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Pedagogy and education
Reference:

Pedagogical support of the development of civic maturity of students

Ryazanov Stanislav Sergeevich

ORCID: 0000-0002-4588-6111

Postgraduate student of the Department of Pedagogy and Acmeology of Personality, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Kostroma State University (KSU)

156012, Russia, Kostromskaya oblast', g. Kostroma, ul. Pos. Novyi, 1

mirstud@mail.ru

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0676.2022.2.38061

Received:

10-05-2022


Published:

17-05-2022


Abstract: The research is aimed at resolving the contradiction between the requirements outlined in the program documents for university graduates, characterizing their readiness for active manifestation of patriotism and the qualities of a civilly mature personality, and the lack of elaboration of pedagogical support for the formation of civic maturity of students. The purpose of the study is to identify effective means of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students. The theoretical analysis is based on the integration of the provisions of two methodological approaches: personality-oriented and activity-oriented. As a result of the theoretical analysis, it is concluded that civic maturity is based on a scientific worldview, ideological conviction in the importance of realizing one's civil rights and duties, in their embodiment in concrete deeds. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the theoretical substantiation and empirical confirmation of the components of civic maturity: civic consciousness, civic feelings, civic activity and civic behavior. In the course of the study, significant positive correlations of all components of civic maturity among themselves and significant negative correlations of these components with the level of dysfunctional attitudes of the individual were established. The role of subjectivity of students as a key attribute of civic maturity is stated. As a methodological result, the article substantiates the levels and directions of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students in the conditions of a university, its directions and targets are highlighted.


Keywords:

civic learning, civic education, civic maturity, civic consciousness, civic feelings, civic engagement, civil behavior, young people, higher education, pedagogical support

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Introduction.

Today, the civil competence of an individual is regulated as an educational result in the Federal State Educational Standard, in the section "portrait of a school graduate": "... loving his land and his Homeland, respecting his people, their culture and spiritual traditions; aware and accepting the traditional values of the family, Russian civil society, multinational Russian people, humanity, aware of his involvement the fate of the Fatherland" [8, p. 17]. There are no direct indications in the standards of higher education on the formation of a graduate's civic maturity, with the exception of the recently introduced universal competence standard CC-11 "is able to form an intolerant attitude to corrupt behavior." At the same time, universities continue the development of civic maturity, which began in high school. Here, education is a purposeful preparation, during which young people are taught to contact their surroundings with understanding and dignity, as well as to adapt to existing conditions. Therefore, citizenship continues to develop while studying at the university, moving to a new qualitative level of civic maturity.

The model of modern higher education should meet the goals of advanced innovative development of the economy and social sphere, ensure the growth of the country's well-being and contribute to the formation of human potential. Today, the image of a university graduate becomes a reference point for designing processes and conditions for obtaining educational results, the main tool for the development of the educational environment and the teaching staff. A graduate of a university should have the readiness and ability to think strategically, find non-standard solutions, show readiness for changes following the modernization of the professional environment, i.e. the graduate should be competitive. These general competencies will determine the social and civilizational significance of higher education.

The study of the formation of civil maturity of students as a whole is an actual direction of modern pedagogical research. At the same time, along with a broad consideration in pedagogical science of the issues of the formation and development of civic identity of the individual, ideas and technologies of civic education and upbringing, there is insufficient elaboration of the theoretical and methodological foundations of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students. In addition, the introduction into the practice of higher education of research results and recommendations for the creation of pedagogical conditions that contribute to the effectiveness of this process is not systematic.

This article attempts to answer the research question: what are the effective means of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students?

Theoretical and methodological foundations of the study.

Our research is based on the methodology of two approaches: personality-oriented and activity-oriented. The personality-oriented approach determined by the provision that the subject in his personal development is created and determined by the educational environment, this approach allowed us to determine the main vectors of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students. The activity-based approach defines the leading role of specially organized multidimensional pedagogical activity in the development of civic maturity of a young person, this approach has allowed to identify and justify the directions of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students.

The theoretical basis of our research was an approach developed by a scientific group led by O.A. Koryakovtseva, which determines the content of civic maturity of modern youth based on the tasks of ensuring subjective acceptability corresponding to the time [4, p. 28]. At the same time, the observance of the parity unity of the individual and collective is postulated, which, of course, is especially significant for Russia with its strong collectivist traditions and today's individualistic aspirations.

