Abstract:

Over the past three decades, citizenship education has become an indispensable element of education and training, especially for children and young people. In Lithuania, when updating general education programmes in 2020-2022, a lot of attention was paid to the development of citizenship competence through all subjects of general education. The aim is that citizenship is not only an object of one specific educational subject but covers a much wider area. Citizenship education has become an important object in updating the content of education in Lithuania. The concept of citizenship competence and its components have been refined. Citizenship competence is defined as values, attitudes, awareness and practical performance skills that enable to develop civic identity and strengthen civic power, together with others to create a democratic society in a creative and socially responsible way, to strengthen the statehood of the country in the international community. The content of citizenship competence, and at the same time of citizenship education, is divided into the respective components: civic identity and civic power, living in a community while creating a democratic society, respect for human rights and freedoms, state building and strengthening of statehood in the international community.

Research object:
Expression of citizenship competence by 3rd to 6th grade students. Research aim – to determine the expression of citizenship competence of primary school students.

Research methodology:
In May 2022, a quantitative study was conducted. An electronic questionnaire form developed on the website apklausa.lt was used for data collection. 233 students (by 3rd to 6th grade) participated in the study. More than half (N = 146; 62.7%) of the students who participated in the survey live in medium-sized towns of Lithuania, slightly more than a quarter (N = 62; 26.6%) live in cities, a small number of children (N = 23; 9.9%) live in small towns, settlements, villages. The students’ participation in this study was voluntary. The research sample is convenient non-probability. The collected data were processed by the SPSS 19 software using the methods of descriptive mathematical statistics (frequencies, means, standard deviations) and statistical analysis.

Research methods:
Analysis of scientific, methodological, informational literature, questionnaire survey.

Main results of the empirical research. It has been found that primary school students have a more favourable assessment of value priorities, are more willing to get involved in community events, have a stronger sense of their own power, have a greater sense of pride and value the right to vote more than basic school. The gender factor has an impact on the citizenship index. It has been found that girls have a significantly more favourable assessment of value priorities than boys, they get involved in community events more willingly and value the right to vote to a greater extent. When seeing injustice and wanting to report it to other adult specialists in the school community, students are more likely to confide in the classroom tutor, teacher or peers.

Keywords:

Citizenship, citizenship competence, primary and basic school, students.