Search Results (112)

The adoption of e-government services in Small Island Developing Nations (SIDNs) aims to enhance public service efficiency, inclusiveness, and quality. However, e-government service development in SIDNs faces some significant constraints, including limited resources, geographical isolation, low digital literacy levels, and inadequate technological infrastructure. This study investigates value co-creation approaches in e-government service, aiming to identify specific value co-creation processes and methods to support sustainable e-government initiatives in SIDN settings. The study applies a qualitative approach; based on the thematic analysis of interviews with government stakeholders, it identifies contextual factors and conditions that influence e-government value co-creation processes in SIDNs and strategies for sustainable e-government service value co-creation. This study contributes a value co-creation framework that applies participatory design, agile development, collaborative governance, socio-technical thinking, and technology adaptation as methods for the design and implementation of flexible and inclusive e-government services that are responsive to local needs, resilient to challenges, and sustainable over time. The framework can be used by policymakers and practitioners to facilitate sustainable digital transformation in SIDNs through collaborative governance, active participation, and civic engagement with innovative technologies. Full article

Smart governance—the integration of digital technologies into urban governance—is increasingly recognized as a transformative approach to addressing complex urban challenges such as rapid urbanization, climate change, social inequality, and resource constraints. As a foundational pillar of the smart city paradigm, it enhances decision-making, service delivery, transparency, and civic participation through data-driven tools, digital platforms, and emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, and blockchain. While often positioned as a pathway toward sustainability and inclusivity, existing research on smart governance remains fragmented, particularly regarding its relationship to urban sustainability. This study addresses that gap through a systematic literature review using the PRISMA methodology, synthesizing theoretical models, empirical findings, and diverse case studies. It identifies key enablers—such as digital infrastructure, data governance, citizen engagement, and institutional capacity—and highlights enduring challenges including digital inequity, data security concerns, and institutional inertia. In response to this, the study proposes a multidimensional framework that integrates governance, technology, and sustainability, offering a holistic lens through which to understand and guide urban transformation. This framework underscores the importance of balancing technological innovation with equity, resilience, and inclusivity, providing actionable insights for policymakers and planners navigating the complexities of smart cities and urban development. By aligning smart governance practices with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDG)—particularly SDG 11 on sustainable cities and communities—the study offers a strategic roadmap for fostering resilient, equitable, and digitally empowered urban futures. Full article

As global environmental challenges intensify, there is an increasing need to equip younger generations with the knowledge, values, and sense of responsibility necessary for a sustainable future. This study explores how environmental citizenship education (ECE), implemented through a nature-based learning program within a Nature and Science School (NSS) in Türkiye, was experienced and interpreted by primary school pupils in relation to their development of understanding of sustainability and environmental citizenship. NSSs, integrated into the formal education system by the Turkish Ministry of National Education, offer inquiry-driven and experiential learning in natural settings. The study took place in Talat Göktepe Grove, a biodiverse site including forest and marine ecosystems, where a four-month ECE program was conducted. A holistic single-case study design was employed, drawing on pupil diaries and semi-structured interviews. A total of 88 pupils engaged in structured outdoor activities addressing biodiversity, sustainability, and the climate crisis. Initially, pupils described environmental citizenship through individual actions. Over time, their perspectives expanded to include civic participation, environmental rights, and collective responsibility. Their reflections also revealed a more nuanced understanding of sustainability, encompassing concepts such as ecosystem balance, renewable energy, and environmental justice. The study provides insight into how nature-based education may support meaning-making around environmental citizenship and sustainability in early education. Full article