The concept of civic maturity is fundamental in characterizing the result of socialization of an individual. Based on the ideas of I.Y. Tarkhanova [7, p. 124], we consider education as one of the leading means of socialization. Therefore, we put forward the postulate about the formation of civic maturity as a socially significant educational result.

Stating the ambiguous understanding of the essence of citizenship, we have identified common components found in almost all interpretations of citizenship: public duty, activity, ideological conviction, patriotism and internationalism, responsibility, social innovation, unity of rights and duties. The closest to the ideas and methodological guidelines of our research is the definition given by B.J. Shungalov "citizenship is a set of civic qualities that allows you to determine the civic position of schoolchildren and their readiness to drive in a social society" [11, p. 118].

In our research, we add a maturity component to the well–established concept of "citizenship", which corresponds to the social order for the higher education system and the age specifics of our target group - students. The concept of maturity in psychology and pedagogy is resorted to when describing the processes of growing up and social formation of a person. Thus, when describing adolescence, D. I. Feldstein speaks about the formation of ideological maturity [9, p. 132], A. P. Chernyavskaya in her works writes about professional maturity, the formation of which also begins in adolescence [10, p. 167].

O.A. Koryakovtseva and her co-authors argue that functionally civic maturity is the most important constitutive element of civic community [4, p. 42]. And it's hard not to agree with this. Indeed, a person's civic maturity lies in his awareness of his relations with people from the standpoint of society's requirements for a citizen, in assessing himself by what is given to people, to the state. Civic maturity, in our opinion, is primarily self-identification based on a person's awareness of their civil rights and obligations, in their active implementation in specific deeds and deeds.

In our research, we adhere to the understanding that civic maturity is based on a scientific worldview, ideological conviction in the importance of realizing one's civil rights and duties, in their embodiment in concrete deeds and deeds. That is why an important place in the formation of civic maturity belongs to the education system. We agree with T.V. Bugaichuk and I.Y. Tarkhanova that "it is important to contribute to solving the problem of the development of civic maturity of youth, to identify effective technologies for the development of civic maturity in the educational space, to improve the professional competence of teachers in the field of the development of civic maturity" [2, p. 235.].

Based on the theoretical analysis, we have developed the components of civic maturity:

- Cognitive, the indicator of which is the student's civic consciousness. Indicators of civic consciousness are: knowledge of the rights and duties of a citizen of the Russian Federation, the ability to overcome individualistic aspirations, regulate their needs in accordance with the social situation and the possibilities of the educational environment, possession of skills of critical analysis of information based on general civic values.

- Emotional, the indicator of which is the presence of civic feelings in the student. Indicators of civic feelings are: the manifestation in statements of indifference to the fate of one's Homeland; interest in discussing events taking place in the country and abroad; appeal in discussions to civic values and the ability to defend them; interest in participating in educational events of a civil and patriotic orientation, a reasonable combination of personal and public interests.

- Need-motivational, the indicator of which is civic activity. The indicator of civic engagement is the student's real participation in socially significant affairs and events, volunteering, civic initiatives, actions aimed at improving the social environment and solving problems of the state and society.

- Activity, the indicator of which is civil behavior. Indicators of civic behavior: the manifestation of intolerance to evil and immorality; subjectivity in choosing solutions and ways to achieve goals in the presence of responsibility for this choice; the presence of beliefs that do not contradict public interests and act in accordance with these beliefs; active participation in socio-political activities, propaganda of knowledge of civil norms among comrades.

The results of an empirical study.

In order to validate these components on their basis, an expert assessment of the manifestations of civic maturity of students of Kostroma State University was organized in 2021. 248 students of 1-2 courses were included in the study, teachers of humanities and social disciplines (history, sociology, political science), curators of student groups, deputy dean for Educational Work acted as experts. There are 12 experts in total. Each expert assessed the levels of civic maturity of each student on a scale: high (16-20 points); medium (11-15 points); low (6-10 points); critically low (0-5 points). The same subjects were diagnosed with dysfunctional attitudes (a tendency to interpret events in terms of personal values, a tendency to think in extremes, global assessments in the form of selective abstraction) that reduce subjectivity in assessing the situation. This diagnosis was carried out with the help of a scale of dysfunctional relationships (A. Beck, A. Weisman).

