Abstract ♦The article analyzes the problems of youth’s determination in the context of theological knowledge. The author considers the following issues: youth’s spiritual education and moral development in the process of socialization, the influence of social institutions on young people’s personal formation, as well as the continuity of moral principles in society.
The problems of children’s and youth’s upbringing in a moral tradition and the challenges of the inoculation of true values have existed during the whole history of humankind. The pastors of the Orthodox Church have repeatedly called for the attention to the issues of youth’s upbringing and education, because young people develop the future society and their axiological orientation and focus will influence the social development in the future. The extension of the range of problems in the field of youth studies and the inclusion of theoretical generalizations of empirical data in the context of contemporary social science have intensified the development of the integral science of youth. This standpoint was actively discussed in the 1970s. Now it has become a subject of substantiation in the works of Valery V. Pavlovsky, who proposed the integration of knowledge about youth within the framework of a special science called juventology. The same idea, albeit in a slightly different interpretation, belongs to Eugene G. Slutsky.
The author points out that within the integration of modern humanities knowledge this standpoint is natural, although it is not indispensable, because any of the social sciences can perform an integral function relating to youth’s problematics. The reason of this is the fact that there are no any rigid boundaries between objects, subjects and research methods of social sciences (as it was in the beginning of the 20th century).
Keywords: youth, spiritual upbringing, personality formation, value orientations, theological knowledge, continuity of moral principles, the family as a small church.
Gnevasheva Vera Anatolievna, Doctor of Science (economics), associate professor, the director of the Youth Sociology Center of the Institute of Fundamental and Applied Studies, Moscow University for the Humanities, doctoral candidate of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Sts Cyril and Methodius’ Church Post-Graduate and Doctoral School. Postal address: 5 Yunosti St., Moscow, Russian Federation, 111395. Tel.: +7 (499) 374-75-95. E-mail:
vera_cos@rambler.ru
Citation: Gnevasheva, V. A. (2014) Problemy determinatsii molodezhi v kontekste bogoslovskogo znaniia [The Problems of Youth’s Determination in the Context of Theology]. Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie, no. 1, pp. 167–174. (In Russ.).
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