No abstract

Citizenship education is one of the most important issues in education around the world. In recent years, many organizations such as UNICEF and OECD have highlighted the importance of developing the necessary skills in children, so that they can become active citizens who participate in society and contribute to its well-being. However, citizenship education for preschool children is often neglected, as educators consider them to be young and incapable to fully understand the concepts involved. The present study focuses on the implementation of an educational action research in 16 children of a multicultural kindergarten in Northern Greece, in order to cultivate skills that will make them active citizens. More specifically, it examines in what ways the educational actions developed can contribute to citizenship education and what are the possible learning outcomes for global citizenship, solidarity, and diversity for preschool children. The educational action research method was chosen as the most appropriate method to conduct the research. The results of the research showed that when the educational actions are implemented frequently, they can have encouraging results in the cultivation of citizenship in children and that children can understand to a significant extent the concepts of global citizenship, solidarity and diversity. Finally, the results of the action research can provide useful information to educators for the implementation and design of similar educational actions.

The Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune, inflammatory disease, which is the third cause of serious disability for the ages between 20 and 40 years old. More than 8,000 Greeks suffer from this disease. The scope of our research is to estimate the economic burden on patients with MS, through the analysis of their out-ofpocket payments. The study was conducted in 2010 to a random sample of 400 patients, from whom 288 (103 men and 185 women) completed the research questionnaire. The average annual out-of-pocket payments of MS patients, found to be 8,334€, significantly varying by the gender and the severity of the disease. From our research it was unveiled the significant economic burden on patients with MS in Greece. Consequently, it is appointed the imperative need of research on the social and economic cost of MS and of introducing an integrated support system for the patients.

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The covid-19 pandemic affected the lives of all people worldwide. The unprecedented situations faced by people of all ages affected their mental and physical health. In this context, children are an especially vulnerable group as their development is in full swing and they have not yet acquired the skills to cope with stressful situations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the views of 31 educators working in Attica (Greece) regarding the changes they observe in the development of children under the age of 3. In addition, the research addresses the type of activities that cannot be carried out in nurseries due to covid -19 health protocols, the alternative methods used by the educators and their suggestions for future interventions. The research instrument used was the semi-structured interview and the data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The results of the study show that the educators observe changes in the social, emotional and language domains of children's development. Specifically, children seem to suffer from strong attachment, anxiety, hyperactivity, inability to regulate emotions, fear of social interactions, and slow vocabulary development-especially foreign students. The researchers anticipate that the results of the present study will contribute to the investigation of the developmental implications of the covid-19 pandemic in children under 3 years old and provide useful information to educators for future interventions in nurseries.