The paper reflects the ideas of the author (one of the new educational standard developers) concerning the prospects of primary school evolution, published in the Educational Policy journal in 2011, being still relevant due to the introduction of the Federal Act on Education from September 1, 2013.

In author's opinion, a successful accomplishment and implementation of the given act and standards can be achieved through careful explanation of their content and essence to the interested people, and justification of the related benefit for the society and teachers alike. The alteration of educational concepts is regarded as a challenging task, education being the most conservative sphere of human activity. As a solution to the primary school problem, the paper emphasizes several referent points including teachers' motivation, strengthening and updating of their professional skills and knowledge, etc. The primary school appears to be the most important basis for children’s personal socialization. And therefore, it should transform into the school of understanding, cultural dialog, game and project didactics, variant education, and foundation for the universal learning activities and value formation. The primary school should teach productive cooperation with adults and advanced peers, help in solving complicated life tasks, and raise children’s confidence in personal strength and capability. 

The paper looks at the mathematical education in Russian schools regarded not long ago as fundamental and based on developing students' mental abilities. However, the analysis of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2011) demonstrates the non-consistent results in mathematical achievements of young Russians over the last fifteen years referring to the decreasing rate of successfully solved high level problems. The author disapproves of mechanical duplication of any foreign experience contradicting the Russian realities. Meanwhile, a lot of people in the USA and elsewhere abroad realize that national security is closely related to the human capital, which directly depends on education. The publication considers the limitations of mathematical education both in Russia and the USA from the national security stand point.

The author gives the comparative analysis of the system errors in mathematical education of the USA, and singles out the ones to be avoided: the residual investment into the human capital, rising gap between the school mathematics and mathematical science, degrading fundamentality of mathematical education, test drills instead of in-depth training, non-consistency of school reorganization, reduced academic hours, etc. In the author’s opinion, the negative foreign experience should be considered in order to meet the time requirements and preserve a unique Russian brand of the high quality mathematical education. 

The paper analyzes a new for the Russian anthropology concept of the «working man», introduced in the Urals along with the propagation of a social and political movement «For the Working Man Protection»; the semantic content of the «man» and «labor» notions being observed as well as the process and problems of the working man formation in the modern world.

The author emphasizes the asymmetry of the socio-economic and vocational educational infrastructure, along with the contradictions between the labor market demands for the technical and technological profile workers and the existing educational qualification structure of vocational schools.

In author's opinion, the disorganization of labor training in comprehensive school and deficiencies of vocational education hinder the process of the industrial working man formation. The professional orientation system is criticized for being unable to meet the demands of modern economy and provide the young people with the adequate concept of the working career.

For overcoming the above problems affecting the working man formation, the paper recommends modernization of the labor training system in comprehensive schools, reformation of vocational training, and renovation of professional orientation system. The special emphasis is given to the continuing training of the working man. 

The paper considers the problem of implementing the method of the ascent from the abstract to the concrete in education. The author emphasizes the interrelation between pedagogy and philosophy, as well as the need for their cooperation especially at the time of considerable changes in social and educational spheres.

The poly-modal conceptual nature of the abstract and concrete makes it possible to attribute to them respectively the positive and negative values. By analogy with the «bad infinity», the author introduces the concepts of «bad abstract» and «abstract pedagogy» typical for the modern educational practices disregarding the specifics of the concrete areas.

The historical and logical analysis of implementing the method in the Russian pedagogy demonstrates that, in spite of its fairly long development history, a systematic technological formalization can be found only in V. V. Davydov's didactics.

Based on V. V. Davydov’s concept of developing education, the author makes the following conclusion: as a cognitive method, the ascent from the abstract to the concrete develops theoretical thinking, in-depth understanding, personal attitude to the acquired knowledge and adequate behavior strategies. Therefore, the given method facilitates harmonious personal development. 

The paper discusses the problem of objective assessment of the latent variables in education. The search for and approbation of the measurement methods adequate for social spheres – including education – is an urgent and relevant task. The author justifies the selection of the Rasch model as a methodological instrument for objective assessment of the latent variables both in social and humanity spheres, and  summarizes the implementation experience regarding the assessment of academic achievements of high school leavers in mathematics.

In spite of the advantages of the Rasch model, the author draws our attention to the limits of its practical application. However, the experimental results indicate the model’s capability to estimate the academic achievements and education quality. The model gives a valid statistical picture regarding the level of estimated latent variables, and therefore, provides the basis for future predictions and detailed diagnosis of the present. 

