SPIRITUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION AS AN ELEMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS OF TODAY’S YOUTH

The article examines spiritual and moral consciousness and upbringing of school children and students, analyzes efficiency of upbringing process at school and higher education institutions. The problem of spiritual and moral consciousness and upbringing holds a special place in psychological science, reflecting the constructive position of the man in the world. Therefore, there is a growing interest to this issue in theoretical and empirical research. There are high hopes set on the development of spiritual and moral consciousness of young people as it can serve as the ground for education and upbringing. Development of spiritual and moral consciousness facilitates the change in the conception of education. Education is a part of a personality socialization, education contributes to the organization of social life of school children and students. Education involves enlightenment or popularization of culture that generates a high level of selectivity in the choice and adoption of study subjects. Upbringing is the part of the education process that is defined, in this case, as an advanced study of a subject. Learning the general knowledge about the world and the social norms, learning how to use the knowledge, forming a value-based attitude towards them are fundamental components of a worldview. This is connected with the development of emotional perception of these norms and knowledge among school children and students and formation of their spiritual and moral needs. The upbringing process in higher education institutions is considered an integral component of future specialists’ professional and personal formation and it makes an impact on their professional consciousness. The research carried out at the Faculty of Psychology of Samara State Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities proves the fact that the process of upbringing and formation of spiritual and moral consciousness does not end with graduation form a school, as it continues and remains important during further education of young people. Based on the data obtained from the research on the level of the students’ upbringing, a conclusion can be made that the majority of the students’ qualities, such as self-attitude, attitude towards art, nature, their social activity, morality, social tolerance make progress in the process of their education. The four-year students showed poor development of such personality trait as patriotism while the first-year students demonstrated less developed adaptivity to life conditions. Lectures on patriotism and various extracurricular activities that contribute to the development of these qualities can be a solution to the latter problem.