashion subcultures.

Still, there is evidence of these subcultures online and growing in substantial numbers regardless of their inception. Furthermore, persons identifying themselves with these groups practice alternativity, which delineates their scenes, artefacts, and practices from those of mainstream Western society. I pursue questions of authenticity regarding these recent fashion subcultures who appear to emerge in close proximity to the launch of specific fashions. The author explores the ways in which these fashion subcultural experiences differ from known subcultures. The author investigates notions of constructed resistance and perceived alternativity and marginalization, as well as how that positionality manifests into a fashion subculture identity.

This chapter introduces the efforts in the field of teacher education in the Czech Republic that focus on developing preservice teachers’ professional vision using a video-based e-learning environment – VideoWeb. First, the current developments in the field of education in the Czech Republic are presented. Next, preservice teacher education in the Czech Republic is briefly summed up. Drawing on this and on the description of the local context, the rationale for the approach is addressed – both the theoretical and the practical considerations. VideoWeb is an e-learning environment that uses video cases integrated into thematic modules in order to improve preservice teachers’ professional vision and help them orient themselves in the complexity of classroom situations. The implementation of VideoWeb was accompanied by research focusing on student teachers’ acceptance and evaluation of VideoWeb, on the benefits of working with VideoWeb they perceived, and also on the actual changes in their professional vision. The findings are briefly introduced. The chapter closes with a discussion of the assets and drawbacks of using VideoWeb in the way it is being implemented at the moment, what changes to our practices might be beneficial, and where our efforts might aim in the future.

As world society develops and nations become embedded in it, cultural patterns that began as properties of Western modernity diffuse to other areas. Individualism has long been noted as a unique feature of American nationalism (Arieli, 1964; Greene, 1993; Lipset, 1963, 1996). But both the spread of democracy and the declining legitimacy of dictatorship and racism after WW II opened the gates for forms of egalitarianism and individualism to spread transnationally (see Elliott & Lemert, 2006; Gaddis, 2005, p. 164ff). This chapter considers the consequences of this transformation.