This study investigates and forecasts multidimensional security perceptions among Serbian university students, who are a particularly engaged and vulnerable demographic in transitional societies. It examines how demographic traits, socio-economic status, and levels of institutional trust and engagement shape students’ evaluations of security in everyday life. The study examines six primary dimensions of security perception: personal safety, safety at public events and demonstrations, perceived national threats, digital security and privacy, perception of emergencies and crises, and trust in institutions and security policies. A structured online survey was administered to a sample of 406 university students selected through non-probability purposive sampling from major academic centres in Serbia, including Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad, and Kragujevac. The questionnaire, based on a five-point Likert scale, was designed to measure levels of agreement across the six dimensions. Data were analysed using multiple regression, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, and independent samples t-tests. All necessary statistical assumptions were met, ensuring the reliability and validity of the results. Descriptive statistics indicated moderate to moderately high overall perceived safety, with personal safety scoring the highest, followed by digital security and disaster preparedness. Lower scores were recorded for public event safety, perceived national threats, and, in particular, trust in institutional security policies. Regression analysis revealed that key predictors of perceived safety varied across dimensions: gender was a significant predictor of personal safety. At the same time, family financial status had a strong influence on perceptions of safety at public events. These findings offer valuable insights for designing targeted risk communication, inclusive policy initiatives, and institutional reforms that aim to enhance youth resilience, civic trust, and participatory security governance, ultimately contributing to long-term social sustainability. Full article

This study investigates the integration of youth work into school environments as a response to contemporary educational challenges. Drawing on the implementation of selected best practices in four European countries—Greece, Finland, Estonia, and Portugal—within the framework of the Youth Work in Schools (YWIS) Erasmus+ project, this research explores the potential of youth work to enhance school communities, promote sustainability, support student well-being, and deepen democratic practices. Employing a mixed-methods approach that combines case studies and survey data from educators and youth workers, the study examines the transformative impact of youth work in promoting inclusive, engaged, and resilient educational settings. Preliminary findings indicate that youth work contributes meaningfully to holistic youth development by creating collaborative school cultures, supporting emotional and social well-being, and encouraging active civic participation. Youth workers’ interventions—ranging from peer mentoring and participatory governance to sustainability initiatives—demonstrated the value of experiential, student-centred learning. However, the sustainable integration of youth work in education requires institutional openness, professional recognition, and systemic support. By analysing the reflections of practitioners across diverse national contexts, this paper offers critical insights for policymakers, educators, and practitioners aiming to bridge the gap between formal and non-formal education. It argues that embedding youth work in schools can serve as a catalyst for educational transformation, cultivating more democratic, sustainable, and supportive learning environments. Full article

This article explores the role of religion in nation-building by examining its public dimensions within the evolving context of secularism in Québec. By examining the shift from open secularism, recommended by the Bouchard–Taylor Commission report of Building the Future, a Time for Reconciliation (2008), to a more rigid form under Bill 21, the study critiques Bill 21’s marginalization of religious minorities and explores the broader tension between state neutrality and religious participation in public life. Drawing on Rajeev Bhargava’s concept of “principled distance”, the author advocates for a flexible secular framework that balances institutional neutrality with ethical commitments to equity and justice. Through case studies, including the accommodation of Sikh turbans in the RCMP and the United Church of Canada’s support for same-sex marriage, the article illustrates how religious engagement fosters bridging social capital and enacts public religion, thereby enriching democratic discourse. This article insists on the limitations of rigid secularism in its dealings with pluralism and proposes that principled distance offers a more inclusive approach, allowing constructive religious contributions to civic life without undermining secular governance. Ultimately, the study promotes a vision of secularism that honors differences and encourages religious participation in nation-building. Full article

Trust remains fundamental to an audience’s engagement with digital journalism, yet research has predominantly focused on Western contexts, overlooking trust dynamics in diverse digital environments. This study examines news media trust and civic engagement in Egypt’s evolving digital landscape, comparing Western and national digital news consumption patterns. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling with data from 426 Egyptian digital news consumers, we apply a four-factor trust model to analyze (1) the relationship between trust propensity and trust in digital news content and (2) how journalist assessment relates to both content trust and civic engagement across platforms. Our results reveal significant differences in trust formation, whereby trust propensity strongly predicts content trust for Western digital media (β = 0.440) but weakly for national digital media (β = 0.191), while journalist assessment consistently influences both content trust and civic outcomes across platforms. Our findings contribute to digital journalism theory by illuminating how journalist credibility functions as a trust anchor across platforms. For digital journalism practice, we identify platform-specific trust-building strategies for Western and national digital news organizations operating in complex media environments. This study extends digital journalism research beyond Western-centric models, demonstrating how cultural context, educational factors, and platform characteristics shape digital trust pathways. Full article

