Education In The System Of Factors Influencing Youth Value Orientations

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of a number of topical problems determined by the peculiarities of the current stage of the civilization development of society, as well as the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, sharply built on the relevance of the corresponding paradigm of the education system in the conditions of the new digital world and the need to overcome difficulties in the use of new information and communication technologies. They destroy traditional cultural systems of ethnocultural identity codes that preserve the defining features of national cultures and mechanisms of socio-cultural continuity. The authors of the article also substantiate the thesis that the communication processes of the end of the XX century of the first quarter of the XXI centuries are undergoing significant changes under the influence of information and communication technologies of the new digital world. They argue that these technologies destroy the stable, centuries-old systems of cultural codes of ethnocultural identity, due to which the defining signs of national cultures have been preserved in the course of the long historical and cultural development of peoples. The authors of the paper prove that in conditions of adaptation of young generations to the processes of constructing a new cultural and communicative space of the modern digital world, mankind has faced the need to develop a new paradigm of social development and overcome difficulties in using the traditional mechanisms of sociocultural continuity in the modern conditions of the civilizational development of contemporary societies.

Keywords: education, youth, value orientations, information and communication technologies, cultural codes, sociocultural continuity

Introduction

The communication processes of the end of the XX century of the first quarter of the XXI centuries are undergoing significant changes under the influence of information and communication technologies of the new digital world. These technologies destroy the stable, centuries-old systems of cultural codes of ethno-cultural identity, due to which the defining signs of national cultures were preserved during the historical and cultural development of peoples. In conditions of adaptation of young generations to the processes of constructing a new cultural and communicative space of the modern digital world, mankind has faced the need to develop a new paradigm of social development and overcome difficulties in using the traditional mechanisms of sociocultural continuity in modern conditions of civilizational development of society.

In the problem field of the emerging new communicative space, signs of the negative consequences of the marginalization of culture and institutional anomie are clearly manifested. At the same time, there is an increasing desire to search for the possibilities of preserving the criteria of national and cultural identity in conditions of modern extended objective-virtual reality (Makeev, 2017), as evidenced by the revival of national cultural traditions and the awakening of interest in the problem of preserving historical memory (Savrutskaya and Ustinkin, 2019). The processes of globalization, the peculiarities of the cyberspace of modern civilization, the variety of new information and communication technologies and other phenomena have created a new world of virtualized images, metalanguages of the culture of the new digital world, put forward new risks and threats before mankind. For their understanding and overcoming people have not yet gained enough experience by virtue of too significant acceleration of the processes of social development (The Order of the President of the Russian Federation, 2016). Moreover, new information and communication technologies minimized or completely nullified the influence of ethnocultural codes, which over the centuries consolidated the historical experience of preserving cultural and civic identities and sociocultural continuity. Throughout the diversity of centuries of accumulated cultural codes that ensure the processes of socialization and spiritual and moral continuity, only the language and education system remain monoliths of human culture and social life, which have not experienced the deep transformation caused by modern civilization changes.

In the nature of the problem of the formation of the values of young generations, there is one more aspect of a communicative nature that significantly complicates the processes of socialization of young generations and the resolution of many difficulties that complicate the processes of social as well as spiritual continuity and the preservation of ethnocultural identity. For the first time in the history of mankind, a situation has arisen when young generations entering independent life have to choose the value orientations of their life paths and lines of behavior mainly without relying on the social experience of previous generations. New value orientations and communicative practices, as well as technologies for their implementation in the civilized conditions of the new digital world, have required centuries to replace the surviving socio-cultural mechanisms of regulation and transmission of the social experience of generations. In the cultural and communicative sphere of modern social reality, the previous social mechanisms were more or less destroyed under the onslaught of modern information and communication technologies. For example, this type of virtual communication, such as social networks, subjugated the main forms of information and communication interaction, especially significantly changing the scope of interpersonal communication. Under these conditions, the main "guardians" of a person, the world of his true culture, spiritual values that make him a person are education systems and language. The unpreparedness of a person for the full development of a new world order increases the burden on educational institutions that integrate education, science and upbringing into a single scientific and educational complex. Considering education as a symbolic capital of “recognized power”, P. Bourdieu believes that the condition for creating a “national society” is education. In the well-known work Sociology of Social Space, P. Bourdieu, in particular, notes that culture, as a fundamental element in building a nation-state, experiences its unifying impact through school (Bourdieu, 1994).

