SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND EDUCATION: HISTORICAL ASPECTS

The article focuses on the problem of a social inequality and the historical forms of its display in the sphere of education. The sources of this problem date back to the period of a property inequality and he formation of a class society headed by aristocracy. The further social class stratification of the society in the Middle Ages influenced the schooling system facilitating its elite direction: the monastery schools, the bishop schools, the system of a knight education etc. The Renaissance epoch added the new content and ideas to the system of medieval education: the respect for a child, attention to his/her needs and peculiarities, the prohibition of a physical punishment. But the Renaissance epoch didn't change the medieval schooling system from the point of view of its organization. Certain changes are observed during the period of a New Time and Enlightment. This period is marked in the history of the development of schools as the period of awareness of education as the basis of a state's prosperity, criticism of a state's property, acknowledgement the necessity to form a national, democratic school. In the article the attention is paid to the analysis of the pedagogical views of Europeans philosophers of different epochs and their enlightment activity connected with the problem of a social inequality in an educational sphere. Ya.A.Komenskyi was one of the first who analyzed this problem, who elevated the traditions of humanism and love for a person, seeing in a person the God's creature. Zh.-ZH.Russo, K.Halvetsyi H.Franke, H.J.Pestalotsi were the followers of Ya.A.Komenskyi and they expressed their protest against the feudal system, the restriction of education and learning at schools. Under the influence of the progressive ideas of these pedagogues certain changes took place in the system of education in European countries: the network of schools was broaden, the opening of special schools for the lower layer of the society. In Germany the so called “schools for the poor” were founded; in Switzerland different schools for orphans, homeless children and children from poor families were founded as well. In Great Britain the charity schools for the poor were organized. It has been ascertained that in Europe the introduction of a compulsory schooling and the foundation of free of charge schools caused the decline of the so called “schools for the poor”. It has been determined that before the XIX th century the system of education was of an elite character and this system served the factor of preserving but not overcoming of a social inequality.