Доверие в высшем образовании как социологическая проблема

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to characterize trust in higher education as a fundamental problem of sociological research, review existing achievements in its analysis and the presentation of experience in the empirical study of trust in higher education facilities of the Ural macro-region. Trust is interpreted by the authors as a major non-material asset of the development of higher education in a situation of crisis, social and economic uncertainty. It is proposed to consider the establishment of trust and the formation of a culture of trust in higher education as a constructive way to implement positive changes in the institution and the country’s system of higher education, increasing its social effectiveness. Substantiated is the need for an interdisciplinary methodology for studying trust in higher education, developed at the intersection of sociological, psychological, socio-psychological, economic, moral and professional-ethical, educational, and management approaches. Going beyond the narrow disciplinary route, according to the authors, provides an opportunity to identify the resource potential of trust as an non-material asset. This article shows the main directions for researching trust in higher education in foreign and Russian science. The discourse of trust in higher education is shown as undergoing dynamic changes. On this basis, there are prospects for the further theoretical and empirical study of this problem. Data from the empirical study of trust as a new resource of higher education in the aforementioned Russian macro-region demonstrates the most acute contradictions given its current state and development, which have to do with an ever growing distrust in educational policies and the strategies for their implementation. © 2019, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.