The thesis was conducted the integral analysis of pedagogical thought in the `20s and `30s of the XX century toward the problem of “morally defective childhood” as a complicated sociocultural and pedagogical phenomenon, inhomogeneous in measurements and assessments, the purpose of a better understanding of an overall picture development of education and pedagogy of the analyzed period in the conditions of the dynamic modernization of contemporary pedagogical science and practice.
The scientific innovation results of the study involve the question, that it is for the first time:
The Ukrainian educational policy is comprehensively characterized in relation to “morally defective childhood’’, which is determined by particular ideological political, and socially economical terms and was shaped by difficult circumstances and systemic transformation. The uniqueness of the characterized period consists in the fact that during this time in the context of global social economic and cultural transformation, and also is increasing tendencies of the ideologization of scholarly knowledge in Ukrainian psychology and pedagogy were developed and coexisted with original scientific schools and directions, within which intensively were designed issue of “morally defective childhood”.
In the paper was clarified, that it is a period of the emergence of new vectors in the social policy, expanding the boundaries of understanding of children’s “defectiveness”, the appearance of “new defective children and adolescents”, united in a single “military of moral defective”. This is a period of transfer from charitable and private shapes of social care for “defective” children to the governmental system of social protection and the establishment of the first boarding school for the “morally defective” children. The activity of individual institutions in which the social education of “morally defective” children was done is characterized, such are isolation reception centers, collectors, experiences and pedagogical stations, orphanages for ordinary children, institutions for underage offenders (basis orphanage, auxiliary house, labor colony and labor house for girls), commissions in charge of juvenile.
The phenomenon of “morally defective childhood” is uncovered with consideration of the social and political, cultural education terms of the test time. In the process of scientific research was clarified the content basis notions – “morally defective childhood”, “pedagogical thoughts of the `20s and `30s of the XX century” and their derivatives. The author determines that in the studied period the notion of “morally defective children” was used with regard to children who suffered from character disorders and emotional volitional sphere, who tend to aggressive and unlawful behavior. Morally defective children were considered pedagogically neglected, homeless, etc, “knocked out from the social track” children.
The work comprehensively and systematically were investigated the views of teachers, psychologists, and the pedagogies of the research period on the issue of “morally defective childhood” in the context of the work of the regional scientific school and the directions of the business of the pedagogical schools.
In the thesis was proved that in the pedagogical thought of the `20s and `30s of the XX century the cause of the “morally defective childhood” were explained by the social and economic, and cultural pedagogical conditions, in which the child grew up.
The peculiarities of the reflection of the challenges of education of “morally defective childhood” in the periodical publications of the studied period were revealed: respectively to the problem chronological measurement, so 21 journals and 134 articles on the problem of “morally defective childhood” were analyzed.
The further development in the investigation was acquired provision on the need to account for cultural and historical conditioning of terminology as a component of a methodological device historic pedagogical science in the process of analysis and especially the application of many of them, namely the idea of the “morally defective childhood”.
The practical significance of the obtained results is that factual material, which concerns specifics of the definition of the essence of the challenges of the “morally defective childhood” as a sociocultural and pedagogical phenomenon, features the study problem of the “morally defective childhood” in the pedagogical thoughts in the `20s and `30s of the XX century can be employed to update the content of the educational courses “History of pedagogics”, “Comparative pedagogics”, “Social work”, “Correctional pedagogics”. These courses are taught in the preparation of the bachelors, masters, doctors of the philosophy in pedagogical specialties, social workers, etc.
