Formation of National and Cultural Identity in Students and Youth: Ukrainian Studies Priorities

Abstract

The research is focused on determining national priorities of axiological contents of modern educational practices in terms of humanitarian challenges and threats. One of the main tasks of the educational policy must consist in the formation of national state and social values for students and youth as an ideological basis of Ukrainian identity. Ukrainian studies must be taken as conceptual foundations for such an approach, as a system of scientific knowledge about Ukraine, Ukrainians, Ukrainian culture and mentality, which are considered through the practical experience of cultural creation and community. In the modern system of education, Ukrainian studies appear as an integrated independent educational subject that theoretically interprets the idea of Ukrainian culture and mentality in various fields of scholarly knowledge and various disciplines: history, literature, ethnopsychology, language, geography, etc., and as an educational direction, aimed to meet modern humanitarian and sociocultural challenges, multiplying the scholarly arsenal of Ukrainian-centric knowledge. The article draws attention to modern methodological approaches toward teaching the course in Ukrainian Studies at educational institutions of Ukraine and abroad, as well as involving young people in the Ukrainian studies research as an important factor in applying the competency approach in terms of implementing the concept of the New Ukrainian School. Consideration of national axiological and semantic dominants in the development of legislative documents for the educational environment is aimed at forming patriotism and establishing universal cultural values of the Ukrainian people, based on the idea of strengthening Ukrainian statehood as a consolidating factor in the society. Thus, the formation of national and cultural identities of the younger generation requires an interdisciplinary Ukrainian studies approach, in which a person’s citizenship must necessarily cooperate with its culture-forming principles. Therefore, such a person will be represented in the state not only as a citizen but also as a cultural creator. Thus, the state will be considered as a coordinated and effective system of balancing creative and social (civil) relations.