The specific of teachers' social apathy

The article discusses the features of modern teachers' social well-being manifested in the form of social apathy. This conclusion is based on the prevalence in the pedagogical environment of inertia, indifference, lack of self-criticism and personal commitment to high educational results, the trend of alienation from traditional values of the school environment, deprivation of work interest. In spite of the fact that the government proclaimed the priority importance of education, its quality in modern schools continues to reduce, which inevitably leads to a further decline in the prestige of the teachers' profession, increasing dissatisfaction from parents and society as a whole. The article suggests that one of the major factors contributing to the decline in the education quality, the teachers' turnover, the lack of highly qualified young teachers in modern Russian schools is associated with the spread in modern social environment of a state which can be indicated by the concept of social apathy. The article defines the main features that characterize teachers' apathy and identify the conditions and reasons for its occurrence. Analysis of teachers' apathy is based on the presence of some direct and indirect signs reflecting low motivation, lack of active social position, emotional tiredness, indifferent teachers' attitude towards students and their profession. The causes of teachers' social apathy are considered from the perspective of the social background impact associated with the global characteristics of modern society, and from the perspective of the presence of more specific conditions relating to the actual teachers' work. The latter may include institutional factors, stressful working conditions, and the perception features of students by teachers, inattention to teachers' psychosocial well-being problems and some professional psychological barriers, connected with the lack of teachers' preparedness to the function of an educator and designer of educational space, that increase the state of social apathy in the pedagogical environment. Basing on the analysis of the main features and causes of social apathy in the pedagogical environment, it is concluded that this phenomenon is an ontological characteristic of modern society, but for teachers this state is also a result of some institutional and socio-psychological characteristics of a profession, in which social apathy, passivity and indifference become a form of teachers' adaptation to the complex psychosocial work context.

Keywords

Authors

References