What is the system-forming role of education in the formation of value orientations of youth? It is most clearly manifested at the present time, i.e. during the transition to a new digital world, due to the fact that digitalization processes, the language of numbers “hide” from direct observation the real processes of man-made conventional symbolic sign systems.

Education creates models for the development of human environment, the characteristics of the entry of subjects of the historical process into the new digital world. The deeper a person is immersed in this process, the more knowledge is required for this, the more effective is the socialization of younger generations. And this process takes place not only due to the variety of knowledge and activities provided by educational institutions, but also due to the use of communicative opportunities to include students in the educational process. In addition, the variety of connections of the education system with other social institutions expand the possibilities of expanding the scientific, sociocultural, organizational and other ties of the growing person with the outside world.

Educational institutions are guided by specific social groups, taking into account the peculiarities of the historically developed cultural and communicative environment, which determines and preserves the characteristics of national traditions and the mentality of ethnic groups. In other words, education forms the boundaries of the matrix of cultural values and attitudes of mass consciousness of the younger generations stored in the system of ethnocultural codes, i.e. in iconic systems, in the diversity of the subject-material environment of the sacred and artistic plan, in traditions, customs, rituals, holidays, games, etc. The practical orientation and the humanistic nature of education contribute to the integration of educational institutions in the system of social processes, new knowledge and technological achievements, which determines the prospects for innovative transformations and the construction of cultural and communicative reality. In this regard, in the development of a new educational paradigm, the role of universities as centers of science and culture is significantly increasing.

The conceptualization of the features of the modern stage in the development of education is built in accordance with the need to master modern knowledge and technologies of the new digital world while maintaining domestic historical and cultural traditions in the system of upbringing and education of youth. But it is necessary to keep in mind that new civilization processes are developing so fast that it is becoming increasingly difficult to track and streamline the patterns of their influence on a person, on his value orientations and behavior motivation, on sociocultural processes as a whole.

Given the fact that modern man has appeared to be unprepared for a new world order, the responsibility for shaping the spiritual, moral and physical health of younger generations rests primarily with educational institutions (Rakitov et al., 2009). In conditions of a sharp change in communication processes that are affected by the increasing virtualization of social reality, the phenomena of anomie and marginalization of culture, the strategy and trajectory of the development of education are changing. In the context of a sudden situation with a coronavirus pandemic, whose increasing influence on global processes of social development effect depends on the global economic crisis and natural climatic disasters, the educational system received a very tangible impulse to search for a new form of educational activity. Experiencing the influence of the so-called new reality, education, in turn, is forced to look for new ways and means to preserve its functional purpose of influencing both sociocultural reality and directly on a person, his communicative connections and behavior motivation.

It is obvious that modern global migration processes, new information and communication technologies, the phenomena of mass culture, especially interpersonal and mass communications, as well as a set of factors of the new reality create completely new conditions for the social environment in which educational processes are carried out and the young people are naturally socialized. In this regard, a lot of questions arise related to the need to obtain specific knowledge about what spiritual potential is laid down and preserved or is being transformed in new generations, how to protect the traditional historical and cultural roots of the Russian superethnos from destruction, without losing all that is new with the rapid development of new civilizational relations, global migration processes, the prevailing international situation and the new reality. Obviously, in the new conditions of civilizational development of society, the role of educational institutions in their interaction with political institutions and the family in the context under consideration is not just increasing. It is increasingly embedded in the system of the most effective means of communication between society and the individual, power and society, society and a specific person. The COVID-19 epidemic, which completely turned countries away from the principles of the globalization of the world, limited the communicative space of states to their legalized borders. In other words, the life of peoples and their communicative space was determined by the strict framework of the border conditions prevailing in the pre-globalization era, and indicated the need to build a model of the coming era of post-globalism. And here a crisis problem arose for the education system - can it, i.e. education, with all its conservatism, appear along with the institutions of power in one system of relations and instrumental actions, ensure the full survival of mankind in an epidemic and world economic crisis. These difficulties and contradictions are exacerbated by the aggravation of international relations, the global economic crisis, and the pandemic of coronavirus pneumonia. An important moment today in the context of the problem under consideration and how to solve it is the fact that educational activities are related to the intellectual and professional preparation of the younger generations, their education and preparedness to take responsibility for solving the entire amount of strategically important development tasks of their country. For this reason, the problem of the possibility of the survival of mankind in a new reality, the formation of which occurs in a pandemic and global crisis, involves not only the aspect of the physical conservation of the species homo sapiens. It is about preserving the whole range of achievements of material and spiritual culture, organizing a way of life, the need to build communication processes on the principles of humanism and moral responsibility. Defining the conditions for the development of modern civilization, the representative of the Frankfurt School of Philosophy K. Apel noted the deep contradiction, the imbalance between the growing trends of freedom provided by the achievements of science and technology, on the one hand, and, on the other, the need for normative regulation of human behavior. This makes it possible to achieve mutual understanding and consensus between people (Apel, 2001). In this regard, K. Apel’s idea that in the context of new conditions of the modern communicative community and the search for opportunities to maintain stable forms of internal regulation of human behavior, is methodologically important morality. Scientific and technological civilization "forces all nations, races and cultures ... in the face of a common ethical issue ... to take joint responsibility for the consequences of their actions on a planetary scale" (Apel, 2001, p. 264).

