The Social and Cultural Tendencies in the Environment of Contemporary Youth. A Polish-Ukrainian Comparative Study of the Structure of Axiological reality

Abstract

The theoretical and methodological framework of the undertaken issue is indicated by basic notional categories – culture, value and valuing orientations. While analyzing the philosophical and educational context, assumptions of social and cultural anthropology were applied (with a special focus on its anthropocentric-cultural current), (phenomenologically orientated) axiology and cognitive psychology (with the use of its cognitive-developmental theories). Assumption was also made concerning the exploration of youth’s image of the axiological world and the valuing orientations manifested by them, that make it possible to learn the way(s) rooted in culture and experience, in which learners understand themselves, Others and the world. Referring to the results of the studies conducted in 2001–2018 in a few selected cultural borderlands of Poland with European countries (Austria, Germany, Czech Republic) and Ukraine, the undertaken discussion draws attention to the problem of shaping the multidimensional identity of young Poles and Ukrainians, as well as the individual structure of the axiological reality.