Summary: Marginalization in the classical interpretation refers to the development in a traditional sustainable society of groups and individuals, positioned in a borderline, precarious state with respect to their social and cultural identity. Marginalization, thus, is a multifaceted process, reinforcing the internal diversity of a society. Today, the traditional society itself exists as an unstable network of disparate social groups. <The latter are in fact closed systems, which are connected by more discrete, formal communicative contacts rather than essential connections. Identifications currently are not woven into a strong social structure, and this structure itself is a transient, flexible mass. Therefore, we do not deal with individual marginal groups arising in a society, but with solid marginalized masses, among which there are “islands” of the traditional population groups. Processes of globalization and integration in the society, strengthening of social dynamics, migration, etc. are the objective reasons for this. In the context of strong ethnic and cultural diversity, military and political tensions, environmental and economic crises, rise in property stratification, social exclusion and inequality – processes of individual self-realization become more complicated. To create conditions for each individual’s development in order to meet urgent needs and improve life quality, becomes first of all the task of an educational system. All this requires more flexibility and adaptability of educational systems, which they unfortunately do not have. Under these challenges it is necessary to focus on finding ways of educational humanization in order to overcome the negative effects of marginalization processes and to use their innovation potential.
Keywords: diversity, marginalization, education, diversity management.

Резюме (Галина Нестеренко, Евгения Емельяненко: Стратегии управления многообразием в адаптации образовательных систем к вызовам маргинализации общества): Маргинализация в классическом толковании обозначает развитие в традиционном устойчивом обществе групп и отдельных личностей, находящихся в пограничном, шатком состоянии относительно своих социокультурных идентичностей. Маргинализация, таким образом, является многогранным процессом, усиливающим внутреннее разнообразие общества.
Сегодня традиционное общество само существует как неустойчивая сеть разрозненных социальных групп. Это фактически закрытые системы, которые соединены скорее дискретными, формальными коммуникативными контактами, чем сущностными связями. Идентификации не вплетены в настоящее время в прочную социальную структуру, и сама эта структура является преходящей, гибкой массой. Поэтому имеем дело не с отдельными маргинальными группами, возникающими в обществе, а со сплошными маргинализированными массами, среди которых есть “островки” традиционных слоев населения. Объективными причинами этого являются процессы глобализации и интеграции в обществе, усиление социальной динамики, миграционные процессы и т.п.
В условиях мощного этнического и культурного разнообразия, военного и политического напряжения, экологических и экономических кризисов, нарастания имущественного расслоения, социальной эксклюзии и неравенства усложняются процессы самореализации личности. Задачи создания условий для развития индивидуальности каждого с целью удовлетворения актуальных потребностей и повышения качества жизни возложены в первую очередь на систему образования. Все это требует от образовательных систем дополнительной гибкости и адаптивности, которым они, к сожалению, не обладают.
При таких вызовах необходимо сконцентрироваться на поисках путей гуманизации образования для преодоления негативных последствий процессов маргинализации и использования их инновационного потенциала.
Ключевые слова: многообразие, маргинализация, образование, управление многообразием

Zusammenfassung (Galyna Nesterenko & Yevgeniya Yemelianenko: Diversity-Management-Strategien zur Anpassung der Bildungssysteme an die Herausforderungen gesellschaftlicher Ausgrenzung): Marginalisierung bezieht sich in der klassischen Interpretation einer traditionellen, nachhaltigen Gesellschaft auf Gruppen und Einzelpersonen, die sich in einem unsicheren Zustand hinsichtlich ihrer sozio-kulturellen Identität befinden. Marginalisierung ist somit ein vielschichtiger Prozess zur Stärkung der inneren Vielfalt der Gesellschaft. Heute existiert die traditionelle Gesellschaft selbst als instabiles Netzwerk von unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen. Das sind faktisch geschlossenen Systeme, die im Wesentlichen verbunden sind durch mehrere diskrete, formal kommunikative Kontakte. Die Identifikation ist nicht verwoben in einer starken sozialen Struktur, und diese Struktur selbst ist eine vergängliche, flexible Masse. Deshalb haben wir es nicht mit einzelnen in der Gesellschaft entstandenen marginalisierten Gruppen zu tun, sondern mit eher kompakten marginalisierten Massen, unter denen sich „Inseln“ traditioneller Bevölkerungsschichten befinden. Objektive Gründe hierfür sind Prozesse der Globalisierung und Integration in die Gesellschaft, die Zunahme der sozialen Dynamik, Migration usw. Der Prozess der Selbstverwirklichung der Individuen wird erschwert durch anwachsende ethnische und kulturelle Vielfalt, militärische und politische Spannungen, Umwelt- und Wirtschaftskrise, Anstieg der Besitzunterschiede, soziale Ausgrenzung und Ungleichheit. Die Aufgabe, Bedingungen für die Entwicklung der Individualität eines jeden zu schaffen, um dringende Bedürfnisse zu erfüllen und die Lebensqualität zu verbessern obliegt in erster Linie dem Bildungssystem.
All dies erfordert von Bildungssystemen mehr Flexibilität und Anpassungsfähigkeit, die sie leider nicht haben. Unter diesen Bedingungen ist es erforderlich, nach Möglichkeiten der Humanisierung der Bildung zu suchen, um die negativen Auswirkungen der Marginalisierungsprozesse zu überwinden und das Innovationspotenzial zu nutzen.
Schlüsselwörter: Vielfalt, Ausgrenzung, Bildung, Diversity-Management.

