Students’ Perspectives on Social Sustainability: Developing an Integrated Higher Education Framework

It has been widely acknowledged that HEIs have begun to play a critical role in effecting substantial societal change. This study aimed to investigate the association between perceived international medical students’ social sustainability and their satisfaction with academic life, within an integrated conceptual framework. A cross-sectional design was employed to collect data from 271 international undergraduate medical students from Romania. The data was analyzed with SEM in WarpPLS. The study’s findings indicated that social cohesion emerged as the strongest predictor and that inclusion contributed moderately to the students’ academic satisfaction, while HEI resilience had a small effect on the students’ academic satisfaction. Social cohesion enhanced HEI resilience and inclusion, and HEI resilience was associated with inclusion. Overall social sustainability was found to be a moderately significant predictor of students’ academic life satisfaction. The results of the study provide a valuable theoretical contribution by validating a second-order model of social sustainability in an HEI. The practical implications highlight the necessity of focusing on both the components and the overall social sustainability for the successful development of student-centered HEIs.