Historical prerequisites for the integration of a humane and personal approach into modern preschool practice

Abstract

The integration of the humanistic-personal approach into preschool educational practice represents a complex nonlinear historical process spanning more than one and a half centuries and characterized by alternating periods of active promotion of humanistic ideas with stages of stagnation and regression, determined by both the internal logic of the development of pedagogical thought and socio-political factors. The genesis of this approach dates back to the philosophical traditions of conformity to nature and respect for the child's inner world, which developed from the ideas of the Renaissance and Enlightenment through systems of free education and careful cultivation of natural inclinations, where the child was understood as a self-valuable subject rather than an object of external influences, to theoretical constructs emphasizing the cultural-historical nature of development, the mediating role of the adult in the zone of proximal development, self-actualization, and amplification of age-related opportunities. Analysis of the dynamics of normative consolidation and practical implementation reveals sharp fluctuations: minimal indicators during periods of unification and strict regulation are replaced by steady growth after key conceptual shifts at the end of the 20th century, reaching 67,9% implementation in modern conditions with a normative consolidation index of 8.6 points, which reflects the transition from an educational-disciplinary model to supporting children's initiative, individualization of routes, and partnership interaction. Content analysis of pedagogical discourse demonstrates the evolution of key categories – the child's freedom, individuality, subjectivity, cooperation, the intrinsic value of childhood, initiative, and emotional well-being – whose frequency increases exponentially, especially after 1989, with the replacement of general declarations by more operational constructs. A comparative assessment of educational programs from standard to variable ones based on federal standards records a progressive increase in the expression of humanistic-personal attitudes across value-target, content, procedural-technological, and performance blocks, although with a persistent predominance of declarative components over instrumental ones, which is manifested in an average score from 2.28 to 7.73. Of particular importance is the persisting gap between the normative level (85-96%) and real practice (on average 53%), amounting to about 38 percentage points and most pronounced in the areas of granting the right to choose activities, the teacher's partner position, dialogic communication, and refusal of directive assessment, which indicates a deep inertia of the authoritarian professional culture formed over decades. At the same time, there is a systemic expansion of the subject field of the approach, extending to the organization of a developing environment, relationships between children, interaction with the family, institution management, professional development of teachers, and assessment of education quality, where the latter areas show the maximum growth rates over fifty years – up to 436,4%. In general, the formation of the paradigm appears as a multidimensional, irreversible, albeit uneven movement, reflecting the accumulation of scientific potential, institutional transformations, and the need to overcome contradictions between value orientations and established stereotypes, which allows determining the main content of the article, assessing its relevance for analyzing contemporary trends in preschool education, and making an informed decision to refer to the full text.