New trends in social and political, economic, spiritual and cultural life of Ukraine and its integration into the global and European educational space put forward essentially new requirements for the national educational system, especially for a tutor, a teacher.

On the other hand, powerful рrocesses of social dynamics and transformations lead to stratification of society, increasing the extent of its cultural diversity and marginalization. These circumstances actualize the need for another quality of educational systems and professionals in the field of education, – they require new approaches and methods to ensure the adaptation of education to cultural diversity and marginality.

General questions aimed at the study of marginality as a social phenomenon are revealed in the works of foreign authors E. Neyman, Y. Halasinskyy, A. Kerckhoff, T. McCormick, R. Park, E. Stounkvist, T. Veblen, T. Shybutani, U. Samner, A. Farzh, B. Manchini, M. Holdberh, R. Merton, Y. Starykov, Y. Balabanova, S. Bankovska, A. Atoyan, S. Lohachova and others. Also works of N. Navdzhavonov, M. Polyakov, M. Semiryahi, M. Tomkin, V. Shapinskiy and Y. Shapinska, B. Shaptalov and others were devoted to themes of marginality. Among the modern Ukrainian authors who directly or indirectly considered the problem of marginality, we should note V. Andruschenko, Y. Brodetska, S. Vytryschak, Y. Golovakha, V. Korobchansiy, A. Lantuh, S. Makieyev, V. Mandiburh, I. Prybytkova, I. Pyetrova, A. Svyaschuk, M. Shulha and others.

So, the represented study is aimed to analyse and formulate relevant approaches for modernizing of Ukrainian educational system in line whith the current requirements of social dynamics, especially with regards to diversity and marginality.

At first we have to describe the current terms, complications and flaws of the national educational system’s functioning. Ukrainian educational environment is submerged in all problems and complexities of social transformaition, occurring in recent decades. The Ukrainian society is full of contradictory conflicts, arising and unfolding on different grounds. The examples of such grounds are the following:

multiculturalism, poly-ethnic composition of the population and intensification of the migration processes;
insufficiently settled widespread using of multiple languages at different levels of social interaction;
inconsistency of political transformations and reforms including those in the educational field;
massive reduction in welfare and level of life quality, impoverishment of the masses of population;
tight interaction with religious and political organizations;
erosion and blurring of steady national identity;
centering of the educational system in the direction of standardization of a personality according to the values of traditional society, – which is not relevant to modern conditions;
absence of coherent and systematic state policy to compensate the negative effects of marginality etc.

These and many other circumstances lead to the realization of the urgent need to adapt the educational system to the conditions of total marginalization to which they are absolutely not ready now. Thus, issues of diversity and heterogeneity are exacerbated in a society as a whole and the marginalization processes can’t be ignored.

So, what is the nature and characteristics of contemporary marginalized environment, which should orient teachers and tutors today to work with, and to which graduates of educational institutions must be prepared?

Let’s define the content and the phenomenology of the problem.

Marginality – is a manifestation of social complexity of the lives of individuals, which are characterized by psychological blurring between several social and cultural worlds, with the lack of their own place. Under such circumstances, the full identity is not formed in any of these social dimensions. Such personality is recognized as a such, which does not belong to any certain group (Bronnikov, 2009).

