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Several studies revealed the importance of older persons’ contribution to society. The enhancement of their potential to engage in civic activities should be encouraged. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors associated with their civic engagement potential.

Data are from Thailand’s National Survey of Older Persons conducted by the National Statistical Office in 2011. A sample of 24,433 persons aged 60 years or older was analyzed to assess their engagement in four community activities. The data were subjected to logistic regression analysis.

This study found that the readiness and willingness to engage in socially productive activities of Thai older persons ranged from 7 to 23 percent depending on type of activities. The factors of ageing health, confidence in their family’s ability to assist them, and satisfaction with government services were significantly associated with their readiness and willingness to engage in socially productive activities. Inadequacy of income was not found to be an obstructing factor toward their readiness and willingness to engage in civic life in general, it inhibited only the sharing of knowledge and skills with others.

The findings reflect the impact of internal constraining factors and external enhancing factors on engagement of Thai older persons in civic activities. Policy implications on the role of the government to promote active ageing are discussed.

The purpose of this study is twofold: to determine if implementing a global citizenship education curriculum can aid the development of Emirati students’ social responsibility competence and to experiment with different instructional strategies that aim to yield improvement in the social responsibility of students.

The intervention research study used a mixed-methods quasi-experimental approach to examine Emirati students’ social responsibility gains and overall perceptions of a global citizenship education curriculum. Conceptual frameworks for instructional design of service-learning were used as theoretical underpinnings. The data were collected from student reflections, field notes, questionnaires and interviews.

Both the quantitative and qualitative data indicated that the global citizenship curriculum advanced students' understanding of social responsibility and civic concepts, specifically civic awareness, social justice and diversity.

For future studies, researchers are encouraged to expand the current study's five-week timeframe by exploring the implications of a global citizenship education curriculum over a full term or even a whole academic year.

The results of the present study indicate that educators should experiment with curriculum redesign to further facilitate the development of social responsibility in undergraduate students. The results also suggest that educators incorporate specific instructional strategies such as integrated reflections and intergroup dialogue on social issues.

Social responsibility and global citizenship education have broadly been based on Western paradigms. Few studies have explored the impact of global citizenship education on the development of students' social responsibility in the Gulf region. This study fills the gap in knowledge by lending evidence of the role of global citizenship education in undergraduate university programs in the Gulf.

The world is experiencing democratic backsliding such that the situation is down back to 1986. This has resulted in the global shrinking of civic space for civil society organizations (CSOs). NGOs engaging in advocacy activities are seen to be among the CSOs affected. Using four NGOs cases from Tanzania, the study contributes to the civic space debate by uncovering how advocacy NGOs become resilient.

The study is anchored in interpretivism and a cross-sectional case study design, following a qualitative approach path. Data were collected through interviews and a documentary review.

Results show that several strategies such as complying, building community back-up, collaboration, strategic litigation, using digital media and changing the scope are applied. However, strategies face obstacles including scope limitations, expected democratic roles, high cost, changes in the scope and being outsmarted by the government, and hence their effectiveness is questionable.

This study focused on advocacy NGOs. More studies can be conducted for other advocacy-related CSOs on how they become resilient.

While NGOs are allowed to exist in the country, their freedom continue to be curtailed. Even the effectiveness of resiliency becomes temporary and depends on the political will of the existing regime.

Tanzania NGOs have to build strong bonds with citizens, expand the scope of strategies and use deliberative democratic principles to educate the government to change laws and tolerate plural political culture. Also, NGOs in other countries with confined civic space can apply the same.

Over 60% of armed conflicts re-occur; the seed of future conflict is sown even as a peace agreement is signed. The cyclical nature of war calls for a focus on youth who can disrupt this pattern over time. Addressing this concern, the developmental peace-building model calls for a dynamic, multi-level and longitudinal approach. Using an innovative statistical approach, this study aims to investigate the associations among four youth peace-building dimensions and quality peace.

Multi-level time-series network analysis of a data set containing 193 countries and spanning the years between 2011 and 2020 was performed. This statistical approach allows for complex modelling that can reveal new patterns of how different youth peace-building dimensions (i.e. education, engagement, information, inclusion), identified through rapid evidence assessment, promote quality peace over time. Such a methodology not only assesses between-country differences but also within-country change.

