Specific Features Of Civil Identity Formation For Legal Consciousness Development Of Children

Abstract

Ethical, moral, value-oriented, historical, political, legal, patriotic, and labour education is the main task of civil identity formation of elementary school children. The article describes the problem of civil identity formation in term of development of legal consciousness. Modern social and legal environment continuously poses various problems for students and teachers to solve. In this regard, there was an urgent need for targeted systematic work in the educational process for the development of legal consciousness. Deep respect for the law as a manifestation of the will of the peoples of Russia is inextricably linked with a sense of patriotism, organically coming from the patriotic emotional experiences. The sense of civic conscience plays an influential role in the legal consciousness of a person. It is an internal control of law-abiding behaviour, and it generates the moral suffering of individuals in cases of law violations. Hence, main components of development of legal consciousness are: legal knowledge, conscious legal behaviour and personal qualities, discipline, etc. The work describes in detail the methodological system of development of legal consciousness of the elementary school children in the educational process, which was developed and implemented based on the experimental class 4 "B". This system included the purpose, the content, directions, methods, means and forms of organization, and the expected result. The research presents specific examples of implementation of this system in the classroom and in extracurricular activities.

Keywords: Civic identityjusticeelementary schoolchildren

Introduction

According to the Federal Educational Standard (MERF, 2012), the formation of civil identity of individuals is one of the components of the value reference point of the education content in Russia at the stage of elementary education (Podymova, & Slastenin, 2015). Consequently, it is necessary to generate in the elementary school children the image of Russia in the unity of value-oriented, historical, patriotic and legal contexts; the formation of socio-critical thinking as the basis of free choice and self-determination of individuals; the development of tolerant consciousness and communicative competence in communication and cooperation (Danilyuk et al., 2010). Civil identity is the most important constitutive element of the civil community because it serves as the basis of group identity, integrates the population of the country and is the key to the stability of the state (Regnatsky, 2015).

Russia is a legal state, so the most important sign of the rule of law, as well as an indicator of its formation, is the condition of the legal culture of the society, which is largely determined by the level of its legal consciousness, the development of democratic institutions, involving the social and legal activity of citizens (Baklushinsky, & Belinskaya, 2003). Therefore, at present it is extremely important to create an effective system of legal education and legal culture of children through the development of their legal consciousness. After all, the indicator of the modern culture of self-consciousness is the internal form of individual culture manifestation, giving the opportunity in real life situations to maintain positive qualities and to carry out self-formation, self-identification, self-assessment, self-determination, and self-control (Polozova, 2018).

The formation of legal consciousness and law-abiding behaviour of the younger generation is an integral part of civic education (Kalashnikova, 2014). The most important element of legal consciousness is moral, legal and political feelings. The moral and legal sense is deep respect for the law as a manifestation of the will of the peoples of the Russian Federation. It is inextricably linked with a sense of patriotism, organically coming from the patriotic emotional experiences. The sense of civic conscience plays an influential role in the legal consciousness of a person. It is an internal control of law-abiding behaviour, and it generates moral suffering of the individual in cases of violation of the law (Kovalev, 2013).

Problem Statement

The works of Russian pedagogy and psychology discuss the prerequisites for the solution of the problem of civil identity formation. They include the studies of A.S. Makarenko, V.A. Sukhomlinsky, K. D. Ushinsky, L. S. Vygotsky and others (Drobizheva, 2007). Also, various aspects of civic education are presented in the works on the theory and methodology of education by E. V. Bondarevskaya, B. T. Likhachev, V. G. Bocharov and many other researchers. The problem of the formation of various aspects of citizenship is examined in the studies of L. N. Bogolyubov, N. M. Voskresenskaya, I. L. Sudakova, Ya. V. Sokolov, etc. Most of these approaches were designed in the 19th and 20th centuries. Meanwhile, at present they do not reflect the realities of the current stage of social development of Russia. In modern conditions, the need to resolve this contradiction is significant; they are between the public-state demand for the education of socially active citizens and the lack of research studying the development of legal consciousness of primary school children aimed at the formation of civil identity in the educational process (Kalutskaya, 2013). Therefore, there is a need for more profound investigations devoted to the problem of formation of legal consciousness of elementary school children because there is no developed content of the work to familiarize younger school children with the rights and duties of the citizen of Russia; there are no optimal means of work for the assimilation of legal norms, etc. Therefore, the problem of the study is to answer the following question: what pedagogical system will contribute to the development of legal awareness of younger students in the educational process, contributing to the formation of civil identity?

