Predicting Civic Responsibility from Curricular/Co-curricular Diversity Engagement and Peer Civic Talk among Final Year Undergraduates of Five Malaysian Public Universities

ABSTRACT

This study looks into the influence of curricular/co-curricular diversity engagement and peer civic talk towards civic responsibility development. Final year undergraduates from five universities in Malaysia participated in a self-administered cross-sectional survey. From the analyses of questionnaires, it was found that co-curricular (not curricular) diversity engagement and peer civic talk are both significant predictors of civic responsibility development, with peer civic talk being the stronger predictor between the two. There was no interaction between peer civic talk and co-curricular diversity towards civic responsibility. The findings underscore the importance of co-curricular diversity engagement and peer civic talk in developing civic conscious citizens.

KEYWORDS:

• Curricular/co-curricular diversity engagement
• peer civic talk
• intercultural contact
• civic responsibility
• student outcomes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant (05-01-14-1397FR) from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.

Notes on contributors

Ezhar Tamam

Ezhar Tamam is a professor of Communication, Department of Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. He received his MA from Michigan State University and PhD from the University of Oklahoma. His teaching and research interests include intercultural communication and the role of communication media in development. He has published a number of book chapters and articles in journals, including Journal of College Student Development, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Mass Communication and Society, Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, and Asia Pacific Education Review.

Moniza Waheed

Moniza Waheed is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. She received her M.A in Communication from Western Illinois University (U.S.) and her PhD in Political Communication from the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Her research interests include Political Communication, Intercultural Communication, and Journalism. She has published a number of articles in journals including the Journal of Intercultural Communication, Journalism Studies, International Communication Gazette, and the Journal of European Communication Research.