The specifics of children's socialization in the traditional Buryat culture

Introduction. The article is devoted to the problem of children’s socialization in the traditional culture of the Buryats. The purpose of the article is to describe the specifics of children’s socialization in the traditional Buryat culture through identification of educational values and tools of children’s socialization, which had a significant impact on personality formation.Materials and Methods. The traditions of the tribal culture served as the ideals of education, characterized by valuing children. Having conducted a theoretical analysis of Buryat ethnography, theauthors identified the specificity and tools of children’s socialization in the traditional culture. The comparative analysis enabled the authors to identify similarities and differences in understanding childhood and educational traditions among the Mongol-speaking peoples. The modeling method helped to clarify the empirical data and describe the Buryat idea of childhood.Results. The study revealed that the main agents of socialization include the family and the extended family. The authors analyzed practices and mechanisms of children’ socialization based on ceremonial and ritual actions which ensure the transition between childhood and adulthood. The article outlined traditional Buryat educational values, determining behavioral models and the self-concept in the system of social relations, and early labor participation. A model of the stages of childhood for the traditional Buryat culturewas developed.Conclusions. The origins of valuing children were integrated into the life support system of the traditional Buryat society. The system of traditional Buryat educational values includes parental responsibility before the extended family and the clan for raising children and their personality formation. Having large families with many children is supported by the belief in the rebirth(transmigration of souls), recognizing the special mission of parenting, and the tradition of transferring children to childless relatives. The tools of socialization in the nomadic community include rites of passage from childhood to adulthood, early labor participation and gender differentiation