Readiness of future teachers to prevent social exclusion of students: a pilot study

Introduction. The relevance of the problem of social exclusion of students of different psychological and pedagogical groups is due to the expansion of the quantitative and qualitative composition of children, whose development takes place in specific conditions, determining the lack of positive social experience, learning difficulties, and academic underachievement. The aim of the study was to develop and test theoretical and practical foundations for the formation of future teachers’ readiness to prevent the social exclusion of students in the conditions of a pedagogical university. Methods. The study involved 116 third-year students majoring in “Pedagogical Education” and “Psychological and Pedagogical Education” at Volgograd State Social and Pedagogical University (Russian Federation). The levels of future teachers’ readiness to prevent social exclusion of students were determined using the authors’ questionnaire “Readiness of a teacher to prevent social exclusion of students”. The study used methods of mathematical statistics, in particular, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results. The pedagogical experiment made it possible to verify the theoretical provisions on the essential characteristics of future teachers’ readiness to prevent the social exclusion of students. The functions, components, criteria, and levels of the studied readiness were identified. Statistically significant differences were found in the level groups of students: the potential level amounted to 11.2% of the respondents against 41.4% at the stage of the summative experiment; a low level – 16.4% of the respondents against 49.1%; a high level – 15.5% of the respondents against 0% (T=0.00; p≤0.01). The greatest dynamics was observed in the change in the level of formation of future teachers’ readiness to prevent social exclusion of students – there was a quantitative increase from 9.5% to 56.9% of respondents. KEYWORDS Conclusion. The results of the pilot study can be applied to investigate the problem of preventing social exclusion of students and to select the optimal system of pedagogical tools and conditions for the formation of future teachers’ readiness for this type of professional activity. The materials of the study can become the basis for developing a model program for pedagogical universities, its inclusion in the educational programs for pedagogical bachelor’s and master’s degrees, as well as in the system of advanced training of practicing teachers.