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Discussion on research topics
Ulrike Urban opened this session underlying the importance to have all a clear idea what our possibilities and limitations are for conducting research in the project, in order for us to decide on the topics we are going to interpret within EUROSPIN project.
She has firstly suggested that the research conducted by pupils within the framework of EUROSPIN should not be considered professional, because in a professional research there are too many parameters that should be taken into account. These parameters is not possible to be considered in EUROSPIN due to the various limitations, such as time, environment of research, different age level of interviewers. She has suggested that the less criteria we put the less work our pupils will have to do, which is quite important given the limited time they have in their disposal to collect the data, and to interpret the results of their research.
The research could not be representative since there are too many parameters to be taken under consideration (number of schools per country, percentage of interviewees, etc). Therefore, Ulrike Urban suggested to refer only to a very small of parameters such as:
To have half male, half female interviewees
The interviewees will be 14-16 years old
We made also the decision there will be approximately 100 to 150 interviews per country.
Regarding the questionnaire, Ulrike Urban suggested the following:
No open questions should be included.
There will be approximately 15 to 20 questions per topic.
The interview should not exceed in duration one hour time.
She also suggested to be concrete on the topics we are going to choose, and that is important through our questionnaires to involve students in situations they already know, in order for them to be able to give a real and not hypothetical answer.
The selection of the topics has been decided to be done according to the following parameters:
Objectives
Context
School curriculum
Interest of students
Then, Ulrike Urban suggested some topics that could be included in the research conducted in EUROSPIN. These topics follow into the following categories:
Sociodemography
Biographical Perspectives and Plans for the Future
Leisure activities, media and technical interest
Political interest and commitment
European and international aspects
(For the more detailed proposal on the issues under discussion please see Annex, section 4).
Markus Artner suggested as a topic for research "Lifestyle" (music, sports, nightlife e.t.c.) which is a favored topic for his students.
Christos Athanasopoulos presented on behalf of the group of teachers of Ellinogermaniki Agogi the subjects they have proposed in their internal meeting for the research questionnaire. For the selection, they were based in the following criteria:
Actual themes of European interest.
Within national curriculum.
Parameters under consideration: age, teacher's suggestions.
Work done within the framework of the Comenius project "Jugend in Europa 2000".
Taking into consideration the aforementioned criteria they proposed the following topics explaining at the same time the reason they have selected the specific topic:
Europe - views on Europe, European integration (political, financial system, defense) - EURO
Questions on "Identity" (European, national, religious, ethics, etc)
Political culture and participation
Ethic norms, Church and religion
Economic structure and social justice - the demands of globalisation
Ulrike Urban suggested that it is better that we don't examine topics that deal with ethics and values, because values vary between people and they are very much situations dependent.
Dagmar Schafer answered that such issues have already been discussed within the framework of the Jugend in Europa 2000" project, and they get good answers from pupils. In this case young people had to answer on questions of ethics but the questions were formulated in quite a concrete way, excluding the percentage of misunderstanding. (see URL
http://stud-www.uni-marburg.de/~Comenius/ergebnisse.html
After the discussion, it has been agreed to have questionnaires in the following topics:
Identity
Lifestyle
Life after school (job opportunities within EU)
European Integration (Politics, economical aspects, defense)
Germany will be responsible for writing the article in the first topic, whereas the second one goes to Austria, the third to France, and the fourth to Greece.
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