Formation of civil competence of students in a multicultural environment

Abstract

The article deals with the formation of the civil competence of students in a multicultural educational environment of the university. The authors describe the concept of "civic competence", the functions and criteria of the civil competence of students. They listed a set of pedagogical conditions conducive to the formation of the civil competence of students of the Technical University. The authors specify the content of research principles for the formation of the civil competence of students: democratization, humanization, relations between education and life, the formation of cooperate personality, cultural policy and efficiency. The novelty of the research consists in the following: development of methods for forming civil competency of engineering students; experimental verification of complex pedagogical conditions that increase the efficiency of the formation of the civil competence of students. Thus, the article is devoted to the analysis of aspects such as the impact of socio-cultural environment in the process of formation of the civil competence of students and the study of the relationship between civil competence and ethnic tolerance.

Keywords: Civic competencemulticultural environmenteducation at the Technical Universitythe formation of the civil competence of students

Introduction

This problem is important today because the formation of the students’civil-patriotic competence follows from the analysis of the socio-economic needs of the society, of inadequate development of educating the person civil qualities in the pedagogical theory, of the needs in a particular teaching training of legal society citizens designed to have a high level of civic competence in a multicultural educational environment.

Currently, there is a necessity in the students’ civil competence formation - integrative qualities of the person, which includes cognitive, evaluative, behavioral, reflective components and that are manifested in the ability to love the Motherland, to protect the interests of the Motherland, to keep the native nature, to store and transmit from generation to generation cultural practices and traditions of its people and to develop a tolerant attitude towards other nations.

The thematic justification of the study is based on the need to resolve the contradictions between:

• objective existence of the society need for citizens with a high level of civic competence and lack of theoretical and practical elaboration of civic competence formation in the students of the University;

• increasing needs of modern industry for the specialists with a high level of civic competence and current educational practices of universities, not focusing on the students’ civil competence formation.

These contradictions are the basis of the given problem of effective university students’ civic competence formation in a multicultural educational environment.

Civic education is believed by many researchers of this problem (Bondarevskaya, Gayazov, Duranov, Lesher, Luginina, and others) to have appeared with the state emergence, with the emergence of the legal relationship between the individual and the state, the state and society. This aspect is described in the terms of "secular state", "secular society", "secular education", excluding the religion influence. Thus, civic education reflects primarily legal relationship, the willingness of the person to comply with the norms of relations (Vakhitova, & Gadelshina, 2015). However, the problem of the students’ civil jurisdiction formation is not limited by these factors only. In this regard, the importance of this problem is due to several factors. On the one hand, now in the society,we may observe a tendency to an interest increase in native history, in the origins of the national culture development, since under the conditions of today's disintegrating situation of immorality, of a passion for foreign media, of moral degradation, the reference to national traditions, determining the mentality of the modern citizen of Russia remains especially important. On the other hand, the introduction of multi-cultural orientation in the content of the educational process (Federal law of Russian Federation, 2012) contributes not only to the formation of native culture interest, but also nurtures an interest in other cultures, promotes a tolerant relationship towards them, as well as democratization and humanization of the whole learning process (Ardashkin, Martyushev, & Bezborodov, 2015).

The goal of research is to identify, to justify theoretically a complex of pedagogical conditions that increase the process efficiency of the University students’ civil competence formation.

The object of study is education of students in a multicultural educational environment of the University.

The subject of research is the formation process of students’ civil competence in a multicultural educational environment of the University.

Setting to the study, we started from the following hypothesis: the formation process of the university students’ civil jurisdiction will be effective if it is implemented by the following set of pedagogical conditions:

- forming an emotionally-positive attitude of students to the collective cognitive activity of a civil nature;

- forming civil orientation as the valuable characteristics of the civic competence development process;

- stimulating a reflexive position of students.

In accordance with the intended purpose and the hypothesis of the study, the following objectives were identified:

- to analyze the state of the research problem in the pedagogical theory and practice, to clarify the content features of the basic concept of "civic competence";

- to determine the nature, structure and functions of the civil competence of the University students;

- to justify theoretically and to verify experimentally the complex of pedagogical conditions that increase the efficiency of the civic competence formation in the University students;

- to develop and implement a methodology of civic competence formation of the University students in the educational processon the basis of the research results.

