Ana Kozina - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Ana Kozina

Advances in Psychology and Psychological Trends, Dec 1, 2020

The development of positive attitudes towards immigrants among students can be addressed at the i... more The development of positive attitudes towards immigrants among students can be addressed at the individual level through their empathic abilities and at the school or classroom level, where the classroom climate plays an important role. In the present study, we have taken a closer look into the relationship between attitudes towards immigrants, two components of empathy (perspective taking, empathic concern), quality of student-teacher relations (both positive and negative) and inclusive classroom climate (presented as perceived intercultural sensitivity of teachers) in a sample of 814 8 th-grade students in three EU countries (Slovenia, Croatia, and Sweden). The findings show only empathy (especially perspective taking) was associated with better attitudes towards immigrants in all three countries. Additionally, in two out of three countries, the importance of the relationship with teachers and inclusive classroom climate was important as well. The results are discussed in the light of guidelines for school practice.

Psihološka Obzorja, 2010

The purpose of the article is to introduce the Children-parents relationship questionnaire (VOS) ... more The purpose of the article is to introduce the Children-parents relationship questionnaire (VOS) and to present its metric characteristics. The questionnaire is based on parental styles of D. Baumrind (1967) and 3D model of parental styles developed by Milivojević and others (2004). The questionnaire was developed under assumption that relationship between children and their parents influences educational achievement of children. Results on convenience sample (N = 333) of seventh, eighth and ninth grade students in Slovenia show a three dimensional structure of the questionnaire: (a) authoritative parental style and autonomy, (b) authoritarian parental style and (c) rewarding. Questionnaires' reliability in terms of internal consistency (,72 > α < ,95) as well as sensitivity (average r = ,67) proved to be sufficient. Our results show significant gender differences in perceived authoritative parental style and autonomy as well as low association between school grades and th...

Positive Youth Development in Contexts

Psychological Applications and Trends 2020

The Positive Youth Development approach views youth development from a broader perspective by emp... more The Positive Youth Development approach views youth development from a broader perspective by emphasizing strengths rather than deficits (Catalano, Hawkins, Berglund, Pollard, & Arthur, 2004). Youth tend to develop more positively when their strengths are aligned with the resources in their environment. Consequently, positive youth development outcomes (5Cs: Competence, Confidence, Character, Connection, and Caring) will be more probable, and risky behaviours less frequent. Since involvement in risky behaviours in adolescence (e.g., substance abuse) can lead to several negative outcomes, it is crucial to understand the relationship between possible protective factors (e.g., 5Cs) and risky behaviours to provide support for at-risk youth. An emphasis was put on the national contexts of Norway, Kosovo, and Slovenia in answering a research question: does this relationship vary across countries? The sample included 218 participants from Slovenia (70.6% girls; Mage = 17.18), 220 participants from Norway (47.7% girls; Mage = 17.30) and 916 participants from Kosovo (Albanians living in Kosovo; 66.3% girls; Mage = 16.32). 5Cs were assessed by the PYD questionnaire (Geldhof et al., 2013) and additionally, participants answered several questions about risky behaviour (substance abuse, skipping school, etc.). MANCOVA and Factorial ANCOVAs were used. Results show that the 5Cs differ across countries. In addition, a series of Factorial ANCOVAs revealed an interaction effect between countries and alcohol use for Competence, Confidence, and Connection. Guidelines for practice and future research are discussed.

Framed by the EU-project Hand in Hand focusing on Social, Emotional and Intercultural (SEI) compe... more Framed by the EU-project Hand in Hand focusing on Social, Emotional and Intercultural (SEI) competencies among students and school staff, the paper discusses implementation and professional competencies based on a research review. The following five topics were identified: 1) Intercultural/transcultural competency is not often referred to in the same research as social and emotional learning (SEL), although social-emotional aspects appear to be “at the core”, 2) It is crucial to be aware of the agency among school staff in SEI implementation, 3) Successful implementation is about much more than merely the activities in a specific programme, but rather about the elements in synergy and professional learning over time, 4) A subtle balance between adaptation and fidelity might best be addressed in an adaptive curriculum emphasising active ingredients, 5) This is a field with many intervention studies, but it is urgent to consider if the psychometric measures are sufficiently sensitive ...

