Humanitarian Education and Political Education in a Non-Humanitarian University: the View of a Higher School Teacher

Dianov Sergei Aleksandrovich Doctor of History Professor, Department of Public Administration and History, Perm National Research Polytechnic University; Professor, Department of Private Law, Perm Institute of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia 614990, Russia, Perm Krai, Perm, Komsomolsky Prospekt str., 29 sadianov@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Dianova Yuliya Viktorovna PhD in Cultural Studies Assistant Professor, Department of Design, Graphics and Engineering Geometry, Perm National Research Polytechnic University 614990, Russia, Perm Krai, Perm, Komsomolsky Prospekt str., 29 julok1@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction At the beginning of the XXI century, humanitarian education in Russian universities was provided by both traditional and innovative approaches in the methodology of teaching humanities and social disciplines.

Without exaggeration, it can be stated that during this period of time, the target settings for creating conditions for the implementation of the process of political socialization of students dominated ^{[1; 2]}. In the basic curricula of educational institutions, a significant number of classroom hours were devoted to teaching political science, sociology, cultural studies and conflictology. No less interesting was the experience of conducting training sessions in the disciplines of the variable part and elective courses ("Fundamentals of the welfare State", "History of political and legal doctrines", "Human rights", etc.). At technical universities, students at seminars had the opportunity to master the subject field of political science, get acquainted with the specifics of the nature of cultural knowledge. In trade and economic institutes, students attended classes on the history of world and national religions, rhetoric and culture of speech. In the course of training, information, computer and multimedia technologies were actively introduced, which became available to the teaching staff thanks to the implementation of the priority national project "Education" ^[3].

The introduction of new federal state educational standards in the 2010s, the transition to a competence-based model for the implementation of basic educational programs of higher education, as well as the widespread introduction of project technologies into the educational process led to a serious transformation of the architecture of humanities education at the university. Among the first actors who felt the changes were scientific and pedagogical workers - historians and philologists, political scientists and sociologists, cultural scientists and specialists in the field of design. Not all innovations seemed useful and really necessary to higher school teachers. In a number of universities of economic profile, there was a loss of such disciplines as "Political Science" and "Cultural Studies". As an example, let's give the situation in the Perm Institute (branch) The Russian State University of Commerce and Economics, where, since September 2011, bachelor students in the fields of Economics, Management, Product Technology and Catering have stopped studying political science. The methodological base developed by teachers over many years, didactic materials, textbooks and evaluation tools, turned out to be unclaimed ^[4]. At the same time, back in February 2011, S.A. Dianov, together with management students, discussed the topic dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the abolition of serfdom in Russia in the form of a dispute. Further, it must be admitted that during the period under review, some university management teams still managed to choose an effective positioning strategy in a particular region, to prove the priority of the development of humanitarian education programs. The Perm State Pedagogical University has demonstrated a vivid example in the Perm Region. In 2012, the university became the winner of the federal competition of programs for the strategic development of higher education institutions and was able to position itself as a "humanitarian and pedagogical" university.

At the same time, non-humanitarian universities faced a difficult task of ensuring the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard for the content and quality of students' education, in particular, the formation and development of students' general cultural competencies. In general, the basics of humanitarian knowledge were in the structure of the content of the academic disciplines "History", "Philosophy", "Russian language and culture of speech". At the same time, whole layers of really useful knowledge for students, such as knowledge about politics and the political structure of the country, knowledge about the peculiarities of political processes in Russian society, ideas about the structure of Russian society in recent times, by 2014 were on the periphery of professional educational routes of students. Accordingly, the processes of political socialization of students have significantly slowed down. In fact, in the second half of the 2010s, the implementation of the tasks of political education was carried out by caring teachers-"enthusiasts" who do not have specialized education and political experience. Today, the lack of effective mechanisms of political education is especially acute in those engineering universities of the country where students receive professional education and specialties of strategic importance for Russia.

The main partAt first glance, an operational rational solution may be to return to the basic training plans for bachelors, specialists and masters of the academic disciplines "Political Science", "Fundamentals of the Welfare State", "History of Political and Legal doctrines", etc. The latest initiatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia on the approval of the Concept of teaching Russian History for non-historical specialties is logically recognized as a preliminary step towards a "reset" areas of higher education in the humanities.

