CC BY
32
DOI: 10.17689/psy-2015.2.12
УДК 159.9
Gender culture as a means of motivation for students' professional commitment to gender upbringing of schoolchildren
© 2015 Erofeeva Maria Aleksandrovna*, Khomutskii Konstantin Igorevich**, Ershova Regina Viacheslavovna***
*Ph.D. assistant professor, Head of the Chair of Social Pedagogy Moscow State Regional Institute of Humanity and Social Sciences (Kolomna, Russia), [email protected]
**PhD in linguistics, lecturer of the Department of English Language for the Humanities disciplines of School of Foreign Languages at National Research University - Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia)
***PhD in psychology, professor of Moscow Region State Socio-Humanitarian Institute. Head of the department of psychology (Kolomna, Russia), erchovare g@mail .ru
Annotation. The paper considers the phenomenon of gender culture as an integrative component of all types of pedagogical activities in higher school. The paper exposes the criteria of gender culture of students who are to become teachers. The authors specify the content of gender education in pedagogical institution and take into account interdisciplinary nature of gender culture as means of motivation for students' professional development. The study is aimed at revealing the respondents' attitude to the problems of gender education on the value basis.
Keywords: professional education, gender culture, gender education, gender values.
Тендерная культура как средство мотивации профессионального самоопределения студентов и школьников
© 2015 Ерофеева Мария Александровна*, Хомутский Константин Игоревич**, Ершова Регина Вячеславовна***
* кандидат педагогических наук, доцент, заведующая кафедрой социальной педагогики Московский государственный областной социально-гуманитарный институт (г. Коломна, Россия), [email protected]
**кандидат филологических наук, преподаватель департамента иностранных языков в Национальном исследовательском университете -Высшая школа экономики (г. Москва, Россия)
***доктор психологических наук, заведующая кафедрой психологии Московский государственный областной социально-гуманитарный институт (г. Коломна, Россия), erchovare g@mail. ru
Аннотация. Феномен гендерной культуры рассмотривается как интегративный компонент всех видов педагогической деятельности в высшей школе. В статье представлены критерии гендерной культуры студентов, будущих педагогов. Авторы описывают содержание гендерного воспитания в педагогических учреждениях и рассматривают междисциплинарный характер гендерной культуры как средство мотивации для профессионального развития студентов.
Ключевые слова: профессиональное образование, гендерная культура, гендерные образование, гендерные ценности.
Gender culture of an individual is regarded as a multidimensional pedagogical category which is based on the fusion of various phenomena:
1) of ongoing learning process of regularities of gender interaction in different social spheres among which is educational environment, as a sphere of the formation of values and senses of traditional gender culture of a society, has considerable significance;
2) of educational settings, including student associations, youth organizations and movements, public authorities, youth incentives at the level of gender subjectivity of students;
3) of law, in terms of egalitarian principles of social equality, freedom, personal responsibility in the context of standards, ideals and social values at the level of students' rulemaking;
4) of culture as a way of ethno-egalitarian relations between young male and young female students in educational environment;
5) of morality as a component of education and upbringing on the basis of ethical and moral values, friendship, love, family, matrimony, responsibility, cooperation in the sphere of cross-cultural interactions of genders in educational environment of higher education [Erofeeva, 2015].
At the same time gender culture is regarded as an integrative component of all types of pedagogical activities: learning activity, extra-curricular activities, academic activity, creative activity, social activity, leisure activity, healthcare activities etc. Such approach allows us to define the phenomenon of gender culture personality as a fundamental feature based on the worldview of ethno-egalitarian type, nationwide identity, methods and means of activity. Therefore, applying the theory of gender to the current study it is necessary to consider investigate the whole educational process within the scope of gender, cultural and phenomenal approaches. It should also be noted that not only diachronic aspect of gender culture of an individual, but also synchronic aspect of gender interaction can be studied in terms of educational environment. Such approach influences university students' (teachers to be) motivation of professional commitment to gender culture upbringing of schoolchildren.
On the basis of this assumption the criteria of students' gender culture can be described by the following characteristics:
- awareness of ethno-egalitarian type;
- gender identity in the context of nationwide values;
- knowledge in the sphere of gender studies, in women's studies, in law, in cross-cultural interaction of genders;
- professional and social activity as a value attitude towards institutional setting, family, traditions, history culture, opposite sex, to oneself.
The content of gender upbringing in pedagogical university needs clarification. It should be noted that the capacity of gender upbringing in higher school is determined by a number of factors such as: educational environment, a variety of resources of gender-adaptive character, and well-developed infrastructure. Therefore, the content of gender upbringing involves the most comprehensive academic knowledge of psychophysiological, socio-cultural, psychological and pedagogical,
historical and cultural aspects of sexual relations as objects of the system of students' professional commitment.
Such perspective determines the necessity for students (teachers to be) to study genetic, hormonal, neurophysiological factors of psychophysiological and social development of an individual, taking into consideration sex assignment and puberty characteristics. Students should also be aware of special techniques to help teenagers to overcome the crisis of gender identity. We argue that students must acquire skills that will allow them to solve physiological, psychological and socio-cultural problems in times of crisis for school teenagers. These actions must be done in close cooperation with parents as a part of pedagogical support at the stage of gender adaptation of an individual in the transition period from childhood to youth.
