There are described the main provisions of the theoretical framework for the investigation of communication practices of social interaction, parameters of the communication practices in the situations of youth civic self-identification, as well as findings of the survey of the youth communication practices as an indicator of citizenship competence. The study of the communication practices is conducted within the framework of the constitutive model of communication, where it is interpreted as a primary constitutive social process and a fundamental means of explaining psychological, social, cultural and economic phenomena. The parameters of the communication practices identified and used for the survey are trust, reciprocity, tolerance and mutual respect, identity, loyalty and patriotism, acceptance of the effective norms and readiness to provide for their legitimacy, responsibility, law obedience, willingness to participate and reach consent. The survey which participants were students from different regions of the county was conducted by psychosemantic and projective methods with the help of a specially designed questionnaire. The survey outcomes prove that the semantic space of student communication practices is determined by the meanings of trust, responsibility, and national identity. The main senses that regulate student social communication are tolerance, mutual understanding and respect, loyalty and law awareness. The level of trust between the communicators and the degree of their involvement in interaction determine the types of the communication practices realized by young people: they are practices of detachment, deliberation, participation, and avoidance. Most of the regional differences were identified within the “consent and taboo” scale. The “citizenship” scale turned out to be the most homogeneous. The main problem zone in the student communication behavior that hinders citizenship competence development is the gap between the degree of actualization of senses of trust, national identity, mutual understanding and law awareness, on one hand, and lack of their experience in actual situations of civic participation.