Dutch Students’ Engagement and Disengagement with Sustainable Development: Findings from the Global Mind Monitor in Dutch Higher Education

This study explores Dutch students’ engagement and disengagement with sustainable development. We use the Engagement and Disengagement with Sustainable Development Inventory (EDiSDI) to capture students’ behavioural (dis)engagement with environmental sustainability. We look into the role of higher education institutions, assessing the impact of the students’ educational programme and their experience in higher education on engagement with sustainable development. Next, we also analyse the relation between students’ multicultural personality (MPQ) traits and their engagement with sustainable development. Using data from 2997 students in the Global Mind Monitor project, we find significant effects of gender (women being more engaged) and international experience (students with more international experience being more engaged with sustainable development). Looking at the relationship with their multicultural personality, we find that cultural empathy, open-mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability and flexibility correlate with students’ engagement and disengagement with environmental sustainability. Finally, their experience in higher education also seems to be positively correlated with students’ engagement with environmental sustainability, but only to a limited extent. Our study offers empirical support for the theoretical relation between intercultural skills on the one hand and “taking action for sustainable development” on the other (OECD, 2018). The outcomes of this study also highlight the importance of developing educational practices that focus on the alignment between intercultural competences and behavioural engagement with sustainability. These findings have implications for higher education institutions aiming to train global citizens who are equipped to take on complex environmental challenges.