Informational and psychological safety of the educational environment in forming a person’s personality: current challenges and risks (ecological and psychological approach)

The importance of this paper is determined by the fact that present day society is characterized by crisis phenomena in many areas of socio-economic and social life, which entails a drastic change in habitual stereotypes and patterns of behavior, the reassessment of values and attitudes, and a change in worldviews. This tendency is acutely reflected in young people who study: children and teenagers, students of higher educational institutions. The paper presents the results of a study of the information-psychological safety of the educational environment in a context of the principle of ecological compatibility. The concept of “safety” is defined as the state of protection of the vital interests of an individual, society and the state from internal and external threats. Information and psychological safety is defined as: 1) a state of preservation of the human psyche; 2) maintaining the integrity of a person; 3) sustainable development and normal functioning of a person in interaction with the environment; 4) capabilities of the environment and the individual to prevent and eliminate threats; 5) the state of the environment, free from manifestations of psychological violence in interaction that contributes to the satisfaction of needs for personal and trustful communication, creating involvement in the environment and ensuring the mental health of participants included in it. It has been proved that the educational environment should be directed to: firstly creating educational conditions for unlocking the creative potential of different areas of the student’s psyche and his abilities (physical, emotional, cognitive, personal, spiritual and moral); secondly, to creating conditions that provide the opportunity to meet the needs of a given student in accordance with individual interests and characteristics, objectives of age-related socialization; thirdly, the use of such educational technologies that correspond to the natural physiological and psychological, as well as social characteristics and patterns of students’ development, i.e. meet the principle of ecological compatibility.