  "History, as a science and an academic discipline, forms the attitude of society to its past, teaches a new look at the present, forms a holistic worldview," Minister V.N. Falkov expressed his own vision of the situation. ? At all times, universities have set themselves the task of preparing patriotic citizens of their country, thinking people with a broad outlook and critical thinking skills" ^[5]. In the same vein, news about the preparation by the professional expert community of the project of the academic discipline "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood" should be considered. The introduction of this course is expected as early as September 1, 2023 at the Faculties of Social Sciences ^[6]. At the same time, a number of researchers warned back in the era of the implementation of the first national project "Education" that the very existence of the practice of teaching political science and other related disciplines at the university does not at all indicate the organic inclusion of students in the process of political socialization.

So N.S. Marie in 2010 listed the factors preventing the assimilation of political knowledge among students of non-humanitarian universities:

1) the lack of a conceptual program (documentary and practice-oriented) of political education at the university (only 3.4% of students believe that the university organizes events dedicated to expanding knowledge about the political system);

2) students' lack of interest in political science is associated with disappointment, both in the quality of teaching and in the degree of interest and usefulness of political science (to the question of N.S. Marie, "What guided you when attending classroom classes in political science?", 65.4% of students replied that it was "my duty as students", and only 6.8% noted the high level of classes conducted);

3) the lack of equality between the teacher and the students, expressed in a "pedagogically unadapted political ideology, which only declares the transformation of the student into a subject of education. The means offered by her actually encouraged something else - the creation of a discipline of subordination, the formation of a performer's psychology on this basis, which excludes both a critical perception of reality and the possibility of its own assessment" ^[7].

 Accordingly, positively assessing the work of colleagues on the development of the course "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood", we consider it necessary to emphasize the relevance of testing innovative approaches in teaching methods of political and related disciplines. I.N. Baranova quite rightly says that in the classroom students should feel like carriers of certain social knowledge, look at different life situations from different sides, learn how to defend your civic position competently. Effective teaching requires the use of "dialogic techniques through which students acquire knowledge, develop social and intellectual skills, and develop critical thinking" ^[8].

We will express our opinion on the rationality of the introduction from September 1, 2023 as an elective or elective course of the discipline "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood" for students of technical, medical and agricultural universities. At the same time, special attention should be paid to improving the methods of organizing students' research work. The creation of scientific and creative student circles in non-humanitarian universities ("Political Scientist", "POLIS", "Citizen"), the regular work of experienced tutors to motivate students to explore the political world, will allow many inquisitive students to transfer from the threshold to the creative level of political analysis of the plot eventfulness of the modern era. It should also be understood that circle activities need to be freed from formalism: holding events is not for a "tick", but in order to encourage students to creative action. As an example, we can cite the experience of the interfacult student association "Scientific Corporation of Political Scientists" in the 2000s at the Perm Pedagogical University. The organizing Committee of the organization published a monthly student newspaper and newsletters.

At the same time, there is an obvious demand for systematic profile retraining of the teaching staff of non-humanitarian universities. Today, one can still hear from colleagues of pre-retirement age arguments about the "perniciousness" of teaching in the late Soviet era the history of the CPSU and the foundations of dialectical materialism. However, one should not forget the fact that Marxist-Leninist ideological attitudes in the 1990s were quickly replaced by new doctrinal concepts of the Western neoliberal order ^[9]. At the beginning of the XXI century, Russian universities could see the presence of foreign European foundations in the scientific and educational environment ^[10]. Their activities were not always aimed at building real interaction within the framework of extracurricular contact work. In 2016, the fact of abuse of official position by one of the teachers in order to extract personal benefits from cooperation with the Friedrich Nauman Foundation was revealed at the P.A. Stolypin Volga Institute of Management of the RANEPA ^[11]. It's no secret that 2022 has become the last year for some teachers of social and humanitarian disciplines in their scientific and pedagogical career. We are talking, first of all, about individuals recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation as "foreign agents". In addition, it is necessary to keep in mind those university teachers with whom employment relations were terminated due to their public misconduct, expressed in criticism of their own and discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation ^[12]. We express the opinion that teachers of higher education who do not have a legal education and work experience in state and municipal service, but who claim to be leading teachers of political and related humanities disciplines are required to undergo specialized retraining on a regular basis. Today, this measure is necessary, taking into account the risks of difficult situations when a teacher without "malicious" intent can commit an offense.

