Home – Home – Jornals – "Philosophy of Education" 2016 number 5

The article discusses the reasons for spreading social apathy among modern Russian teachers, which manifests itself as a lack of initiative, indifference, lack of interest in high educational achievement, loss of interest in the profession. The article shows that Russian and foreign researchers, while analyzing the characteristics of teachers' motivation and possibilities to overcome apathy, have focused on the personal and institutional factors. Meanwhile, the personal characteristics of teachers (high neuroticism, high personal responsibility and significance of labor, the selfishness, the importance of the material well-being or, conversely, self-sacrifice, leading ultimately to disappointment in the profession), according to Russian authors, are the main determinant of burnout and apathy, and institutional features of teaching are significant condition in the psychosocial well-being of teachers. Despite the fact that the Western education system lacks many significant shortcomings that in Russia provoke, for example, dissatisfaction with the teaching profession (such as low prestige, insufficient wages, etc.), foreign teachers also feel the negative impact of the organizational factors, which usually include disagreement with the decisions of the administration, unmet needs in recognition, discipline problems, unmotivated and uninterested students, bureaucracy, etc. The article shows that the limited influence on teachers’ personality traits forces us to associate the solution to the problem of social apathy with impact on the institutional environment. The scientists suggest solving the problem of increasing motivation and satisfaction with the profession through the impact on retaining (hygienic) and motivating factors of the work environment. The article concludes that the changes in these factors have no significant effect on motivation of Russian teachers. The article suggests that the prevalence of social apathy among teachers should be associated not only with the specificity of the Russian educational system, but also with recent transformation of value orientations and socio-cultural conditions of teaching, which manifests itself in a keen perception of the profession shortcomings and in the changing social requirements to the teachers. This fact assumes the use of term social apathy that implies not so much a psychological characteristic or state of the individual, but a common objectified social trait, arising due to certain transformations of modern society.