Learning Cultural Literacy through Creative Practices in Schools "This book takes us from what we thought cultural literacy meant, to a deeper understanding that actually supports children experiencing learning to utilize it in practice. Linking research and practice, it offers a guide to how utilizing creative arts can help children become tolerant, inclusive and empathetic to the world around them. It's definitely a book teachers and teacher educators should read!" -Long-time University of Patras academic, Dr. Julie Spinthourakis, researches and writes about diversity-identity-culture-communication issues "This book is a timely, highly articulate analysis of the relationship between cultural literacy and pedagogical practice. Taking full account of previous research into the multimodal processes whereby children transform culturally diverse, mixed forms of learning material into co-created artefacts, it highlights the importance of reinterpreting cultural literacy as an instrument of social understanding in a world marked by instability and change." -Dr. Robert Crawshaw, Senior Research Associate, Lancaster University & Research Consultant, the Missenden Centre "This book is a good example of what we can discover when children's creativity and art are considered from a socio-cultural perspective. The collection and interpretation of artistic data can be challenging. Since -as the DIALLS project shows -children can deal with abstract things in an artistic way, it is important to develop methods for utilizing art in teaching and researching children."

In this chapter, the authors emphasize how even very young children can deal with complex and abstract ideas and emotions through creative practices and how the differences between people are not an issue for children. The analysis indicates that children have a multifaceted capacity for empathy. The authors stress that image-making is an important mode of communication through which children and young people shape their understanding of the world. This is a constructive and dialogic process of thinking in action. It allows children and young people to develop their imagination, emotional responses, personality, and position in the community, in relationship with others, and with the external world. The “dialogic chain of thinking” occurs not only in linguistic, but also in visual communication.

Straipsnyje pilietinė komunikacija nagrinėjama kaip viena iš tarpkultūrinio ugdymo sąlygų bei veiksnių, skatinančių pilietinės visuomenės kūrimąsi. Pirmojoje straipsnio dalyje aptariamos „tarpkultūrinio ugdymo" ir „pilietinės komunikacijos" sąvokos bei jų vartojimas edukaciniame kontekste. Antrojoje straipsnio dalyje pristatoma pilietinės komunikacijos ugdymo metodika „Struktūrinė akademinė kontroversija" ir tarptautiniai lyginamieji jos efektyvumo tyrimai.

The contemporary world is marked by numerous new challenges: growth of inequality, migration, development of new technologies, climate change. All of them create tensions among nations, social groups or cultures. In the face of growing multiculturalism and need for dialogue, social responsibility as a concept in the educational field has received due attention. For instance, Berman (Educational Leadership, November:75–80, 1990; Children’s social consciousness and the development of social responsibility, University of New York Press, New York,1997; Leadership for social justice and democracy in our schools, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 123–144, 2011) emphasized the importance of education for social responsibility in school and classroom and defined it as personal investment in the well-being of others. Vallaeys (GUNI Report of Higher Education in the World 5:88–96, 2014) discussed social responsibility as a matter of university mission and function. Berman (Leadership for social justice and democracy in our schools, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 123–144, 2011) related the concept of social responsibility to the development of social consciousness that meant balancing on personal self-realization and personal achievement with equal focus on social self-realization and collective achievement. In particular, a person becomes conscious that personal development (i.e. How will I lead my life?) is interrelated with the development of others (i.e. What does the way I lead my life mean for the life of others?). In this case, social responsibility embraces cultural values and creates empowerment, cooperation, compassion, and respect.

Straipsnyje pristatomas ir aptariamas transatlantinis pilietinės edukacijos projektas „Svarstymai demokratijoje" (Deliberating in A Democracy), kurio metu buvo įgyvendinama viena iš pilietinio ugdymo technologijų, padedanti mokiniams ugdytis prasmingo diskutavo gebėjimus. Taip pat analizuojami šios techmologijos efektyvumo tyrimo, kurį autorė atliko kartu su Minesotos (JAV) universiteto profesoriais Pat Avery. Carol Freeman ir Kyle Greenwalt, rezultatai.