The following items should be mentioned among the proposed measures:

1) introduction of mechanisms in a non-humanitarian university to encourage teachers to improve their professional skills and personal development within the framework of master's and postgraduate programs (training areas "State and municipal Administration", "Public Administration and sectoral policies", "Political institutions, processes, technologies");

2) creation of a basic department of theory and methodology of teaching social sciences and humanities, and not only for the rapid updating of methodological and didactic kits for training sessions, but also for the purpose of interaction with pedagogical universities, advanced scientific and methodological centers of humanitarian universities;

3) the "reset" of cultural education in a technical university is in demand, a measure to restore the departments of cultural studies will give positive effects;

4) within the framework of the system of advanced training and professional retraining, it is necessary to organize thematic courses on a regular basis related to the range of issues of political education and civic education (today the courses "Fundamentals of medical Care" and "Electronic information environment of the university" are mandatory for every teacher);

5) recommend teachers-curators of student groups to actively get acquainted with the experience of the leading political parties in Russia, to act as members of the Russian Association of Political Science (RAPN), the Russian Historical Society (RIO), etc.;

6) it is useful to associate the effectiveness of profile retraining with measures to motivate teachers to participate in thematic round tables (at the sites of local governments), in patriotic forums of All-Russian significance.

In the latter case, we consider the experience of holding a series of round tables in the regions of Russia in 2019 on the topic "Knowledge about politics: how to get and where to apply?" ^[13] valuable.

We will demonstrate examples of approbation of forms of work with graduate students from our own pedagogical practice. The experience of managing the postgraduate program "Political Institutions, Processes and Technologies" at Perm Polytechnic University (PNRPU) from 2015 to 2022 allowed us to draw the following conclusions. Firstly, this educational program was in demand primarily among teachers of the history of general education and professional educational organizations. Secondly, it was found that the main motivation of teachers-"social scientists" was a strong desire to master the ability to express their ideas, opinions in the form of scientific papers ? publications, monographs, dissertations. Thirdly, successful graduates of the program discovered the sphere of state and municipal management, began to understand the value-semantic foundations of a management decision.

So, among the forms of work that have shown effectiveness, the following can be distinguished:

1) conducting classes on the discipline "Scientific seminar" in the form of methodological seminars (for example: "Regional studies of political space", "Geocultural approach in branding of urban and rural settlements", "Political elites as an object of research", etc.);

2) organization of field scientific events in the Perm Territory in order to get acquainted with the practices of municipal authorities, educational and cultural institutions (for example, round tables "Geocultural branding of a small city"; Vereshchagino, Ocher, 2021) ^[14];

3) inclusion of graduate students in working groups on the development of model projects of museum collections of patriotic themes for schools, technical schools and institutes;

4) as part of the implementation of the tasks of pedagogical practice, graduate students defend project work in the form of open classes with students using methods of problem-based learning, pedagogical techniques for the development of critical thinking (for example, an open class-dispute "Models of the welfare state in the modern world: traditions and innovations").

Graduates of the PNRPU postgraduate school are ready–made specialists who have cultivated a useful quality of expressing their civic initiatives not only in official business, but also in a "living" scientific language.

Based on the results of work with graduate students-political scientists, we will offer our own vision of the content of the modules of the profile retraining program for teachers of non-humanitarian universities "Political education and education of the citizen's personality in a modern university". We consider it appropriate to allocate four modules in the program:

Module 1. Theoretical, methodological and regulatory framework of political education of university students.

Module 2. Pedagogical methods and techniques of educating the personality of a citizen of the Russian Federation.

Module 3. Types and forms of work on political education of foreign students.

Module 4. Mechanisms of interaction with political parties and public organizations of the Russian Federation in the implementation of educational tasks.

The breakdown of modules into topics is carried out by a small research group of leading university teachers (experts) with specialized education and experience in participating in political or managerial projects.

Conclusion The discussion of the value-semantic foundations of humanitarian education in a non-humanitarian university makes it possible to assess the readiness of the teaching staff to rethink their own role in the common cause of political education and patriotic education of students.

In engineering, medical and agricultural universities, professional discussion of the conceptual foundations of the educational system of the university is currently in demand ^[15]. In addition, the introduction of methods of political education by scientific and pedagogical workers into the practice of teaching academic disciplines will undoubtedly contribute to the growth of the level of legal literacy and legal culture. We consider it expedient to license postgraduate programs in the country's technical universities in new areas of training in the field of public and municipal administration. At the same time, the main emphasis should be placed not only on the defense of their dissertations by graduate students, but also on the training of a teacher-researcher who is ready to work for the benefit of his Homeland.