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Social significance and personal meaning of education. The social significance of education. Learning new material

§ 11. Social significance of education

One of the most important criteria of the level of civilization of society, the manifestation of its culture is education, with which at different periods of life everyone living in modern society is connected.
What is education... In accordance with the Law of the Russian Federation "On Education", it is understood as "a purposeful process of upbringing and education in the interests of a person, society, state, accompanied by a statement that a citizen (student) has achieved educational levels (educational qualifications) established by the state."
Education is a social institution, consisting of many institutions and institutions, including the means of management and organization.
Education in society has many functions. These include:
... the transfer of knowledge from generation to generation and the spread of culture;
... generating and storing the culture of society;
... development and creation of new ideas and theories, discoveries and inventions;
... socialization of the individual, especially young people, and their integration into society;
... providing vocational guidance and vocational selection of young people;
... creating conditions for social mobility. The position of an individual in society, the possibilities for his successful promotion up the career ladder are determined by the quality of the education received, which is largely related to the prestige of the educational institution.
Education has a very important role in determining the social status of an individual, in the reproduction and development of the social structure of society, in maintaining social order and stability, in exercising social control over the processes of intellectual, moral, physical development of the young generation. And the vocational education system, in addition, also has the function of controlling the distribution of the generation entering an independent working life across various cells of the social structure of society: classes, social groups, strata, production collectives.
Education is a social lift. Education, along with the army and the sphere of employment, is one of the lifts of social mobility. Having received knowledge and high qualifications, in modern society it is much easier to make a career than: a) it was in a pre-industrial and industrial society, b) if a person did not possess them.
Those who leave school early have a lower socioeconomic status in the future. Moreover, the main dropout rate falls on families with low socioeconomic status. This is explained not only by the lack of money, although often they are the main reason.
For a long time to this day, education as a social institution has been the main mechanism of social testing, selection and distribution of individuals by social strata and groups.
An uneducated person cannot get a highly paid and responsible job, no matter what social background he is. The educated and the uneducated have unequal life chances, but the situation can always be corrected by raising your qualifications, you just have to make an effort.
Of course, you can always find workarounds by getting a high-paying job that does not require a university degree. But there are few such places, besides, it is risky to be in such a social position for a long time: either the next test with certification will come, or competitors will bypass, or you will make a gross blunder in your illiteracy. The second time, finding the loophole is much more difficult. Even the falsification of education documents, the purchase of a fake diploma testify to the increased importance of education as a channel of vertical mobility.
Education level - income level... It is another matter that the relationship between the two variables - education level and income level - is not so obvious, and in some societies it is generally problematic. A philologist or general practitioner may be more educated than many of the successful business people. But they receive completely different incomes. Before choosing a university, you need to know the market value of your future education. It will determine your chances of achieving the desired level of material well-being. Until recently, the profession of an economist and a lawyer in our country was in greatest demand, respectively, and contests for specialized universities were constantly growing. But now the labor market is oversaturated with such specialists. Therefore, the market price of engineering education is growing.
In a society with a stable and prosperous economy, there is a strong relationship between the level of education and the size of wages. For example, in the United States, workers who graduate from high school only earn on average one and a half to two times less than their peers with a bachelor's degree, and almost three times less than a doctor. The picture is about the same in European countries. Each step up the educational ladder is well rewarded, because the perception of higher education is firmly rooted in society not only as a social good, but also as the highest spiritual value.