This may be caused, in particular, by three main factors:

real social status of a person, his / her social self-reflection and self-evaluation;
social attitudes, attitudes to the situation;
psychological personality characteristics.

A. Kerckhoff and T. McCormick interpreted a marginal group in terms of reference group theory, concluding that an individual is marginal if he / she “uses a nonmembership group as a reference group” if he himself represents a collectivity of lower status (Kerckhoff, McCormick, 1955, p. 51). So, we can continue, that marginal person – is the one who doesn’t find a reference group to which in fact he / she belongs. Such persons just want and try to get their membership in several groups; they are trying to be accepted and approved.

We agree, that in such situation there are two most probable paths or versions of events. In the context of the failure to join the reference group of people, a person will suffer from a lack of a sense of wholeness, harmony and communion. On the other hand, the inclusion into the group requires the appropriate changes, and, as a consequence, leads to the transformation (and sometimes lost) of identity and self-identification. Both the first and second situations create objective and subjective psychological problems, which, of course, affect the social behavior of the individual. The situation may be even more difficult if the person does not even consider any group as a referent one for himself (Rashko, 2014).

In modern science, there is no common coherent conceptual system suitable for understanding of the marginality phenomenon, in relation to its functions and evaluations. But, in general, the nature, causes and characteristics of this phenomenon are described. The marginality phenomenon is understood as opposite to sustainable traditional “positive” personal identity.

Also, nowadays there is a transition from a narrow social and psychological understanding of marginality to the phenomenological and epistemological vision of it. For example, by raising this issue, V. Karpo notes that the ontology of marginality can be interpreted as a characteristic of some of the forms and ways of being, becoming and change of life, a dynamic moment in existence, as well as a specific position in it; as a special ontological status and borderline state. Thus, the concept of marginality can be attributed both to the state and the shape of the object in existence, and to its relation to the totality of other objects and a system of social origin, and to being as a whole. Thus, marginality is presented as the internal feature of life in all its contradictions. So, “the use of the marginality concept emphasizes the complexity of the internal structure being, ditionality of its structure and topology, multidimensionality and nonlinearity of ontological and anthropological spaces, particularly important dynamic and energy characteristics of a human being (Karpo, 2009, p. 39).

In order to understand the specifics of modern interpretation of the phenomenon of marginality, let’s look at some classic concepts.

E. Stonequist in his study “The marginal man” analyzed a marginal person from social and psychological positions. First of all, the author paid very significant attention to the situation of relative cultural stability, where there is no place for marginality phenomenon. Probably, this is done, in order to grasp the most elementary features of the marginality emergence. We can see, that condition of marginality is accompanied by persistent doubts about self-worth, awareness of the fragility and impermanence of social relations, the fear of being cut off. From this, the desire to avoid a situation of choice between different values, nihilism, isolation, shame, loneliness, along with bravado independence – arises (Stonequist, 1961, p. 62).

But it should be noted that all these are the dominant features of a modern man in the XXI century postmodern. First of all, it concerns young people and teenagers whose lives are absolutely non-determined at this unstable period of their life experience.

In particular, asit’s shown by I. Lapova, a marginal person can be represented as an ideal type, which is the basis of human approach to self-determination in the post-industrial city. The author defines marginality as a specifically unstable and limited in time and space within the localization in the social environment, its origin and the existence of a subjective experience of this process as a lack of integrity, comfort cultural environment. I. Lapova emphasizes that this state of marginality becomes predominant in the modern city (Lapova, 2009, p. 6).

Another specific feature is very important for the understanding of modern peculiarities, it concerns distinguishing both negative and positive manifestations of marginalization.

R. Park saw the marginal person as beforehand more free, more mobile and plastic, but at the same time it is a person at the border of cultures with the low qualities. Life condemns such people to live in several worlds at the same time, constantly try and try on different social roles, without feeling that the personal qualities fully comply with at least one of them.

The marginal man, as R. Park conceived him, was a “cultural hybrid, a man living and sharing intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two distinct peoples; never quite willing to break, even if he were permitted to do so, with his past and his traditions, and not quite accepted, because of racial prejudice, in the new society in which he now sought to find a place. He was a man on the margin of two cultures and two societies, which never completely interpenetrated and fused”. (Park, 1928, p. 892). 10 years later, in the introduction to Stonequist’s book “The Marginal Man”, R. Park stressed the cultural conflict in the emergence of this personality type: The margimal man was defined by him as “one whom fate has condemned to live in two societies and in two, not merely different but antagonistic cultures” (Stonequist, 1965, p. 14). This antagonism existed twice, moreover, in social relations and at the level of individual personality, outside and inside of the marginal man. On the one hand, he was a product of the cultural conflicts brought about by conquest, invasion, and migration.