Congregational leaders in the US must navigate a political landscape marked by increasing political polarization and a notable rise in support for ideas aligned with Christian nationalism. While gender, race, ethnicity, and religious affiliation have long shaped political lines, the US population has steadily become more entrenched in partisan political divides. Recent research shows the relationship between religious identity and willingness to use violence to support political and religious ideologies. These trends profoundly affect faith communities, challenging theological perspectives, social dynamics, and civic engagement. This paper examines how political polarization and Christian nationalist impulses within mainline Christian congregations impact congregational leadership. This study identifies key factors driving these changes through qualitative analysis of case studies and quantitative research. It explores their implications for community cohesion and the broader societal fabric. The findings suggest that while some communities experience heightened internal conflict and fragmentation, others adapt by engaging in dialogue, story-sharing, and education. The paper concludes with recommendations to counter political polarization and ideological extremism through increased understanding, nuanced theological reflection, and political awareness. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on congregational leadership and political engagement, highlighting the need for nuanced strategies to address the challenges of political polarization and Christian nationalism in the US today. Full article

In superdiverse societies like Canada, characterized by high levels of cultural and ethnic plurality, national identity boundaries are often blurry. While policies may officially promote inclusiveness, public discourse on national identity is frequently dominated by mainstream groups, whose willingness to expand these boundaries plays a crucial role in fostering minority inclusion. Despite the importance of inclusivity for social cohesion, little is known about what enables majority group members to adopt a more inclusive national identity. This study addresses this gap by exploring the role of cognitive flexibility in facilitating an acculturative shift toward inclusiveness. Using latent class regression analysis (N = 202), we identified two distinct national identity profiles: one more inclusive and the other more exclusive. We also examined how factors such as ethnic vs. civic views on national identity, acculturation orientations toward integration, and personal identification with traditional English Canadian vs. multicultural identity representation shape these profiles. Our findings revealed that higher cognitive flexibility was positively associated with the likelihood of belonging to the more inclusive profile. This study contributes to a limited body of work on majority group acculturation, offering insights into how cognitive flexibility may encourage a broader and more inclusive national identity. Implications for policy and social cohesion are discussed. Full article

The preservation of paleontological heritage is relevant for paleobiological and geological research, as well as for scientific dissemination. Fossils are indicative of the evolutionary processes, biodiversity, ecology, and geography of the past and require specific geoconservation actions. In Italy, fossils are protected as cultural heritage, and their unauthorized collection and trading are counteracted by a regulatory framework. The local superintendence and law enforcement provide control over the territory, often resorting to the expertise of university paleontologists. In the Calabria region (southern Italy), the collaboration among institutions is yielding interesting results in research, preservation, and public awareness of paleontological heritage. This paper highlights the different approaches to the conservation and promotion of fossils by three museums in Calabria. At the National Archeological Museum of Reggio Calabria, fossils are included in the Prehistory section. The history of life on Earth, with a focus on regional paleontology, characterizes the Museum of the University of Calabria. The Civic Museum of Ricadi exhibits local fossils. Collaboration among these museums and their institutional referents contributes to public awareness and scientific understanding of paleontological heritage, reinforcing the need for conservation and promotion strategies. Full article

Over the last decades, many European educational systems have been reviewing the citizenship education model that they have been developing, trying to deepen the meaning of democratic citizenship practice today or the social demand inspired by the creation of adequate conditions for its exercise. Thus, it is challenging for educational systems to face education for global citizenship, and international organizations have been promoting the development of citizenship education and conducting research in this field. New research and educational practices are expected for global citizenship, and their meaning in our European societies is a point of reference for the study of the different policies that national and supranational institutions promote in this matter. The Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education from 2010 and its counterpart framework from UNESCO in 2015 have actively promoted the idea of citizenship education on a global scale through its Global Citizenship Education Model. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) conducted a series of reports on social and civic competencies to investigate the extent to which young people are prepared to assume their role as citizens, which recently has been reviewed by Schulz et al. Based on its main findings and the latest survey by the European EACEA/Eurydice from 2023 that covers 15 member countries of the Eurydice Network, this paper presents a cross-national study of the global citizenship education (GCE) between European Countries that updates recent national information and research developments in this field. Based on the analyzed data and the criteria established by UNESCO, the comparative study allows us to determine the dimensions and trends in global citizenship education in order to address its implications within the European education area. Full article