Quality education is beneficial not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole. Thanks to him, an individual can hope to make a good career in business, in the political or cultural field. Thanks to the education system, the country receives highly qualified workers. And this means an increase in labor productivity, the introduction of new technologies, reaching the forefront in social development.
Education and training... Today's educational system in the world rests on a fundamental substitution of the concept of "educated person" by the concept of "trained person" and on the identification of the educational process with the learning process. However, they are far from the same thing.
Teaching is the process of transmitting knowledge, skills, and abilities from teacher to student, which has clearly defined goals, objectives and stages of implementation.
Education is a much broader and more fundamental concept. The process of education, the formation of a human personality occurs continuously, throughout a person's life in the course of an individual-personal dialogue with the world of the culture surrounding a person. In this case, there are situations when someone specifically teaches, teaches; however, in a huge number of cases, there is no special training, and the education process still takes place. For example, when a person just reads books, or communicates with smart people, or he himself tries to create something in the spiritual sphere.
The situation is also not easy with the concepts of "education" and "literacy", of which we have yet to be convinced.
What is an educated person. An educated person has a developed sense of conscience and therefore is able to bear responsibility for his actions and their consequences not only to himself and his friends and relatives, but to a much wider community, which is called humanity as a whole. An educated person is a person who has a moral principle. But the specificity of the moral position lies in the fact that it cannot be assimilated as some kind of external knowledge, it can only be achieved through suffering.
An enlightened person is an individual with a broad humanitarian outlook on the world; well acquainted with the achievements of world culture; orientated in its history and directions; able to maintain a conversation or show his erudition on a variety of issues, including natural science. He can be at the same time a deeply moral person, but the criterion of morality is not embedded in the very concept of an enlightened person. Rather, it is some kind of addition to it.
Homo edoctus(an educated person) is not only an individual who is well informed and versed in modern sciences. In addition, he has an independent way of thinking, a flexible and developed thinking apparatus that allows him to seek and find non-standard solutions. In this case, we are not talking about the fact that he owns ready-made algorithms of thinking or schemes of knowledge, as in the case of an enlightened person, but that his thinking has its own unique style.
But an enlightened person is always an individual who owns a wide palette of cultural languages that allow him to enter into a productive dialogue with representatives of other cultures. First of all, it is the language of artistic and poetic creativity. Such people are classified as the flower of the humanitarian intelligentsia. While an educated person may well be a narrow specialist or even a practitioner in technical fields.
Literate and enlightened person... The result of the action in society of a developed system of secondary and higher education, among other things, is the creation, firstly, of a literate (based on secondary education), and secondly, an enlightened (based on higher education) population.
It is no longer customary to speak about the benefits of enlightenment in our century in an interrogative form. Few doubt its necessity. Although we all, to varying degrees, partake of its fruits. Anyone who understands the basics of the sciences taught in high school is called a literate person. And if, moreover, he understands modern art and literature, knows the classical heritage in the field of humanitarian thought, then why not call him an enlightened person. But the one who joins knowledge not for the sake of curiosity, but conducts serious research, expanding our understanding of the world, contributes to the growth of new knowledge, undoubtedly, is considered a scientist.
Education provides qualification, education - metaqualification, that is, a system of knowledge that facilitates the search and assimilation of new knowledge. For example, farmers in developed countries are not only highly skilled, given their farm experience and secondary education. They have a meta-qualification that gives them the knowledge of who to ask for advice and when - a lawyer, a veterinarian, a local sales agent, a university faculty member of plant pathology, a wholesaler, a meteorologist, a mechanic. Thus, metaqualification allows a person to find the necessary information and assimilate it, even if it is far beyond the scope of his personal experience.

