КОНСЬЮМЕРИЗМ СТУДЕНТСЬКИХ ПРАКТИК У ВИЩІЙ ОСВІТІ
Authors: Батаєва Катерина 
Published: February 2020

The problems of consumer positioning of modern youth in the field of education are considered. Youth consumerism practices are regarded as both the effect of total spread of basic principles of the «consumer society» in all social contexts and as a result of social infantilization of youth manifested in such social effects as immaturity, creative impotence and overstated ambitions. Social infantilism appears itself in a receptive attitude to life and to others with expected patronage and guardianship.It is shown that there is a connection between consumerization of an unreliable surrounding and the disintegration of modern human relations. Consumption is essentially an individual activity, even being performed in a company with other humans. The Consumer Man exists in an isolated world of broken relationships with other people, perceiving them as means for symbolic exchange and successful investment.It is shown that there is a connection between consumer attitudes of a person and social infantilism. A social infantile has a consumeristic attitude to life, and, on the contrary, a person’s consumer attitudes tell about his/her social immaturity and infantilism. Therefore, these concepts are used in conjunction as infantilism-consumerism. Social infantilism-consumerism is associated with externalism, with insecurity in one’s own abilities and with the search for a Patron for solving all life problems. In the paper, constructive ways to counteract consumerism and infantilization of students’ educational practices are offered.Firstly, since the consumeristic practices of students are encouraged and supported by a system of instrumental interactions in universities, it is assumed that a change in the conceptual foundations of modern education, a shift from instrumental to communicative forms of interaction can contribute to the formation of non-consumeristic attitudes and discourage the infantilization of students. The instrumental model of teaching at universities is based on the concentration of education agents on knowledge transfer (from teacher to students), the quality of which should be controlled through various ratings, tests, and exams. A student in an instrumental dimension turns into a passive object with the task to meekly accept and memorize information presented by teachers, without the right to criticize, doubt or correct what is perceived. It is demonstrated that such a learning style forms the habitus of intellectual constraint and creative passivity, supporting students’ self-perception as infants, young children who eat the foods that adults prepare for them. On the contrary, the creation of a communicative space of mutual learning at universities, in which students and teachers become co-students (P. Freire), interacting and discussing conceptual problems as partners, contributes to the formation of intellectual maturity (versus infantility) of students who have gained experience of  working with mature scientists.Secondly, since one of the main components of consumerism in the field of education is the students’ confidence that practical rather than theoretical knowledge is valuable, that usefulness (and not truth) is the highest criterion for the information received; then, in order to form anti-consumer educational strategies, the utilitarian educational paradigm that encourages the idea of the consumption and profitability of knowledge should be called into question.Thirdly, it can be assumed that the model of student-centered education can contribute to the infantilization-consumerization of student educational practices. The semantic aspect of the multi-centering (and not single-centering) of the educational sphere is guessed in the concept of personality-centered (versus student-centered) education, in which the idea of cooperation (rather than subordination) of all educational subjects, both teachers and students, develops. Students existing in a polycentric space occupy the subjective positions of co-authors of the communicative learning process, ready to take responsibility for the results of their own activities or inactions.