Training Future Specialists in Social and Pedagogical Fields for Gender Socialization of Socially Vulnerable Children

Today’s reality demonstrates the need of the society for qualified specialists who can interact with children at a high professional level, provide them with assistance and support and promote proper gender-role socialization, taking into account their gender differences. The paper aims to verify socio-pedagogical conditions and the author’s model of training future specialists in social and pedagogical fields for gender socialization of socially vulnerable children. The experimental group (EG) consisted of 110 respondents, whereas the control group (CG) - 120 respondents. The experimental model was based on the principles of an environmental approach, which allows one to design the educational environment of a higher education institution; a gender approach, which is aimed at creating comfortable conditions for gender identification and effective socialization of the individual; a competency-based approach, which shifts the emphasis from the educational process to its results. Research methods include the following: empirical methods - diagnostic methods (questionnaires, surveys, tests, interviews), observational methods (participant observation) to identify the levels of future social educators’ readiness to work with preschoolers. The number of future social educators with a sufficient level of such readiness has increased from 4.8% to 23.6%; the number of future social educators with an average level has increased from 33.7% to 35.1%; the number of future social educators with a low level has decreased from 61.5% to 41.3%. The obtained results of CG and EG differ significantly, owing to the implementation of socio-pedagogical conditions of professional training for future specialists in social and pedagogical fields for gender socialization of socially vulnerable children in the educational process of higher educational institutions (HEIs) with education faculties.