Forming of social order for teachers in the history of education in Russia

Abstract

Introduction. The first state educational institution for teacher’s training was the teachers’ seminary established in 1783. However, the teaching profession appeared in Russia long before that and was supported by social request. This fact builds questions about transformations of public expectations in relation to teachers, i.e. about the history of the social order to teachers. That order had not been realized and reflected in some documents for a long time, but its influence on education in Russia can be clearly observed already in the 17th century. Purpose setting. The article attempts to determine features of its becoming. Methodology of the study. The research is based on a large layer of literature, on the principles of dialectics and historicism, and uses comparative historical analysis, deduction, culturomics, content analysis, statistics and other theoretical methods. Results. Features of forming of a social order to teachers in the 17th and 18th centuries are identified and specified. The factors and conditions of its forming in the specified historical period are characterized; its structural components were determined, also patterns of changes in the social order for teachers and its actualization time were detected. Conclusion. In the 17th century, there was an order for teachers in the Russian Tsardom, the subject of which was the church, but partly also the state and townspeople. The state imposed requirements on teacher’s work, regulating some aspects of school organizing. The emerging in those times trend of transition from religious characteristics of the teacher to professional ones finally took shape at the beginning of the 18th century, when the state order for teachers had been formed. By the middle of the century, the image of the teacher had radically changed, and there were requirements of professionalism in the being taught science and of positive personal characteristics, which found its place in organizing of the first teachers’ seminary: the order for teacher’s methodological training began thanks to it. Patterns of formation of a social order to teachers (society always has high expectations from either professional or personal characteristics of the teacher; during periods of social conflicts and changes the requirements for his personal characteristics are actualized; that transfer depends on social stability) confirm that clearly it depends on historical periods and socio-political conditions.