School as a Space of Safety and Civic Formation in Conditions of War

Abstract

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has transformed schools from educational institutions into spaces of military safety; however, safety and civic identity in wartime remain under-researched. The aim of the study was, based on an analysis of the needs and perceptions of participants, to determine the current state of safety and to identify priority directions for strengthening safety and civic development in Ukrainian schools during wartime. The research method was mixed and was based on a survey of 66 respondents (students, parents, teachers) and observation of 20 schools in three types of regions (rear areas, central regions, and frontline areas). The data were processed using frequency analysis, the chi-square test, and Spearman correlation. The results showed significant regional differentiation: rear and central schools were characterized by a high safety score (51.3 and 49.3 out of 58), which could not be matched by frontline schools, which recorded the lowest score of 5.5. The most alarming indicator of daily fear was observed among students (36.4%) and the lowest among teachers (9.1%), which may indicate professional adaptation and cannot exclude the risk of professional burnout. Only 13.6% of students and 18.2% of parents consider shelters to be fully prepared. Civic culture is relatively developed (54.5% of students understand democratic values, 59.1% are ready to defend the country), however media literacy is critically low – only 27.3% of students consistently distinguish truth from fake news. A strong correlation was found between the objective safety of schools and the perceived likelihood of experiencing incidents (ρ = 0.65–0.72). Priority areas of intervention included systematic monitoring of school safety, improvement of shelters, implementation of media literacy education, training of psychosocial support facilitators, and implementation of social-emotional learning programs.