While the within-country contemporaneous network shows positive links for education, the temporal network shows significant lagged effects for all four dimensions on quality peace. The between-country network indicates significant direct effects of education and information, on average, and indirect effects of inclusion and engagement, on quality peace.

This approach demonstrates a novel application of multi-level time-series network analysis to explore the dynamic development of quality peace, capturing both stability and change. The analysis illustrates how youth peace-building dimensions impact quality peace in the macro-system globally. This investigation of quality peace thus illustrates that the science of peace does not necessitate violent conflict.

This paper aims to measure and rigorously compare the perceptions of South Korean university social engagement between faculty and students, two definitive stakeholders identified by stakeholder theory – but considerably heterogeneous, to understand how South Korean campus embraces social engagement in practice. To that end, this study delves into the conceptual framework of university social engagement and selects a highly internationalized, research-oriented, four-year comprehensive South Korean university campus that has long sought to become engaged in communities as the research site.

Methodologically, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to identify the factor model that successfully fit the data of the study. Factorial invariance tests and latent mean analysis were then conducted to measure and strictly compare the between-group mean differences.

According to the findings, neither faculty nor students had positive perceptions of their institution’s social engagement in terms of leadership, participatory decision-making, curriculum and instruction, institutional supports and systemic mechanism. That is, two definitive stakeholders on campus similarly perceived that social engagement has not yet been institutionalized as a core value and therefore embraced in practice. Based on these findings, this study discussed several implications for university decision makers. Specifically, the institutionalization of and the need for authentic leadership in university social engagement were emphasized as a means to encourage and facilitate the delivery of practical, beneficial services to the public.

As with all studies, there are certain limitations that must be noted. The sample for this study represents the experiences and expectations of faculty and students at only one institution. Therefore, the experiences of individuals at this single university are not necessarily representative of all South Korean universities. In addition, given that the public service missions of South Korean universities emanated from Western thoughts (Duke, 2008; Ward, 2003), social engagement in the present study has been discussed and conceptualized according to the dominant Western scholarship.

As both faculty and students similarly perceived, participatory decision-making and systemic mechanism do not work properly, and therefore, social engagement as an institutional value cannot strongly take root on campus. Based on the scale used, this study identified communication and organizational supports as the likely issues that obstruct the institutionalization of social engagement. In relation to communication, Boyte and Hollander (1999) emphasize that it is important that stakeholders are well aware of the engaged effort of the institution. Then, the voices of stakeholders need to be acknowledged as valuable feedback so that university decision makers and stakeholders can discuss mutually important issues and concerns (Minnesota Higher Education Services Office, 2003). Furthermore, the relevant literature consistently contends that engaged effort can only be productive with continuous and systemic organizational supports (Boyte and Hollander, 1999; Holland, 1997; Minnesota Higher Education Services Office, 2003; Weerts and Sandmann, 2008). That is, the engaged work of teaching, research and service should be thoroughly assessed and reported to stakeholders on a regular basis. The implication in this study is that university decision makers should make greater effort to design and implement policies and regulations that enable organizational supports to continue.

For social engagement to be valued in practice, the relevant literature (Kellogg Commission, 1999; Garlick and Langworthy, 2008; Minnesota Higher Education Services Office, 2003; Peterson, 2009) advises that top institutional leaders need to encourage interdisciplinary scholarship that includes research, teaching and learning; develop incentives to encourage faculty involvement in engaged work; support engagement so that it is incorporated into the curriculum and instruction; and secure funding for engagement. The fundamental insight that these suggestions provide to university decision makers is crystal-clear: social engagement must be authentically prioritized in the decision-making process.

The quantitative and descriptive findings of the study seek to provide one further step toward the objective of establishing the groundwork for future research on university social engagement in Asian context. Further, replication studies with various Asian cases and research designs may results in tangible improvements to the theorization of Asian university social engagement.

This paper aims to examine the development and piloting of a novel European framework for community engagement (CE) in higher education, which has been purposefully designed to progress the CE agenda in a European context.

The proposed framework was co-created through the European Union (EU)-funded project towards a European framework for community engagement in higher education (TEFCE). The TEFCE Toolbox is an institutional self-reflection framework that centres on seven thematic dimensions of CE. This paper follows the development of the TEFCE Toolbox through empirical case study analysis of four European universities and their local communities.

