Training Social Educators to Organize Cultural and Leisure Activities: British and Ukrainian Experience

Abstract

The article analyzes the process of training social educators how to organize cultural and leisure activities. It was specified that analysis and thorough study of British experience was a fundamental source required to define relevant strategies and areas to solve the problem of training social educators to organize cultural and leisure activities. The article reveals the peculiarities of social educators’ scientific training, examines the ways of supporting and developing these specialists in the UK and Ukraine. It was noted that conceptual foundations of these specialists’ training to organize cultural and leisure activities should be justified taking into account the following components: the level of their spiritual development, life experience, active social and cultural activities, continuing education, the principles of comparative pedagogy, etc. It was concluded that professional training of social educators in foreign experience was similar in the fact that complex functions of recreational, leisure, cultural potential were realized only by specialists who obtained university education and also received additional knowledge in the field of social work, social pedagogy and other related disciplines. It was specified that the complexity of training social educators in British experience consists in the fact that these specialists should have the knowledge of various issues: from the principles of social and cultural state policy, general organization of social security system, specificity of cultural and leisure infrastructure functioning, demographic peculiarities to relevant methods of working with different gropus of population. It was clarified that prospects for further research should be aimed at analyzing educational scientific and methodological recommendations of international experience in training social educators.