Our group analyzed the data concerning the second question of the interview, that is: “Do you know why the European Union was born? (What are its goals?)”. In order to analyse the answers gathered with the interviews, we created a table showing the obtained results.
We adopted four criteria to analyze the answers: no knowledge, superficial, reasonable and detailed answers.
We classified the answer as no knowledge when the interviewed told us they knew nothing or when they gave us incorrect information. An answer was considered superficial when people were not at all sure about the related information; while when a person answered showing possession of the right information without entering into depth of the issues, we considered it a reasonable level of information. To conclude the explanation of evaluation criteria in processing the data, when a person was able to make what he/she thought clear and added a lot of details expressed in a specific language, we considered such answer one showing a detailed level of information.
To better process the data, the real reasons which led to the birth of the European Union must be considered.
The European Union was not born in view of opportunistics goals. Rather its aim was to ensure peace, security and stability between the European states after the end of the World War II. This is immediately visible if you consider Shuman’s and Monnet’original projects as well as and in the Preamble of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe.
Along the history of the Union, the rulers understood that, in order to reach those goals, they had to adopt a functionalistic policy and besides to reach a common policy, the Member States shared some laws and negotiations:. Just to quote some you could refer to ECSC (European Coal and Steal Community), EEC (European Economic Community), Euratom (European Atomic Energy Community), the Euro (the common money) and the “Chart of the Fundamental Rights”(Nice).
the result of the analysis underlines that the level of knowledge about the implications of EU is very low. As a matter of fact, 86 answers out of 105 are classified as no knowledge or superficial.
Among them the majority are women’s answers and the most important data is that their average age is the youngest. That is to say young people seem to know really very little about the European Union, if the answers we collected can be considered if not scientific at least representative of the situation of the young in this area.
The reasons are probably multifaceted.
In our opinion, the most important one is probably due to young people’s idea that EU has nothing to do with their life. Therefore the government should make more efforts to inform and communicate the importance of the problem both for people’s present and future life and for the one of the young generations in particular.
A further reason could be that the means used to bring the issue into public discussion are not suitable or not enough for young people. A problem is linked to the media : TV programs dealing with political and economical problems are broadcast very late at night or at very unsuitable times for the young (who happen to coincide with the students). It follows that lot of young people cannot watch them.
Sorato's personal contribution
The group work consited in the analysis of the data concerning the second question of the interview and namely: “Do you know why the European Union was born? (What are its goals?)”
In order to evaluate the answers of our interviews, we created a table which shows the results collected.
We analyzed the answers according to four criteria: NO KNOLEDGE, SUPERFICIAL, REASONABLE and DETAILED.
We considered NO KNOLEDGE when people answered us they know nothing about the question or if they gave us incorrect information. On the contrary, we considered the answer SUPERFICIAL when the interviewed did not sound sure about her/his response. Moreover, when a person gave us somecorrect information without entering the specificity of the issues, we considered it REASONABLE information. At last, when a person was able to make what he/she thinks clear and adding a lot of correct and further information also using suitable language registers, we considered his/her answer a DETAILED one.
In order to classify data, we feel it important to consider the reasons which led to the birth of the European Union lso keeping in mind the distinction between EU and Europe b since the former is a political institution while the latter is a geographical entity.
The European Union was born to ensure peace and stability between the European states after the end of the World War II. This comes clearly to surface in Shuman's and Monnet's projects as well as in the Preamble of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe.
The European Union was not born with functionalistic intentions: its aim was to maintain peace, security and stability, the functionalistic attitude was a strategy followed in view of reaching its main goals. And all the same, with the passing of years, EU rulers understood that, in order to reach them, they had to adopt a functionalistic policy approach .
Moreover, to reach a common policy, the Member States shared some common points of view and made laws that could support their policies. among these it is worth quoting ECSC (European Coal and Steal Community), EEC (European Economic Community), the Euratom (European Atomic Energy Community), the Euro (the common money) and the Fundamental Rights Chart of Nice.
The analysis of results underlines that the level of knowledge about the issue is very low.
As a matter of fact, 86 answers out of 105 are classified as NO KNOWLEDGE or SUPERFICIAL.
Among such answers the majority are women’s answers and the most important piece of information is that the average age of the interviewed is the lowest (20). That is to say young people are not informed about the European Union.
The reasons for this may be different. In our opinion,the most important one is that young people think the issue has nothing to do with their life. Probably the government should better communicate the importance of the problem both for our present and future lives.
The second reason calls into question the means used to make discussion and public debate effective: TV programs dealing with political and economical problems are broadcast very late in the evening and Italian and local papers do not seem to choose EU matters in their articles. Therefore something must be done in the very near future.