The Struggle for a Society of Responsibility and Transparency: the core question of Education and Culture

Education is citizenship. Education is democracy. Democracy is complexity (Dominici, 1996-2017). The objective of this essay is to highlight the strategic relevance of educational processes in rethinking and rebuilding a new global citizenship within a culture of responsibility and transparency, indispensable “instruments”, not only for contrasting corruption, but also for creating truly democratic systems, fostering awareness rather than hetero-direction (Riesman, 1948). These complex instruments require long-term actions necessary for constructing cultural change and a culture of prevention. Currently, the politics/policies of the nation states, which have been thrown into a profound crisis by globalization, continue to fall back on short-term rationales and instruments. It is, therefore, crucial to underline the strategic role of schools and education in: 1) the education, preparation and training of citizens who will not limit themselves to knowing their rights, but will participate in actions for the common good, based on a culture of legality and responsibility; 2) the construction of a fully mature citizenship founded on a fully mature relationship, as symmetrical and transparent as possible, between state and citizen; 3) the definition and construction of social, political, economic and cultural conditions – the complex “variables” of our discourse, which qualify the citizens in the exercise of their rights and which are the fundamental pre-existent prerequisites to the (equally important) issues regarding digital citizenship.