Materials & Methods

Theoretical and methodological basis of the study were: the philosophical understanding of the concepts of "interaction", "communication" (Bakhtin, Parygin, et al.); works that reveal the structure and function of communication (Bodalev, Isayev, Kukushin, Leontyev, Petrovskaya, Khanin, et al.).; theory of personal enhancement in communication (Ananyev, Lomov, Mudrik, Petrovskiy, et al.); Communication Theory (Zhirnov, Zhukov, Kagan, Shirshov, et al.).

The effectiveness of the civil competence formation of the university students is due to the complex implementation of the following pedagogical conditions: the formation of an emotionally positive attitude of students to the collective cognitive activity of civil nature; fostering civic orientation as the valuable characteristics of the process of civic competence development; stimulation of students’ reflexive position.

In order to consider the phenomenon of the "civic competence" concept, it is necessary to refer to the definitions of the concept components. We understand citizenship as the totality of the subjective qualities of the person, based on tolerance, socio-cultural mentality, and the dialogue of cultures and manifested in the conscious law-abiding, patriotic devotion, service to the benefit of the country and its interests. Competence implies the overall ability of students, based on knowledge, experience, values, culture and inclinations, which are acquired through learning. However, we consider civil jurisdiction in terms of its formation in a multicultural educational environment. Focusing on the works of Safonova, Kal'ney, Bondarevskaya and other researchers, we understand multicultural educational environment as an educational environment functioning in the context of the culture dialogue based on socio-cultural mentality of students, their cultural and civic competence manifested in the civic culture, civil liability and civil tolerance towards other nations. It is important to note that the civic competence concept is democratic in nature and devoid of national superiority. In our study, we attempt to bring together the two points of view on citizenship. On the one hand, there is the idea of the need for the revival of national traditions, initiation to the culture and history of the home country. On the other hand, the idea of a tolerant attitude towards other ethnic groups, education of interest to their culture, history, traditions is either of great importance.

Considering the structure of civil jurisdiction, we can perform it as a system of interconnected components. Each of the components is a simultaneous measure of the certain pedagogical condition. The content of the components is determined by their multi-level structure. As structural components of civil jurisdiction, we consider the cognitive, evaluative, behavioral, reflective ones. The cognitive component of civic competence is linked with the basic knowledge, concepts, ideas, which are the result of the cognitive process. These skills are revealed, in turn, both in identification of common and different valuesand cultural features (common cultural competence), and in the process of connecting the native traditions and other ethnic cultures (cognitive process related to civil tolerance of students). The essence of the valuable component is in the civil orientation of the process of civil jurisdiction formation being regarded by us as the essence of the value characteristics. The principle of a behavioral component is to develop specific behavioral tactics (Kabasheva, et al., 2015), strategies, and actions for the formation of students' civic competence. Specificity of the reflective component is manifested in the duality of its statements and is related to the compounds in the content of reflection skills in all its forms (self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-determination, self-awareness, self-esteem) and creative direction. The result of this synthesis is the skill associated with the ability and willingness to discover something new, to receive and interpret the knowledge of their own and other cultures, as well as the ability to create a positive background of communication and counter the negative stereotypes. We believe that the reflective component is one of the most important, as it is associated with access to the civil and moral position of students (Slesarev, 2008).

The main aspects to consider is the civil jurisdiction, representing an integral part of the content-block diagram of civil jurisdiction. Here, we include linguistic, existential, strategic, socio-cultural and social aspects. The structure of the linguistic aspect contains knowledge on how to reflect the values ​​of citizenship in their native language and other languages, on possible ways of native culture influence on the language sustainable speed (idioms) formation and lexical units (phraseological units) forming in people's minds ideas of civic duty, patriotism (e.g., «Ivans, not remembering his kinship», where the house is, the native land is, and so on). The existential aspect includes knowledge about how to create a sense of patriotism, civic duty, national justice and humanity in people. The part of the strategic aspect is the capacity for joint activities between persons of different ethnic origin that suggests a common ownership strategies, common values of what is happening on the basis of knowledge about key national stereotypes, prejudices and civil tolerance generalizations that influence the processes of formation of civil jurisdiction for participants of civil competence formation; the ability to double vision of the same situation in terms of value systems of different cultures, without compromising the sense of patriotism and humanism and civic personalities. The socio-cultural aspect includes knowledge of the universal cultural values system, knowledge of the native culture values and values of other cultures, conceptions of multiculturalism; the ability to find the relationship among the civil and patriotic values and cultural ones. A special role is given to the knowledge of the cultural and civil etiquette, the process of civil jurisdiction formation in the course of studying a regional component. The social aspect involves availability of civil personality skills to be a mediator between oneself and a companion, realizing their common national and social affiliation.

