Student discourse’s paradoxes of representations of the concept “technological well-being of Russia”

Abstract

Problem and aim. The relevance of presented study lies in understanding that it is impossible to be an independent government and implement its own policies without having technological leadership. In modern youth discourse, the attractive image of the creative engineer has disappeared, without which it is impossible to achieve a change in the «user» mentality in the field of technology. Accordingly, the purpose of the study is an applied communicative-semiotic analysis of the basic representations through which students describe concepts such as «Russia’s technological wellbeing», «technological leadership» and «technological imitation». Materials and research methods. The authors of the study used communicative-semiotic analysis to study free verbal associations of students (projective methodology), which made it possible to determine the symbolic constructs of youth discourse in the ratio of internal/external and individual/collective areas that integrate human consciousness and empirical phenomena into conversations about the technological well-being of Russia (concept of M. Conway). The applied research (questionnaire) was carried out in two stages. Data processing was carried out using the method of identifying keywords by Word Cloud Generator with the subsequent formation of a word cloud as a method of information compression. The identified associations were analyzed within the Porter stemmer word stemming tool. Research results. The results of the study showed that the formation of representations in relation to the concept of «technological well-being of Russia» is contradictory. However, this inconsistency is not associated with projection of the «technological leadership» and «technological imitation» vectors. The authors found that the projection of the image of the future of Russia in the trends of technological well-being is not associated by engineer students with the role of a man. The non-subjective nature of the concept of «technological well-being» emphasizes the gaps in the system of higher engineering education associated with the imposed practice of consumer behavior. The authors proposed educational technologies for leveling the non-subjective nature in the formation of the concept of «technological well-being of Russia» in the system of higher engineering education. Conclusion. The results of the study are significant for both the theoretical and practical research base in the field of higher engineering education. An empirical basis on representations of the image of the future associated with the concept of «technological well-being» will make it possible to understand what stereotypes and constructs are relevant for young people’s individual educational trajectory. In the future, this will make it possible to make changes curriculum for future engineers in terms of social and humanitarian knowledge.