Conflict Potential in Higher Education: Factors of Emergence and Growth

Abstract

In this article, the author discusses the problems of conflicts in the field of higher education the analysis of the factors of their emergence and growth. The definition of social conflict potential and its difference from conflict are given. The content of modern Russian scientific literature devoted to this issue is analysed, making it possible to determine the most significant factors in the emergence of conflict potential. The most important factor is called the socio-political and economic upheavals of Russian society caused by perestroika, the collapse of the USSR, the breakdown of all established systems of society, and numerous educational reforms. There is a high degree of psychological tension in the teaching environment and discomfort caused by a high degree of responsibility, increasing loads of classroom and research work assigned to teachers, emotional burnout of teachers, which creates conditions for a high degree of readiness for deconstructive behaviour. The author states the polarisation of the value-semantic guidelines of the participants in the educational process, the commercialisation of education, its positioning as a service, the increasing social stratification, the tendency towards an increase in the elitisation of higher education, which not only generate conflict factors, but also determine the differentiation of demand for education. It is concluded that the factors of conflict can develop into social conflicts if the accumulated contradictions are not resolved in the future.