Morning meetings as a means of forming multicultural education of junior schoolchildren

The ethnic, religious, racial, cultural heterogeneity of educational groups is one of problem of modern Ukrainian education. Under the influence of political, social, psychological, and cultural divercity, the heterogeneity of educational groups plays a decisive role in the negative, sometimes aggressive, interaction of representatives of different communities and bearers of different cultural traditions. The ultimate goal of multicultural upbringing is to harmonize the potential of the individual and the entire community. The aim of the study is to analyze the educational potential of morning meetings as an innovation of the New Ukrainian School during upbringing of younger students. The problem under study needs interdisciplinary approach using the tools of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, and cultural studies. The analytical and synthetic research methods in the analysis of sources and scientific-methodological literature have been used; systematic approach and the use of structural and functional analysis have contributed to the generalization of the study results. There has been made an attempt to explore the possibilities of multicultural education in the context of the educational environment within the framework of the New Ukrainian School concept; the topics of the morning meetings of the first cycle primary education have been analyzed as they are innovative form of organizing the educational process in elementary education whereas primary school age is the most favorable for multicultural education. Multicultural education has been considered as an educational process that takes into account the complex of all cultural and social differences. The educational environment of the New Ukrainian School facilitates the search for new approaches and the implementation of non-standard education practices. The prospect for further research is to develop a methodology for multicultural education of primary school students in the innovative educational environment of New Ukrainian School and to confirm experimentally their effectiveness.