The Purpose of Cultural Education in the Conditions of Russian Social and Cultural Modernization

Based on the theory of socio-cultural modernization and the concept of the human development, the author analyzes the processes taking place in education. The issue of the prospects of cultural education, the tasks of which are revealed in the context of acquiring the skills of the XXI century, becomes urgent.


Introduction
The

Discussion
Modernization as a process of renewal of social systems in order to bring in line with the requirements of the time is well studied by historians and sociologists. Conceptually, the ideas of modernization go back to the understanding of the transition from agrarian to industrial society (K. Marx, M. Weber, and O. Cont) and are described in the logic of "jump" in societal development. The catch-up nature, unevenness and implementation "from above" are usually called as specific features of the Russian modernization.
An important clarification in the understanding of modernization is the emphasis on its socio-cultural basis. We accept the opinion of N. E. Tikhonova who defines socio-cultural modernization as the formation of a certain type of consciousness and the behavioral practices of individuals determined by it. The process occurs in the internal unity with the formation of corresponding social institutions [5,6]. Another thing is that in the Russian context institutional transformations dominate over changes in behavioral practices and do not always lead to the formation of a new (modernized/innovative) type of consciousness (The issue of the nature of the modernized or innovative consciousness requires separate consideration. Within the scope of the research, it should be noted that under the modernized or innovative type of consciousness we understand the readiness and ability of a person and/or social group to make conscious changes in accordance with the processes taking place in society. This type of consciousness can be called "open", that is one with a focus on development, as opposed to "closed", which is inflexible, with a focus on maintaining the status quo. The research team led by N. E. In this regard, the issue of the promising cultural education becomes particularly relevant.
In the conceptual provisions of the modernization of education, the words "culture" and "values" sound quite convincing, and the cultural approach is declared as the development of the principle of cultural conformity, formulated by A. Diesterweg. In the published Concept for the draft federal Law On culture, culture is considered as "a social phenomenon that enables transmitting to new generations the system of values, concepts of ethics and morality, inherent in the Russian civilization and giving the opportunity to observe, understand and appreciate the beauty and imaginatively absorb the world outside" [2].
One would like to positively describe the cultural vector of education, and more broadly -the social policy, but the life experience shows the opposite. Ideally, one should speak about the unity of education and culture, their interdependence which creates the basis for social development, but in practice education and culture are separated on a sector-specific basis, and they "intersect" almost exclusively in the situation of the narrowly understood creative initiatives.
The orientation to the person with the developed critical thinking and capable to productive communication and creative activity has been declared, but in practice there is a substitution of concepts: instead of orientation to the formation of "the person of culture" there is a project "the person-machine". In this sense, cultural education is much broader than the subject Cultural Studies. This is an opportunity for the development of outlook and the formation of self-reflection on one's own reasons. However, the transformations taking place in cultural education not for the better (reduction of academic hours, "washing out" of the subject from the university curricula, cutting the enrollment of students on vocational training programs) reveal a deep contradiction between the declaration and the social practice.
One of the most important tasks of cultural education is the readiness to participate in the social and humanitarian expertise of various spheres of public life. It is significant that among the numerous experts who discuss education, there is no place for cultural expertise, which provides assessment of what is happening in the context of the formation of the value basis of the individual.

Conclusions
The problem of socio-cultural modernization of the Russian education largely depends on the prospects of cultural education: the preservation of cultural education as a field of training; the cultural content of universal competencies of specialists in various fields; the cultural component of general and further education of children and young people.
The timeliness of the issues raised about the importance of the cultural vector in the socio-cultural sphere can make a conversation about the "civilizational code of the nation", which culture transmits, and not only verbally.