ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we compare citizenship activity between countries within the group independent of the SU before 1989 – Finland, Slovenia, Greece and Portugal. The analysis of the last group is aimed at providing a wider context for the two post-soviet groups. Results indicated that four countries differed in all forms of citizenship. Students from Greece showed the highest levels of patriotism and social activity, high national identity and change oriented activity. Students from Portugal scored average on patriotism and social activity. Students from Slovenia showed the highest interest in political and change oriented activity. Students from Finland scored highest on three out of eight dimensions of behaviour: loyalty, civic virtues and personal activity. From among these countries, in Finland there was small over-representation of political activists (with the highest scores in all dimensions of citizenship behaviour) and a significant over-representation of alienated individualists (with close to average score on personal activity and lowest scores in all other dimensions of citizenship behaviour). In Greece, political (with the highest scores in all dimensions) and apolitical activists (with low score in political activity and rather high scores in the other dimensions) were underrepresented. In Portugal, there was a significant over-representation of alienated politicians (with high scores in political activity and relatively low scores in the other dimensions). Finally, in Slovenia, there was an over-representation of students oriented towards politics – alienated politicians and political activists. The research results will be discussed from citizenship education perspective.
