ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we compare citizenship activity between countries within former USSR republics – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Students from former USSR republics differed in all dimensions of citizenship behaviour. Lithuanian youths have a stronger sense of belonging to their nation; they feel ready to defend their country, to work honestly and to respect state officials, laws and rules, work for the common good, engage in public matters and vote; they feel ready to join a political party or run for office in the future and to aim for personal development. But they scored lower than Latvia and higher than Estonia in social- or change-oriented activity. Young Latvians scored lowest in patriotism, but students from Estonia scored lowest in loyalty and civic virtues; they did not differ from Latvians in national identity, political and personal activity. Latvian and Lithuanian youngsters tended to be characterized less than Estonian sample alienated politicians and alienated individualists. On the other hand, two activists (political and alienated) groups were overrepresented among Latvian and Lithuanian young people compared with Estonian youngsters. Additionally, it was revealed that all Baltic States youngsters showed higher readiness to develop personal goals – developing skills, interests and finance independence, through citizenship activities as most of the European youngsters. Lithuanian young people self-evaluations in general on different citizenship behaviours in terms of civic and political active participation, engagement and protesting were higher than for Estonian, whereby in the middle among Latvian youngsters. The research results will be discussed from citizenship education perspective.
