Zusammenfassung. Der Fragebogen zur sozialen Unterstützung (F-SozU) von Sommer & Fydrich (1989 , 1991 ) ist sowohl in seiner Langform mit 54 Items als auch der Kurzform mit 22 Items ein vielfach eingesetztes Fragebogeninventar. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wurde an einer repräsentativen Stichprobe von n = 2 179 Personen in Ost- und Westdeutschland die Langform des Fragebogens eingesetzt. Für den Gesamtwert und die vier Hauptskalen (Emotionale Unterstützung, Praktische Unterstützung, Soziale Integration und Soziale Belastung) wurden gute bis sehr gute Kennwerte für die innere Konsistenz (Cronbach alpha zwischen .81 und .93) ermittelt. Als Normierung werden Prozentrangtabellen für die vier Hauptskalen, den Gesamtwert sowie die Kurzform des Fragebogens angegeben. Die an Skaleninterkorrelationen erkennbaren inhaltlichen Überschneidungen der Skalen werden diskutiert.

is an important ethical framework for political actions. In this declaration, and in the subsequent International Covenants (United Nations, 2002), 2 major classes of human rights are distinguished, one consisting of civil and political rights, and the other consisting of economic, social, and cultural rights. The Universal Declaration itself and the UN Decade for Human Rights Education emphasize the relevance of an adequate knowledge about human rights in the population. Accordingly, this article represents the results of 2 representative studies on human rights in Germany. The major results of these studies are that knowledge about human rights and about human rights documents is quite low. Also, economic, social, and cultural rights are less known, and are evaluated as less important, than civil and political rights. Thus, the idea of the indivisibility of human rights is not realized. Relating to the commitment to human rights, about 1% of the population might be labeled as core activists. However, large interindividual differences concerning the commitment to human rights were observed. These differences can be explained in part by knowledge about human rights and by the importance of human rights. Right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation show only inconsistent results.Additionally, some relevant differences between East Germans and West Germans were found. East Germans showed greater knowledge about, and somewhat higher appreciation of economic human rights, especially concerning the right to work. Altogether, the results emphasize the importance of a more extensive human rights education.

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Abstract. Human rights have advanced to an important category of peace and international politics in recent decades. The reference document for human rights is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which emphasizes, among other things, the relevance of human rights education. However, this topic has been largely neglected in empirical research until now. Peace psychology might contribute to a better understanding of human rights education. The present article examines effects of human rights education on knowledge, attitudes, and commitment concerning human rights. Three university seminars dealing with human rights as one of two principal topics formed the background for three quasiexperimental studies with pre-/posttest designs. All studies demonstrate that even short-time human rights education can increase the knowledge about human rights and enhance positive attitudes and commitment concerning human rights. The discussion stresses the importance of further empirical studies on human rights education for a culture of peace.

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