The findings in this paper indicate that the TEFCE Toolbox facilitates context-specific applications in different types of universities and socioeconomic environments. Incorporating insights from engagement practitioners, students and community representatives the TEFCE Toolbox was successfully applied in universities with diverse profiles and missions. The process facilitated the recognition of CE achievements and the identification of potential areas for improvement.

Despite a range of international initiatives, there remains an absence of initiatives within the European higher education area that focus on developing tools to comprehensively support CE. The TEFCE Toolbox and case-study analysis presented in this paper address this gap in knowledge. The broader societal contribution and social responsibility of higher education have become increasingly prominent on the European agenda. The TEFCE Toolbox represents an innovative, robust and holistic European framework with the potential to support universities in reflecting upon their pursuit of addressing grand societal challenges, whilst promoting CE.

Similar to religion, spirituality is considered a private affair along with issues of faith, hope, and love (Palmer, 1998). American public education has been reluctant to address such issues due to our cultural norm of “separation of church and state” (Love and Talbot, 2000, p. 1) yet the American Council for Education calls upon higher education to provide students ways to explore their personal values, world beliefs, and spirituality (Chickering et al., 2006; Dalton and Crosby, 2006). As such, the purpose of this paper is to explore student leaders’ perspectives on how leadership development activities influenced their sense of spirituality.

A qualitative case study design was used to explore responses from ten student leaders who completed a leadership development program in the Spring 2015 at a public four-year institution. As part of the leadership development program, students were paired a peer mentor while they completed leadership workshops, a reflection paper, self-assessment, and an ongoing community service project painting murals with individuals who have intellectual disabilities. Participants were from various majors and religious backgrounds and had completed the leadership development program two months prior to their participation in this study.

Findings revealed that leadership workshops, self-assessment, reflections, peer-to-peer mentorship, and an ongoing shared community service project, influenced students’ perspectives of spirituality and their leadership identity. Student leaders both did and did not differentiate the developmental process of leadership from the spiritual development process, defining both as cognitive and emotional development deeply grounded in self-awareness. Study participants shared that through self-reflection, developing their inter and intra personal skills through conducting service, shaped their understanding of their spiritual identity and developed their sense of self.

Study results are not generalizable but provide insight into the experiences and perceptions of student leaders on two hard-to-define topics: spirituality and leadership. The order of the interview questions may have influenced the thought process leading up to student’s responses connecting spirituality and leadership concepts. Another limitation is that the leadership activities were designed and coordinated by the lead investigator. Hence, there may be findings that were influenced by the investigators’ personal beliefs about leadership. Study participants may have also felt more comfortable discussing their beliefs about spirituality because of their familiarity with the lead investigator.

Results support the notion that non-faith based public institutions may intentionally support the spiritual development of students through the context of leadership development program activities. Approaching spiritual and leadership development through Baxter Magolda’s (2009) theory of self-authorship allows students to experience new activities coupled with personal self-reflection, to deepen their self-understanding, compassion for others, and self-awareness. This learning is an ongoing process that expands as students engage in contemplative practices such as mindfulness training provided through leadership workshops, self-reflection, and peer-to-peer interactions and self-assessment.

This case study illustrates that intentionally designed and implemented leadership development programs may cultivate both the spiritual and leadership identities and behaviors of students. Also, this study reveals that spirituality and leadership are not mutually exclusive processes because both are deeply rooted in connecting to our community, connecting to our greater purpose and our higher consciousness about who we are and how we treat others. Hence, this work may support educators develop more compassionate and empathetic students who are agents of positive social change.

This qualitative case study suggests a new framework for public institutions to support students’ leadership and spiritual development through the theoretical framework of self-authorship. As such, educators can stop being fearful about discussing religion, spirituality, and matters of the heart if they use this framework to design leadership developmental activities.