Research Questions

The subject of the research is the system of development of legal consciousness of elementary school children in the formation of civil identity.

Purpose of the Study

to develop a methodological system for the development of legal consciousness of elementary school children in the educational process, aimed at the formation of civil identity, and to test its effectiveness in the process of the experiment

Research Methods

The theoretical methods include the analysis of sources on the problem of research; the empirical methods are the natural pedagogical experiment and testing; the mathematical method is the processing of the results of the study;

Findings

Legal consciousness is a set of ideas and feelings, views and emotions, assessments and attitudes that express people's understanding of the current and desired law (Kovalev, 2013). This is an obligatory companion of the right. The existence of law is inseparably connected with the will and consciousness of people. The demands of social life cannot be expressed as legal prescriptions until they pass through the will and consciousness of the people. Legal consciousness of school children is made up of such components as: conscious discipline, law-abiding, intolerance of wrongdoing, knowledge of the basic laws of society and the state (Sergeyeva, & Gordienko, 2016), the idea of law, civil rights of citizens and of children in particular. The task of formation of law-abiding behaviour meaning to respect the law and to express the desire to be in accordance with it is especially important in the context of this study. This also refers to the culture of relations between different ethnic groups, the main content of which is as follows: love for the culture of one's nation and respect, tolerance for others. The tasks of forming a culture of interethnic relations of school children include the knowledge of history, culture, and art of their homeland, country; the feeling of love for their people and active participation in the preservation and development of national culture; the knowledge of cultures of other nations of their country and other states, respect for them; finally, the ability to build relationships with other cultures and nations on the principles of mutual respect and tolerance (Kogatko, & Thakakhov, 2010).

The Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation has developed a number of normative documents relating to the formation of legal consciousness: the solutions of the Board of the Ministry of Education "On the strategy of the development of historical and social education in academic institutions", "On the civil law education of students in educational institutions", "The program of development of education until 2020", etc., which note the importance of the problem of formation of civil identity and civil law education in the democratic society of Russia. These and other normative documents are the basis of our study.

The central function relevant to pedagogy is the educational function of law, through which it interacts with the regulatory and protective functions. Having a subjective orientation, the law-educational work is aimed at the development of the person, his or her legal consciousness and legal culture (Levkovskaya, 2007). Therefore, the study identified the main indicators and levels of development of legal consciousness of elementary school students necessary for the full formation of their civil identity: the level of legal knowledge, the level of legal behaviour (legal skills) and the level of development of personal qualities of students.

The study used three diagnostic techniques: the author's questionnaire "The determination of the level of legal knowledge", the methodology Uruntaeva, Yu. A. Afonkina "An unfinished story" to identify the level of legal behaviour of elementary school children and the methods designed by N. P. Kapustina, M. I. Shilova "The study of the level of education of students" to determine the level of development of personal qualities of younger students.

The results of the diagnosis of fourth-graders at the ascertaining stage of the experiment indicate a lack of knowledge of the legislation of Russia, which is reflected in the behavioural practice of elementary school children and their personal qualities. Thus, there was an objective need for purposeful systematic work in the educational an up-bringing process (EUP) to develop legal knowledge, conscious legal behaviour, personal qualities and, as a result, to increase the level of civil identity of younger students. For this purpose, the study has developed a system of development of legal consciousness, the scheme of which is shown in figure 1 .

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The modern school and society of Russia have a sufficient arsenal of means for the development of the legal consciousness of elementary school students. These include a number of traditional school subjects – literary reading, the world around us, the Russian language, mathematics and others, and in Krasnodar Region – the subject of the regional component "Kuban studies".

According to the proposed methodological system, the work on the development of legal consciousness (Eliasberg, 1999) in the formation of civil identity was organized in three directions:

In order to develop the legal consciousness of younger school children in the educational process, the participants of the experiment were first introduced to the legal documents of the legislation of Russia. To do this, the researchers organized a class advisory, where they presented the collections of legal documents of the Russian legislation: The Constitution of the Russian Federation, the Civil code, the Family code, the Administrative code, the Labour code, the Criminal code, the Convention on the rights of the child, the World declaration on the protection of human rights and freedoms, "Law on education", The Law of Krasnodar Region №1539 "On the measures to prevent neglect and juvenile delinquency in the Krasnodar Region." During the exhibition, the content of the presented documents was briefly analysed. In the process of the conversation with the children, much attention was paid to explaining that the codes of laws contain not only rights, but also the obligations, in case of non-compliance with which the violators are subject to the established penalties.

