Cultural transfer of school participatory budgeting and the Soviet tradition of education

Abstract

Introduction. The article provides a literature review on the problem of cultural conformity of school participatory budgeting practice in traditional ideas about education in Russia. The purpose of the article is to evaluate the conformity of the ideas of school participatory budgeting with traditional approaches to education formed in the twentieth century (works by S. T. Shatsky, A. S. Makarenko, I. P. Ivanov). Materials and Methods. The research methodology relies on the ‘cultural transfer’ concept which is defined as a study of foreign cultural form (the object of the transfer) and its resonance with traditional cultural norms (address of the transfer). A comparative analysis of significant works by Soviet education scholars and research articles of international and Russian authors devoted to school participatory (initiative) budgeting was used as a procedure for conducting this study. The comparison parameters represent a modification of the components of the school educational system. Results. The conformity of school participatory budgeting with the Soviet tradition of education is revealed through the following main results: 1) the similarity in ideas about the educational ideal is characterized (socially active, proactive citizen-owner, focused on improving the environment, capable of expressing and defending their interests); 2) common features in the positioning of the child-adult community as an economic and self-governing organization have been established; 3) the analogy between ‘social creativity’ and ‘experiments with democracy’ is proposed and justified; 4) partnership in child-adult relationships is presented as a common feature of the compared phenomena; 5) in both cases, the determining role of social technology of interaction between participants in the relationship was revealed. Conclusions. The article draws the following conclusion: school participatory budgeting does not contradict the ideas of authoritative twentieth-century pedagogues about education; moreover, it allows to enrich the Soviet experience with modern solutions that take into account the peculiarities of the market economy.