Understanding of Global Citizenship among Higher Education Teachers: Implications for Graduate Attributes

Global Citizenship (GC) has recently claimed its position as desired graduates’ attribute in many Higher Education (HE) institutions in different non-Western contexts. However, ambiguity and complexity still linger over what GC means contextually and how this understanding may shape educational outcomes. Taking cognizance of this, a study was carried out to investigate the understanding of GC among Vietnamese HE teachers as major agents in Global Citizenship Education (GCE), in order to discuss their implications for graduate attributes. This study adopted purposeful sampling strategy to conduct in-depth interviews among 14 teachers from 4 different faculties of a private university in Southern Vietnam. Emergent themes were then compared with GC conceptions theorized in the literature. Data analysis revealed a three-fold dimensions in teachers’ perception: (1) GC understanding was ambiguous and divergent and uniquely nuanced by personal and contextual factors, (2) triple helix of GC conceptions were intricately entwined in GCE rationales, and (3) GC notion was framed with juxtapositions of conceptions. The findings highlighted an implementation gap in GCE which might subvert the intended educational aim, especially in the context of unavailable official documents to guide GCE. In this way, the paper contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding GCE implementation, and indicates a need to have clearer instructional GCE-related policies and more comprehensive teacher trainings.

The Smuggling Protocol and the Criminalization of Humanitarian Activities at Sea

This paper focuses on some recent events of criminalization of humanitarian activities at sea in Italy, and precisely the Open Arms and the Sea Watch 3 cases. It is stated that criminalization of humanitarian activities at sea is largely due to a substantial ‘implementation gap’ between the Smuggling Protocol and the current EU legal framework on people smuggling, that is the so-called ‘Facilitators’ Package’ of 2002. It is further contended that legal certainty requirements make legislative reform necessary in Italy to prevent the criminalization of humanitarian activities at sea.

The Growth of Platform Work as Precarious Work that Threatens Indonesia’s Target to Meet Decent Work as Formulated in Goal 8 of SDGs

This article discusses the implications of the emergence of platform work as a form of precarious work that threatens Indonesia’s target to meet Goal 8 of SDGs. Despite the work platform providing employment opportunities to many workers, most work in the non-standard employment (NSE) category. This means that they work precariously due to insufficient work protection, which may lead to severe consequences to decent work and productive work as critical elements of Goal 8 of SDGs. This research aims to assess the implementation gap Indonesia faces in realizing the roadmap of Goal 8 of SDGs. Using the qualitative descriptive research method, the authors analyzed and explained the challenges through comparative data study from 2016 to the year 2020, with emphasis on four main area indicators of Goal 8 of SDGs. We concluded that promoting precarious work in Indonesia might hinder the implementation of the 8th goal of SDGs on decent work. We offer some policy alternatives to mitigate the challenges by underlining the importance of new regulations to extend job protection to all workers regardless of the employment relationship.

A Scoping Review of Empirical Evidence on (Digital) Public Services Co-Creation

The public sector is facing significant challenges regarding public services provision, including declination of users’ trust and limited resources. An alternative approach to traditional public service provision with the potential to address these challenges is the co-creation of public services. Co-creation promises to foster innovative solutions to provide high-quality services that respond to users’ needs. Considering this background, we aim at critically exploring public service co-creation via a scoping review, employing the PRISMA-ScR method. Our review focuses on 25 empirical studies out of 75 analyzed articles that examine the implementation of co-creation of (digital) public services and investigates how the empirical literature portrays the concept of public service co-creation. Our findings primarily suggest that co-creation can be implemented in a wide range of sectors and settings, to improve public services and to foster innovation, throughout the whole public service cycle, using a variety of digital, analog and hybrid co-creation tools and strategies. Yet, our review has also shown that there is still an implementation gap that needs to be bridged between knowing and doing in the context of public services co-creation in a digital setting.

Understanding of Global Citizenship among Higher Education Teachers: Implications for Graduate Attributes

Global Citizenship (GC) has recently claimed its position as desired graduates’ attribute in many Higher Education (HE) institutions in different non-Western contexts. However, ambiguity and complexity still linger over what GC means contextually and how this understanding may shape educational outcomes. Taking cognizance of this, a study was carried out to investigate the understanding of GC among Vietnamese HE teachers as major agents in Global Citizenship Education (GCE), in order to discuss their implications for graduate attributes. This study adopted purposeful sampling strategy to conduct in-depth interviews among 14 teachers from 4 different faculties of a private university in Southern Vietnam. Emergent themes were then compared with GC conceptions theorized in the literature. Data analysis revealed a three-fold dimensions in teachers’ perception: (1) GC understanding was ambiguous and divergent and uniquely nuanced by personal and contextual factors, (2) triple helix of GC conceptions were intricately entwined in GCE rationales, and (3) GC notion was framed with juxtapositions of conceptions. The findings highlighted an implementation gap in GCE which might subvert the intended educational aim, especially in the context of unavailable official documents to guide GCE. In this way, the paper contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding GCE implementation, and indicates a need to have clearer instructional GCE-related policies and more comprehensive teacher trainings.