To determine the relationship between the manifestations of civic maturity and the level of dysfunctional attitudes, we conducted a statistical analysis using the Spearman criterion (Table 1).

Table 1. Results of correlation analysis

 

Dysfunctional installations

Civic consciousness

Civic feelings

Civic engagement

Civil behavior

 

Dysfunctional installations

 

1,000

-,843***

-,714***

-,781***

-,752***

 

.

,000

,000

,000

,000

Civic consciousness

 

-,843***

1,000

,793***

,904***

,903***

 

,000

.

,000

,000

,000

Civic feelings

 

-,714***

,793***

1,000

,813***

,770***

 

,000

,000

.

,000

,000

Civic engagement

 

-,781***

,904***

,813***

1,000

,855***

 

,000

,000

,000

.

,000

Civil behavior

 

-,752***

,903***

,770***

,855***

1,000

 

,000

,000

,000

,000

.

***. The correlation is significant at 0.001 (two-way).

 

Table 1 shows that all the parameters of civic maturity have a significant relationship with the level of dysfunctional attitudes:

- all components of civic maturity (civic consciousness, civic feelings, civic activity, civic behavior) have significant positive correlations with each other, which means that our conclusions about the structure of civic maturity are correct, the selected indicators can be used for expert evaluation.

- A high level of parameters of civic maturity (civic consciousness, civic feelings, civic activity, civic behavior) has significant negative correlations with the level of dysfunctional attitudes. This means that problems with awareness and perception of reality based on erroneous assumptions and assumptions of intermediate ideations between events and reactions hinder the formation of civic maturity. And on the contrary, the formation of civic maturity contributes to the correction of dysfunctional attitudes.

The conducted research revealed that the civic maturity of students is far from a high level (experts noted this level only in 22% of the subjects), therefore, it was concluded that for effective civic education, in addition to the existing formats of educational work at the university, it is also necessary to organize pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students.

Methodological results of the study.

Traditionally, pedagogical accompaniment is understood as a process containing a set of purposeful sequential pedagogical actions that ensure the involvement of a child in an event that is significant to him and stimulate his self-development based on reflection of what is happening. N.F. Radionova, A. P. Tryapitsyna consider accompaniment as the interaction of the accompanying and the accompanied, aimed at solving the life problems of the accompanied [5, p. 8] E.A. Alexandrova writes about the accompaniment of "pedagogical activity aimed at creating conditions for the personal development and self-realization of pupils, the development of their independence and confidence in various situations of life choices" [1, p. 13]. Despite all the variety of definitions of the concept of "support", it can be stated that it presupposes continuous (pre-planned) professional activity of a teacher aimed at creating conditions for students to independently solve their life tasks.

The conceptual basis of our definition of the process of pedagogical support is the idea of a humanistic educational process. Currently, this idea lays down the primary dominant of freedom, democracy, respect for the rights and freedoms of the individual, critical thinking, human self-determination and tolerance, and also involves the creation of conditions affecting the self-development of a person ready for professional development. At the same time, these dominants remain non-dominant for higher education. It is the integration of technologies of civic education and upbringing into the educational process of the university, in our opinion, will contribute to an increase in the humanistic component of the educational process. These types of education initially carry the principle of humanism, which involves the process of modeling the process or phenomenon under study, taking into account the right of the individual to the possibility of choice, realization and development of individuality, respect, care, participation in the process of development of society, the presence of oneself in the social space for the purpose of self-realization, the implementation of technologies for the development of students, the formation of attitudes towards any person as the highest value, the development of readiness for effective interaction.

Analyzing the considered ideas of pedagogical support for the formation of civic maturity of students, it can be concluded that the phenomenon under study should be provided with environmental and technological conditions for the formation of civic maturity of students at the university. Pedagogical support should involve the integration of two processes - education and upbringing, in our case civil.

For our research, it is fundamentally important to understand that support is a special type of pedagogical interaction aimed at creating favorable conditions for the development of all its subjects, which means that the educational result of support will contribute to the development of both the student and the teacher, and the educational environment of the university as a whole. Also, when choosing pedagogical support as a technology for the formation of civic maturity of student youth, it is important to understand that support is a multifunctional technology that ensures the creation of conditions under which the subject will be able to make an informed and responsible decision in various situations of life choice, such an interpretation fully corresponds to the very essence of civic maturity, defined by us above.