Not all first-year university students possess the academic self-concept necessary for an effective transition from high school to university. This may impact their aptitude for learning so negatively that their engagement in lifelong learning (LLL), a prerequisite for success at and beyond university, may be limited. Therefore, the relationship between self-concept and LLL tendency is critical. This paper aims to describe this relationship among Arab first year university students. 149 students (77 males and 72 females) in two consecutive courses were involved in the study. Data were collected using two surveys, one on students’ self-concept, and another on their LLL tendency. Comparisons were made to determine whether gender and courses attended played a role in students’ academic self-concept and LLL tendency. The relationship between academic self-concept and LLL tendency was also analyzed. Results showed that students possessed a relatively high academic self-concept and that their LLL tendency scores were higher than the scale midpoint. The female students’ scores for academic effort (a sub-scale of self-concept), and for curiosity (a sub-scale of LLL), were comparatively higher than those for males. The courses attended did not make a significant difference in students’ perception of their academic self-concept; however, students in the second level course scored higher for self-regulation, a sub-scale of LLL, therefore receiving a slightly higher rating for LLL. Results also indicated a positive relationship between self-concept and LLL scores. The association between the academic effort and self-regulation domains of the scales was noteworthy. Recommendations are made to enhance students’ academic self-concept and LLL tendency, with an aim to strengthen the relationship between the two concepts.

