2020, Vol.63, No.4

Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.39

pISSN : 1598-4230 / eISSN : 2586-7601
https://journal.kci.go.kr/ihss

In this article, we examine the relationship between university social responsibility (USR) and educational performance. For decades, universities as social organizations actively respond to environmental changes and adopt affirmative action programs that embody equality and diversity. In fact, a series of education policy reform has normatively shaped the relationships between states and universities that progressively incorporate social responsibility (i.e., affirmative action) in addition to research, teaching, and management. Moreover, we argue that USR has an increasingly positive influence on the educational performance of universities, by employing FGLS (feasible generalized least squares) regression on panel data for Korean universities (2008-2015). The findings suggest why universities and policymakers should further expand USR.

The purpose of this study is to perceptions of international graduate students on intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and ID strategies for socially engaged learning (SEL). As an internal condition, ICC is a quality for those who enter a second language and culture. As an external condition, SEL includes recommended learning and instructional strategies for the students. SEL was derived from the review of existing and well-known social theories of learning. As a case study in a large university in the U.S., this study investigated perceptions on ICC and SEL with a sample of 208 non-native English speaking international graduate students coming from China, India, South Korea, and other diverse countries. Results of quantitative analysis showed that these students with different background characteristics, academic disciplines, cultural origins, and previous experiences perceived a moderately high level of ICC and generally had positive views on SEL strategies for socially engaged learning. Significantly different perceptions among sub-factors of ICC level and SEL framework across their backgrounds suggest that the instructional designers need to better understand students’ different intercultural competencies, to build a bridge in applying between generally-accepted versus culturally-specific instructional design principles, and finally to help students prepare their socially engaged learning successfully.

Usually, when humans face a crisis of survival, they tend to make extreme choices based on their usual epistemological attitude. However, if the usual epistemological orientation is tamed in a habit based on synergistic epistemology, there is a possibility that extreme choices such as suicide will not be made. If South Koreans make a habit of selective behavior based on synergistic epistemology, they can overcome the crisis situation facing catastrophe more wisely. Synergistic choices that are complexly dependent on human emotions, understanding, reason, intuition, and soul will be a smarter synergistic epistemology that can escape extreme death choices.