2015 Issue №5

This article presents a brief analysis of the causes of transition to compe-tency interpretation of vocational education outcomes in Russia and abroad. The authors consider the interpretation of the basic categories of ‘competence’ and ‘competency’ in the education systems of the USA, the UK, Germany, France, and Russia, as well as the understanding of their structure and func-tion to improve the quality of educational outcomes and ensure harmonization with the economic development of the state.

Based on his own experience, the author stresses the considerable poten-tial of metaphor in increasing the level of self-consciousness of teachers at a special psychological training. The article explores the significance of the met-aphor for the humanities (psychology) and exact sciences (mathematics). Since each person is characterised by their own unique individual semantic space elements, whose elements are metaphorical, it is possible to identify a set of in-dividual metaphors. This underlies the author’s original technique that has been numerously applied in sessions with teachers.

This article considers the problem of ethnic identity as a polymodal one and analyses certain social, historical, and psychological aspects of its context. Language is one of the major differentiating features in terms of ethnicity. In some historical situations, ethnic identity is determined by the symbolic role of language in the processes of development of allegiance to the community and intergroup differentiation rather than the actual use of language by all mem-bers of the ethnic group.

This article discusses the results of a study of youth’s values conducted in Kaliningrad in 2012—2013. Special attention is paid to the understanding of the life mission and the role of social and legal activism in the structure of values. The author presents arguments in favour of introducing prosocial val-ues into the education system.

This article analyses key approaches to interpreting the content of the ‘psychosomatic disorder’ construct, which can be viewed through the prism of various psychogenic factors of development and understood as a form of soma-tization of affective or psychopathological conditions. The author addresses the theoretical and methodological problems of modern understanding of psycho-somatic disorders associated with the multiplicity of their psychological mod-els, criteria for the presence/absence of organic disorders, and the possibilities of compensation and reverse development. The article also focuses on the psy-chosocial risk factors for pathogenesis of psychosomatic disorders proposed within various psychological traditions — the psychodynamic, cognitive-be¬ha-vioral, social and contextual, family-oriented, and integrative ones.

This article presents a theoretical analysis of the social-cultural factors contributing to the development of intercultural sensitivity of university students. The social environment of students’ training plays an important role in the development of intercultural sensitivity. Of special importance are three aspects: the size of the city or the type of the urban environment where students are study and live; the multicultural features of the environment – both of the city and the university; the capacity of the environment to create condi-tions for diverse social experience.
Special role in the development of intercultural sensitivity is played by the academic specialization: the humanities develop not only professional competence, focused on the other person but also personal qualities that con-tribute to sensitivity to cultural differences of others.
The results of the study show that the most important factors of intercul-tural sensitivity development are the academic specialisation and the type of the urban environment.