In connection with the age characteristics of the elementary school children and in accordance with the curriculum of the elementary school education "School of Russia", the formation of legal consciousness at the lessons of literary reading (Mikerova, & Uraeva, 2017) was carried out on the examples of fairy tales, as the most accessible and interesting for younger school children literary genre.

When the children worked on the understanding of the piece of literature called "Ivan the Prince and the Gray Wolf", the teacher drew their attention to the fact that in this fairy tale the right to life, liberty and safety of a person (according to Art. 3 "The world declaration on the protection of human rights and freedoms") is violated, besides there were the kidnapping of man, Elena the Beautiful (according to part 1 of article 126 of the Criminal code), and the deliberate murder of Ivan the Prince committed by his brothers (according to article 105 of the criminal code).

Discussing the work by G. Kh. Andersen "Thumbelina", the relationship of the heroes of the fairy tale with the following legal documents were established: "The world declaration on the protection of human rights and freedoms", "The Constitution of the Russian Federation", "The family code", which commented on such rights as the right to life, liberty and safety of person (Thumbelina was prisoned by the mole); the right to free medical care (Thumbelina took care of the swallow); the right to freedom from slavery or servitude (intentional retention of Thumbelina by the field mouse); the right to marry (forced marriage of Thumbelina with the son of the toad).

The formation of legal consciousness at the lessons of Kuban regional studies was built on the theme "Defenders of the Fatherland", which formed not only a sense of duty and responsibility to their Homeland and the people, but also emphasized the duty of citizens to serve in the ranks of the Russian army in terms of the Federal law №53 "On military duty and military service".

In the process of the forming stage of the experiment at the lessons of mathematics the developed methodological system was also implemented with the help of the texts of mathematical tasks with legal content, for the development of logical thinking. These tasks were included in the separate stages of the lessons: oral account, repetition and consolidation of educational material. Here are some examples of such tasks:

There are 137 articles in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and the civil code of the Russian Federation has 1414 extra articles. How many articles are there in the civil code?

The family code has 170 articles, and the convention on the rights of the child has 116 articles less. How many articles does the convention on the rights of the child contain?

Each of these tasks contributed to the consolidation of knowledge about the name of legal documents.

In the village, a vehicle was travelling at a speed of 90 km/h, but the speed limit was 60 km/h. How many km/h did the driver exceed the speed?

After receiving an answer to the question of the task the children took part in a brief conversation about the rules on the road and the administrative responsibility of the driver who violated them.

The modern educational process is a set of lesson and extracurricular activities of students (Gorbenko, 2015). Accordingly, we continued the work aimed at the development of legal consciousness of younger school children in the educational process by organizing the extracurricular activities. In extracurricular activities, children consolidated the knowledge and skills gained in the classroom, they learned to apply them in practice. In extracurricular activities and in extracurricular work with children, the researchers used different forms – the participation of children in self-government events, in a variety of school affairs, in class and in club activities.

The most successful and accessible formation of civil identity in the aspect of justice (Bezgina, 2012) at the forming stage of the experiment developing the personal qualities of children was seen in the classroom events "I am among the friends", "Growing healthy and strong", "The foundations of religious cultures and secular ethics", and it found its expression in the spiritual, moral and social areas of educational work. The main methods of organizing the activities of the participants of the experiment were the following: playing, practical, partial search, the method of acting out and demonstrations, theatrical method. We applied such forms of the organization of educational process as an interest group with the elements of a subject, role-playing game with the elements of theatre, a quest game. Quizzes, crosswords including interactive, illustrations to situations, meetings with representatives of law enforcement and supervisory bodies were used for active inclusion of elementary school children in the process of development of legal consciousness.

Accordingly, in the framework of extracurricular activities in the interest group "I am among the friends", children staged a fairy tale "The Hare's hut", where, through vivid behavioural images of animal characters, we formed not only highly moral human values, such as a sense of justice, honesty, humanity, but also the norms of legal behaviour in society, according to Art. 17 of "The world declaration on the protection of human rights and freedoms" guaranteeing the right to own property alone and together with others.

