Gen-Z university students’ attitudes toward current global trends: environment, globalisation, immigration, feminism and capitalism

Abstract

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Generation Z is characterised by being digitally native, socially conscious, and diverse. These values influence the way they learn, communicate and relate to the world. The present study aims to examine the attitudes of university students towards some emerging global trends, including environmental change, globalisation, immigration, feminism and capitalism. It involves a cross-sectional exploratory study to describe the attitudes of a group of 1,346 students belonging to Generation Z from a Spanish university. Most students are concerned about the environment and support policies to protect it. They also view globalisation and immigration positively. A specific critical view of the capitalist system, however, is reflected by more intermediate scores. There are also gender differences in perceptions of progress on feminism and criticism of the capitalist system. Men score higher on globalisation but less on immigration. There are two profiles among Gen-Z students: those with more positive attitudes towards immigration, feminism and a critical view of the capitalist system (Social Sciences, Health, Translation-RI, Philosophy-Theology students) and those with less positive attitudes (Business, Law and Engineering). These distinctions coincide with different fields of study. Overall, these results are important in enabling social psychologists and educators to understand better the values of their students.