Basic terms and concepts

Education, training

Questions and tasks

1. Describe education as a social institution.
2. What is a social lift? Why education can be attributed to it? Compare it to the capabilities of other social elevators.
3. Expand the difference in the meaning of phrases: an educated person, a trained person, an enlightened person, a literate person. What determines such different learning outcomes?
4. What is metaqualification? How much do you have it? How does it manifest itself?

Social Studies Workshop

1. The paragraph gives the main functions of education. Group them by identifying the criterion that became the basis for the selection. Are there one or two of the functions that can be called central, backbone? Justify your opinion.
2. Model the arguments of the participants in the discussion, some of whom would speak about the importance of obtaining secondary education for all citizens, while others would proceed from the position: “Not all people need a high education. Moreover, not everyone wants to learn. So is it worth spending money, effort and teaching everyone, all the more making them learn? "

“The main value of education is the ability to conquer inner spiritual freedom by an individual”

Jacques Maritain

Even the ancient philosophers were convinced that the system of education and upbringing is the most significant factor of social reproduction: both the quality of future generations and the viability and effectiveness of the future development of society itself depend on it. As Plato noted, it is upbringing that fully provides a fairly definite and clearly expressed result: either the Good or its opposite.

Education forms a person of a particular society, conforming to his needs, realizing the goals of his development and serving their implementation. At the same time, education, including a person in the space of socially significant values, by forming universal models of behavior and value attitudes, contributes to the assimilation of significant universal values.

A person should acquire the Good, writes Plato, it should justly be recognized as higher than pleasure - this is intelligence, knowledge, understanding, art, and so on in the same way. Striving for the world of eternal Ideas, distraction from everyday vanity - this is the goal of true life. Comprehending the modern tasks of education, it can be stated that the development of the spiritual potential of an individual should not be reduced simply to the interiorization of objective spirituality. It is carried out in the process of human activity with the aim of positively changing oneself and society in accordance with the highest socially significant values.

The pursuit of knowledge, information, material values is discordant with the need for harmonious development, which is genetically inherent in a person. The main task of upbringing is the correlation with the natural, natural abilities of a person, their recognition and development. After all, correct education and training, Plato notes, awaken good natural inclinations in a person, i.e. thanks to such upbringing, they become even better - both in general and in the sense of passing them on to their offspring. “To convert a person does not at all mean to invest in him the ability to see - he already has it, but is wrongly directed, and he looks in the wrong place. This is where you need to make an effort. "

The problem of the goal and essence of education is really solved by philosophy (consideration of issues of personality formation, optimal adaptation of a person to life in society, development of educational concepts and programs). The main principle of the modern concept of education is the interpretation of the ideal of education through knowledge and cognition. Thus, an educated person is one who knows the world and knows how to use his knowledge. (The first prescription of philosophy according to Plato is the diligent development of the intellect in order to restore unity with the eternal).

Education is the only technological sphere in the formation of a person's personality. In essence, it always works for the future, predetermining the development of society in a progressive or regressive direction. Therefore, the role of education in the development of any society is decisive. Only it is able to reverse the negative tendencies in the spiritual, moral sphere of mankind, help in the search for the meaning of human life, give progressive life guidelines and indicate the criteria for the irreversible moral degradation of a person.

Spiritual, moral factors in the struggle between creative and destructive forces always stand on the side of the creative. And if the destructive forces are mostly spontaneous, then the creative ones are always purposeful and require enormous efforts, not only energy, but also time.

We do not deny the personal value of education, we deeply perceive the highest intrinsic value of each person, but at the same time we move away from imbalances and extremes, realizing that the value of education is not only in the development of personal qualities, but also social and state ones. And only the harmony of these qualities can solve the issue of value education.

Depending on the answer given by a person or, more broadly, by society about the meaning of human existence, an idea of the value of education is also formed as one of the most effective ways to convey to future generations their understanding of the meaning of human life.

When talking about the values of education, it is necessary to take into account three "layers" of values:

- the value of education as a value of the state,

- as a public value,

- as a personal value.

The first two values of education reflect the collective, group significance of this cultural phenomenon, and in the Soviet period of national education, it was they who came to the fore in many pedagogical concepts. Recently, priority has been given to the personal value of education, an individually motivated, biased attitude of a person to the level and quality of his education.

Apparently, there is a close connection between the recognition of the personality-oriented value of education and the tendency to understand education as a continuous process that takes place throughout a person's life. Education is able not only to maintain the values of society and the values of society at the proper level, but also to enrich and develop them.

One can see the close connection between education and the priority values of society using the example of "culture of usefulness" and "culture of dignity" - concepts introduced by the famous psychologist A.G. Asmolov. A culture of utility or a culture focused on utility as the basic value of society has "the only goal ... to reproduce itself without any changes ... education is assigned the role of a social orphan, who is tolerated insofar as it takes time to train, train person to perform useful office functions. "

In his opinion, the opposition to such a culture, to such a structure of society is a new type of culture focused on dignity. "In such a culture, the leading value is the value of a person's personality, regardless of whether it is possible to get something from this person to carry out a particular business or not." It is obvious that a culture of dignity requires a new paradigm of education - education focused on fostering a person's self-esteem, a sense of freedom, professional and general educational (general cultural) competence. This requires a radical change in the content and organizational forms of the entire educational system, a change in the values of education as a social and cultural phenomenon.

