Spaces Of Social Relations And Risks In The Childrens Personal Development

Abstract

The article deals with a differentiated cultural and historical analysis of the development of a child in terms of the stratification of modern Russian society. On the basis of empirical data, an objective socio-cultural situation of the development of children in Moscow is compared. The children from 5.5 to7 years old from the middle-upper and middle-lower social strata are taken. In this work, we move from the analysis of a wider cultural and historical situation of the development of a modern child to a narrower socio-cultural environment then we proceed to a specific family and description of individual cases. The second level of analysis is the inner plan for the development of a child, especially his self-awareness. Based on the nature of the parental attitude, characteristics of education, specifics of complaints, observation data and projective products, a typology of risk-taking options for the development of the personality of children from various socio-cultural groups was created. In each of the groups, the specificity of emotional-personal developmental variants was highlighted; the subtypes with the highest risk of deviations were identified. The results make it possible to structure and classify different variants of the deviating development of modern children from the groups studied, to trace mechanisms of deviation formation at different levels, from a particular family to a wider social reality.

Keywords: Psychological health of the child; social situation of developmentpreschool educationemotional and personal developmentof the childchildren in various sociо-cultural groups

Introduction

Modern developmental psychology emphasizes the need to take into account the historicity of childhood, culturally and socially determined traditions of upbringing and the whole social order of life (Elkonin, 1989; Cohn, 2003), taking into account the functioning of various social contexts of development, “development niches”, eco-cultural formations (Karabanova, 2007). In the field of special attention, research of development and its deviating options appear in the context of transformations of the current socio-cultural situation in Russia (Karabanova, 2010; Smirnova, 2015; Martsinkovskaya, 2015).

In recent years, having overcome the systemic crisis of the 1990s, Russia is entering a period of relative economic and social stability. At the same time, there is a certain increase in the stratification of modern society and a problem of consolidating public views connected with it (Gorshkov & Tikhonova, 2013). Now there are about 10 social strata existing in the society. Each of them has its own stable separate interests, level and quality of life. About 41% are representatives of relatively prosperous segments of the population, strata from 5th to 8th represent the middle level, representatives of the 9th and 10th, by the standards upper middle class (6-8%) (Gorshkov, 2009) of public opinion, can be called rich, although objectively they belong to the high middle class.

Qualitative changes in the cultural and historical perspective, as a phenomenon of childhood itself, are taking place now (Mayorova-Shcheglova et al., 2017; Feldshtein, 2012). So, is the attitude to it in a modern stratified society: the nature of the values of parents, the vision of the future and “the project of your child” (Burlakova & Davidovich, 2017, 2018).

Each of the socio-cultural groups has its own system of values, peculiarities of socialization and emotional-personal formation of the child. The differences can be revealed not only at the level of their external manifestations, but also in the mechanisms themselves (Burlakova & Oleshkevich, 2018). The study was based on the methodology of high-quality cultural and historical research, continuing the development of the ideas of Vygotsky (1980), taking into account the realities of modern life in the framework of cultural-historical clinical psychology (Burlakova & Oleshkevich, 2012; Burlakova & Bykova, 2015; Burlakova, 2016).

Problem Statement

The issue of work sends us to such disciplines as sociology, cultural studies, psychohistory, in the context of which an analysis of the socio-cultural phenomenon of childhood takes place, which makes it possible to speak of the dynamics and peculiarities of its transformations today in modern Russia. This cultural-historical study was carried out at the intersection of developmental, clinical, and pedagogical psychology, as well as family psychology.

Research Questions

The research issues include:

• What are the objective characteristics of socio-cultural groups and social formations of a modern stratified society, to which the families under study, from the middle-upper and middle-lower social stratum, belong;

• What are the features of the studied families: a description of the resources available (material, social, parents' self-determination) living conditions, leading values, parental expectations and “child in the future” projects, as well as their reflection in the child’s upbringing;

• What are the psychological and pedagogical technologies that are used to organize the development of a child in preschool institutions in the groups under study (Private Children's Centre; Centre of Social Assistance to Families and Children.);

• What are the features of the development of children from the groups under study with an emphasis on normative and risky positions: specific interests, the nature and quality of the relationship of a child and an adult and other children; the reflection of the studied characteristics at the level of the child’s self-awareness.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the research paper is to carry out a comparative cultural-historical analysis of the development of children from families of the middle-upper and middle-lower social stratum with the compilation of a typology of different variants of emotional and personal development of children

Research Methods

In this work, we move from the analysis of a wider cultural and historical situation of the development of a modern child to a narrower socio-cultural environment then we proceed to a specific family and description of individual cases. The second level of analysis is the inner plan for the development of a child, especially his self-awareness. Then, on the basis of the data obtained at different levels, we have compiled a typology of different variants of the emotional and personal development of modern children from various socio-cultural groups.

Findings

On the basis of the data obtained, a comparative cultural-historical analysis of the emotional-personal characteristics of the children in the groups studied was carried out, followed by the identification of deviating types of development.

Conclusion

The cultural-historical research makes it possible to specifically and concretely see the normative in the development and areas of possible risk of the сhild's personality development in the conditions of different socio-cultural groups of the Megapolis. We see that each group has its own cultural and normative “matrix” (Burlakova & Oleshkevich, 2018), which creates the basis for the child’s identification, formation of his self-awareness and is manifested at the behavioral level. This allows us to see the very mechanisms of the formation of the deviating development of the modern child. Such an understanding of pathology is of great practical and clinical importance; this type of research is directly linked to the practice of early prevention of deviating developmental options and their social and psychological correction.

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