DOI
ISBN/EAN: 978-88-9392-071-1

Summary
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:
• 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;
• the construction of a fully mature citizenship founded on a fully mature
relationship, as symmetrical and transparent as possible, between
state and citizen;
• 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. To put it very simply: there is/there can be – no such thing as “digital citizenship” unless the minimum conditions of “plain citizenship” are guaranteed – conditions which obviously and substantially precede the other and
which represent the most essential safeguards. At the same time, there is/
there can be no such thing as “real” innovation (meaning social and cultural
innovation) without guaranteeing conditions of inclusion (which cannot
be exclusive). And there can be no such thing as a fight against corruption
without equality and inclusion. Thus we find ourselves back to the duo: inclusivity
or exclusivity. Schools have always played a vital role in democratic
regimes.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The strategic level concerns those educational processes which are – or should be- centered, above all, around the school as protagonist, schools and other agencies of socialization; this is the crucial level where it is possible to construct, besides “well-made heads” (critical thinking, systemic thinking, complex thinking), a culture
of legality, of prevention, of responsibility, of respect, of non-discrimination,
determining the socio-cultural conditions for reducing the hegemony
of the individualistic and egoistic value systems that have significantly
contributed to weakening social and community bonds, apart from having
turned the so-called “cultural question” into “THE question”.

Point of Strength
systemic and multidisciplinary approach to complexity education and to the topic of citizenship