Political Science Education in the Educational Environment of University: Valuable Semantic Foundations

Introduction. In the 1990s, the process of forming a system of political science education began in Russian educational institutions. At that time, theoretical, didactic and methodological approaches to teaching schoolchildren and students, forming the foundations of political literacy and ideas about responsible civic behavior were being developed. While working at the Lyceum No. 7 in Perm, we state that the introduction of specialized classes of political science lessons (social, artistic and aesthetic profiles) into the educational process has taken place. In addition to the basics of political knowledge, lyceum students mastered such disciplines as "Civics" and "Human Rights" ^[1]. Entering institutions of higher education, the applicant had the opportunity to demonstrate basic knowledge about the political system of society, skills in working with various sources of information at the entrance exams. In addition, the applicant had an idea about the main types of conflict situations that have a political nature.  Thus, the process of adaptation to the level of humanitarian education in higher education was significantly reduced in time.      

In the 2000s, in most institutes and universities, the curricula for training specialists provided for training in the disciplines of "Political Science", "Fundamentals of Sociology and Political Science". During the training sessions, students mastered knowledge complexes about political processes and technologies, about the administrative and state structure of the country and forms of useful political activity of a citizen. In Perm universities, due to the lack of teachers with a PhD in political science, lectures and seminars were conducted by historians, philosophers, economists, lawyers. In trade, economic and pharmaceutical institutes, the disciplines "Fundamentals of the welfare State" and "History of political and legal doctrines" were addressed to students. During the period under review, information, computer and multimedia technologies were actively introduced into the teaching methodology. The processes of informatization have made them accessible to the teaching staff ^[2]. It can be stated that in the period under review, the target settings for creating conditions for the implementation of the process of political socialization of students dominated ^[3].

Political science in the educational environment of the university. At the beginning of the XXI century, the focus of the attention of practical teachers turned out to be by no means difficult questions about what performance indicators of political science education at a university should consist of, and what points should be taken into account when formulating criteria for the effectiveness of methods of civil and legal education used in classes with students. Special attention was paid to the goals of teaching political science in the student group. "In political science classes, students get a unique opportunity to feel like carriers of certain social knowledge, to look at various life situations from different sides, to learn how to defend their position competently," wrote I.N. Baranova ^{[4, p. 18]}. The article by L.V. Koroleva, associate professor of the City Pedagogical University (Moscow), emphasized the importance of forming the basic foundations of political literacy among students: "The role of political knowledge in the humanities education of students may consist in instilling in the younger generation the idea that "politics is not only a struggle, a war of one with another, and just "dirty business." But also the fact that politics is only a form of communication between people and the state and it depends on each of us what kind of communication this will be" ^{[5, p. 284]}. In this case, it was emphasized that the educational component is of key importance in political science education. In law enforcement universities in Russia, leading researchers also emphasized the special importance of teaching political science and other related disciplines for cadets. Thus, V.Y. Belsky and A.N. Satsuga expressed the opinion that political science is not just one of many humanitarian and socio-economic academic disciplines. Its theoretical and methodological, educational, educational and practical-applied significance "is not in doubt today, both abroad and in Russia" ^{[6, p. 212]}. At the same time, the researchers have already drawn attention to the fact that the mere presence of the practice of teaching political science at the university did not at all indicate the organic inclusion of students in the process of political socialization. In the 2010s, special studies were conducted on the degree of students' involvement in various forms of classroom and extracurricular work.

In 2010, N.S. Marie, based on the results of a sociological study conducted at Kurgan State University, put forward a hypothesis according to which the majority of students of this university attending classes in political science showed "little interest in studying political science" due to their disappointment both in the quality of teaching and in the degree of interest and usefulness of science. The main reason was seen in the use of "pedagogically unadapted political ideology in the classroom, which only declares the transformation of a student into a subject of education" ^{[7, p. 94]}. In turn, it can be assumed that the reasons for this phenomenon arose due to the use by teachers of mainly traditional teaching methods, which most likely suppressed the sincere desires of students to participate in the discussion of the political eventfulness of modern times. 

We positively assess the trend of recognition of political science as a "living", organic academic discipline among the innovative teachers of those years ^[8]. Currently, many participants in the educational process realize the importance of abandoning the practice of "scholastic theorizing" ^[9]. In the case when the heads of the structural divisions of the university assign political sciences only the role of familiarizing students with the general picture of political processes taking place in Russia and abroad, this inevitably leads to a "zero" result in the political and legal socialization of young people. The absence of techniques and means of developing critical thinking in the classroom not only nullifies the effectiveness of training, but motivates students to look for alternative ways for their civic political education. Plunging into mass media, a young man does not always filter various news reports for their reliability. Accordingly, the student may not be aware of the high risks that he faced in social networks when demonstrating personal assessments, even in a comic form.

Political and legal education: from the author's experience. The processes of political socialization, of course, include not only political, but also legal education, legal literacy of university students. Bearing in mind this circumstance, it is necessary to recognize the success of the application in the 2000s in the educational environment of Russian universities of a number of measures to increase the level of legal consciousness, education of students with an irreconcilable attitude to forms of delinquent behavior. New academic disciplines were also included in the curricula of educational institutions: "Educational law", "Regulatory and legal support of education" ^[10]. The development of disciplines synchronously with the study of the course "Jurisprudence", of course, laid the sum of ideas about the social portrait of a university graduate in the worldview of students. It was not difficult to determine the factors of the effectiveness of legal education and its direct connection with political education by the following parameters:

? facts of the use by students individually or in a group of actions to restore their violated rights (by the university administration, teachers and others);

? resolution of conflict situations with the participation of subjects of the student self-government system; 

? types and forms of students' participation in the trade union movement, in student self-government, membership in human rights organizations;

? the number of revealed facts of participation of students of a particular university in unauthorized rallies, pickets, protest actions;

? facts of high-profile crimes committed by university students, etc.

