Identification of Cultural Practices among Young Adults: a Context-Sensitive Analysis

Abstract

This article attempts to present ways in which culture is experienced by young adults. Culture is understood here not as an external construct that defines humans, but as a result of human actions, both individual and communal. Assuming that participation in culture is not just an occasional act but rather, a continuous, and strictly relational process, the authors suggest that the meanings ascribed by the respondents to their participation in culture will provide an insight into the processes of assimilation of culture, in connection to the phenomenon of learning. The authors try to understand the currently prevalent rationality for participation in culture, in the form that emerges from negotiations between the learning subject and the external world. The study reveals that the said rationality has little to do with the models of cultural citizenship and cultural education that are oriented towards deconsumption, personalism and community, or with traditional moral philosophy.