According to R. Park, all these processes of marginality provide additional psychological load, but as a result of this man turns into a person with a broader view of the world, a wide intellectual horizon, independent and self-rational views (Park, 1928, p. 888-889). So the marginal is a more sensitive and receptive person with a number of challenges, but with great potential. Understated quality is often established only in practice, as a potentially high, but did not show due to a lack of environmental conditions.

In comparison with the past century, the marginalization phenomenon has changed significantly differentiated and at the same time acquired the characteristics of universality, became more complex, gained a lot of projections. The concept, which describes the phenomenon, greatly expanded and enriched, acquired many forms. The concept of “alien” itself has been changed with the change of society. Currently, it includes a much larger field of objects than before.

Anyway, today a lot of numbers (sometimes majority) of youth people are experiencing hard going through their own marginality and remoteness, instability of identities, values and goals. The society is such that generates a similar reflection on itself and then taking damage of consequences.

Obviously, in the XXI century marginality is converted from a public cargo to creativity potential, that is not initialized in any type of social community. As a psychological and social controversy, marginal person can receive a very negative and very positive development. This is a qualitative change in the type of human personality in the modern era, as well as the transformation of the society. These circumstances put forward new demands on the education system as well as on individual professionals. Thus, it is necessary to consider possible approaches needed for this adaptation of educational systems to the challenges of new content and spread of marginality.

An average person of the postmodern age is “ripped”, ambivalent, suffers from fragmentation and lack of clarity of self-identity and of belonging (or non-belonging) to reference groups. And to a greater extent this applies to students. Thus, there is the exacerbated question, what educational strategies can help modern teachers to work in such marginalized environment, and what competencies need to be developed among future graduates for successful professional work and happy life.

The first is an increasing importance of competence-based approach in the training of pedagogical universities’ students and advanced training of currently working pedagogues. The urgency of the problem described above is increasing every year due to the transformation of pre-school, school and higher education. The criteria for these transformations are marked in legal documents relating to the development of education. They stress the need for the humanization of education, methodological reorientation of the learning process on the development of student’s personality, the recognition and the forming of the respect for their own identity, the development of self-esteem. The competence of a teacher must ensure the growth of a student as a confident person capable of effective activity in different areas of life, based on knowledge, experience, values and skills acquired during the training. Teachers’ education today must be fully implemented on the basis of personal and professional self-government, to train professionals ready to work creatively in educational institutions of different types, which endeavor to develop each student towards accounting marginalization tendencies (through the use of positive and compensation of negative derivations).

Today Ukraine continues active attempts to enter the European social and economic space, which in turn requires a radical transformation of all structures of society and the high rate of development of modern technologies. Such integration requires on the one hand consciousness mobility, integrity and other value-semantic space at both collective and individual levels of consciousness. In this context marginalization is a significant threat to national security and international partnership. Educational systems are always at the centre of such processes and the above mentioned tendencies present to them the task of finding and implementing new approaches of training and education, holistic socialization (Demchenko, 2014, pp. 41-44).

Solution of the aforementioned problems requests from educational institutions to identify new reserves to improve the quality of professional training. However, the current schools’ activities have not yet seen a general orientation of educational process for the development of competence to work whith marginal personality.

For the work with marginalized individual teacher at first should have a commitment to self-determination, ability to cooperate, to learn throughout life and the ability to make his / her own responsible decisions. Conceptual framework for teachers’ education has to provide that the aim of teacher education and work is to develop a system that is based on national heritage of world significance and established European traditions, provide training of the teaching staff able to carry out professional activities in the democratic and humanistic principles. It has to implemente education policy as a priority feature state which is aimed at development and personal fulfillment, satisfaction of educational, spiritual and cultural needs. That’s because today we need “skilled professionals to work effectively which largely depends on the success of social and economic and political reforms in the country. They must have not only an appropriate amount of fundamental knowledge, communicative competence, but also have a high level of intellectual development of certain personal qualities, a new type of mental activity, critical thinking style” (Horokhova, 2014, p. 238).

Thus, the primary strategy for adapting of education systems to the terms of society marginalization appears to apply the competency approach in teachers’ training. This approach is aimed at the development of competencies, combining into one entry theoretical knowledge and its practical use in solving particular tasks and problem situations.

