PhD, Associate Professor O.V. Bulatova¹
PhD, Associate Professor O.A. Bratseva¹
Dr.Hab., Associate Professor V.А. Mishchenko¹
Dr.Hab., Professor S.A. Gilmanov¹
A.D. Danilova¹
PhD E.A. Lubyshev^2
1Yugra State University, Khanty-Mansiysk
²Moscow City Pedagogical University, Moscow

Keywords: professional mobility, handicapped students, disability, inclusive education, social adaptation.

Background. Adaptation of handicapped and disabled people to the professional service requirements and their social integration is ranked among the top priority social policies of the Russian Government as provided, among other policy documents, by the Long-term Socio-economic Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020. High professional mobility of the handicapped graduates is considered among the key credentials for their employment in view of the fact that only 8% of disabled and handicapped people in the country are employed, as reported by the human-rights ombudsman. This is the reason why a high priority is being given today to the systemic studies of the ways to facilitate the handicapped people’s adaptation to modern environments.

Objective of the study was to provide theoretical grounds for the handicapped and disabled people’s professional mobility building initiatives. 

Study findings and discussion. For the last few decades that national and international research communities have increasingly used the notion of professional mobility interpreted as the individual fitness for and ability to take new job opportunities [5] as required by the increasingly volatile situations in the labour market and the modern socio-economic challenges.

Most of the researchers and analysts tend to interpret professional mobility as the personal quality facilitating the individual adaptation to the modern socio-economic/ professional environments in the dynamic, efficient and determined manner. Foreign analysts underline the importance of high professional mobility for success in a professional career in the modern globalized world [3, 4], with the individual mobility considered one of the key professional and social credentials with the relevant values and priorities including individual efficiency and adaptability to life situations and professional responsibilities and requirements.

National researchers are no less interested in the professional mobility (PM) building issues and associating problems, with their studies providing different interpretations of the notion of professional mobility and analyzing its aspects and implications including the professional mobility building tools applicable in the academic educational system in the context of different professional mobility aspects i.e. social, educational, psychological etc. It should be mentioned, however, that most of the study reports analyze the professional mobility issues for the relatively healthy student population whilst many issues of the handicapped and disabled students’ PM still remain largely underexplored.

Our analysis of the available study reports with concern to the handicapped and disabled people’s professional and social adaptation shows that they mostly explore the professional progress opportunities in the general and secondary vocational education systems. The researchers underline the existing challenges for the professional progress of handicapped and disabled students including the poor motivations for vocational discernment, academic and professional progress; limited knowledge of the job opportunities; non-ambitious/ pessimistic attitudes to the life missions and deficient values systems; inability to prudently design and manage own life and professional growth; and inability to make socially and economically grounded decisions.

The modern inclusive academic educational system shall not only build up good professional competences in the handicapped and disabled students but also facilitate their social adaptation and integration [1]. As implied by the ‘bio-dominant’ interpretations of the social adaptation process, they consider the adaptation process as an interaction of an adapting individual with the subject environment, with the social adaptation process including both the individual adaptation to the environment and the environment in its turn being customized to the needs of the adapting individual. This means that the social adaptation process shall not be limited to the ‘accessible environment’ building efforts but shall also provide due training service for the specialist to be highly proficient and competitive in the labour market. High social adaptation means in this context the individual ability to both adapt to environment and fully mobilize own resource for self-fulfillment associated with and facilitated by the counter changes in the environment.

Therefore, the handicapped and disabled students’ PM issues need to be in higher priority in the modern education science, with the relevant studies recommended to be based on the L.S. Vygotsky’s concept spelling out the objective logics of the normal and deviated early development process within the frame of his theory of culture-and-history-determined mental progress – in application to the professional mobility driven adaptation of the handicapped students. As provided by the L.S. Vygotsky’s concept, the handicapped and disabled students’ personality development process is governed by the same logics as that of their healthy peers, albeit with certain specifics due to the developmental deficiencies/ limitations. Further efforts need to be taken to study the handicapped and disabled students’ PM issues with a special emphasis on their social adaptation and professional progress issues.

