Tendencies in the Development of Sociology and Sociological Education in Russia

Abstract

Innovation project in the sphere of education has recently been completed. The project was financed and organized by National training fund (NTF). The project had pilot character and combined elements of investment project and project of technical aid. It included programs of the support of innovations in higher education, and in sociology in particular.
The main goal of the program «Perfection of teaching of social and economic disciplines in universities» in the sphere of sociology was to improve the quality of social and economic education in universities, which were selected on the competitive basis, and to ensure its comparability with the education in the sphere of economics, politology and sociology, which is given by the leading universities of the world.
The priority was given to the projects, which presupposed the following:
(i) deep renewal of the organization of education process, aimed at its democratization, activization of independent work of students, increase of academic mobility, rationalization of assessment system;
(ii) active introduction of modern methods and forms of education and assessment of the results according to international standards and national priorities into the education process;
(iii) use of modern information technologies in the education process, including the creation of electronic education materials.

The achievement of the declared goals presupposes the analysis and estimation of the condition of sociological culture in Russian society and the culture of professional sociological education. The fact is that social efficiency of any innovation project, including such a systemic one as Innovation project of the development of education (IPDE), may be estimated only against this background, which creates conditions for the acceptance of innovations or, vice versa, their rejection.
Sociology takes a special place in the structure of modern social sciences. Sociology, which combines wide theoretical scope with maximum proximity to concrete applied research, is justly considered as one of the most humanistically oriented social science disciplines. That is why nowadays, in the epoch of radical transformation of public consciousness and social structure, both the academic world and wide masses of society connect with the progress of sociology the hope for the creation of genuine scientific picture of transforming Russian society, which can become the basis for the elaboration of prognostic conceptions of the development of our country in the XXI century.
In this issue of «Mir Rossii» we publish the materials of the Final analytical report on the results of the realization of sociological projects of the universitiesparticipants of IPDE of National Training Fund (NTF).The report was presented in November, 2004 at the conference «Social and economic education: condition and prospects» and was based on the results of NTF programs «Perfection of teaching of social and economic disciplines in universities» and «Support of academic initiatives in the sphere of social and economic sciences». The authors of the report — leading Russian sociologists — reflect on the condition of sociological science and education in Russia, make conclusions, discuss the prospects. Journal «Mir Rossii» thanks the direction of NTF for the opportunity to publish the materials of the report.