Socialization of Students and Teachers in the Digital Educational Environment in the Context of the Theory of Generations

Abstract

Educational institutions need more effective patterns of interaction between teachers and students in digital environment. Digital teaching technologies are associated with the process of socialization. The research objective was to determine the specifics of the socialization of students, teachers, and university staff in a digital educational environment. The analysis relied on the theory of generations developed by W. Strauss and N. Howe. The authors identified the specificity of socialization in generation Z as the perception and accumulation of new information through the prism of digital component of culture. This specificity is essential in teaching and upbringing children and adolescents of generation Z, since they endow digital space and digital information with values and meanings. Differences in the perception of modern technologies caused the so-called digital gap phenomenon. The authors defined two fundamentally important directions in the study of the socialization of generation Z students by the teaching staff of other generations in the context of digital education. The first is to create conditions and activate the process of socialization in the digital educational environment of the older generation teachers. The second is to reduce the digital gap by organizing targeted active communication in the digital educational environment when solving pedagogical problems.