Education in the Context of Current Globalization

Abstract

Drawing on the studies of works of the sociologists and politicians analyzing modern geopolitical trends and issues and on his own investigations in the realm of global and Russian environmental politics, the author came to the following conclusions. An education as a social institution and structural-functional organization has to be analyzed as a part of globalization process conditioned by the digitalization of mode of production and social reproduction (in other terms, by the Fourth scientific-and-technological revolution, hereafter the STR-4). At the same time, one has to keep in mind that recently almost any knowledge has not only complex but a hybrid character. It reflects the fact that every structure or process is actually a sociobiotechnical system (hereafter, the SBT-system). Such hybridization may be a result of natural processes or a particular thing of process is socially-constructed. Any hybrids are the results of metabolic processes. Therefore, the education processes are considered not as class-room work by children and students but as an all-embracing process of a ‘learning-to learn’, that is as a part of reciprocal enrichment of various institutions and groups of global community by using of scientific and technological innovations. I see the education as an all-embracing process of accumulation, selection, processing and practical use of information produced in all spheres of natural, social and technological activity. It seems necessary to strengthen an information exchange between the state, business and civil society institutions and initiative groups. The knowledge production and its use in emergency cases by the volunteers, and the phenomenon of a ‘digital alienation’ deserve special attention.