Practices of developing social responsibility within the university: Essential characteristics

Introduction. The problem of the research lies in the contradiction between the need to organize a purposeful process of shaping university students’ social responsibility based on contemporary knowledge about the existing practices and the lack of a generalized and systematic understanding of the practices implemented within universities in the Russian Federation. The purpose of this study is to identify the essential characteristics of practices aimed at developing social responsibility in higher educational institutions in the Russian Federation. Materials and Methods. The study follows activity-based and technological approaches. The criteria for the analysis of moral educational practices are based on the components of moral education as an activity and the structure of educational technologies (the purpose, content, forms, methods, participants, algorithms, and results). A set of theoretical (analysis, systematization, and comparison) and empirical (content analysis, semantic analysis, and comparative analysis) methods was employed to solve the research problems. The authors used an array of data obtained as a result of collecting applications submitted for the National Competition of best practices in youth policy and moral education in Russian universities (2022-2024). The total is 2011moral educational practices. Results. The authors selected and analyzed a list of moral educational practices aimed at developing university students’ social responsibility. The authors defined the essential characteristics of moral educational practices aimed at students’ social responsibility, which served as criteria for the analysis: contents characteristics, technological characteristics, person-centered characteristics, characteristics of the social integration of moral educational practices. The authors analyze the contents characteristics of moral educational practices based on the direction of moral education as an activity, within which the practice is implemented. It is determined that the content of practices is implemented through volunteering, civic-patriotic and professional practices. This is how students form an idea of their place in society and the awareness of their role as citizens, which contributes to shaping social responsibility. The authors consider mechanisms of implementing moral educational practices as their technological characteristic feature. These mechanisms are based on a set of models and methods of moral education. The main mechanisms for implementing moral educational practices aimed at social responsibility formation include events, programs, and communities/associations. Having analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the presented mechanisms, the authors came to the conclusion that the occasional nature of events allows to engage students only on a situational basis, limiting participants to executive functions. Events are often massive, short and shallow in nature which reduces the manifestation of students’ social responsibility. On the other hand, communities/associations and programs provide opportunities for long-term and regular participation, performing various functions, and analyzing personal and collective experiences. This allows students to realize the importance of their contribution and develop responsibility for the common result. The authors reveal the person-centered characteristics of moral educational practices aimed at shaping social responsibility by describing students’ roles in activities. The most common of them include the leader, the organizer, the mentor, the coordinator, the moderator, and the volunteer. The personal position of students is manifested in the following functional tasks: goal setting, planning, organization, conduct, evaluation, coordination, and management. This indicates the development of students’ responsibility for collective tasks and results, which contributes to the formation of their mature social behavior. The final criterion for analyzing the array of practices was the involvement of social partners, the analysis based on this criterion made it possible to identify the characteristics of social integration of practices. The authors revealed that only academic staff and students of the university are involved for implementing the majority of educational practices (more than 55%), which indicates the isolation of moral educational systems within universities. However, the formation of social responsibility requires the integration of students into society, which will allow them to see real social problems and form the values of social responsibility. Conclusions. The authors revealed that the practice of shaping students’ social responsibility is insufficiently present in the general array of analyzed moral educational practices.