We consider it quite appropriate to briefly describe the results of the author's experience in teaching the discipline "Regulatory support of education" to students of Perm State Pedagogical University ^[11]. The analysis of the lectures and practical classes made it possible to make sure that the students were in demand for legal knowledge about the area where they were to carry out their professional activities in the future. Students realized the insufficiency of mastering only theoretical knowledge of pedagogy and methods of teaching their subject (history, literature, Russian language, foreign language). At the stage of pedagogical practice in a general education organization, they faced issues of legal regulation of educational relations. It is no secret that at school, a trainee teacher faces problems of a legal order (conflict situations), and the lack of knowledge, and most importantly understanding of the technologies for their resolution, entails negative consequences. While attending trial social studies lessons in the role of a mentor, we often witnessed the trainees' poor command of the skills to respond promptly and competently to students' questions concerning the political agenda. The trainees had a particular difficulty with the expected questions from students of grades 9 and 10 about the characteristic features of the types of behavior of political leaders in Russia and foreign countries. Embarrassment was also caused by questions about the level of "democracy" of the political regime in the Russian Federation. In this case, it could be stated that the level of political education among young teachers was insufficient. Accordingly, the updating of the work program of the discipline "Regulatory and legal support of education" was carried out promptly, based on the identified problems.   

Transformation of political science education in the 2010s. The introduction of new federal state educational standards in the 2010s – 2020s, the transition to a competence-based model for the implementation of basic professional educational programs, the introduction of project technologies in the educational process led to a serious transformation of the architecture of socio-humanitarian education at the university. At this stage, a particularly high dynamics of the introduction of innovations was demonstrated by universities of a new type – federal universities and national research universities. A number of engineering universities in a fairly short time received the status of "research". Moreover, it was at technical universities in the 2010s that it was possible to observe a situation of a sharp reduction in the social and humanitarian disciplines taught in engineering specialties, including political science and cultural studies. We do not consider our conclusion resonant that, in fact, the complexes of political and political-legal knowledge were on the periphery of the professional educational routes of students. The facts of the closure of cultural studies departments in a number of Russian national research universities are well known. It should be noted that these departments conducted a lot of educational work.

At the same time, the Russian Federation faced a number of geopolitical challenges that posed a real threat to the sovereign structure of the country. The Russian student community is also the object of illegal actions by unfriendly foreign state and non-state organizations. 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. Despite this, until recently, in many universities in the regions of the Russian Federation, the tasks of political education of students were assigned mainly to caring teachers who, while immersed in the nuances of such activities, did not have specialized education and managerial experience.

It is logical to recognize the recent initiatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia on the approval of the Concept of teaching Russian History for non-historical specialties as a preliminary step towards "rebooting" not only the sphere of higher education in the humanities, but also to create a new system of political education. "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," with these words, V.N. Falkov gave a start to the implementation of the concept ^[12]. In the same vein, the initiative to prepare the draft content of the academic discipline "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood" by the professional expert community should be considered. The introduction of the course is expected as early as September 1, 2023 at the Faculties of Social Sciences ^[13]. We consider it necessary not only to support this initiative, but also to call for its testing in national research universities, primarily engineering and technical profile.

Currently, there is an obvious demand for the return of engineering majors in political and related disciplines to the curricula. An equally important task should be recognized as the introduction of the discipline "Regulatory support of specialized education" for future engineers, builders and industrial designers into teaching practices. It is most expedient to integrate the content of the courses already existing in the curricula "Leading to a specialty" as a basic module for this academic discipline.   

When deploying a system of political science education and legal education in a modern Russian university, it is necessary to take into account the following points:

1) political and legal education is addressed not only to students, but also to all participants in the educational process at the university, including teachers and researchers;

2) methods and techniques of political education should be integrated into the programs of political and legal education for all participants of the educational process;

3) in the structure of the content of such a program, didactic materials should also be provided, including recommendations on how to promptly respond to typical conflict situations on the grounds of a mismatch of political orientations in the youth environment;

4) special attention should be paid to the forms and techniques of political education in relation to foreign students, as well as invited foreign scientific and pedagogical workers;

5) within the framework of the system of advanced training and professional retraining of teachers, it is important to organize thematic courses on a regular basis related to issues of political education and civic education;     

6) in federal and national research universities, it is necessary to welcome and support the aspirations of young teachers to improve the level of professional culture and personal development within the framework of postgraduate studies (programs "State and Municipal Administration", "Public Administration and sectoral policies", "Political institutions, processes, technologies", "International Relations");

7) researchers of advanced universities are recommended to focus on research on the problems of project management in the state and municipal (public) sectors, to develop project proposals for improving this area.

Conclusion. We emphasize the exceptional importance of discussing this issue at scientific conferences, public forums and youth gatherings. Russian youth should be educated using the platforms of educational institutions of higher education. We share the point of view of Doctor of Political Sciences S.A. Shestakov, who in 2017 rightly wrote: "The political consciousness of the younger generation is a vacuum. Now is the most dangerous period, which is an ideological gap that is easy to fill with any content. It is necessary, in the end, to call things by their proper names and recreate the name of the field of activity under consideration: the system of political education" ^[14]. In a situation of global challenge, an effective program of political science education and legal education should be implemented in every advanced Russian university, regardless of its profile. We are confident that the initiative of the leading federal and national research universities will be supported by all participants in educational relations.