Understanding the aims of education from a perspective of social ecology

Abstract

Introduction. The article discusses the features of approaches to understanding issues in the philosophy of education, based on the principles and data of social ecology. Such environmentalist approaches, anticipated in E. Haeckel’s works, are actively developing today, which is reflected, in particular, in the existence of specialized periodicals and the formation of special thematic spaces for discussion.Purpose setting. The authors attempt to identify the socio- philosophical foundations of environmentalist approaches to education. At the center of the discussion presented in the article are environmentalist judgments regarding the question of the goals of education.Methodology and methods of the study. To solve this problem, the authors carry out a content-critical and comparative analysis of environmental solutions presented in domestic and foreign literature.Results. It is shown that from a socio-philosophical point of view, the environmentalist understanding of the relationship between the spheres of public life is not without interest. Many of the supporters of this direction make critical judgments regarding the influence of economic social institutions on the functioning of society and its development. Environmental problems, for which the educational transformations proposed by environmentalists are aimed at finding solutions, are determined from their point of view by social factors. In fact, environmental themes are used by environmentalists to argue for different views on education, based on differing attitudes not only of a theoretical but also of a political nature.Conclusion. The analysis carried out shows that it is advisable to consider environmentalism and social ecological philosophy of education as a thematically homogeneous complex of substantively different solutions. Such approaches are the result of reflection on the classical problems of philosophy of education with the help of «ecological» values and cognitive attitudes.