We define the purpose of pedagogical support for the formation of civic maturity of university students to create conditions for the development of the civic identity of the studying youth, their civic qualities and the acquisition of experience of responsible civic behavior in the educational environment, assistance in the acquisition of a person's position as a subject in the system of social relations of an educational organization.

Let us note the main levels and trends of the use of pedagogical support technology in higher education. The strategic level of pedagogical support is the support provided by the university administration (the rector's office, the vice-rector for educational work, specialists of departments implementing the functions of organizational support for education and youth policy). Here, common goals are defined, strategic objectives are set, and the main directions of the university-wide system of pedagogical support are considered. The tactical level of pedagogical support involves the joint activity of deans, departments, mentors of student groups from among teachers. At this level, the general goals and objectives of pedagogical support are specified, technologies and educational programs are being developed. The educational and subject level of support is represented by the elders of the study groups, representatives of the student government, and the students themselves. At this level, the organization of educational events, holding events, educating interpersonal communication are carried out.

The main element in the process of pedagogical support in the formation of civic maturity of student youth is the student himself with his individual typological characteristics of health, the level of formation of qualities, properties and educational actions, the level of development of civic qualities, social skills, as well as the presence and quality of social experience. Thus, in professional pedagogical activity, the teacher is called upon not to completely exclude the listed indicators, and to understand that any student should develop and improve himself in accordance with and taking into account natural, psycho-emotional and individual capabilities. The target setting of the organization of pedagogical support is the choice, implementation, meaningful and methodical filling of the content of the educational process with those professional actions that do not oppose this principle.

In our opinion, there are three main directions in which pedagogical support of the declared type of support is carried out. Let's look at them in more detail.

The first direction includes a problem-oriented analysis of educational and educational processes involving a number of actions aimed at the formation of traditions of civic education and upbringing and the development of the event side of these processes, which will lead to the formation of an active civic position of students.

The second direction is a system of training of teaching staff, which is based on the work on the development and practical implementation of technologies of civic education and upbringing in the educational process. The presented direction is implemented in several organizational forms, such as methodological seminars, scientific and research groups, project activities, master classes and trainings.

The third direction is to increase the subjectivity of the students themselves, support the practices of civic participation and involvement of students in various formats of civic activity. Following T.N. Gushchina, we postulate the universality of pedagogical support technologies in the aspect of the development of subjectivity of students [3, p. 127], and we consider subjectivity itself an indispensable attribute of maturity, including civil.

Conclusions.

Thus, a broad study of the process of pedagogical support allows us to draw a number of conclusions that are fundamental for the development of civic maturity of students:

? the very phenomenon of accompaniment represents a certain transformation of the educational process;

? pedagogical support is characterized by versatility, which includes resources, potentials, purpose, material component, degree of expression; dynamics and multilevel.

? pedagogical support can be considered within the framework of managing the development of students' subjectivity, as a key attribute of maturity that ensures civic behavior and civic activity of the student.

 

References
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First Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The article raises the question of the need for the formation of students' civic competence in the process of vocational training. Until recently, no attention has been paid to this issue, although the ideological aspects of vocational training are partially (purposefully or spontaneously) implemented during the formation of a professional orientation of a personality. The subject of the research is the means of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students. The problems of the article are relevant in the modern social situation, when traditional values and norms of public life are subjected to information attacks. The methodological basis of the research is a personality-oriented and activity-based approach. The author applies both general theoretical methods (analysis, systematization, classification, generalization) and practical methods (expert survey, included observation, analysis of pedagogical experience), methods of mathematical statistics are used in the processing of empirical research data. The scientific novelty of the work is as follows: - the purpose, environmental and technological conditions of pedagogical support for the formation of civic maturity of university students are formulated; - the article substantiates the specifics of pedagogical support for the formation of students' civic maturity as a multifunctional technology, identifies the levels of its application; -the author identifies the areas in which pedagogical support for the formation of students' civic maturity is provided; - as a result of the research, new empirical data on the analyzed problem have been obtained. The style of presentation of the material corresponds to the standards of the journal Pedagogy and Enlightenment. The structure of the article is traditional for a scientific publication: it contains an introductory part with a statement of the research problem, a review of the publication on the problem under consideration, a presentation of the empirical part of the study, conclusions learned on its basis. It can be recommended to make some additions to the content of the article: - describe the empirical study in more detail (its timing, the number of students evaluated) and substantiate the conclusions with quantitative data (for example, it is not clear from the text why the author claims that "the civic maturity of students is far from a high level"); - replace the abbreviations in the table with full terms; - the text indicates section No. 1 "Theoretical basis of the study", but there is no allocation of other sections; splitting the article into several parts with their designation would emphasize the author's logic; - clarify the design of sources No. 2 and No. 3 in the list of references. The bibliography of the article includes both classical works and modern publications on the topic under consideration. All of them are quoted in the text. We believe that sources No. 5, 7, 12 should be excluded from the bibliography as irrelevant to the scientific publication. There is no appeal to opponents, which does not reduce the theoretical significance of the article. The research is of interest to specialists in the field of pedagogy of vocational education, for teachers of universities and vocational education organizations and other practitioners working with young people.