The present period of time is characterized by the de-ideologization of society, rethinking and changes in the value system, including the values of education, and is defined by a number of scientists as an "axiological revolution". Socio-economic reforms, the rapid pace of life, the economic crisis, the transition to a market economy overthrew in an instant what seemed unthinkable until recently. "Old" values, which until recently seemed irrefutable, are being replaced by "new" value orientations alien to the previous practice.

Education is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also a social institution, one of the social substructures of society. The content of education reflects the state of society, the transition from one state to another. Currently, this is a transition from the industrial society of the XX century. to the postindustrial or informational XXI century. The development and functioning of education is conditioned by all factors and conditions of society's existence: economic, political, social, cultural and others. At the same time, the goal of education is the development of a person who meets the requirements of the society in which he lives, which is reflected in the connection between education and culture.

The connection between education and culture is the closest; even the earliest stages of the formation of the institution of education are associated with a cult, a ritual: culture demanded constant reproduction. This is not just a conditioning, it is an essential interdependence, which is manifested, in particular, in the fact that one of the basic principles of the existence and development of education is "cultural conformity". At the same time, education is considered, first of all, as a social institution with the function of cultural reproduction of a person or the reproduction of a person's culture in society.

This principle replaced the one put forward by Ya.A. Comenius' position of "conformity to nature" of teaching. According to Ya.A. Comenius, it is easy to learn, only "following in the footsteps of nature", in accordance with which the basic postulates of education were formulated, reflecting the fundamental laws of nature and man as its part. The principle of "cultural conformity", imperatively formulated by A. Disterweg: "Teach culturally appropriate!" development. Culture is understood as a system of patterns of behavior, consciousness of people, as well as objects and phenomena in the life of society, which is reproduced during the change of generations.

Productive is the concept of the type of culture (for example, archaic, modern) and the position that the very definition of the type of culture can be correlated with the nature of training and education. The famous ethnographer M. Mead, on this basis, distinguishes three types of culture:

- postfigurative,

-configurative,

-prefigurative.

In a post-figurative culture (primitive societies, small religious communities, enclaves, etc.), children, first of all, learn from their predecessors, and adults cannot imagine any changes and therefore transmit to their descendants only the feeling of the invariable "continuity of life" adults, is a "blueprint for the future for their children." This type of culture, according to M. Mead, characterized human communities for thousands of years up to the beginning of civilization. The manifestation of this type of culture is found in our time in diasporas, enclaves, sects; in traditions, national ways.

The cofigurative type of culture assumes that both children and adults learn from their peers, more broadly from their contemporaries. However, this type of culture includes post-figurative in the sense of following elders in norms, behavior, etc. In its pure form, a cofigurative culture can manifest itself in a community that is left without elders. Using the example of analyzing the life of immigrants in the USA, Canada, Australia, Israel, M. Mead shows that new living conditions require new methods of upbringing. In these conditions, a situation arises of uniting peers, identification with a peer - a situation when the reference, significant for the adolescent, are not adults, not parents, but peers.

Prefigurative culture, "where adults also learn from their children," reflects the time in which we live, notes M. Mead. This is the culture that is foreseen, this is the world that will be. Education should prepare children for the new, preserving and inheriting the valuable that was in the past, for the connection between generations is the history of civilization.

Obviously, different approaches to the problem of the internal connection between culture (its types, paradigms, tendencies) and education reveal the contradictions accumulated in the history of civilization between the existing "educational" stereotype of public consciousness and the knowledge accumulated by mankind about the child, childhood and his world. Modern education is also characterized by the search for a solution to this contradiction.

