Globalization of higher education: socio-cultural aspect

The article presents the author’s view on the problem of globalization of higher education in its socio-cultural aspect. The authors rely on their own experience of teaching in Russian universities, as well as on the works of domestic and foreign scientists: teachers, philosophers, psychologists. The attention of authors is directed to the philosophical analysis of several important social and cultural problems of education: the integration of national high schools into a single global educational space (academic mobility, intercultural adaptation of foreign students, standardization of training programs), the ratio of national and “global” values and purposes of education, unification and the loss of specificity of achievements of the national high schools (localization of institutions of higher education, peculiarities of training methods and teaching technologies), the “economization” of education, determining the priority between praxiological (industrial and economic) and socio-cultural (educational) roles of education. The authors pay special attention to the problem of correlation between Western and Eastern cognitive styles of thinking, cognition and types of mentality, which play a very important role in the personal and behavioral pathways of students, but, unfortunately, are not taken into account today in the globalization of higher education. The result of the article is the conclusion about the necessity of finding effective ways for national systems of higher education, models of protection of its uniqueness and preservation of institutional identity in the context of the ongoing process of internationalization of spiritual life. As a possible solution to this complex of problems, the authors propose the idea of a global - national model of higher education, which involves the inclusion in the curriculum of two levels of objectives, competencies and methods: 1) “global”, meet modern socio - economic challenges, the specifics of intercultural communication; 2) “national”, correlating with the first level, but at the same time, reflecting the experience of the national higher school, the specifics of the political, socio-economic and cultural development of the country.