Democratic coexistence: ideas and points of view of students, teachers and parents. Results of a study-research

Abstract

The utmost goal of human existence is happiness, man is, by his own nature, a being who tends to enduring, eternal happiness. Advocates of the “Global Community” wish for a better coexistence among peoples, better conditions for development and well-being for all. Daily life, instead, gives us back a sad reality and a partial truth of well-being and global citizenship. There is no full realization of that principle of integration, capable of bringing people to live democratically in the respect of universal rights. Everyday chronicles arouse bitterness, disappointment, fear, feeding distrust, a general sense of insecurity, and continuous anxiety. The principles of citizenship, democracy, human rights seem to be constantly threatened. The same educational work of the school with regard to ethics of democratic values and citizenship appears to have been nullified by a competitive and educative logic that seems to leave no room for an education to democratic and global citizenship. Faced with the ongoing dehumanization of didactic processes, the social community still invokes
the educational work of the school so that it gets back to be a forge-laboratory
for the formation of the 21st century’s democratic citizen.