Within this framework, the values and norms of sex education matter the most as an integrative component which includes the following substantive aspects:
- information of human psychophysiology, sexual and reproductive health;
- notion of socio-valuable models of masculinity and femininity;
- maturity of emotional-volitional sphere of an individual;
- skills of: self-adjustment, sexual self-control, locus of control, and sex role-behavior;
- prevention of gender deviations, social deviations and sexually transmitted disease (STD).
Sex education and culture gender education result in students' professional commitment, social maturity, inner preparedness to matrimony, adoption of family values. However, we should be aware that this type of students' upbringing needs adaptive preparation to social risks and prevention of psychophysical dependence of an individual. At the same time, there is a methodological lack of principles that form gender culture of an individual in the modern theory of gender socialization. The formation of students' gender culture is based on the following concepts:
1. personality - spiritual 'selfness', a subject of moral, social and professional identity formation;
2. differentiation of pedagogical, psychosexual, cultural and individual principles in the development of a personality as the basis for the professional commitment to gender culture upbringing of schoolchildren.
3. individualization as a medium of support to students in their autonomous, gender and spiritual 'selfness' as well as in moral and professional gender self-identity.
Let us consider gender culture criteria that are commonly regarded as worldview, motivational, emotional-volitional, activity characteristics and their rates. The aim of gender culture upbringing is seen as the enrichment of emotion-valued feelings and relations in the sphere of cross-cultural interaction of sexes. Thereupon, it makes most sense to actualize the emotional-volitional criterion of gender culture of an individual as a predicted outcome of pedagogical activities in the setting of gender-adaptive higher school environment. Phenomenological aspects of gender-sensitive pedagogical activity include spiritual meanings of gender mutual relations in educational environment of pedagogical institute by means of creative work, research and academic activity, leisure activity, and planned teaching practice. Such values as friendship, responsibility, sense of duty, love, family, matrimony, respect, cooperation, trust as well as developed self-regulation of sex role behavior in the context of norms, values, traditions and standards of gender relations serve as basis for the content of above-mentioned phenomenological aspects.
Alongside with emotional-volitional criterion of gender culture it is necessary to implement the activity criterion pedagogical activities and its components as indexes of students' sex role behavior on the basis of norms and values of a society, subjectified national and gender identities. That demands the pedagogical filling of gender-adaptive educational environment with several notions: forms of development
of students' civic stand; students' professional motivation; pedagogical creativity in the sphere of gender upbringing, the formation of the conceptual value of healthy lifestyle in students and their health saving behavior.
Thus, the level of gender culture of an individual student is first, an integral multicomponent index of the development of professional motivation, second, a characteristic of students' moral-ethical attitude towards family institution, and third, an ideological basic index of professional commitment to gender upbringing.
Taking into account interdisciplinary nature of gender culture as a means of students' professional motivation development, we conducted our empirical study in two stages (in 2012 and in 2014). Study results, given below, enable us to draw a sufficiently detailed characteristic of levels of students' gender culture.
As part of the study it was proved that the level of students' gender culture was increasing gradually. Upon that, the number of students, who treated positively family values and ethno-egalitarian ideals, was also rising among both: young male and young female. At the same time, some transformational processes of gender identity formation and self-presentation among students, as the leading brand in student subculture, can be noted. However, alongside with traditional views on virginity, some postmodern settings in the sphere of intersex relations among students were observed. That postmodern setting manifests itself in substituting of ethical norms of virginity in students' environment by freer forms of intimate relationship between young males and young females. In this regard the gender component of pedagogical process is aimed at providing the formation of professional commitment by means of gender culture of the society as civilized moral experience of Russian people.
Thus, to study the level of students' gender culture we carried out measurements in two stages in 2012 and 2014 correspondingly. In both stages we employed the same test-methodology to find out the level of an individual student
gender culture. In particular, during the study we questioned three different groups of respondents: secondary school senior pupils, higher school students and school teachers in Russian local towns of Kolomna, Zaraysk, Lukhovitsy, Stupino, Voskresensk, Balashov. The total number of respondents is 2620 (in 2012) and 2579 (in 2014).
The study was aimed at revealing of respondents' value attitude towards problems of gender upbringing, ethics of relations between genders, the role of family institution and matrimony in transforming society. During the study (which results are represented in figures 1,2,3) we found out a remarkable correlation between sex assignment, respondent's social status and value attitude towards the gender culture problems of a society. Thus, for example, we found out that virginity is seen as an ethical value for young female, which is determined by historical and cultural traditions of gender relations that treat women's virginity as both moral and physical ethics.
lYoung female
year 2012
lYoung female
year 2014
Secondary school senior pupils
lYoung female
year 2012
■Young female
year 2014
Full-time higher school students
lYoung female
year 2012
lYoung female
year 2014
School teachers
Figure 1. Results of respondents answers on the question whether virginity is a value in a transforming society (%)
lYoung female
year 2012
■Young female
year 2014
Secondary school senior pupils
lYoung female DYoung male
year 2012
■Young female
year 2014
Full-time higher school students
2012 г.
lYoung female
2014 г.
