Bìznes Inform (May 2024)
Research on Youth Awareness of Tools of Influence on Local Self-Government Bodies
Abstract
The article presents the results of a social study on the readiness of young people of the Kharkiv community to be involved in making socially important decisions under the influence of global crises. Three hypotheses have been proposed. First, global changes encourage a content-based transformation of civic values of student youth in Kharkiv towards their strengthening. Secondly, the dangers of wartime lead to an increase in the civic activity of young people in Ukrainian society. Thirdly, the level of civic education remains low. To evaluate the hypotheses put forward, the method of online survey of students and pupils of the Kharkiv community has been used. The results showed the following: 1) insufficient awareness of young people about the tools of influence on the authorities; 2) the farther the respondents are geographically, the more desperate they are in the possibilities of influencing local authorities; 3) a fairly high level of potentially active youth, since 28.2% of students and pupils feel empowered to take the initiative to interact with local governments. In addition, a high percentage of young people trust NGOs and consider them effective, and most of the students and pupils positively assess the democratic changes that have taken place in Ukrainian society (42.5% of students and schoolchildren positively assessed the results of the decentralization reform). Based on the results of the carried out social study, the importance of raising the education of young people regarding their influence on the government is emphasized, which is an important step for strengthening democracy and civic participation in community development. The findings of the social study of civic literacy of the youth of the Kharkiv community and the proposed recommendations actualize the discussion on the need to strengthen civic education and stimulate the activity of young people in interacting with the authorities and involving them in decision-making will be useful in finding ways to solve existing problems, ways to support the community in planning youth policy in the post-war period.
