From civic expectations to the capacity for freedom: A character education perspective in Lithuania

Drawing on evidence from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), this article examines a persistent incongruence in Lithuanian civic formation: young people demonstrate strong civic knowledge and support for democratic values, while sustained and consequential participation remains more uneven and often concentrated in structured contexts. After more than three decades of democratic educational reform, this raises a formative question about the relationship between knowing democracy and becoming capable of acting democratically. While civic agency develops within a wider social and institutional environment, democratic knowledge and normative commitments appear stronger than the capacities through which they become meaningful action. The article explores this incongruence through character education, focusing on the formative processes connecting knowledge with practical judgement, responsibility, initiative, and action with others. Drawing on character education theory and Kavolis’s conception of a ‘culture of freedom’, it conceptualizes civic formation as a movement from democratic knowledge toward responsible agency and the capacity to exercise democratic freedom.