The Gender, Religion and Prosocial Behaviors of University Students on a Service-Learning Experience on the Border Between Africa and Europe

Abstract

Service-Learning (SL) provides real practical experiences that include responding to real-life problems for students and socially disadvantaged groups. This study examined prosocial behaviors in relation to the sociodemographic characteristics (gender and religion) of teacher training students (TTS) and sports science students (SSS). A total of 108 undergraduate students (aged 22.13 ± 1.38 years) participated in this research. The Prosocial and Civic Competences questionnaire, which has six dimensions, was the instrument used to determine the students’ prosocial behaviors. The sociodemographic characteristics of the students considered were gender (female and male) and religion (Islamic, Catholic and non-practicing). Statistical analyses were carried out using the multivariate analysis of variance procedure. Most of the prosocial and civic competences dimensions were significant for gender and religion (both p < .05). The interaction between prosocial and civic competences and religion of female students showed a relationship with the prosocial and civic competences dimension of Social responsibility (p < .001). On the other hand, male students and the prosocial and civic competences dimensions showed interactions in Compliance with social norms, Social sensitivity (both, p < .001), Help and collaboration, Security and firmness in interaction, Prosocial leadership and Social responsibility (all, p < .01). During the SL experience with groups of migrant minors, the prosocial and civic competences dimensions were consolidated in the participants and the effects of gender and religion were confirmed.