2.3 National value of education

Education as a reproduction of culture could not fail to form as a definite system within which different subsystems are differentiated (depending on the age of students, the goals of education, attitudes towards the church, towards the state). First of all, let us emphasize that education as a social institution is a complex system that includes different elements and connections between them: subsystems, management, organization, personnel, etc. This system is characterized by purpose, content, structured curricula and plans, which take into account the previous levels of education and predict the next. The system-forming (or meaning-forming) component of the educational system is the goal of education, i.e. the answer to the question of what kind of person is required and expected by society at this stage of its historical development. In each country, since ancient times, education as a system was formed in accordance with those specific socio-historical conditions that characterized each specific time period of its development. The history of the formation of education in its various stages (school, secondary vocational, university) in different countries is also specific.

Education as a system can be viewed in three dimensions:

- social scale (education in the world, in a specific country, etc.),

- level of education (preschool, school, higher),

- education profile - general, special (mathematical, humanitarian, natural science, etc.), professional, additional.

From these positions, education as a system as a whole can be characterized as follows:

Education as a system can be secular or clerical, state, private, municipal or federal;

3. Trends in the development of modern education

A.A. Verbitsky, one of the leading researchers in the psychology of higher education, once identified the following trends in education, which are and will manifest themselves to varying degrees until the end of the 20th century.

The first trend- awareness of each level of education as an organic component of the system of continuous public education. This trend involves solving the problem of continuity not only between the school and the university, but also, taking into account the task of improving the professional training of students, between the university and the future production activities of students. This, in turn, sets the task of modeling industrial situations in the educational activities of students, which formed the basis for the formation of a new type of teaching - sign-contextual, according to A.A. Verbitsky.

Second trend- industrialization of education, i.e. its computerization and the accompanying technologization, which makes it possible to effectively enhance the intellectual activity of modern society.

Third trend- the transition from predominantly informational forms to active methods and forms of teaching with the inclusion of elements of problematicity, scientific research, extensive use of reserves of independent work of students. In other words, as A.A. Verbitsky metaphorically notes, the tendency of transition from the "school of reproduction" to the "school of understanding", "the school of thinking".

Fourth trend correlates, according to A.A. Verbitsky, with the search for psychological and didactic conditions for the transition from strictly regulated, controlling, algorithmized methods of organizing the educational process and managing this process to developing, activating, intensifying, game. This presupposes stimulation, development, organization of creative, independent activity of students.

Fifth and sixth trends refer to the organization of interaction between a student and a teacher and fix the need for organizing training as a collective, joint activity of students, where the emphasis is shifted "from the teaching activity of the teacher to the cognitive activity of the student."

The tendencies of changes in the general situation of education at the end of the XX century coincide with the general principles of its reform in the world, in the countries of Eastern Europe and in Latvia. These are the following basic principles:

- integration all the upbringing forces of society, the organic unity of the school and other special institutions with the aim of educating the younger generations;

- humanization- increased attention to the personality of each child as the highest social value of society, an orientation towards the formation of a citizen with high intellectual, moral and physical qualities;

- differentiation and individualization, creating conditions for the full manifestation and development of the abilities of each student;

- democratization, creation of prerequisites for the development of activity, initiative and creativity of students and teachers, interested interaction of teachers and students, broad public participation in education management.

It is essential that these principles of education reform are correlated with the main directions of reforming the educational systems of the world community, judging by the materials of UNESCO. These areas included:

- planetary globalism and humanization of education;

- cultural sociologization and greening of educational content;

- interdisciplinary integration in educational technologies;

- focus on the continuity of education, its developmental and civic functions.

The considered principles and directions of education reflect the global trends of the modern world, which are revealed in the processes of democratization, globalization, regionalization, polarization, marginalization and fragmentation. It is obvious that the trends changing in the educational space reflect the general directions of changes in the world, and vice versa - these directions are the essence of the reflection of the emerging trends in education.

