Consumer Citizenship Education for Sustainable Development in Higher Education in Latvia

Higher education and science determine the intellectual potential of a society, train new specialists, and consolidate and change citizenship values. Consumer citizenship education for sustainable development is an important function of higher education with a significant moral, social, political, economic, ecological and legal capacity. Consumer citizenship education plays an important role in ensuring the stability and sustainable development of any society. These approaches make it possible to develop the multi-scale thinking of future specialists and enhance their ability to analyse critically the main dilemmas created by the processes of social, legal, environmental, and economic development. The article is devoted to the experience of the Latvian system of higher education in consumer citizenship education within the context of sustainable development. It focuses more specifically on cooperation as a form of voluntary interaction between the partners involved in ensuring sustainable development. The aim of the research is to analyse the experience of consumer citizenship education in Latvian higher education within the context of sustainable development emphasizing the role of various forms of studies. Mostly theoretical research methods have been used in the present study. The starting point of for this research is a theoretical framework. There are both legal underpinnings and practical implementation aspects in this task. The features outlined above are emphasized in the normative acts referring to the Latvian higher education, the documents of the institutions of higher education, and particularly in the study programmes. The results of the research show that consumer citizenship education can be acquired as an interdisciplinary system. The goals and objectives of consumer citizenship education involve training young specialists possessing broad professional knowledge, developed critical thinking, the ability to organize and manage work in a modem way, understanding of the ethical, civic and patriotic values, as well as the ability and skills to engage in various social activities. Consumer citizenship education needs transdisciplinary knowledge if it is to solve the problems of humanity, the problems aggravated by unsustainable, unethical, even immoral consumption. The link between consumer citizenship education and sustainable development is ensured by shared common values, which reveal the sense and importance of both consumer citizenship and ethical sustainability.