Socio-Economic Dimensions of the Economic Culture of Financial and Credit Specialists

Given the established market-based economic mechanisms in Ukraine, each specialist irrespective of his/her professional focus is required to have critical thinking, deep understanding of current socio-economic processes; competencies for team work, quick taking of innovative decisions in the conditions of uncertainty, business management in a company belonging to any ownership category or industry, data collection, processing and analysis. The system of higher economic education is affected by formational change and macro-social factors: increasing globalization processes; development of open poly-cultural national and socio-economic practices of societal actors; access to the global information space; deepening integration of the higher education system and its harmonization with European and global standards.   A distinctive feature of our days is the increasingly rapid development of the economic education, giving evidence of the stably growing demand for economic specialties. But issues related with modernization of the higher school have remained on the agenda. One of them is the economic education system still resting on the grounds that are to a certain extent contradictory. First and foremost, it refers to a formalized approach to the implementation of European values and achievements of education systems in the practice of domestic higher education establishments (HEEs) without due consideration for domestic cultural specifics. Second, poor experiences of cooperation with Western partners, which hampers education processes based on Eurointegration. The gap between professional qualification of specialists and market demands, weak links of Ukrainian HEEs with external social and professional environments, and the mismatch between the professional readiness of specialists and labor market demands are factors complicating significantly job placements of post-graduates and decreasing their competitiveness. The socio-economic realities of this day require high level of the economic culture with future specialists. A challenge of today is a specialist of new type with high level of professional fairness and responsibility (before society, profession or organization), able to intellectual and social initiative, creative communication, social and professional mobility.   The article highlights theoretical, methodological and practical issues of the economic culture and its contribution to the economy humanization. Socio-pedagogical problems of shaping the economic culture in future economists in the context of the existing system of economic education are outlined. The notion “economic culture” is analyzed from different methodological perspectives, the main factors for modernization of the economic education system in a way to shape the economic culture of students are substantiated. The economic culture is interpreted as a characteristic of a certain life style and a regulator of the economic behavior of specialists working in socio-economic fields.