Factors of forming educational attitudes of rural school leavers in the Saratov oblast

The article is aimed at conducting a sociological analysis of educational orientations of rural schools leavers in the Saratov Oblast. The study is relevant, as young people play a strategic role in the formation of human capital in Russia and the modernization of its socio-economic development. The authors single out 3 groups of rural school leavers by educational orientations (focused on receiving secondary vocational and primary vocational education; wishing to receive higher education and focused on postgraduate education). The work analyses factors determining the formation of a certain type of orientations associated with the immediate environment (family and relatives, friends, teachers, media, Internet) and internal characteristics (inclinations, values, motivation). It reveals that the differentiation of educational intentions is due to differences in youth's systems of life values and the place of education in them, barriers to the implementation of educational strategies and prerequisites for ensuring educational aspirations (factors for achieving success in life, assessment of a subjective performance level, immediate life plans). The authors consider features of 9 and 11-form pupils' life order in the region and assess a degree of implementation of rural youth's individual educational orientations. The article shows that success of educational strategies depends on characteristics of a parent family (level of parents' education, socio-economic status of a family, composition and structure of a family), as well as personal qualities, features of the motivational system and features of the immediateenvironment of young people. The information base of the study consists of results of the applied sociological research conducted by the Institute of Agrarian Problems of the RAS in 2017. The study results in the conclusion that there are significant differences in the educational claims of rural school leavers in the Saratov Oblast, due to the diversity of their interests, needs, life values and opportunities. It discloses that high educational and professional aspirations of a large part of rural school leavers consider a level of young people's life claims as the main obstacle to future sustainable development of rural areas.