The essence of civic competence, reflected by its features, gives an idea of the civil competence functions, of its external manifestations in the system of relations, of the civil jurisdiction role in the conditions of higher school preparation of engineering students. We attributed reflexive-cognitive, adaptive activity, value orientation, and incentive, developmental, integrative, regulatory, and prognostic evaluation to the functions of civil jurisdiction. The reflective-cognitive function includes the formation of the students' knowledge system of effective interaction in the civic competence formation, the identification of other people’s emotional states, their relationships, personal characteristics of their behavior; a range of behavioral acts that can form the communicative partners’ feeling of deep affection and love for their small and large homeland, as well as the people living next to. An adaptation function helps to reduce stressful mental states, to adapt to new conditions and cultural patterns of civil behavior for people not only of their own, but also of other cultures on the basis of the development and use of new elements in their life.

The activity function includes behavior determinant, provides a range of specific behavior forms for effective communication in the patriotism (Klinova, 2008), civic tolerance and a civic culture formation process. The value-orientation function aims to foster civic competence as a value, in a free mode of socialization that promotes awareness of oneself and the people in the community as bearers of national and civic values. It shapes identity at the turn of several cultures, which absorbed the positive experience of civic and patriotic culture and which is capable not only to participate in the dialogue of cultures, but also to make sense of civic values and human nature. An incentive function facilitates person identification with others, encourages the expression of civil tolerance, empathy, multiculturalism and other integrative qualities of the person, appropriate in the given situation, determining the success of the civil jurisdiction formation process. The developing function is aimed at the establishment of a civil personready to accept the "other» that can effectively make a contact managing other people in order to understand effectively, to absorb elements of native culture as a factor in the development of patriotic beginning, as well as other cultures. The integrative function helps to attach the norms and values of other cultures, as well as connects the traditions of native culture, people, language and traditions of other ethnic groups, fostering a deeply patriotic and civil start in people. The regulatory function is aimed at the formation of adequate understanding of civil competence participants, the ability to reflect on actions, to realize their clear civic position in the civic competence formation for the development of new strategies of behavior, including the ability to adjust the relations, to solve the civil tolerance problem. The prognostic function helps to reveal trends in the development of social emotions and development schemes for civil competence, to build proposals in the direction of changes in the behavior of a communication partner, anticipation of behavior consequences in the process of collective synergies. Finally, the evaluation function enhances perceptions of other people's lives, during the formation of their civic competence level, as well as patriotism, national tolerance, multiculturalism; by estimating the comrades in the process of joint activity, the function protects against too strong and negative experience in interpersonal relations.

In our opinion, with respect to the formation of civic competence, it is more correct to speak of systemic approaches, in the choice of which we were guided by the peculiarities of formation of the civil competence of university students, as well as by the most common approaches used in modern education. The process of forming the students’ civic competence acts as a system possessing its own structure and function as a certain value for an individual and society, carrying some valuable information through certain means of communication. Therefore, we consider the process of civil competence formation in the frame of systemic, ethical, student-oriented, informational-communicative, historical, cultural, and competence-based approaches as theoretical foundations for the study and organization of this process. The value of the system approach as a principle of study and organization of the forming civil competence process is explained by the factor that the approach allows one to do the following: to generate the students’ knowledge about citizenship, patriotism, tolerance, socio-cultural mentality; to give a systematic character to the process of civic education and civic competence; to develop system thinking; to form a systemic picture of the world, social life and system of relations; to approach to the study and students ' civic competence formation systemically and historically. Meaning of the axiological approach is discussed in the works of Leontjev, Rudestam, et al., which allows the teacher to adjust the student attitude towards other people, society, the state, their rights and duties; to form the moral ideal of the citizen-patriot, allowing an individual student to design his own development; to develop the spiritual potential of the personality, including such qualities as integrity, commitment, honesty, humanism, respect for other people, which promotes the appropriate attitude formation and behaviour. The importance of the personal-oriented approach to the students’ civic competence formation, which was studied by Belikov, Bondarevskaya, Serikov, Yakimanskaya et al, is that this approach allows one to realize the "I", its relevance among other students and in society; to defend their rights and freedoms firmly; to fight for national independence of one’s country expressing a desire to live for the benefit of the country, on behalf of its interests.

