Should Animal Welfare be Included in Educational Programs? Attitudes of Secondary and University Students from Eight EU Countries.

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.

Should Animal Welfare Regulations Be More Restrictive? A Case Study in Eight European Union Countries.

Increasingly, intensive livestock production systems have increased societal concern regarding the current animal welfare standards. We investigated whether individuals in their roles as consumers and citizens believe that the current European regulations regarding animal welfare should be more restrictive. Factors affecting this decision were assessed by analyzing respondents' understanding of animal welfare-related issues, their subjective and objective knowledge levels, the credibility they assign to different information sources, their perceptions toward the current restrictiveness of animal welfare standards, and their socioeconomic characteristics. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire distributed in eight European Union (EU) countries (Spain, the United Kingdom, Poland, Greece, Lithuania, Romania, Italy, and Sweden) with 3860 total responses. The results showed that consumers are more reluctant to adopt more restrictive regulations than respondents in the role of citizens. Respondents from northern European countries (Poland and Sweden) are more likely to support regulations that are more restrictive than the current minimum requirements than respondents from southern countries (Spain and Italy). Women were found to be more concerned with the welfare of pigs and laying hens-lending credibility to the Internet as an information source-and were more likely to support more restrictive animal welfare legislation.