4. Pluralistic TetraSociological education
This sociocultural project reflects the need in restructuring sociological education according to the principles of postpluralism, ensuring the formation of the new, constructive social thinking in young people. Without the such thinking, adequate for the new century, it is impossible to respond to the century's challenges, to form a sphere identification in the young, to realize global sociocultural projects of harmony and prosperity. The author has been introducing since 1994 new lecture and seminar courses in sociology in different higher education institutions and a secondary school in St.Petersburg. The experiment results, constituting the practical basis of this sociocultural project, are briefly outlined in the appropriate abstract.
Tetrar Format of Sociological Education: Innovative Experience and Response to Challenge
RC04, session 8.
Tetrar format of sociological education is a teaching of TetraSociology as global sociological theory. The basis of TetraSociology is the four-dimensional continuum of social space - time represented by four coordinates: Resources, Processes, Structures, States. Each coordinate is researched in appropriate social theory/part of tetrasociology: Statics, Dynamics, Structuratics, Genetics, in each of which the appropriate four variable constants are considered. The centre of TetraSociology as empiricism is the system of the aggregated, new sphere/sociological statistical indices expressing quantitative changeability of social constants of many social phenomena from the individual up to the world society.
TetraSociology (Sphere Approach) has been developed by me since 1975, but I could teach it in high schools of St.-Petersburg only since 1994. Since then researches are indissoluble combined with tutoring at different faculties (technical, economic, legal) of St-Petersburg's universities, in different rates: ' Common Sociology ', 'Politology' ,' Sociology of Person ', ' Family ', ' Policy ', ' Right ', ' Culture ' in universities of St. Petersburg.
The publications on TetraSociology were practically impossible in Russia till 1991, and after that- were extremely hampered. However in 1999 I published the first part of the text-book for the students under the title ' Sociology for Pragmatists. From Monism to Tetrism ' (376 p.).
The main purpose of my course of Sociology, which is now named: ' TetraSociology: Prosperity through Harmony', consists in forming of pluralistic, four-dimensional sociological thinking/imagination of students and in refusal from one-dimensional, monistic, first of all Marxist thinking as inadequate to many-dimensionality of the individual and modern information society. In all themes of the rate the main idea of pluralistic, many-dimensional vision of society is represented to the students. It consists in recognizing equal necessity of many different social constants: Resources of society (People, Information, Organization, Things), Processes of their reproduction (Production, Distribution, Exchange, Consumption), Structures/spheres of their reproduction (Social, Information, Organizational, Technical), States of social evolution (Prosperity, Deceleration, Decline, Dying). on duration the rate is varied in limits from 156 till 16 hours for different audiences.
On seminar occupations the students express and form own convictions in free tolerant discussions. on inquiries, 85 % students have pluralistic convictions and at the teachers, for a comparison, have only 20%. This is, approximately, the measure of pluralism in modern Russia at different generations. It expresses the difficulties of consolidation of pluralistic sociological education of students in Russia and powerful obstacles in the way of its official recognizing.
Pluralistic format of sociological education in Russia was represented in lecture rates and text-books of л.Kovalevsky, P.Sorokin and their followers till 1918. In Soviet Russia any pluralistic education was excluded in essence. It practically absent down to the present time. It is even not fixed in the State educational standard on sociology. The exceptions make the extremely rare, single, author's rates, including my. TetraSociological education is actual not only for Russia. In view of TetraSociology globality, this education can make the sociocultural project for international and interdisciplinary cooperation. It will become one of the responses to challenges of education in general, sociological in particular.