The value of the information and communicative approach, which was developed by Bibler, Parygin, Bodalev, Ilyin, Semenov, et al, is that it performs two important functions: the information one associates with the selection and transfer of terminal, instrumental and moral values by the students; and the communication function, including means for transferring the information which is a value for the civil competence formation. The study of the historical-cultural approach is represented by the works of such scientists as Kagan, Klimova, Lesher, Rozanova, Khudyakov et al. The essence of the historical-cultural approach in our study is in our approach to the process of civil competence formation, on the one hand, from the historical point of view, that is, a detailed examination of each stage of the civilization formation in Russia and Europe since ancient times (the ancient Slavic culture era) and ending by the present time. On the other hand, we consider the process of the civil competence formation in terms of a modern (Saigushev, et al., 2016), multicultural educational space and the University students’ inclusion into the space. Finally, the relevance of the competency approach, which was studied by Bondarevskaya, S. E. Shishov et al, is that this approach allows one to consider the process of mastering civil rules, civil culture and civil responsibility by the students as the ability influencing the process of the students ' civic competence formation. Within the framework of this approach, we can speak about structural relationships between key concepts of our study (Nine, 1995): "citizenship" and "competence"; under this approach, it is possible to speak about the specifics of not only civil competence, but other competences such as common cultural competence, cultural competence, intercultural competence and others.

Results & Discussion

Summarizing the results of theoretical and experimental studies of this article, we can draw the following general conclusions:

1. The study proved that the problem of the formation of the civil competence formation of the University students is an urgent one today requiring further thought. Its relevance is due to the socio-economic and political changes in society, to the problem importance of nurturing true, legally and morally competent citizens of the country by several theoretical-methodological qualifications and concrete practical tasks. The author proved the necessity of solving this problem from the positions of systemic, axiological, personality-oriented, informational-communicative, historical, cultural and competence-based approaches. The fundamental principles of this study were clarified: they are democratization, humanization, connection of upbringing with life, cultural conformity, identity formation in the team, efficiency.

2. The present study clarified the concept content and the structure of "civic competence". Civic competence is an integrative quality of a personality including cognitive, axiological, behavioral, and reflective components manifested in the ability to love the Homeland, to protect the interests of his Fatherland, to protect the native nature, to keep and pass from generation to generation the cultural traditions of their people and to develop a tolerant attitude to other Nations. Formation of a civic competence among students is intended to include students in the multicultural educational environment (Savotina, 2002), training their civil liability, national and ethnic tolerance. All this, in turn, determines the specificity of the process of formation of students ' civic competence.

3. When considering the structures of civic competence, it was found that this concept includes the following aspects: linguistic, existential, strategic, sociocultural, and social. The study showed that civic competence performs a number of functions: reflective-cognitive, adaptive, activity-based, value-orientation, motivating, developing, integrative, regulative, predictive, and evaluative. The study determined the assessment level of civil competence formation of the five components, which acted as criteria of the selected pedagogical conditions: cognitive, behavioral, axiological, reflexive, technological. On the bases of the selected criteria, we defined four levels of the students’ civic competence formation: a very low one, which we considered as critical, low (permissible but undesirable), medium (adequate), high (desirable). All the levels are interconnected, herewith each previous one causes the following, participating in its composition, as the civic competence level among students increases gradually.

4. It is proved that the process efficiency of the students’ civil competence formation is ensured through implementation of the following complex of pedagogical conditions: forming the positive emotional attitude of students to collective cognitive activities of a civilian nature; the formation of students' civil orientation, as value characteristics of the civil competence formation process; the development and promotion of the students’ reflective position.

Conclusion

The originality of the research is as follows:

- thinking and experimental verification of the complex of pedagogical conditions that increase the formation efficiency of the University students’ civil competence;

- development of formation methods of the university students’ civil competence, presented in a special course "Civic competence of technical college students."

Theoretical relevance of the research is as follows:

- to clarify the concept features of "civic competence", "to construct civic competence";

- to determine the nature, structure and functions of the civil competence of the University;

- to formulate and clarify the content of the research principles: democratization, humanization, relations between education and life, cultural policy, the formation of cooperate personality, efficiency.

The practical implications is to develop a method of forming civil competency of university students, presented in a special course "Civic competence of students in a technical higher school", in methodical instructions for students studying this course.

Defining the research prospect of the study, the authors note that the work is not supposed to solve the problem of the formation of the civil competence of university students. Thus, the actual issue is the development of such aspects as the influence of sociocultural environment on the process of civil competence formation, the study of the relationship between civil competence and ethnic tolerance.

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