ﻻ ﯾﻣﺗﻠ ك ﺟﻣﯾ ﻊ طﻼب اﻟ ﺳﻧﺔ ا ﻷوﻟ ﻰ ﻓ ﻲ اﻟ ﺟﺎ ﻣﻌﺔ ﻣﻔﮭوم اﻟذا ت ا ﻷﻛﺎدﯾﻣ ﻲ اﻟ ﺿ رور ي ﻟ ﻼﻧﺗﻘﺎ ل اﻟﻔﻌﺎ ل ﻣ ن اﻟ ﻣد رﺳﺔ اﻟﺛﺎﻧ وﯾﺔ إﻟ ﻰ اﻟ ﺟﺎ ﻣﻌﺔ. ﻗد ﯾؤ ﺛ ر ھذا ﻋﻠ ﻰ ا ﺳﺗ ﻌدا دھم ﻟﻠﺗ ﻌﻠ م ﺑ ﺷﻛ ل ﺳﻠﺑ ﻲ ﻟ د رﺟﺔ أ ن ﻣ ﺷﺎ رﻛﺗ ﮭم ﻓ ﻲ اﻟﺗ ﻌﻠ م ﻣد ى اﻟ ﺣﯾﺎة ) LLL (، وھ و ﺷرط أ ﺳﺎ ﺳﻲ ﻟﻠﻧ ﺟﺎ ح ﻓ ﻲ اﻟ ﺟﺎ ﻣﻌﺔ وﺧ ﺎ رﺟﮭﺎ، ﻗد ﯾ ﻛو ن ﻣ ﺣدودًا. وﻟ ذﻟ ك، ﻓﺈن اﻟ ﻌ ﻼ ﻗﺔ ﺑﯾ ن ﻣﻔﮭوم اﻟ ذا ت واﺗ ﺟ ﺎه LLL أﻣر ﺑﺎﻟ ﻎ ا ﻷھﻣﯾ ﺔ. ﺗ ﮭد ف ھذه اﻟ ورﻗﺔ إﻟ ﻰ و ﺻ ف ھذه اﻟﻌ ﻼ ﻗﺔ ﺑﯾ ن ط ﻼ ب اﻟﺟ ﺎ ﻣﻌﺎ ت اﻟﻌر ب ﻓﻲ اﻟﺳ ﻧ ﺔ ا ﻷ و ﻟ ﻰ . ﺷ ﺎ ر ك ﻓ ﻲ اﻟد ر ا ﺳ ﺔ 149 ط ﺎ ﻟ ﺑًﺎ ) 77 ﻣن اﻟذﻛور و 72 ﻣن اﻹ ﻧﺎ ث( ﻓ ﻲ دورﺗﯾ ن ﻣﺗ ﺗﺎﻟﯾﺗﯾ ن. ﺗم ﺟﻣﻊ اﻟﺑﯾﺎﻧﺎ ت ﺑﺎ ﺳﺗ ﺧدا م ﻣﺳ ﺣﯾن ، أﺣدھﻣﺎ ﻋن ﻣﻔ ﮭوم اﻟ ذا ت ﻟ د ى اﻟط ﻼ ب ، وا ﻵﺧر ﻋن اﺗ ﺟﺎه LLL . أ ﺟرﯾ ت ﻣﻘﺎ رﻧﺎ ت ﻟﺗ ﺣدﯾد ﻣ ﺎ إ ذ ا ﻛ ﺎ ن ا ﻟ ﺟ ﻧ د ر و ا ﻟ د و ر ا ت ا ﻟ ﺗ د ر ﯾ ﺑ ﯾ ﺔ ﻗ د ﻟ ﻌ ﺑ ت د و ر اً ﻓ ﻲ ﻣ ﻔ ﮭ و م ا ﻟ ط ﻼ ب ا ﻷ ﻛ ﺎ د ﯾ ﻣ ﻲ ا ﻟ ذ ا ﺗ ﻲ و ا ﺗ ﺟ ﺎ ه LLL . ﻛﻣﺎ ﺗم ﺗ ﺣﻠﯾ ل اﻟ ﻌ ﻼ ﻗﺔ ﺑﯾ ن ﻣﻔ ﮭوم اﻟذا ت ا ﻷ ﻛﺎ دﯾ ﻣ ﻲ و اﺗ ﺟ ﺎه LLL . أ ظ ﮭر ت اﻟﻧﺗﺎﺋ ﺞ أ ن اﻟ ط ﻼ ب ﯾ ﻣ ﺗ ﻠ ﻛ و ن ﻣ ﻔ ﮭ و ﻣً ﺎ ذ ا ﺗ ﯾًﺎ ﻋ ﺎ ﻟ ﯾًﺎ ﻧ ﺳ ﺑ ﯾًﺎ ، وأ ن د رﺟﺎ ت ﻣﯾﻠ ﮭم ﻟﻠﻐﺔ ا ﻹ ﻧ ﺟ ﻠﯾ ز ﯾ ﺔ ﻛﺎﻧ ت أﻋ ﻠ ﻰ ﻣ ن ﻣﻧﺗ ﺻ ف اﻟﻧ طﺎ ق. ﻛﺎﻧ ت ﻧﺗﺎﺋ ﺞ اﻟ طﻼب ا ﻹﻧﺎ ث ﻟﻠ ﺟﮭد ا ﻷﻛﺎدﯾ ﻣ ﻲ )ﻣﻘﯾﺎ س ﻓ رﻋﻲ ﻟ ﻣﻔﮭوم اﻟ ذا ت(، وﻓﺿ ول )ﻣﻘﯾﺎ س ﻓ رﻋﻲ ﻣ ن LLL (، أﻋ ﻠ ﻰ ﻧ ﺳﺑﯾﺎ ﻣ ن ﺗﻠ ك ﺑﺎﻟﻧ ﺳﺑ ﺔ ﻟﻠ ذﻛور. ﻟ م ﺗ ؤد اﻟ دورا ت اﻟﺗ ﻲ ﺣ ﺿ رو ھﺎ ﻓ رق ﻛﺑﯾ ر ﻓ ﻲ إ د را ك اﻟ طﻼب ﻟ ﻣﻔ ﮭوﻣﮭم اﻟ ذاﺗ ﻲ اﻷﻛﺎدﯾ ﻣ ﻲ؛ وﻣ ﻊ ذﻟك ، ﻓﺈن اﻟ ط ﻼ ب ﻓ ﻲ دورة اﻟ ﻣ ﺳ ﺗ و ى اﻟﺛﺎﻧ ﻲ ﺣ ﺻ ﻠ وا ﻋ ﻠ ﻰ د رﺟ ﺎ ت أ ﻋ ﻠ ﻰ ﻓ ﻲ اﻟﺗﻧ ظ ﯾم اﻟذاﺗ ﻲ ، وھ و ﻣﻘﯾﺎ س ﻓ رﻋﻲ ﻟـ LLL ، وﺑ ﺎﻟﺗﺎﻟ ﻲ ﺣ ﺻ ﻠ و ا ﻋ ﻠ ﻰ ﺗ ﺻ ﻧ ﯾ ف أ ﻋ ﻠ ﻰ ﻗ ﻠ ﯾ ﻼً ﻟ ﻠ ـ LLL . أ ﺷﺎ ر ت اﻟﻧﺗﺎﺋ ﺞ أﯾ ﺿ ﺎ إﻟ ﻰ وﺟود ﻋﻼ ﻗﺔ إﯾ ﺟﺎﺑﯾ ﺔ ﺿ ﻌﯾﻔﺔ ﺑﯾن ﻣﻔﮭوم اﻟذا ت وﻧﺗ ﺎﺋﺞ ا ل LLL . ﻛﺎ ن ا ﻻ ر ﺗ ﺑ ﺎ ط ﺑ ﯾ ن ا ﻟ ﺟ ﮭ د ا ﻷ ﻛ ﺎ د ﯾ ﻣ ﻲ و ﻣ ﺟ ﺎ ل ا ﻟ ﺗ ﻧ ظ ﯾ م ا ﻟ ذ ا ﺗ ﻲ ﻓ ﻲ ا ﻟ ﻣ ﻘ ﺎ ﯾ ﯾ س ﺟ د ﯾ رً ا ﺑ ﺎ ﻟ ﻣ ﻼ ﺣ ظ ﺔ . ﻟذ ا ﻧ و ﺻ ﻲ ﺑﺄ ھﻣﯾ ﺔ ﻟ ﺗﻧﻣﯾ ﺔ ﻣﻔ ﮭوم اﻟ طﻼب ا ﻷﻛﺎ دﯾ ﻣ ﻲ اﻟذاﺗ ﻲ و اﺗ ﺟ ﺎه ال LLL ، ﺑﮭ د ف ﺗﻌزﯾ ز اﻟ ﻌ ﻼﻗﺔ ﺑﯾ ن اﻟ ﻣﻔ ﮭوﻣﯾ ن.

