The ratio of functional literacy and fundamental training of students: the unity of opposites

Abstract

Introduction. The relevance of the problem of the correlation between functional literacy and fundamental training of students is due to the trends in the development of modern education, the demand for approaches to improving the educational process, as well as the need to systematize and comprehend scientific views on the content and key tasks of general education. The purpose of the article is to analyze the correlation between functional literacy and fundamental training of students from the standpoint of pedagogy and psychology, to present the author's scientific position characterizing the possibility of synthesis of the approaches under consideration. Materials and methods of research. The article presents an analysis of the essence, content, results of research on functional literacy and functional training. A comparative analysis of the two approaches is carried out. There is a need to supplement the pedagogical aspect of the analysis with a theoretical, actually psychological aspect, the content of which is the establishment of patterns and mechanisms on which these approaches are based and their subsequent evaluation. The results of the study. Despite the differences in the understanding of functional literacy and functional training in Russia and abroad, there are common features of these approaches, as well as their distinguishing features are revealed. The main ones are that fundamental training is characterized, first of all, by an orientation towards the formation, primarily, of generalized, abstract knowledge and the possibilities of their transfer. Functional literacy is characterized, in many ways, by opposite attitudes: orientation towards the formation of practice-oriented, specific knowledge. Conclusion. There is a clear, complete correspondence of the paradigm of fundamental training with the “knowledge-skills- automated skills” approach, on the one hand, and a similar degree of completeness correspondence of the paradigm of functional literacy with the competence approach. The fundamental similarity of the ideologies of these approaches, the isomorphism of their basic principles and general orientation are revealed. Their comparison formed the basis for solving the problem of the ratio of fundamental training and functional literacy.