Plant Conservation Practitioners Can Benefit from Neutral Genetic Diversity

Several papers deal with a conservation genetics gap in which plant conservation and restoration managers or practitioners do not soundly integrate population genetics information into conservation management. Authors concerned about this issue point out that practitioners perceive genetic research results to be impractical or unnecessary in the short term due to time and financial constraints. In addition, researchers often fail to translate research findings into comprehensive, jargon-free recommendations effectively. If possible, conservation-related or conservation-oriented articles should be easily written to bridge the research–implementation gap. Finally, based on a previously published prioritization framework for conservation genetics scenarios, we introduce four simple genetic categories by exemplifying each case. We hope that conservation practitioners could employ these suggested guidelines for the prioritization of population- and species-level management.

The Struggle of Indigenous Peoples to Maintain Their Spirituality in Latin America: Freedom of and from Religion(s), and Other Threats

This article argues that the (Western-oriented) right to religion has been proven inadequate in protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights. It recognizes that this is partly because of the distinctive characteristics of Indigenous religions, which differ from other dominant religions, but also because of the way in which religion has been used by colonialism with dramatic effects on Indigenous Peoples and their beliefs, spiritualities, and worldviews. The article focuses on Latin America to argue further that in addition to colonialism, the early Constitutions also attacked Indigenous religions. As Indigenous rights are more acknowledged in Latin America, we take this region as an excellent, albeit painful, example of how Indigenous religions have been pushed aside even in the most positive contexts. The article uses the constitutional and legal arrangements in Latin American states, mainly Ecuador and Bolivia, to critically assess the protection that these favorable to Indigenous Peoples legal systems’ guarantee to Indigenous rights despite a persistent implementation gap. Also, this article highlights the weaknesses of the international system in mitigating the manifold threats that Indigenous Peoples have to face on a daily basis in their struggle to maintain and transmit their religions and spirituality, including the assault of other religions and sects into their communities and the so-called neo-extractivism. The article finally draws some concluding remarks and recommendations on how to improve the freedom of and violations from religion(s) of Indigenous Peoples in the context of Latin America as well as international law more broadly.

We Can Better Manage Ecosystems by Connecting Solutions to Constraints: Learning from Wetland Plant Invasions

Wetlands provide critical wildlife habitat, improve water quality, and mitigate the impacts of floods, droughts, and climate change. Yet, they are drained, filled, dredged, and otherwise altered by humans, all of which contribute to their high susceptibility to plant invasions. Given the societal significance of wetlands and the disproportionately large amount of time and money spent controlling invaders in remaining wetlands, a fundamental shift must occur in how we approach restoration of plant-invaded wetlands. The need for more research is often used as an excuse for a lack of progress in invader management but, in fact, constraints to invader management are spread across the science, management, and stakeholder engagement domains. At their intersection are “implementation gap” constraints where the monumental efforts required to bridge the gap among scientists, managers, and community stakeholders are often unassigned, unrewarded, and underestimated. Here we synthesize and present a portfolio of broad structured approaches and specific actions that can be used to advance restoration of plant-invaded wetlands in a diversity of contexts immediately and over the long-term, linking these solutions to the constraints they best address. These solutions can be used by individual managers to chart a path forward when they are daunted by potentially needing to pivot from more familiar management actions to increase efficiency and efficacy in attaining restoration goals. In more complex collaborations with multiple actors, the shared vocabulary presented here for considering and selecting the most appropriate solution will be essential. Of course, every management context is unique (i.e., different constraints are at play) so we advocate that involved parties consider a range of potential solutions, rather than either assuming any single solution to be universally optimal or relying on a solution simply because it is familiar and feasible. Moving rapidly to optimally effective invasive plant management in wetlands may not be realistic, but making steady, incremental progress by implementing appropriate solutions based on clearly identified constraints will be critical to eventually attaining wetland restoration goals.