Environmental challenges continue to intensify globally, highlighting the urgent need to foster Environmental Citizenship (ECn) among younger generations, particularly within higher education. Despite increasing policy emphasis on sustainability education, limited cross-national evidence exists on how students translate environmental awareness into action. This study employs a quantitative, comparative design using survey data from 2,013 higher education students across seven countries (Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy, Lebanon, Spain, and Sweden). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to validate a reduced Environmental Citizenship Questionnaire (rECQ) and examine students’ motivations, competences, intentions, and behaviors. Results reveal a consistent pattern across countries: while students demonstrate high levels of environmental values (M = 3.54) and attitudes (M = 3.49), as well as strong intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (M ≈ 4.7), their engagement in past environmental actions remains notably low (M = 1.77). Competences and intentions are significantly higher than actual behaviors (p<.001), indicating a substantial intention–action gap. Correlation analyses further show weak links between past actions and other ECn dimensions, while attitudes, values, and intentions are moderately to strongly interrelated. Cross-country differences highlight stronger motivation and engagement in Cyprus and Croatia, while contextual factors such as family influence play a key role in Lebanon. Overall, the validated 9-factor rECQ demonstrates robust cross-cultural applicability. The findings emphasize the need for higher education institutions to move beyond awareness-based approaches by integrating experiential, action-oriented learning and motivational support mechanisms to effectively translate environmental commitment into sustained behavioral engagement.
Changes in streamflow permanence regime and in land use intensity surrounding streams can greatly affect the distribution of aquatic insects and the ecosystem services that they provide. However, hydrological variation may alter land use impacts on aquatic insect assemblages. Therefore, untangling the effects of flow permanence and landscape composition on beta-diversity is key to predicting the effects of land use and climate change on aquatic insect assemblages, especially in modified biomes such as the South American subtropical grasslands (Pampa). Here, we surveyed the composition of Odonata assemblages in low-order streams differing in their flow permanence and type of land cover to test whether st reamflow permanence and landscape composition drive Odonata beta-diversity patterns in the Brazilian Pampa. Specifically, we assessed the extent to which beta-diversity replacement and nestedness components vary between historically 'perennial' (with continuous flow all year-round) and 'intermittent' streams (which dry part of the year) along a gradient of anthropogenic land cover. Flow permanence and anthropogenically impacted land cover independently influenced overall beta-diversity (and the turnover component), while anthropogenic land cover alone influenced the nestedness component. These findings suggest that intermittent flow in the stream channel throughout the year and landscape encroachment lead to the filtering out of flow-sensitive Odonata and favour drought-adapted taxa, while natural land use favours the occurrence of specialist taxa in Pampa streams. This study helps disentangle the mechanisms structuring the distribution of Odonata along gradients of hydrological permanence and land use in southern Brazilian grassland streams. These results are useful to predict the responses of Odonata biodiversity to streamflow regime change in landscapes under increasing environmental pressure and water surface loss.
Digital technologies in welfare organizations frequently generate gaps, ambiguities, and misalignments that require professional intervention. Yet prior research has tended to portray frontline workers mainly as resistant or adaptive actors, leaving under-examined their active contributions to sustaining broader digital infrastructures. This article introduces the concept of digital compensatory work to capture how professionals intervene when specific digital technologies fall short of their own standards for professional service delivery. Drawing on an exploratory literature review, we identify three forms of such compensatory work: complementing digital technologies, rectifying their shortcomings, and dismissing them when they conflict with professional judgment. By theorizing these practices, the article expands existing understandings of professional discretion in digital welfare services, shifting attention from resistance and adaptation to value-driven interventions that actively uphold service quality within digital infrastructures. In doing so, it contributes to debates on digital welfare and highlights the essential role of professional agency in sustaining human service organizations under conditions of digital transformation.
The long-term impact of education on sport coaches' interpersonal behaviors remains unclear. In this longitudinal study (N = 52) we examined one-year changes in ice hockey coaches' use of need-supportive behaviors following a two-day basic coach education both shortly after the intervention and one year later. Coaches reported effectiveness, easy-to-implement, and normative beliefs about need support and their use of autonomy, competence, and relatedness support at baseline, 1.5 weeks (T2), 3 weeks (T3), and 12 months (T4). Bayesian linear mixed effects models estimated changes in each outcome over time. Posterior estimates indicated increases for competence support (Delta = 0.20, 95% CI [0.04, 0.36]; g = 0.52) and autonomy support (Delta = 0.35, 95% CI [0.08, 0.63]; g = 0.48) between baseline and T3. Between baseline and T4, the posterior estimates suggested a decrease only for competence support (Delta = -0.21, 95% CI [-0.39, -0.03]; g = -0.12). No other posterior estimates meaningfully differed from zero across time. Overall, the coaches' need-supportive behaviors improved shortly after training but were not sustained over one year to the next competitive season. Findings underscore the value of post-training reinforcement (e.g., booster sessions, flexible digital tools) to support maintenance of learned behaviors in practice.
This paper investigates policy documents on digital transformation in the public sector and whether technological optimism also risks obscuring constitutional, democratic, and ethical principles. Two analytical tasks were undertaken: first, we mapped policy documents originating from a multi-level setting; and second, we explored the extent to which constitutional, democratic, and ethical principles are articulated. To explore the extent to which these principles are articulated the concept of a public ethos was utilized. A public ethos contains principles associated with a liberal representative democracy and a Weberian bureaucracy. The analysis underscores the need for research on maintaining a public ethos in politics associated with digital transformation. The policy documents that were analyzed lack ideas concerning democratic legitimacy, legal certainty, ethics in the public encounter, and systems for public scrutiny. The main conclusion is that the space in the documents is dominated by technological optimism, while constitutional, democratic, and ethical principles are given lower priority. The need for further research includes questions concerning (1) conditions for civic participation/party politics, (2) management issues concerning skill/learning development among public employees and on control mechanisms, (3) issues at the frontline of public administration on how the digital transformation affects the treatment of vulnerable/marginalized populations.
