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RATIONALE
The formation
of the European identity is one of the main goals to be achieved within
the society of tomorrow. The attempts to develop a European identity,
i.e. a European political and tax conscience etc., have had so far the
form of the production of educational and informative material. It is
widely accepted, though, that the understanding and assimilation of concepts
increases when students are actively involved in the learning process.
Consequently the development of a European conscience can not be restricted
to such methods that treat the subject matter through an Ťobserver'sť
perspective. The formation of a European political conscience can be merely
seen as the result of active exchange and co-operation between tomorrow's
citizens. Therefore a number of actions must be undertaken so as to enable
pupils to discover the similarities, differences and outline the common
perspectives and problems in a European scale.
The EUROSPIN programme focuses on this aspect. EUROSPIN is giving students
the opportunity to approach such issues in a hands-on manner, and enables
them to discover similarities and differences through research and investigation
process, and most importantly through co-operation. Students become active
researchers and gain:
- a better
understanding of the issues under examination,
- a substantial
experience with tele-working and collaboration on a European scale,
and
- a well
founded knowledge of the methodology implemented by social scientists
and journalists in the research area.
To this direction it is of great importance the contribution of press.
Until now, there has not been a sufficient number of attempts in the direction
of co-operation between the press and educational institutions throughout
Europe. EUROSPIN is one of the first attempts to provide a model of "bi-directional"
student interaction with the press. Until now two major categories of
actions were attempted that were in essence unidirectional: either research
was carried out by journalists, leaving the pedagogical aspects apart,
or it was students that published school newspapers which were amateur
in nature and without pedagogical aims and guidance (in most of the cases).
In contrast to those attempts the EUROSPIN programme has been planned
to achieve a high rate of interaction between professional journalists
and students, providing thus an integrative approach.
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