The paper reveals the findings of a sociological research, conducted in January 2013 and aimed at defining the modern student’s socio-psychological profile. The survey involved 415 students aged from 17 to 22, studying at Moscow State Regional University, Russian State University of Tourism and Services, and the Financial and Technological Academy. The questionnaire, entitled to reveal the social facts, affecting students’ activity and behavior, as well as the conscious phenomena (motives, values, attitudes, etc.), registered the students’ opinions on a wide range of both the social life and professional preference issues.

The research presents the students’ socio-demographic characteristics, personal value orientations in different activity spheres, and cultural level; socialization problems and specifics of cooperation and interrelation with surrounding people being denoted along with participation in social and political life, and informal organizations.

The main conclusion of the research emphasizes the fact of students’ exposure to the complicated socialization conditions. However, despite the adaptation problems, the author points out the growth of self-consciousness and intention to defend their opinions as the distinctive feature of that social group, the self-esteem being the primary behavior regulator. 

The paper aims at drawing the attention of teaching community to the health promoting potential of music making disregarded nowadays by educational establishments. The traditional musical education focused mainly on musicology leads to artificial intellectualization, and leaves no room for chil-dren's imagination, intuition, creativity, joyful feelings and activities.

The author discusses the specificity of the music teaching concept, developed by Carl Orff and his followers, and based on the complex understanding of human nature, history, living conditions, and corresponding with genetic laws. On the one hand, the music-making involves consideration of the learners' psychological features and individual propensities, and on the other hand, it has a syncretic effect on the main psychological and physiological functions including communication, speech, motion, etc. As the result, it resists the hypodynamia and fatigue, and promotes health.

The paper reveals the experience of the Music Education Department in the Institute of Psychology and Pedagogy of Tumen State University, providing specializations in the Elemental Music-Making in Educational Process and Health Saving Potential of Music Teaching. The outcomes of the practical seminars and experimental teaching in the Primary School № 3 in Pytyah Town of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region confirm the author’s theory of the positive emotional impact of music-making on the learning and health saving activities. 

The paper explores the potential impact of studying the 20th century philosophical adventure fiction on educational process. In spite of the well-recognized idea of M. M. Bakhtin about the equality of classical and grotesque-fantastic aesthetic traditions, the former still predominates in the secondary and higher school curricula. The research aims to demonstrate the educational opportunities of the philosophical adventure fantasy; the content of the given concept being defined along with its specific features: unconditional world description, experimental plot type, discrepancy between the fantastic world created by the author and the real laws of nature, the hero’s experience in the alien world, related moral and philosophical problems.

The author substantiates the idea of incorporating  the number of philosophical adventure novels into the Literature course in secondary schools, and the Theory and History of Literature course in  the higher schools of the humanities profile to facilitate the detailed and in-depth comprehension of theoretical topics concerning literary genres, types of literary heroes, grotesque adventure traditions, fantasy types, etc. 

The paper is devoted to the problem of fostering the informational and communicative competence, regarded as the capability of meaningful work with information, its personalized understanding and implementation in professional activity. As a solution to the problem, the author indicates the developing potential of text activity, performed in a dialog enriched by ideas of hermeneutics and meaning-making. The competence in question should be developed stage-by-stage by role-playing the professionally focused situations; applying the symbolic contextual approach by A. A. Verbitsky; using different tasks to enable understanding, comprehension of new semantics, correlation with students' personal experience; and promoting self-understanding, selfawareness and value attitude. The above activities  should result in training competent experts with a broad cultural outlook and capability to adapt to and work in the modern information society, find creative solutions to the complex challenges, and communicate in the global cross-cultural environment. 

The paper considers the model construction basics of developing the civil self-determination of the high school students in the context of holistic and axiological approaches; the definition of the above aspect of self-determination being given, its stages identified. The author comes up with the idea of creating the pedagogical situations of the  civil dialog along with the universal didactic means for all educational stages including the heuristic tasks, discussions and situational role play; the content and componentcomposition of the civil dialog being introduced including such varieties as the dialog of a teacher and student, students' interaction, and inner dialog.

The formation of the civil self-determination is regarded by the author as the personality development aimed at creating, realizing and accepting the ideal of a citizen. In authors' opinion, the above process is conditioned by interactions of objective values and subjective personal conceptions of values, and results in acknowledging and adoption of the fatherland and civil society values.