School teachers
Figure 1. Respondents attitude towards the problem of free sexual relations in
Russian society (%)
year 2012
year 2014
Secondary school senior pupils
year 2012
year 2014
Full-time higher school students
year 2012
School teachers
year 2014
Figure 3. Respondents' attitude towards the topicality of gender upbringing among schoolchildren and young people (%)
As the data show there is a clear correlation between moral assessment of gender culture of a society and the level of education, teaching experience, status type - active or passive gender status of respondents' [Kogan, 2003]. Thus, for example, school teachers highly value the importance of virginity, but they have negative attitude towards the spread of the concept of free sexual relations among teenagers
and young people; they see it as a source of gender and social deviations. Having said that, we state that the most considerable gap in assessment is observed between the first and the third group.
Based on the results of empirical study we can deduce the positive trend in the assessment given by respondents in the course of diagnostic measurements carried out in 2012 and 2014. So, we can argue that the assessment of gender culture values and of moral and physical virginity has slightly increased among all groups of respondents in a two-year period. Particularly this trend can be traced on the example of full-time students - participants of experimental focus group of the current study. That manifests the influence of gender module of educational process, the influence of different types of planned practice of gender type, and the influence of gender-adaptive student environment as a singular educational transmission of traditional gender culture values of the society. That provides internalization of moral and family values as ideological basis of students' gender culture which (internalization) influences the effectiveness of professional commitment to gender upbringing, which, in its turn, is the most complex interdisciplinary component of pedagogical activity in terms of modernization of Russian education and society.
Thus, the presented analysis on the base of obtained data interpretation enables us to state that ranking priorities of students' value attitudes to love, family, loyalty, duty, responsibility are among other priorities as well. Respondents of practically all groups rather highly assess the importance of family in modern society, which proves scientific validity of our conception of students' professional commitment to gender upbringing and its implementation in higher school educational process. In this regard, the concept of nationwide and gender identity has a predominant role as a reflection of students' morality at the gender level and at the level of professional pedagogical culture as well as a source for professional development motivation. For our study it is also important to consider such factor as
analysis of structure-forming effect on students' professional pedagogical formation on the part of such social institutions as family and matrimony. In general, assessing students' values in relation to family values, gender and pedagogical culture, we can say that it might be regarded as a certain acquisition of social and pedagogical realities in gender studies (Figure 4).
year 2012
year 2014
Secondary school senior pupils
year 2012
year 2014
Full-time higher school students
year 2012
year 2014
School teachers
Figure 4. Respondents' attitude towards moral family values (%
Conclusions. The developed model of the formation of students' professional commitment to gender upbringing at school takes into account the determinant of motivation factor as a leading one in educational process, which effectiveness is conditioned by the level of personal motivation. The formation of student's individual motivational system is based on the implementation of the main principle of didactics, that is, cultural conformity in an individual display of subjectified gender culture of a society. The main component of the formation of students' gender culture is traditional values of cross-cultural gender relations of sexes in terms of civilized Russian culture. Gender culture is a tool of forming students' professional commitment to gender upbringing of schoolchildren as well as a tool for effective preparation to pedagogical activity by means of motivation of professional activity.
As the results of empirical study show, students of experimental groups have a sufficient level of professional knowledge about moral values in the sphere of cross-cultural interaction of genders, and they also have practical skills how to form moral values in educational environment. The gender-adaptive educational environment as a system of influences on the process of formation of students' professional
commitment is based on intensive regularity of a step-wise process of the formation students' professional motivation by means of gender culture. Moreover, as the analysis shows, the formation of gender culture correlates with the positive trend in students' acquisition of gender competence at the level of professional development.
Thus, in the course of the study it has been empirically proved that the principle of a step-wise development of motivation of students' professional commitment to gender upbringing integrates the content of gender culture as a part of professional training for teachers-to-be students.
In the course of the study we have fully analyzed the components of such phenomenon as 'motivation of students' professional commitment' to gender upbringing and their interaction with gender culture.
The current study has also proved active-stimulating influence of needs and aims on the positive trend of professional development of an individual as a step-wise dynamic transition from reproductive to adaptive and from productive to gender-creative level of students' commitment, which is regarded as one of the main objectives of pedagogical system.
References:
1. Erofeeva M.A. (2015). Pedagogicheskaya Sistema proffesional'noi gotovnosti studentov k gendernomu vospitaniyu shkol'nikov. Moscow: Econom-inform.
2. Kogan, I.A. (2003). Gendernaya kultura: kultura pola I 'pol' kulturi. Minsk: Kovcheg.
Литература:
1. Ерофеева, М.А. Педагогическая система профессиональной готовности студентов к гендерному воспитанию школьников: монография / М.А. Ерофеева. — Москва: Экон-информ, 2015. — 320с.
2. Коган, И.А. Гендерная культурология: культура пола и «пол» культуры/ М.А. Коган. — Минск: Ковчег, 2003. — 157 с.
