The role of higher education in citizenship training and democratic awareness. The case of Ukraine

• Nataliia Potapchuk National Academy of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine named after Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8303-6196
• Oleg Yatsyshin Vinnytsia Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi State Pedagogical University, Vinnytsia, Ukraine Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4645-6145
• Yaroslav Haleta Volodymyr Vynnychenko Central Ukrainian State University, Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0484-529X
• Olena Habelko Volodymyr Vynnychenko Central Ukrainian State University, Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3769-3616
• Tetiana Stritiyevych Volodymyr Vynnychenko Central Ukrainian State University, Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6655-678X

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15080478

Keywords: higher education, civic education, democratic empowerment, hermeneutic method, social cohesion

Abstract

The general objective of the article is to philosophically problematize the role of higher education in citizen training, through a critical analysis that addresses the following philosophical questions: (a) Ontological: What is the nature of being a citizen in the contemporary university context of today’s world? (b) Epistemological: How is citizen knowledge constructed and validated in higher education spaces? (c) Philosophical-political: How can the university be transformed into a social space of democratic empowerment that overcomes the traditional logics of partisan political socialization? To answer these questions, the hermeneutic method was used, which dialogically interpellated texts and context to reveal to understanding their true meaning and, at the same time, build intertextual dialogues that formulate new or renewed questions about the meaning of citizenship training and democratic awareness in a world marked by the exponential increase of political conflict. All in all, it is concluded that, in post-war Ukraine, democracy will face complex challenges, such as: the need to rebuild social cohesion fragmented by the conflict, to overcome collective traumas and, at the same time, to maintain the democratizing energy that characterized the Euromaidan resistance.

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