This paper aims to identify and conceptualize a set of relational capabilities that school libraries in the Alentejo region of Portugal develop for acquiring new knowledge that exists externally in the wider community.

A qualitative research design operationalized via case studies was followed for the empirical analysis. Empirical findings are based on the analysis of the 84 narrative reports submitted by school libraries as part of a national performance evaluation exercise that took place between 2010 and 2012. Data analysis followed the techniques of inductive data categorization, within case-analysis, and cross-case analysis.

The exploration of the relational capabilities that school libraries in the Alentejo region of Portugal develop for acquiring new knowledge that exists externally in the community resulted in the identification of relationships that school libraries in the region have established to acquire new knowledge: connecting with and supporting organizations committed to civic engagement; facilitating discussions about challenging issues through strategic partnerships; convening community conversations to identify shared concerns and solutions; and embracing local culture to foster endogenous development.

The ability to seek and recognize the value of new and external knowledge, assimilate it and apply it to organizational ends has been traditionally linked to the concept of absorptive capacity. While absorptive capacity literature in business settings is prolific, literature that focuses on school libraries’ ability to identify and explore external knowledge and applying it to improve their performance is scarce. Focusing on the specific context of the Alentejo region of Portugal as an archetypical rural area, this paper identifies how knowledge existing externally in the community is absorbed by rural school libraries through specific relational capabilities that reflect school libraries’ community orientation and engagement in participatory processes that develop social resilience.

This study aims to explore Twitter posts of Turkish government agencies and the public under a specific hashtag, #NotHolidayButDistanceEducation, specifically related to online distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study used a thematic analysis on 22,547 original tweets posted by 6,970 users during the first month of online distance education in Turkish K-12 schools. Based on like and retweet counts, the study further explored the extent of stakeholders’ engagement with the observed themes.

The findings showed that government agencies and citizens used Twitter to provide technical and psychological support, appreciate and motivate stakeholders, demonstrate sample distance education activities, share information and offer suggestions about the ongoing online distance education. It was also observed that the hashtag has been used for expressing negative views about online distance education and for political purposes. A positive relationship was found between social media engagement and providing technical support or sharing information for online distance education.

This study highlights the role of social media in providing practical and emotional support to education stakeholders in times of crisis. Thus, governments can use social media to provide evidence-based psychological and physical health support to their citizens during a pandemic. Social media can serve to improve education practices in schools through the interactions between the public and policymakers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study can be considered unique because it demonstrates the civic use of social media for educational crisis management. This study highlights the influence of social media in educational policy and practice development in the contemporary era.