ROLES OF UNIVERSITIES AND UNIVERSITY STAFF IN PROMOTING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN A COMMUNITY: DISCIPLINARY DIFFERENCES

Abstract

Over the past decades, the aspirations for connecting universities and the social community have become increasingly topical as well as the aspirations for civic engagement of university staff. The purpose of this research is to examine the perception of the role of universities and of the role of university staff in promoting civic engagement and education for active citizenship, concerning different disciplinarian cultures of staff and students. The research sample involves 1,048 respondents, of whom 466 are members of staff and 582 are students from the University of Novi Sad (Serbia), utilising the Questionnaire on Civic Mission of Universities and Education for Sustainable Development. The results imply that the role of universities in promoting civic engagement is significant, but not as much as that of the media. Concerning the role of university staff, disciplinarian differences have been established on the student sample, whereby students of soft sciences regard the role of staff as more significant in promoting civic engagement in comparison with those of hard sciences, who consider it as a more private matter of an individual. The results confirm disciplinarian differences in particular aspects of the relationship between the role of a university and that of a member of staff. The respondents of soft sciences mostly hold an opinion that these roles are connected, and the stronger the role of a university is, the more significant the role of a member of staff is. It has been concluded that, besides teaching and conducting research, civic engagement in a community represents the crucial role of universities and university staff, as well as the fact that a university is not a homogenous entity and that professional socialisation within a discipline influences the interests of members of staff and students  in various activities of social engagement and in their civic engagement.