University discourse to foster youth's sustainability in society amidst COVID19: International and Russian Features

Abstract

This paper explores university discourse as a conceptual-communicative macrostructure that verbally represents international organizations' and universities' policies and activities to support youth's sustainable development to support youth's sustainable development amidst COVID19. The materials include universities' official site information and higher education-related data from international organizations regarding universities' activities during the pandemic. The textual corpus from 172 universities from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and Latin America, Oceania, as well as 164 documents with essential international institutional affiliations, were explored. The methodology combined qualitative and quantitative tools, theoretical, and empirical analysis. Data processing rested on thematic content analysis. Manual and computer-based coding techniques were applied. The analysis made it possible to identify major concepts and their constituents which form a verbally expressed conceptual macrostructure of university knowledge and action in fostering youth's sustainability during pandemics. The findings revealed some standard features within universities communication dimensions, on the one hand, and some specific to Russian universities on the other. Differences between universities and international organizations concerning communication focus were also identified. The research findings result in tentative recommendations to bridge Academia, University, and Society in efforts to foster youth's status and sustainability in contemporary civilization.