Home – Home – Jornals – "Philosophy of Education" 2014 number 5

The article is devoted to forming of legal consciousness of the present day Russian citizens in the educational process. A special attention is given to education; paternalistic and liberal education models are considered; the importance of optimal, value-oriented, developmental legal consciousness for the society and state has been shown. Contradictory interactions of legal systems of different countries in the epoch of globalization and informatization can lead to deformation of endemic traditions of different states, including the Russian society’s legal system and Russian citizens’ legal consciousness. That is why real legal consciousness is formed under the influence of various factors: the objective (e.g. social-economic reality conditions) and subjective (worldview, education, upbringing) ones; the process usually has a contradictory character, it includes both positive and negative sides, legal and lawless consciousness, negative views and evaluations among them. Legal consciousness directly depends on optimal and non-optimal strategies of influencing social conscience and subjects' conscience. Properly oriented, as a whole, legal consciousness as a part of social and individual consciousness may turn out to be defective. The authors come to the conclusion that legal consciousness of the present day Russian society is undergoing significant changes. Due to the absence of formed views it is subjected to multiple foreign culture «inoculations», borrowings, values systems which are foreign to the traditional Russian people mentality. It is necessary to work out an education strategy of forming optimal, healthy, creative consciousness and legal consciousness of man and society. The most important role in solving these problems is played by the education process as a process of consistent, obligate forming of feelings, thoughts, beliefs, projects of life and practical legal-socialized activities of the individual capable of adopting and realizing an optimal strategy of legal consciousness. However, opposite worldview platforms, legal basics and forms of education policy - the foreign-cultural, liberal-oligarchical one and the paternalistic, traditional for Russia one - collide in real educational process. The liberal model transfers education to commercial market relations, turns education into a service industry thus exonerating state from the responsibility for full-scale, high-quality legal education of citizens. The authors underline that education should be public, universally accessible with comprehensive socialization of the individual in the main life-affirming socio-spherical strategies of contemporary world. The development and realization of an optimal educational strategy of legal consciousness, forming man and society in educational process, is a guarantee of stability of the Russian state and legal system.