PECULIARITIES OF UNDERSTANDING THE BASIS OF CULTURE OF CONSUMPTION BY SENIOR PRESCHOOLERS

The paper deals with a relevant issue of preschool education, namely the education of the bases of the culture of consump- tion in children of the senior preschool age. The study involved 136 senior preschoolers. The following criteria with relevant indicators for assessing the level of the respondents' culture of consumption have been distinguished: inductive (the need for and interest in consumer phenomena, awareness of the dependence of satisfying their needs and needs of the family on the work of their parents), cognitive (awareness of the content of elementary consumer concepts, understanding the relationship between satisfaction of human needs and the presence of relevant goods and services as a result of the work of people of different profes- sions), productively-reflexive (participation in joint work with other children and adults to meet personal and group needs, dis- playing economical habits (care of things). According to every criterion the children were suggested to perform different tasks and were involved in various activities. The carried out assessment has revealed that the primary and satisfactory levels of the maturity of the culture of consumption prevail in the group of the respondents. Limitedness and, in some cases, the lack of knowledge of the consuming nature (on needs, their types and choices, types and limited resources, money, budget, etc.) prevents children from making a rational choice in their actions, being economical, which leads to manifestations of greed and covetous- ness. The lack of most children's focus on the needs of higher order develops their consumer attitude to the environment, an attempt to circumvent the rules of the culture of behavior in the society, inability to establish positive relations with the subjects of consumer relations. This indicates the need for purposeful work with children of the senior preschool age in order to increase their level of the maturity of the culture of consumption.