Second Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The subject of the research in the article "Pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students" is the means of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students in the educational environment of the university. The methodology of the work is based on the following approaches: personality-oriented – the subject in his personal development is created and determined by the educational environment; activity – the leading role belongs to a specially organized multidimensional pedagogical activity in the development of student's civic maturity. The research is aimed at solving the problem of identifying the theoretical and methodological foundations of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students, which implies the justification of the directions of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of students. Theoretical research methods such as analysis, classification, modeling and generalization of pedagogical experience are used. Among the empirical methods used were: 1) the method of expert assessments of the manifestation of civic maturity of students of 1-2 courses (248 people) studying at Kostroma State University; 2) diagnosis of dysfunctional attitudes (methodology A. Beck, A. Weisman). Among the mathematical methods, statistical analysis using Spearman's criterion was used. The article is written in scientific language. The introduction points out the social and civilizational importance of higher education, and analyzes research in the field of civic competence formation. The problem field is formulated and the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study are described. The personality-oriented approach made it possible to identify "the main vectors of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of student youth", and the ideas of the activity approach to identify and justify the directions of pedagogical support for the development of civic maturity of student youth. It should be noted the correct construction of the author's concept based on the achievements of pedagogical science. The author's definition of civic maturity is based on self-identification (awareness by a person of his civil rights and duties, in their active implementation in specific deeds and deeds), scientific worldview, ideological conviction of the importance of realizing his civil rights and duties. In the main part of the article, the components of civic maturity (cognitive, emotional, need-motivational, activity-based) are highlighted, indicators and indicators are presented. The results of an empirical study are presented in a separate block. At the end of the article, generalizing conclusions are made. The author notes that pedagogical support can be considered within the framework of managing the development of students' subjectivity, which contributes to the development of civic maturity. Among the results characterizing the scientific novelty of the article, we note the following: 1) The interrelation of manifestations of civic maturity with the level of dysfunctional attitudes has been revealed, in particular, the parameters of civic maturity have a significant relationship with the level of dysfunctional attitudes. 2) It is indicated that the integration of technologies of civic education and upbringing is the basis of the humanistic educational process 3) It is noted that methodological support is provided by environmental and technological conditions for the formation of civic maturity of students at the university on the basis of respect for the parity unity of individual and collective. 4) Support is considered as a multifunctional technology that provides "the creation of conditions under which the subject will be able to make an informed and responsible decision in various situations of life choice." The strategic, tactical and educational-subject level of pedagogical support are described. 5) The main directions of pedagogical support are described (problem-oriented analysis of educational and educational processes, the system of training of teaching staff, increasing the subjectivity of students and supporting the practices of civic participation). The bibliography presented in the article contains 11 sources that correspond to the subject of the study. Among them there are scientific articles, monographs and methodological materials. The list of references is designed according to GOST, with the exception of source 6, which is not referenced in the text. We will note a number of comments: 1)there are stylistic and spelling errors: "to relate to the first direction", "at work on development", "targeted training during which young people are taught", "readiness to drive into a social society" 2) if the author had described in more detail the methodology and diagnostic tools for conducting an expert assessment to identify the level of formation of civil due to the maturity of the students, the article has acquired a large practice-oriented component. The article raises an urgent problem of the theory and technology of vocational education. The material of the article contributes to the theory of education in higher education. The noted remarks do not reduce the theoretical significance of the article and it is recommended for publication