Gender Education and Youth Preparation for Family Life Problem: Crossing Points

Abstract

The article is devoted to youth preparation for family life issue and the necessity in gender approach application for this issue in the domestic scientific discourse. The relevance of the problem in gender aspect is highlighted from the perspective of the working group of Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine development of “Strategy of Gender Equality in Education”. Based on references to the publications of educators and psychologists, it was concluded that scientists consider the problem of youth preparation for family life, mainly from the point of psychological readiness of young men and women to fulfill marital obligations. In the pedagogical aspect, scientists focus on creating pedagogical conditions and using the system of educational influences on the formation of youth readiness to start a family. The analysis of the views presented in the scientific discourse on the youth preparation for family life issue gave us grounds to find a few contradictions between the psychological and pedagogical consideration of the problem and the modern life realities. Traditional notions of the family are in significant transformation state. The approaches proposed by psychological and pedagogical thought are aimed to preserve traditional notions of the family which do not stand the test of time. In the system of youth preparation for family life, the authors identified a few gender issues: education according to traditional role behavior models, the effect of hidden curriculum in education, pressure on girls about marriage, the system of requirements for the role and "place" of women in the family according to her status (daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, mother), etc. It is suggested that science should be more flexible on this issue and should propose models and approaches that ensure the sustainable development of the State (including in demographic terms) while guaranteeing fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right to free development and self-realization without discriminatory restrictions