The problem of cultural and national identity and ways to solve it in the New Ukrainian School

Abstract

Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine has significantly increased the level of interest in the problems of cultural and national identity in our country. Teachers face an important task of developing and implementing in school deeply thought-out creative approaches based on the latest methodologies and technologies in order to form the cultural and national identity of young people as a prerequisite for their cultural competence. The normative documents of the New Ukrainian School refer to the formation of cultural- national and civic competence of students for successful functioning in a democratic society and specify the essence of these concepts. In the conditions of democratization and humanization of education literature as a subject should significantly influence the process of forming civic culture and national awareness of the individual and promote active learning in school «those moral norms that have been developed by mankind over centuries» The future of the Ukrainian state largely depends on the established Ukrainian cultural and national identity. The loss of it poses serious problems related to deep alienation in society, a sense of disintegration, instability of human existence and even poses a threat to national security. The concept of forming a cultural and national identity for the needs of the present and the New Ukrainian School may be naturally developed on the foundations laid by our predecessors. Their works are an important contribution to the development of the content of education and to the scientific substantiation of the process of national education of students in an independent state. Today is the time to return to their theoretical achievements and successfully develop the cultural and national identity of students in a country that so heroically fights for the right to exist. Nowadays, the formation of Ukrainian inhabitants’ cultural and national identity is unfinished and still going on. A well-balanced course of Ukrainian and foreign literature at school and the use of active forms of education will help to speed up this process. The paper highlights the immanent characteristics of cultural and national identity and the main ways of its formation in literature lessons and formulates the most important, according to the author, methodological recommendations for optimizing the educational process on the issues under consideration. The prospect of further research is seen in the study of various deviations of cultural and national identity, their causes and ways to overcome them in order to eliminate the negative impact on the youth of certain environments and dubious media.