Public discourse on immigration and social services access has been contentious in immigrant-receiving countries. Scholars have examined immigrants’ marginalization as a form of civic stratification, where boundaries based on documentation status affect immigrants’ experiences and benefits granted by the state. This scholarship lacks a framework outlining existing documentation status categories and does not fully answer three research questions I pose in this article: (1) what is the alignment of documentation status categories relative to each other, (2) how does policy (re)configure those categories over time, and (3) how have documentation status categories shaped access to health care in the United States? This article answers those questions and argues that the documentation status continuum (DSC) framework fills these gaps. In the DSC, undocumented immigrants are at one end and citizens are at the other, with many documentation statuses in between. Public policy creates these statuses and generates stratification through allocating benefits based on one’s DSC position. Policy also shapes movement along the continuum, which shapes benefits eligibility. Using the 2006 Massachusetts Health Reform and national 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) Reform as policy examples and interviews conducted with 207 immigrants, healthcare professionals, and immigrant organization employees in Boston, this article demonstrates how healthcare access is stratified along the DSC between citizens and noncitizens. This has implications for various outcomes that social scientists examine amid increasing anti-immigrant sentiment in the US and beyond. Full article

Social inclusion is a common goal for equitable access to resources for living, is important to health and wellbeing, and is supported by most Western or developed nations. Despite this, immigrant and refugee women continue to be excluded from social, cultural, economic, civic, and political participation during and after settlement. Most research exploring the context of social exclusion has reinforced that some groups experience greater exclusion than others in any given population, for example, immigrant women. The purpose of this study was to gain insights by exploring the experiences of social inclusion and exclusion and recommendations from the perspectives of immigrant and refugee women, as well as community service workers in the Niagara Region, Canada. Utilizing qualitative descriptive inquiry underpinned by intersectionality theory along with thematic analysis, we interviewed 10 immigrant and refugee women and 14 community service workers. Five themes were generated: (1) gendered nature of exclusion; (2) levels of exclusion; (3) paving a path for self; (4) formal inclusionary processes; and (5) informal inclusionary processes. The findings will be used to guide community action and may be transferable to community organizations that serve immigrant and refugee women in similar community contexts, with the aim of enhancing collaborations to advance health equity and inclusion. Full article

This paper examines the usage of different phrases naming “religious freedom” in international treaties and European Union member states constitutional texts in order to identify traces of contemporary ideological polarization in relation to the main political ideologies, socialism, liberalism and conservatism. Considering the methodological approach, I theorize the meaning of “religious freedom” as the right to believe or not in a higher power or divinity, while also discussing the positive and the negative aspects of religious freedom together with the three major political doctrines. The results present clusters on the way each phrase used to name “religious freedom” is tied up with each of the three major political doctrines: freedom from/within religion (socialism), freedom of religion or belief (liberalism), and religious freedom (conservatism). The main conclusion of the paper is that within the contemporary political and administrative democratic spectrum, the three different phrases used at international level to name “religious freedom” and corresponding to socialism, liberalism and conservatism are describing religious freedom in a polarized manner, from liability to asset: in socialism as liberation from the negative and discriminatory power of religion, in liberalism as an civic attitude, while for conservatives religious freedom stands is coined a political value within the nation building process. Full article

Over the past decade, a burgeoning strand of scholarly and journalistic literature has emerged that emphasizes the role of Christian nationalism within contemporary American politics. Unfortunately, this scholarly literature has mushroomed so quickly that relatively little attention has been given to its conceptual underpinnings and how Christian nationalism may be related to, or different from, other conceptualizations of the role of religion in public life. This article outlines different conceptualizations of Christian nationalism that have been advanced, analyzes how different coding schemes of its present measurement yields different assessments of its presence within American politics, and differentiates between and among different types of approaches to the role of religion in American public life. Using data drawn from Baylor national surveys on religion conducted in 2007, 2017, and 2021, this article examines three distinct groups within American politics—namely, Christian nationalists, civic republicans, and radical secularists—and how the relative size and characteristics of such groups have changed within American society over time. Full article