Special consideration in the studies is given to the following socio-economic barriers for professional adaptation of handicapped and disabled specialists:

– Physical limitations with the relevant environmental and spatial orienteering barriers due to the individual functional deficiencies;

– Low competitiveness;

– Discrimination by employers, with the handicapped and disabled graduates mostly offered monotonous, unskilled and underpaid jobs with poor if any promotion opportunities. The situation may be explained not only by the mental and social limitations of the employees but also the still underdeveloped labour market and demand for employees with health limitations;

– Low living standards due to the above aspects;

– Communication barrier that both limits the inflow of critical information for progress and makes it difficult for the handicapped and disabled people to defend their needs and views;

 – Emotional barrier i.e. the burden of counterproductive biases in the communication and relationship of society with handicapped people;

– Low employment opportunities for this social group in the modern highly competitive market economy; and

- Employment problems faced by the handicapped and disabled people [2].

It may be summarized that the professional adaptation and social integration of handicapped and disabled people is complicated by a variety of personality and environmental issues. This is the reason why a special priority in the professional academic educational process shall be made on the handicapped and disabled students’ internal personality development (including the professional mobility building) process rather than on the purely external educational effects.

Conclusion. The study data and analysis show that the academic educational service for handicapped and disabled students’ shall make a special emphasis on their professional mobility development aspects to complement the personality development process and correct the individual deficiencies/ limitations so as to secure their due competitiveness for successful socializing and professional progress achievable via the self-perfection and self-fulfillment agenda.

Findings and materials of the study may be helpful for the education specialists and university faculties interested in the matters of modern inclusive education and professional mobility building issues; for developers of the relevant special curricula in professional pedagogy and psychology – for the academic training and advanced academic courses for university faculties, sociologists, psychologists and social workers.

The study was sponsored by the Research School Studies Encouragement Grant Project #13-01-20/15 for the junior researchers at Yugra State University

References

1. Bulatova O.V. Podgotovka studentov k realizatsii inklyuzivnogo protsessa v obschem obrazovanii [Building students' competency for implementation of inclusive process in general education]. Vestnik ugrovedeniya, 2014, no. 3 (18), pp. 98–101
2. Aismontas B.B. [ed.] Psikhologo-pedagogicheskie osnovy obucheniya studentov s OVZ v vuze. Khrestomatiya dlya prepodavateley sfery vysshego professionalnogo obrazovaniya, rabotayuschikh so studentami s OVZ [Psychological and pedagogical basics of academic education of students with health limitations; Readers for teachers of higher professional education, working with students with HL]. Moscow: MSPPU publ., 2013, 334 p.
3. Simoes Dora. Insights into the expectations of mobility students: the impact of Erasmus in their future professional careers. 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Valencia, 2017, pp. 696–704
4. Dolga L. Erasmus Mobility Impact On Professional Training And Personal Development Of Students Beneficiaries. Proc. 6th World Conference on Education. Valletta, 2015, vol. 191,  pp. 1006-1013
5. Mishchenko V.A. et al. Management factors and conditions of higher education students professional mobility formation. International Review of Management and Marketing, 2016, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 70–74.

Corresponding author: bov1978@ list.ru

Abstract

The study subject is highly topical today due to the following ongoing transformations in the national society. First, there is a growing trend to expand the service range of the national education institutions and opportunities for handicapped students for the last few years. Second, there is a clear need for the new educational models for the handicapped and disabled students driven by the modern academic inclusion concepts and policies.

This was the background for our study geared to analyze the modern professional mobility driven adaptation of the handicapped and disabled students to modern environments and situations – largely based on the L.S. Vygotsky’s concept spelling out the objective logics of the normal and deviated early development process in application to the professional mobility driven adaptation of handicapped and disabled students. The article analyzes the meaning of professional mobility and makes a special emphasis on the personality qualities and competences building in the handicapped student groups to facilitate their adaptation to the modern social and cultural situations in professional environments and step up their competitiveness in the labour market.