Zh.Ju. Kara, L.Ju. Kruteleva

General Psychology and Developmental Psychology Department of Psychology Faculty of Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation

EDUCATIONAL PROCESS AS A SPECIAL SPHERE FOR FORMING TOLERANT CONSIOUSNESS OF A YOUNG PERSON

One of the main features of the modern world is mixing different cultures, religions, customs and traditions. This process is caused by expanding economic, political and cultural contacts between countries, developing international mass media including the Internet, migrating labour force, refugees and forced migrants. That is why the problem of tolerance in the modern world remains a crucial topic for discussing and solving by political, religious and scientific societies in each country separately and by the world community jointly.

The system of education is a small model of the world around in which all features of the modern society are shown in a concentrated form and the questions of tolerance in education process are acute and critical as well. Education covers the most important age stages for forming of outlook and value attitudes of a person. That is why in the very process of education and upbringing of growing up generation a special attention should be focused on forming of tolerant consciousness.

Speaking about tolerance in general and about tolerant consciousness in particular, it is necessary to note that it can have different variants of displaying such as ethnic, religious, gender, subcultural, age-specific, professional, political and other. And it can also have a various degree of intensity.

L.M. Drobizheva and G.U. Soldatova distinguish such types of tolerance as:

– active tolerance (an openness, willingness for interethnic contacts);

– passive tolerance (an irregularity of interethnic contacts, inclination to communicate with representatives of their own nationality together with preservation of a positive attitude to representatives other ethnic groups);

– selective tolerance (interethnic contacts have limited character in accordance with any attribute – language, religious belonging, cultural features);

– compelled tolerance (interethnic contacts take place under pressure of circumstances and have especially business character);

– intolerance (point-blank unwillingness to cooperate with people of other culture).

Furthermore tolerance can be shown at different levels:

– as a psychophysiologic stability of a person (neuropsychic stability, stability to stress, stability to various traumatic situations, etc.);

– as a set of individual characteristics of a person (stability to uncertainty, stability to a conflict behaviour, flexibility, empathy, etc.);

– as a system of personal and group attitudes and values (stability to variety of the world, to ethnic, cultural, social and other differences) [1].

That is why forming tolerant consciousness of a person should be realized at once at several levels: at the level of a person, at the level of a family and a group of closest people, at the level of a wider social environment and at the level of the state and society as a whole. But all these levels interacting with each other influence the sense sphere of a person. So, supreme values, attitudes to oneself and others, different models of behaviour are formed exactly at an individual sense level of a person.

Relations of a person with the world at the level of his/her sense sphere are reflected in sense structures. D.A. Leontiev distinguish such sense structures as:

– structures which directly participate in forming activity and behaviour in the given particular situation (personal sense, sense attitude);

– structures which are responsible for sense-creation and directly influence structures of the previous level (motives, sense constructs and sense dispositions);

– structures which are an initial point for the processes of sense-creation and sense-origination (the supreme senses and personal values) [2].

All sense structures are closely interrelated and are a single whole.

Thus, in order that the person shows his/her tolerant behaviour and activity (the level of personal senses and sense attitudes) tolerance should be included into the basis of his/her sense sphere that is it should be a part of his/her supreme senses and personal values. The periods which are characterized by critical thinking and intensive sense creating, revising old stereotypes and generating new own senses; checking the settled norms and rules and generating new points of view are teenage and adolescence. So, it is possible to conclude that these age periods are the most sensitive for development of senses sphere of a person.

D.A. Leontiev asserts that «selection, acceptance and assimilation of social values by an individual are mediated with his/her social identity and with values of his/her reference small contact groups which can act both a catalyst, and a barrier for assimilation of values of large social groups, including universal human values» [2, P. 231]. In this case, it should be noted that a social environment of a person and features of his/her key activity are of fundamental importance.

Thus, educational process where a young person is able to realize his/her key activity typical for these age periods has to provide the person with special favorable conditions for harmonious development. For this purpose the educational environment must be ecologically compatible and safe which is possible only if the life-sense orientations of all participants of educational process are taken into consideration.

The development of tolerant consciousness as integrated characteristic of a person gives a chance to representatives of various nationalities, cultures, religions, creeds, etc., that is to people with absolutely different sense orientations and world outlooks to learn to respect each other and values of other peoples, to make a dialogue and good-neighbour relations and in that way to enrich both their own culture and their own lives.

1. Drobizheva L.M. Tolerance and growth of ethnic self-consciousness: limits of coexistence. // Tolerance and consent / Editor-in-chief: V.A. Tishkov. – М., 1997.

2. Leontiev D.A. Psychology of sense: nature, structure and dynamics of the sense reality. – The 3 edition, – M.: Smysl, 2007. – 511 p.