The structure of the core competencies needed to work with the marginalized environment includes:

information and communicative competence;
intercultural competence;
social and legal competence;
competence of self-improvement, continuous self-development;
the ability and willingness to tolerance, empathy, cooperation;
appreciation of diversity as the wealth of society and for each individual.

These competencies provide the ability of a teacher to operate in society, taking into account the positions of others, in order to properly understand them, to analyze, and to act with confidence in specific areas of human culture. This list of competencies is a primarily necessary complement to the modern professional experience and skills. In addition, each core competence required for a wide range of educational and life problems, which is why they should be formed on an interdisciplinary basis.

Next adaptation strategy is aimed at improving of the quality of all education levels. The quality of education as a part of the social and economic activities lies in the basis of any country development, and is the main condition for the country’s competitiveness and national security in the post-industrial and information society. Principles for systematically improving of the quality of education should be carried out in the vocational education and training professionals at a higher level, on the basis of the principle of continuity of education (life-long-learning). At the same time, one of the most important criteria for the quality of the graduate education is the ability to continuously self-learning, during the whole life.

Modernization of Ukraine’s education system provides for the introduction of innovative technologies and practices in the educational process at all levels. Innovation in the learning process – is a set of coherent, purposeful activity, principles and technologies to update, change of purpose, content, methods of organization, forms and methods of training and education, to adapt the learning process to the current social and historical conditions.

The priorities concerning training for the marginalized environment include modern educational technologies, interactive training methods, information systems and technologies, which provide active forms, involving students in the creative process of learning, research issues, forming their own opinions and fulfillment. These technologies are methods of problem-based learning and critical thinking, project activities, an open polylogue.

Problem-based learning should be combined with the development of critical thinking, thus providing an opportunity to: balance the different points of view, the ability to reveal the idea of soft skepticism, to combine active and interactive learning process, to test the ideas in terms of their possible use, to revise and rethink of the concept, to find relevant information and use it independently when making educational decisions etc.

The researcher of critical thinking S. Terno stresses that the essence of critical thinking lies in making carefully considered and balanced decisions regarding credibility to any statement. “The goal of critical thinking is to establish objective truth. Critical thinking is the independent thinking, information is starting, but not the end point of critical thinking”. So critical thinking, is social thinking as well: any idea is checked, detalised and discussed with others (Terno, 2012, p. 6-7).

In general, just such personality traits and cooperation methods may be the most relevant to the organization of work in a marginalized environment, what corresponds to the modern concepts of marginality. Russian researcher I. Lapova (Lapova, 2009), analyzing the phenomenon of marginality from social-philosophical positions and in the context of the concept of post-industrial society, demonstrates that modern marginal is not a vestige of the traditional society in a situation of maladjustment, and he is completely relevant to the conditions of a modern city social interaction’ product. During the investigation of this hypothesis I. Lapova introduces the new concept of “urbania”, which allows to designate a new type of social community, formed in a change of social and cultural space of the modern city from traditional forms of social relations into the short-term personalized relationships between people. These relationships are based on the quest for identity in a diverse and fragmented urban space.

The author also shows that the problem of human identity in the modern city is revealed as the problem of replacing the traditional ways of self-determination to the temporal, multivariate, pluralistic ones: in particular, with increased degree of individualization, mobility, labour specialization; value-normative set of personal features becomes interchangeable with the lack of a single integral constant worldview framework (Lapova, 2009, pp. 3-10).

Thus, due to the challenges of society marginalization the educational system has to adapt towards polyfunctionalality, objectification and interdisciplinarity, multidimensionality, enhanced needs in intellectual development. Concrete measures to be taken in the educational system in this regard, will contribute to its adaptation. They can provide a clear understanding by students of the purpose of their work, the constant reflection of their own achievements, applied orientation of the acquired knowledge and skills, gaining experience to complete the started tasks and to cooperate successfully, the formation of the physical, emotional, and volitional readiness to work, the development of skills of independent and responsible decision-making, prediction of events and consequences.

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About the Authors

Prof. Dr. Galyna Nesterenko: Prof. of Education, head of department for innovations and informational activity in education, National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, Kyiv (Ukraine). Contact: gala99@ukr.net

Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Yemelianenko: Ass. Prof. of philosophical sciences, National Institute for Strategic Studies, Kyiv (Ukraine).