Should Animal Welfare be Included in Educational Programs? Attitudes of Secondary and University Students from Eight EU Countries
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Author
Pejman, Niloofar
Kallas, Zein
Reig, Lourdes
Moreno, María
Magnani, Diego
Protopapadaki, Vicky
Ribikauskas, Vytautas
Ribikauskienė, Daiva
Publication date
2021-08-26ISSN
1088-8705
Abstract
Animal Welfare (AW) educational programs aim to promote positive attitudes of future generations toward animal production systems. This study investigated whether secondary and university students in the majors that are not related to AW teaching believe that this concept should be included also in their educational programs. The determinant factors affecting students’ attitudes toward such a decision were analyzed. This research has focused on eight European countries (Spain, the United Kingdom, Poland, Greece, Lithuania, Romania, Italy, and Sweden) targeting 3,881 respondents composed of 1,952 secondary and 1,929 university students. The results showed that female university students with a high level of subjective and objective knowledge on AW and who required more restrictive AW regulations, gave support to include the concept in their educational programs. However, Students who support medical experiments that use animals to improve human health were less likely to accept AW education. Furthermore, students in Italy compared to those in Sweden were prone to support AW educational programs. Results highlight the importance of teaching the AW concept as a comprehensive teaching tool at universities and schools’ programs as it may constitute a starting point for a more sustainable society toward improving animal living conditions, mainly in the Mediterranean countries in secondary schools.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Accepted version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
636 - Animal husbandry and breeding in general. Livestock rearing. Breeding of domestic animals
Pages
43
Publisher
Routledge
Is part of
Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science
Citation
Pejman, Niloofar, Zein Kallas, Lourdes Reig, Antonio Velarde, María Moreno, Diego Magnani, Vicky Protopapadaki, Vytautas Ribikauskas, Daiva Ribikauskienė, and Antoni Dalmau. 2021. “Should Animal Welfare be Included in Educational Programs? Attitudes of Secondary and University Students from Eight EU Countries” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. doi:10.1080/10888705.2021.1969931.
Grant agreement number
SANCO/Health and Consumer Protection/2013-G3-SI2.649393/ES/Study on education and information activities on animal welfare/EDUCAWEL
Program
Benestar Animal
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- ARTICLES CIENTÍFICS [2831]
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/