On the spiritual and moral state of the mass youth consciousness, which is the result of a contradiction generated, on the one hand, by the need for the existence of moral and legal regulation in society, and, consequently, responsibility for violating norms of behavior expressed not only in actions. However, it also happens in speech circulation, texts, utterances, appeals, etc. And, on the other, this can be done by expanding the capabilities of network communications to create in the virtual space at their discretion any messages, any images (simulacra), not them guides actually real content, Toffler notes with concern. Continuing after E. Durkheim, the consideration of the detrimental effect of the new civilizational relations of the “third wave” society on a person, on the growth of the anomic situation in new versions of its manifestations, O. Toffler speaks of the growing internal conflict of personality, generated by the gap between images, mental models of reality and the “what is really” (Toffler, 2001, p. 103). And, on the other hand, the transformation of the communicative sphere is in connection with the absolute priorities of new forms of sociocultural organization of society and the short-term interpersonal communication. The tendency of crowding out stable forms of interpersonal relations with short-term, modular relationships has also been consolidated in speech turnovers, such as “modular person”, “friends from Monday to Friday,” etc. The logical conclusion of the direction in which modern society is developing, E. Toffler believes, “there should be a society based on a system of temporary meetings and ... a new morality ...” (Toffler, 2001, p. 141).

In this regard, the question arises of the degree of readiness of educational institutions to optimize educational activities and to build more effective communication in collaboration with students. Of particular importance is the concretization of the choice of methods and means of solving the teacher-student problem, taking into account the real context of all the components of the modern sociocultural environment, international and economic processes.

To a no lesser extent, it is necessary to know the features of human material with which to build communication in the context of new information and communication technologies, new forms of development of globalization processes, a pandemic and a global crisis. In other words, there is a problem of self-discipline and intellectual and moral readiness of youth to adapt to any conditions of ups or downs associated with social and economic processes or natural disasters. For this reason, regular monitoring of the value orientations of students studying creates a real picture of the dynamics of the transformation of public sentiments, political and sociocultural priorities of youth mass consciousness. In addition, a comparative analysis of changes in the value consciousness of this age group of the population helps to determine the hierarchy of factors of influence on the formation of the value orientations of youth, determines the real orientation of its interests, the level of its political and social activity.