To test the effectiveness of the developed and implemented methodological system for the development of legal awareness of children in the educational process the research team organized and conducted a control stage of the study. Its purpose was to assess the dynamics of the level of legal consciousness of the children from the experimental class 4"B" and the control class 4"A". For this purpose, according to the above methods, we carried out the re-diagnosis.

According to the author's questionnaire "The determining the level of legal knowledge", but with other incentive material, the level of legal knowledge of fourth-graders was monitored. The results obtained at this stage indicate a positive dynamics of increasing the level of legal knowledge in the experimental class 4 "B". It is presented in the diagram in figure 2 .

This diagram clearly shows that the level of formation of legal knowledge in the experimental class 4 "B" is much higher than in the control class 4 "A". Compared with the results of the ascertaining stage of the experiment, the low level of legal knowledge in the control class 4 "A" decreased slightly – from 14% to 4%, while in the experimental class 4 "B" this figure changed from 11% to 0%. The high level of formation of legal knowledge in the control class 4 "A" increased from 7% to 14%, while in the experimental class 4 "B" the rise was from 4% to 36%. This indicates a positive dynamics of increasing the level of legal knowledge in the experimental class 4 "B".

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According to the method of G. A. Uruntaeva, Yu. A. Afonkina "An unfinished story" at the control stage of the experiment, we diagnosed the level of legal behaviour of children. The dynamics of the level of legal behaviour of children of control class 4 "A" and experimental class 4"B" is presented in the diagram in figure 3 .

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This diagram clearly shows that the level of formation of legal knowledge in the experimental class 4 "B" is much higher than in the control class 4 "A".

In comparison, in the ascertaining stage of the experiment, the low level of legal behaviour in the control class 4 "A" decreased slightly – from 13% to 6 %, while in the experimental class 4 "B" this figure changed from 15% to 0%. The high level of formation of legal knowledge in the control class 4 "A" increased from 4% to 17%, while in the experimental class 4 "B" the rise was from 3% to 36%. These results also prove the positive dynamics of the level of legal behaviour in the experimental class 4 "B".

The dynamics of the level of formation of personal qualities of children from control 4 "A" and experimental 4" B " classes at the control stage of the experiment based on the method of diagnosis of N. P. Kapustina, M. I. Shilova "The study of the level of education of students" can be seen in the diagram shown in figure 4 .

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from the control class 4 "A" and the experimental class 4 "B" at the test phase of the experiment

This diagram indicates that the level of formation of legal knowledge in the experimental class 4 "B" is much higher than in the control class 4 "A".

In comparison, in the ascertaining stage of the experiment, the low level of legal behaviour in the control class 4 "A" decreased slightly – from 11% to 8 %, while in the experimental class 4 "B" this figure changed from 14% to 0%. The high level of formation of legal knowledge in the control class 4 "A" increased from 7% to 18%, while in the experimental class 4 "B" the rise was from 4% to 32%.

Results obtained in this study

Conclusion

The analysis of the existing practice of formation of civil identity in primary school revealed the lack of purposeful systematic work. This is reflected in the low level of school self-government, the lack of thought-out tactics of the formation of civil identity of elementary school children, insufficient use of educational potential of humanitarian subjects, low level of involvement of students in socially active events, the predominance of "knowledge" paradigm of the organization of education, compared with the activity. Modern social and legal environment continuously poses various problems for students and teachers to solve: the need to correlate their actions with the interests of the society and with the governmentally established regulations and rules (Levkovskaya, 2007). Therefore, in the classroom in elementary school and in extracurricular activities, younger students should be introduced to the moral values of humanity and a particular society, and then gradually acquire accepted in society norms and rules of conduct, and through them and legal norms.

The ascertaining stage of the experimental work showed a low level of development of legal consciousness of fourth-graders. Therefore, the study was designed and, at the forming stage of the experiment, a methodical system of the development of legal consciousness of children in the educational process was implemented on the basis of an experimental class 4 "B". This system included the following components: the purpose, the content, the directions, the methods, the means and forms of organization, the expected result.

At the control stage of the study, it was determined that the dynamics of the level of legal consciousness (legal knowledge, legal behaviour, personal qualities – duty and responsibility, discipline, kindness and responsiveness, patriotism, honesty and justice, tolerance, collectivism, sense of partnership) among children in the experimental class 4 "B" on the formation of civil identity in the educational process was higher than in the control class 4 "A". This indicates that the developed and implemented methodological system was effective.

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