Youth in the Educational Space: The Value-Meaning Foundations of Self-Regulation

The paper reveals the operation of elements of the sociocultural self-regulation mechanism in relation to the educational space of youth basing on the phenomenological approach and the concept of sociocultural self-regulation of youth’s life activities. Connections are established between the elements of the self-regulation mechanism and three key characteristics of young people’s attitude toward education: the meaning of education, the meaning of knowledge, and satisfaction with the quality of acquired knowledge. The latter is considered an integral indicator to which all others are reduced. At a general theoretical level, persistent trends influencing the process of meaning formation in the analyzed sphere are retrospectively substantiated, along with their connection to the broader context of a changing social reality, both objective and subjective. The empirical analysis was carried out using the method of structural taxonomy, which allows one to see the multidimensionality of meaning formation and its most significant elements, which manifest themselves differently in different spheres of young people’s lives. The core elements of self-regulation identified at the first stage of structural-taxonomic analysis were used as independent variables to identify the dynamics of the key characteristics of the educational space. Based on data from a representative sociological study, it is shown how the understanding of the meaning of education and satisfaction with it among young people change in connection with these elements. The manifestation of specific ideas, values, and meanings underlying these elements is substantiated, along with their role in the self-regulation of young people’s life choices in the educational space. The leading role of basic culture in shaping the value-meaning foundations of self-regulation is discovered, as well as the connection between the innovative type of culture and the terminal meanings of education and knowledge. The strongest correlation between satisfaction with education and specific mental traits and, partially, archetypes is established, while the weakest correlation is found with the orientation toward change and risk, as well as toward broad individual freedom as one of the most striking characteristics of modern youth, and self-realization as the third most important life-meaning value. The conditions for the reproduction of the key characteristics of the educational space in the process of self-regulation are elements with a less pronounced reflexive component, including primarily the value-meaning foundations of traditional basic culture and mentality, as well as orientations toward stability, agreement, and loyalty. In turn, elements with a more pronounced reflexive component, albeit traditional ones, as well as the value-meaning foundations of modern youth culture with their achievement-oriented component, contain the potential for young people to critically rethink the educational space and their strategies for integration into the sphere of education.