Bibliography

2. Turovskoy Ya. S. The problem of national values in education at the level of interpersonal relations // National values of education: history and modernity. Materials of the ХVII-th session Scientific. Council on the problems of the history of education and ped. Science / Ed. Corresponding Member Z. I. Ravkin. - M .: ITOP RAO, 1996 .-- P. 31.7

3. National value priorities of the sphere of education and upbringing (second half of the XIX - 90-ies. XX centuries) / Ed. Z.I. Ravkina. - M .: ITOiP RAO, 1997 .-- S. 409-410.

Education- one of the ways of personality formation by people acquiring knowledge, acquiring skills and abilities, developing mental-cognitive and creative abilities through the system of such social institutions as family, school, mass media. The goal is to familiarize the individual with the achievements of human civilization, retransmission and preservation of its cultural heritage.

According to the RF Law "On Education", education is a purposeful process of upbringing, training and development in the interests of individuals, society and the state.
Functions of education:

Economic (formation of the social and professional structure of society);

Social (implementation of socialization of the individual (social function);

Cultural (the use of previously accumulated culture in order to educate an individual).

The network of educational institutions in Russia:

preschool (nurseries, kindergartens);

primary (4 grades), general secondary (9 grades) and complete secondary (11 grades) education (schools, gymnasiums, lyceums);

additional education (children's art houses, circles, sections);

secondary specialized education (lyceums, technical schools, schools, colleges);

higher specialized education (universities: institutes, universities, academies);

postgraduate education (institutes for advanced training, courses);

training of scientific personnel (magistracy, residency, postgraduate, doctoral studies);

theological educational institutions (seminaries, theological faculties, theological academies).

Education in the modern world is distinguished by a variety of ways of obtaining (school, external studies, home schooling, distance learning, self-education courses, etc.)

General trends in education:

democratization of education;

an increase in the duration of education;

continuity of education;

humanization of education;

internationalization of education;

computerization of education.

Priorities of public policy and legal regulation in the field of education:

Ensuring the availability of quality general education

Improving the quality of school educational literature

Raising the level of remuneration of educational workers

Modernization of the system of training, retraining and advanced training of educational workers

Improving the quality of vocational education

Expanding public participation in education governance

Development of a network of educational institutions

Transition to normative per capita (budget) financing of educational institutions.

Modern education is a means of solving the most important problems facing not only the whole society, but also individual individuals. This is one of the most important stages in the long-term process of their socialization.

One of the most humane moral rules is widely known: "Leave the land richer and better than you received it from your fathers." What is the meaning of it? What is meant in this case by the word "richer"?

This statement emphasizes the continuity of generations, their direct connection. We are talking about the ongoing process of generational change and the problem of preserving and passing on cultural heritage to descendants. Human nature has the principle of personality development from generation to generation, this is expressed in the accumulation of invaluable life experience, knowledge, etc. But the younger generation is not always more perfect, it often remains at the same level of development as the old, and sometimes at a lower one. Therefore, a special role here is played by the attitude towards descendants, a sense of responsibility towards them.

We live in the XXI century. and we face many challenges, both global and local. These are serious environmental threats associated with an unprecedented industrial boom in the second half of the 20th century, and high mortality rates in some regions of the planet, and much more. Today humanity has come to the idea that it is necessary to recognize responsibility for the fate of future generations, a responsibility that cannot be passed on to anyone. In order to document this position, in 1997 in Paris within the framework of UNESCO, a Declaration on the Responsibility of Present Generations to Future Generations was adopted. At the present historical moment, the very existence of mankind and its environment is threatened, the protection of the needs and interests of future generations is one of the most important directions of the UN's activities. The desire "to leave the earth richer and better" unites all civilized countries. Moreover, the word "richer" should not be taken literally. It should be recognized that wealth alone is not enough for happiness, therefore it is necessary to create conditions under which the needs and interests of future generations will not be burdened by the burden of the past, and also to leave a more perfect world as a legacy to future generations. To accomplish this task, people must be fully aware of their responsibility to future generations, recognizing that protecting the needs and interests of the latter is the most important goal not only within the framework of the ethical mission of UNESCO, but also of the entire civilized community.