At one time, the German philosopher and sociologist, one of the founders of the sociology of knowledge, known for his work on the theory of ideology and the dynamics of culture, as well as the place and role of youth in public life, K. Manheim noted that youth is one of the hidden resources of society, “the mobilization of which determines its viability” (Manheim, 1994, p. 443). However, at different stages of human history, in different conditions of the formation and development of a particular society, due to the characteristics of national cultures and historical and cultural traditions, significant differences are noted in building relations between generations. In the context of various social transformations, the content and forms of cultural codes of sociocultural continuity and the peculiarities of the relationship between culture, education systems and intergenerational relations are largely determined by the communication processes taking place between different age groups of the population. The latter must be considered in a broader sense than the problem of “fathers and children”. The fact is that at different stages of social development, different generations are carriers of either one culture, one cultural code, one picture of the world as was typical for traditional societies. Or these generations are carriers of different values, often of different cultures, different cultural codes and pictures of the world, including linguistic ones, which is specific for the modern stage of social development, characterized as a post-industrial civilization. Well-known American anthropologist and ethnographer Margaret Mead drew attention to the fact that, with a different ratio of cultural traditions and innovations, the interaction between generations of people living in society develops differently, which, in her estimation, led to differences in culture of three types: post-figurative, configurative and pre-figurative (Mead, 1998).

Problem Statement

In modern conditions, under the influence of globalization processes, features and capabilities of information and communication technologies, virtualization of human life space, education cannot be the conservative force as it was characterized before. In modern conditions, education should be innovative, predicting the development of real processes, not just adapting to them, but to some extent ahead of them in order to be prepared for those changes that will inevitably entail the further development of science and technology. In addition, as the latest global trends in social development have shown, the innovative aspect in developing new approaches to managing and organizing educational activities in the conditions of the coming era of post-globalism has turned out to be face to face with the Covid-19 pandemic that has hit humanity and the global economic crisis.

Research Questions

The subject of the research is the communicative aspect of education in the system of youth value orientations factors.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the article is to show that in conditions of adaptation of young generations to the processes of constructing a new cultural and communicative space of the modern digital world, mankind has faced the need to develop a new paradigm of social development and overcome difficulties in using the traditional mechanisms of sociocultural continuity in the modern conditions of the civilizational development of contemporary societies.

Research Methods

To achieve this goal, we used the following theoretical research methods: theoretical analysis, abstraction, idealization, the axiomatic method, deduction and induction, the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete.

Findings

The given research has demonstrated that the communication processes of the end of the XX century of the first quarter of the XXI centuries are undergoing significant changes under the influence of information and communication technologies of the new digital world. Technologies destroy the stable, centuries-old systems of cultural codes of ethnocultural identity, due to which the defining signs of national cultures have been preserved in the course of the long historical and cultural development of peoples. In conditions of adaptation of young generations to the processes of constructing a new cultural and communicative space of the modern digital world, mankind has faced the need to develop a new paradigm of social development and overcome difficulties in using the traditional mechanisms of sociocultural continuity in the modern conditions of the civilizational development of contemporary societies.

Conclusion

Until recently, it has been believed that the education system is the most conservative part of the socio-cultural life of society. And this stability and traditionality were the strength of the ability to ensure social and cultural continuity, stabilize communication processes, preserve and transmit social experience among generations. In modern conditions, under the influence of globalization processes, features and capabilities of information and communication technologies, virtualization of human life space, education cannot be the conservative force that characterized it before. In modern conditions, education should be innovative, predicting the development of real processes, not just adapting to them, but to some extent ahead of them in order to be prepared for those changes that will inevitably entail the further development of science and technology. In addition, as the latest global trends in social development have shown, the innovative aspect in developing new approaches to managing and organizing educational activities in the conditions of the coming era of post-globalism has turned out to be face to face with the Covid-19 pandemic that has hit humanity and the global economic crisis.

Obviously, the implementation of the innovative model of education management requires the development of new methodological approaches to the study and provision of innovative activities in the field of education. In addition, the new education management involves the creation of a system of regular monitoring and systematic analysis of the quality of educational activities, the professional competence of teachers and decision-makers in the new reality.

References

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• Manheim, K. (1994). The diagnosis of our time. Lawyer.

• Mead, M. (1998). Culture and the world of childhood. Lawyer.

• Rakitov, A. I., Granovsky, Yu. V., Yarilin, A. A., & Zhuravlev, V. N. (2009). Science and Education: Intellectual Resources of Russia in the Age of Global Transformations. Science.

• Savrutskaya, E. P., & Ustinkin, S. V. (2019). Historical memory as a factor of national security. Nationwide scientific and political journal The Authority, 6, 225–231.

• The Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation, section II, art. 16. (2016). The Order of the President of the Russian Federation on 1 December 2016, no. 642. http://online.mai.ru/StrategySTD%20RF.pdf

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