Social Responsibility: Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19—Perception Scale of Students from Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Social movements and the consequences of the current health crisis resulting from COVID-19 have deepened social injustices and inequities, which can be addressed through the benchmarks set by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research is related to the perspective of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as social transformation agents. The purpose of this research is to create a scale to measure students’ perception of the social responsibilities developed by HEIs from the SDGs’ perspective. A matrix solution was found after Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) composed of four dimensions. The constructs that form the four dimensions can be used to design strategies which contribute to the SDGs’ goals, for which it is necessary to have the opinions of the actors that are part of the educational community. Future research should consider carrying out comparative studies according to sociodemographic variables for a better understanding of the social phenomenon.

Happiness: Exploring Relationship with Empathic Sense, Altruistic Behaviour, Social Responsibility, and Interpersonal Relationship

“…Social responsibility is a value that stimulates individual moral behavior in dealing with other people which is embodied in the principles of caring and fairness that allows individuals to achieve a balance between empathy with others and care for justice. (Khan et al, 2018;Petek Šter & Selič, 2015;Severino-González et al, 2020). This is what studies show about the need to pay attention to student social responsibility and development because of the impact on their professional future (Velea & Farca, 2013;Wang & Juslin, 2011).…”

“…Research result shows that there is a significant positive relationship between social responsibility and happiness (Ali & Bozorgi, 2016). The experience of empathy, results in the development of social responsibility and placing importance on other individuals based on understanding and perception of situations and positive feelings, on the other hand, social responsibility is one of the main principles of altruism, that is, individuals must consider themselves responsible and not indifferent to others (Ali & Bozorgi, 2016;Lantos, 2002;Severino-González et al, 2020). Empathy is important in the interaction of students, because it has many advantages and some of them are: increased communication, increased satisfaction, greater compliance (Elshahawy, 2019;Roling et al, 2020).…”

Using sensemaking as a lens to assess student learning on corporate social responsibility and sustainability

“…Figure 1 provides an overview of the module content and the stage 3 thematic coding. Given prior research that has considered whether the demographic characteristics of research subjects may affect their understanding of CSR (Lillo‐Viedma et al, 2022; Severino‐González, Gallardo‐Vázquez, et al, 2022; Severino‐González, Toro‐Lagos, et al, 2022), we further interrogate our findings by various student demographic attributes to see whether and how they may matter for each of the three hypotheses as we describe below.…”

Social Responsibility and Spiritual Intelligence: University Students’ Attitudes during COVID-19

“…Finally, women also express the highest values in the Attitudes towards COVID-19 dimension (see Table 5), due to the development of practices that show self-care, protection of the family, and compliance with instructions from competent agencies (mean = 2.74; median = 3; SD = 0.478). The COVID-19 pandemic has presented various challenges leading to the deployment of actions, which on one side aim at self-care, and, on the other, the development of socially responsible behavior, responding to new challenges arising in postmodernity and cutting-edge science, due to the constant search for adaptability and social complexity [23,[63][64][65].…”

“…The well-being and care of life in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic have become more relevant due to situations that have shown the fragility of the human being [20,21]. This has led international organizations and nations from different latitudes to implement strategies that seek to mitigate contagion by contact [22,23]. These strategies consider practices that range from the installation of a standard of conduct to formal and informal education [24,25].…”