Frontiers in Psychology

The present study adopts The Developmental Assets and Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspectiv... more The present study adopts The Developmental Assets and Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspectives which (in contrast to the deficit-based approaches which highlight risks and deficit in youth development) claim that young people have potencies to achieve optimal development if supported by their social environment. Extant research indicates that developmental assets are linked with a variety of thriving indicators. The present research aimed to contribute to the PYD research by examining the external developmental assets (support, empowerment, and boundaries and expectations) emerging adults (N = 2055; age range = 18–28) perceived in their social environment and the level of their positive identity in four countries (Norway, Romania, Slovenia and Turkey), which have different rankings in economic, human, and youth development indices. The present study also tested a path model, which examines the links between external development assets and positive identity. Findings indicated t...

Advances in Psychology and Psychological Trends, 2020

As important socialization agents, schools can provide an open climate as a contextual framework ... more As important socialization agents, schools can provide an open climate as a contextual framework for the development of tolerant attitudes (Gniewosz & Noack, 2008). Building positive attitudes towards immigrants can be addressed at the individual and school level. On an individual level, empathy is negatively connected to the development of prejudice (Miklikowska, 2018) and on the school level, classroom climate plays a role (Gniewosz & Noack, 2008). On a class level, exposure to hate speech leads to desensitization and increasing prejudices (Soral, Bilewicz, & Winiewski, 2018) whereas perceived equality and inclusion are positively associated with a sense of school belonging (Schachner, et al, 2018). The teachers are important as well, more specifically, students who perceive teachers as fair, report more tolerant views of immigrants (Gniewosz & Noack, 2008). In the present study we have analysed the associations between students´ attitudes towards immigrants with their empathic abilities, perceived relations with teachers and teachers´ attitudes towards different cultural groups on a sample of 271 Slovenian 8 th grade students (M = 12,91, SD = 0,44; 56,3% female) who participated in the European Erasmus KA3+ Hand in Hand project. We analysed the predictive power of empathy, perceived quality of student-teacher relations and inclusive classroom climate on students' attitudes towards immigrants. Results show that perspective taking and perceived teachers´ attitudes towards different cultural groups are important predictors of students´ attitudes towards immigrants. Results are discussed in light of guidelines for school practice.

One of the key ingredients of social, emotional and intercultural competencies, which contributes... more One of the key ingredients of social, emotional and intercultural competencies, which contributes significantly to a positive and inclusive classroom climate is empathy (Zorza, 2015). Empathy enables us to understand others and feel connected with them (Eisenberg, et al., 1996). High ability of empathy, which includes cognitive (e.g. taking the perspective of another) and emotional components (e.g. personal distress), is associated with numerous positive effects on relationships and behaviour (e.g. prosocial behaviour), while the lack of it is associated with many negative effects (e.g. aggression) (Davis, 1980). Establishment of positive relationships with others and empathy are associated with psychological wellbeing of students (Shanafelt et al, 2005). The aim of the present study was to analyse the associations between empathy, perceived classroom climate and well-being among students of the 8th-grade. We will present the analysis from three EU countries (N: Slovenia: 107, Swede...

V prispevku se osredotocamo na pojem kakovosti pedagoskega dela in izpostavljamo vlogo, ki jo ima... more V prispevku se osredotocamo na pojem kakovosti pedagoskega dela in izpostavljamo vlogo, ki jo ima pri tem ravnatelj kot upravni in pedagoski vodja sole. V prvem delu prispevka opozorimo, da enoznacne definicije, kaj je kakovost izobraževanja, pravzaprav nimamo, saj gre za zapleten pojav, odvisen od mnogih dejavnikov. V nadaljevanju te dejavnike na kratko predstavimo. V drugem delu clanka prikazujemo del rezultatov raziskave TALIS, kjer smo med drugim ugotavljali, kaksna je ravnateljeva vloga pri zagotavljanju kakovosti pedagoskega dela v odvisnosti od osnovnih znacilnosti sole in ravnatelja samega.

