Environmental, entrepreneurial, and identity-based drivers of civic attitude and citizen involvement: an exploratory analysis among EU students

This paper advances a conceptual model examining five key dimensions aligned with current EU priorities: sense of belonging to a European identity, entrepreneurial spirit, environmental responsibility, civic attitude, and citizen involvement. Employing partial least squares structural equation modeling, the study tests the proposed model using empirical data from 679 student observations across four EU member states—Bulgaria, France, Romania, and Slovakia—collected within the Citeuropass Erasmus+ project. Results indicate that the model explains 40.2% of the variance in civic attitude and 31.9% in citizen involvement, highlighting the positive influences of the sense of belonging to a European identity, environmental responsibility, and entrepreneurial spirit on these outcomes. These findings inform ongoing debates on EU priorities by identifying three salient drivers for strengthening civic attitude and citizen involvement. Moreover, the study contributes to the literature by integrating all five dimensions into a unified analytical framework, revealing effects that would otherwise remain undetected.