The VII international conference on cross-cultural education has taken place in Spain
The "Education, Health Care and ICT from the Cross-cultural Point of View" conference has been held in the university of Almeria, Spain. 250 scientists, from Great Britain, the USA, Russia, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Hungary, France, Chile, Brazil, Egypt, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal, Mexico, Ecuador, Thailand, the Netherlands took part in work of the conference.
The purpose of this conference is creation of an open forum for discussion of questions of education and health care among which special significance is attached to problems of migrants. The wide scope of conference makes possible participation of representatives of various spheres of sciences: pedagogics, sociology, medicine, psychology, anthropology, information technologies, etc.
Teachers of the Yelabuga institute of the Kazan Federal university participated at the conference as speakers. Reports of scientists were represented in English.
Tarasova Ayziryak Nailevna, Candidate of Philology, the senior teacher of department of the English philology, spoke about problems of an acculturation and psychological adaptation of foreign first-year students of the Yelabuga institute of the Kazan federal university. This subject is extremely relevant for world science as the main tendency of modern higher education is cross-cultural merging and a students’ exchange. Recently the number of the students arriving to Russia, including to Tatarstan for the purpose of education, knowledge and experience has increased that has as a result made the Russian higher education institution multicultural. In the first year of training foreign students face problems which, subsequently, become factors of development of an acculturation stress in them. Research has caused scientific interest among our foreign colleagues. Professor of Miami University Dina Byorman admitted that the researches devoted to psychological health of foreign students are widespread in the USA. Dina herself also conducts scientific work in this direction, her report at plenary meeting has been devoted to process of the academic acculturation of students migrants (on the example of students from Somalia).
Bariyeva Hene Railevna presented the report "A phenomenon of plurality of cultures in education: barriers of communicative creativity of foreign and nonresident students in case of the solution of group tasks" within the section "art and cross-cultural education". Communicative creativity as property of the personality is formed in the conditions of system indirect impact on the identity of the student through establishing creative microenvironment for his activities and communication. At the session the results of research in diagnostics of communicative creativity of the foreign and nonresident students who are trained in EI KFU were presented. Despite the identical conditions of adaptation in higher education institution connected with change of habitual way of life as a result of entering a higher education institution and isolation from previous place of residence, expressiveness of barriers of speech aspect, a barrier of subjective perception of the personality and tool barriers at foreign students is higher. After the reports the discussion has taken place: in Spain the question of foreign students integration in educational environment of higher education institution is actual. According to the UNESCO World Organization in 2010 Spain took the 11th place in the world by the number of foreign students, in the majority they are students from Latin America, especially Peru and Colombia. It was interesting to attendee at session to learn what methods and means are used in educational institutions of Russia for creation of conditions for polycultural education, what problems the Russian teachers of higher education institutions face, performing educational activities in the cross-cultural environment.
Haliullina Lilia Rinatovna presented the research work "Psychology and pedagogical bases of development of research thinking of bachelors". Today similar experience of research work is demanded in many companies working in the field of technologies, production, analysis of data. Development of plastic, flexible research thinking in university graduates is one of the main components providing easy adaptation and competence of the professional area. Ability to think nonstandardly, draw unexpected conclusions, create new quality of interaction with a material world can be useful in many spheres of activity in the future. One of strategic reference points in upgrade of the higher education is formation of the highly skilled university graduates having culture of thinking as most important prerequisite of development of research thinking. After Liliye Rinatovna's performance the specifying questions have been asked, foreign colleagues were interested what components include determinationof research thinking in the Russian language, when it is better to begin developping research thinking of students, what ways of development of research thinking in her work are used by Lilia Rinatovna and how effective they are.
It should be noted that participation of our scientists in one of top conferences is a part of project implementation of KFU on increasing of competitiveness of higher education institution and entry into "5 TOP 100", it requires improvement of quality of research activities of scientists. In this connection specialists of Yelabuga institute of the KFU annually participate in status international forums where they gain valuable experience of interaction with foreign higher education institutions, the interactions with specialists working in the Education direction.
During the conference which has taken place in Spain the most valuable and bright for our scientists were the speeches of professor of University of Nottingham (Great Britain) Christopher Dai with the report on a subject "The teacher's life: a problem of maintenance of passion to quality" and professor of Miami University (USA) Dina Byorman with the report "The academic involvement of students migrants".
"General impression from the organization of a forum is, certainly, positive. – Lilia Haliullina shares impression, - separation into sections not by the principle of the scientific importance (graduate students, doctors), but on subjects of the declared reports was interesting. The program was very saturated. Work was carried out within three days on 15 symposiums, 27 sessions, and also poster papers have been presented". In the course of work of conference our scientist succeeded to get acquainted with key speakers. Some of them would be glad to continue interaction with our higher education institution.
For reference: The university of Almeria has been founded in 1993. Today there about 12000 students on 38 profiles of preparation are trained. As a part of university 3 colleges (polytechnical, employment relationships, medical) and 6 faculties (economy and business, natural sciences, education, law, the humanities, psychology) work.
The reports presented at the conference demonstrate new sides in modern education and show that the education problem is very actual around the world today. Participation in similar conferences in general is useful because scientists from the different countries have an opportunity to discuss questions from various points of view, to look at foreign experience. And for young scientists it is an opportunity to prove, recommend their name and the research at the world level that will help to further forming of the scientific biography and a portfolio.
Results of researches will be published in the high-rating magazine (according to SJR – 1,66) "Social and Behavioral Sciences" indexed by the international base of citing SCOPUS.