The Covid-19 pandemic, already completing almost two years of its irreversible course of action, has exerted and still exerts significant pressures on the social and economic systems of countries worldwide as well as on human relations. Human friendship and socialization, as key factors of human coexistence and cooperation within a social group, have been hit hard by the strict imposition of measures of distancing and social isolation in order to limit the disease and stop its unexpectedly deadly transmission. The present study focuses on exploring the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on friendship and socialization of people in the new different social contexts that have developed. In the first stage, our work attempts a review of the research and studies carried out during these two years which investigate the changes that occurred in these two dimensions of human coexistence and cooperation to highlight the way in which young adults experienced the consequences of lockdown.

Concerns about continuous migration flows in recent decades have been politically adequately communicated globally by European politics. However, no European country has developed a social policy with appropriate precautionary measures to address logistical and political-cultural problems arising from the movement of large numbers of displaced people, problems that concern not only the host countries but also the countries of origin of immigrants. And although discussions at the level of studies on the immigration problem and its effects on the dominant culture have started too early, there is still a lack of research on the cultural side of migration and its implications for the political cultures of the host countries. Only isolated cases of reactions and discussions about the immigration policy of countries that welcome immigrants can be found in the literature. The present study first describes the situation that has been developed in Greece and Europe in the last five years by the increased number of refugees and migrants, which began to arrive, mainly through the Mediterranean, in Greece with a distant destination in the countries of Central and Northern Europe. Moreover, the study focuses on the areas of research that science needs to explore and study, in order for European policy to draw the necessary elements to formulate a strategic policy for the integration of migrants in host countries.

The main axis of this study includes the analysis of democracy as a political system and as a social mechanism and way of life, the reflection on the crisis of democracy today and the causes of its challenge, as well as the definition of democratic education as a determining factor in shaping the democratic citizen with active citizenship.Democracy as a political system in modern industrial societies became popular because of its association with the socio-economic system and the dissemination of democratic ways of living people by the media. all over the world. The globalization of social life with the possibility of expanding and legitimizing democracy initially gave the impression that the establishment of a stable democratic order in a country as an undertaking is not difficult. However, through a historical review of the evolution of the globalization of the economy, which has brought considerable benefits to the production and accumulation of wealth, the system's inability to ensure the quality and efficiency of democratic institutions is featured (Alexander, Thompson & Edles, 2016; The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2016). Democracy is being called into question today. This is because in countries with high economic growth, where formal procedures seem to maintain democratic processes, there is a lack of prosperity and social equality for all sections of the population, a deepening of social inequalities, a sharp contraction of the middle class.Because democracy is not only a form of government but, above all, a way of communicating, interacting with people in pursuit of a common interest, it offers multiple possibilities for action. Therefore, it shows the role of democratic citizens in order to thrive and preserve democracy. And the formation of a democratic citizen is achieved in democratic schools that promote democratic processes and enhance the development of democratic conscience and behavior in the new man. In the project we present proposals and practices for shaping the democratic active citizen through democratic education.

No abstract

Visual representations are present in modern societies to such an extent that it wouldn't be an exaggeration to characterize the modern civilization as "Civilization of the Images". Facing this reality, the modern educational systems are obliged to upgrade their traditional methods by adapting practices and processes to multimodality and visual literacy. Based on M.A.K. Halliday's three metafunctions of non-verbal communication, Gunter Kress's and Theo van Leeuwen's Grammar of Visual Design could provide a very useful methodological tool in analyzing each textbook's visual material. The authors of this survey have focused on the relationship among the represented participants and the observer, by emphasizing on every representation's arrangement of structural elements, use of perspective and social distance. After analyzing each image, they make didactic proposals by exploiting a variety of techniques. The research was being conducted on the 6 th grade's History textbook, which covers the historical period from 1453 to now. Regarding the ideological and didactical expectations of the illustration, the findings proved very useful.