Abstracts - Earli

cultures, awareness about stereotypes on the own and the other culture etc., is part of it. A surveyat the German-Italian comprehensive school in Wolfsburg (Germany) conducted in 2005 as a pilotstudy gives some insights in the acceptance, openness, and tolerance of adolescents in a bilingualschool, as well as about their cultural stereotypes. A comparison of data from this study with datafrom Italian and German students from the sample of the IEA-Civic-Education-Study shows asignificantly higher positive attitude towards immigrants among students from the bilingualschool. Students whose parents both speak Italian at home have much more positive stereotypes ontheir own culture then the German speaking students. Whether this is a matter of the schoolconcept in Wolfsburg or a general attitude of students with immigrant status will be analyzed inthe main study, which will include different German-Italian schools in Germany, Switzerland andItaly as well as monolingual comparative schools.Citizenship education in Finnish schools: Educating local or global citizens?Kirsi Tirri, University of Helsinki, FinlandThe Finnish young people are living in a society in which education is highly valued. In spite of agood educational system, Finland has urban schools in which the problems of equality anddiversity challenge the educators to pay special attention to citizenship education that promotes notonly local but also global citizenship. Osler and Starkey (2005) identify cosmopolitan citizenshipinformed by human rights as a goal of citizenship education. This kind of citizenship is aworldview that celebrates human diversity. Cosmopolitan citizens act locally, nationally andglobally. They accept shared responsibility for humanity’s common future. The education ofglobal citizens must start at the level of the local community and extend outward. The data hasbeen gathered from 4 urban schools in two different cities in Finland. Two of the schools areelementary schools and two are secondary schools. The schools have been selected based on theirgood results in educating diverse populations with multiple challenges. All the principals arerespected leaders in their own communities. We have interviewed the principals of the schools(two males and two females), and some key informants from their schools. These informantsinclude two teachers, two parents, and two students from each school. In addition to qualitativedata, we have gathered quantitative data from teachers (N=84) and students (N=429) of theschools. The quantitative surveys have measured cultural, spiritual and ethical sensitivity of thestudents and teachers. The case studies from each school are analyzed using a hermeneuticalapproach (Gadamer 1976) to better understand the multifocal perspectives in them. A specialinterest in our data will be shown to the different ways principals, teachers, parents and studentsrefer to local or global citizenships in their school edcation.The contribution of media literacy to the system of perceptions, attitudes and civil-democraticbehaviors among adolescentsNava Maslovaty, Bar-Ilan University, IsraelDorit Alt, Bar-Ilan University, IsraelArie Cohen, Bar-Ilan University, IsraelThe aim of the research was to examine the relationship between studying in a high school medialiteracy (Communication) study track in Israel, and the system of civic-democratic perceptions,attitudes and behaviors of adolescents. The school serves as a socialization agent in developingmedia literacy skills that are vital for democratic citizenship in the information age through criticalpedagogy. The sample included 262 students in four public high schools. Students in theCommunication track comprised the experimental group and students in the Social Sciences andExact Sciences tracks comprised the control group. A closed questionnaire that examines civic-– 253 –