Bullying and victimization pose a serious risk for youth optimal development due to numerous nega... more Bullying and victimization pose a serious risk for youth optimal development due to numerous negative short- and long-term consequences. One of the models with a focus on adolescents that can serve as a theoretical framework in designing prevention and intervention programmes targeting bullying and victimization is Positive Youth Development Perspective. The Positive Youth Development perspective assumes that with the positive interplay between developmental assets (internal and external youth resources) and the 5Cs (competence, confidence, character, caring, connection) the probability of bullying and victimization lowers. In the present study, we have investigated the predictive power of developmental assets and the 5Cs for bullying (verbal and social bullying) and victimization (verbal and social victimization) on a sample of older adolescents and emerging adults ( N = 434, 80.9% girls, M age = 21.65). We used The Developmental Assets Profile (Benson, 2003), PYD questionnaire (Ge...

Springer Series on Child and Family Studies

Psihologija

With stress related to the COVID?19 pandemic, an increase in anxiety and a decrease in overall me... more With stress related to the COVID?19 pandemic, an increase in anxiety and a decrease in overall mental well-being is expected. We investigated the role of emotional competencies (mindfulness and emotional self-efficacy) for psychological responding (mental well-being, general anxiety, and COVID?19 anxiety) during the COVID?19 pandemic. We also examined whether practising mindfulness with inner (meditation-based) and body (yoga-based) exercises supports emotional competencies. Our sample consisted of 364 participants (83.5% females, M = 37.21 years, SD = 12.92 years). Findings showed that emotional competencies are a viable source of support in psychological responses to COVID?19, with Emotional self-efficacy and Accept without judgement playing the strongest roles. Moreover, practising mindfulness was shown to foster several aspects of emotional competencies (i.e., Observe, Describe, and Emotional self-efficacy). There is an ambiguous finding regarding Observe scale that was also fou...

Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju: medsebojni vpliv raziskovanja in prakse

COVID-19 je zaznamoval leto 2020 in doprinesel k spremembam vsakdanjega življenja (npr. nošenje m... more COVID-19 je zaznamoval leto 2020 in doprinesel k spremembam vsakdanjega življenja (npr. nošenje mask, socialno distanciranje, spremenjen način dela in izobraževanja). Že ob pojavu pandemije COVID-19 (v nadaljevanju uporabljamo izraz »pandemija«) v mednarodnem prostoru (World Health Organization, 2020) in razglasitvi prve epidemije v Sloveniji (Odredba o razglasitvi epidemije nalezljive bolezni SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 na območju Republike Slovenije, Uradni list Republike Slovenije. Št. 19/20 in 68/20, 2020) so se v psihološki stroki pojavljala vprašanja, kako se pojavnost epidemije odraža na psihološkem funkcioniranju oziroma psihološkem delovanju (v prispevku izraza funkcioniranje in delovanje uporabljamo izmenjujoče), ki smo ga operacionalizirali z naslednjimi indikatorji: duševno blagostanje, zadovoljstvo z življenjem v času pandemije COVID-19, splošna anksioznost, COVID-19 anksioznost in stres v času pandemije CO-VID-19. V pričujočem prispevku se osredinjamo na psihološko delovanje učiteljev v času razglasitve prve epidemije COVID-19 v Sloveniji, saj so se morali posamezniki, ki opravljajo ta poklic soočiti tako s pandemijo kot tudi s popolnoma spremenjenim načinom opravljanja dela. Podatki kažejo, da je pandemija privedla do suspendiranja šolanja v 188 državah (Lee, 2020), v Sloveniji je tako od razglasitve prve epidemije 16. marca 2020 v skladu z veljavnimi ukrepi (Odredba o prepovedi zbiranja ljudi v zavodih s