Introduction. In many countries around the world, the increase in life expectancy leads to significant social transformations. Institutional structures, social protection policies and legislation on the life and employment of older citizens are being changed today. In Russian higher education, more than a third of professional community belongs to the group of teachers of the third (pre-retirement and retirement) age. The modernisation of this area and the raising of the retirement age will make it possible to study the peculiarities of this group of faculty members as a reserve of the vocational training system.The aim of the present article is to characterise the adaptive potential of social community of teachers of the third age in the context of the transformation of higher education.Methodology and research methods. The methodological framework of the article is based on the set of general scientific approaches: communal, comparative, institutional, resource. The first method provides an opportunity to consider teachers of the third age as a social community with their own specific features. The comparative approach is used to see specific features in dynamics (on the materials of official statistics) and to compare them with similar characteristics of teachers of other age groups. The institutional and resource approaches are aimed at identifying adaptive abilities of teachers of the third age against the background of current restructuring processes in higher education. The article is based on the materials of research projects conducted in 2017–2019 and on a mass survey of teachers. The general population consisted of 51 universities of the Ural Federal District. The volume of the sample of teachers is 810 people.Results and scientific novelty. The study showed that teachers of the third age are characterised by a high level of adaptation to changes in higher education. They successfully fulfill themselves in scientific and pedagogical activities. They are characterised by relatively high publication and grant activities, realisation of new educational forms and high motivation and readiness to improve their com petencies and qualifications. At the same time, teachers of the third age estimate their social security in the professional sphere as extremely low. This community is characterised by a high level of criticality in relation to the implemented institutional changes in the field of higher education, which is based on a socially mature responsibility formed within their professional activities for the consequences of decisions taken.Practical significance. The research undertaken demonstrates the stereotype inadequacy concerning non-adaptability of third-age university teachers to technological, content and organisational innovations. Moreover, teachers of the third age are a significant factor in the sustainable development of universities. Therefore, it is necessary to develop management models and create institutional conditions for maximum use of human capital of third-age teachers, whose peculiarities, needs and opportunities in the system of Russian higher education are inadequately taken into account today.

The article was prepared on the basis of an international comparative study – a sociological survey of students from regional universities from 37 cities in the Sverdlovsk region of the Russian Federation and 20 settlements of the Shirak region in the Republic of Armenia (targeted sample, No. = 715). The authors explore the potential for social participation of students from countries with a common political background of post-socialism and cardinal differences in the cultural and historical heritage of urban spaces.The purpose of this article is to determine the potential for social participation of students of regional universities in Russia and Armenia and the subjective factors that determine their activity in the development of cities. The article analyzes the experience of volunteering, as well as the willingness of students to different types of constructive social participation in urban development. To identify factors that activate the social participation of students, a discriminant analysis has been used. Discriminant models were constructed dividing groups of students from different countries with a high and low degree of readiness for social participation, as well as into groups with and without volunteering experience. The authors argue that Russia and Armenia are characterized by an identical structure of student involvement in volunteer activities, but the level of students’ readiness for social participation in urban development in the countries under consideration is different. For Armenian students, not only the willingness for social participation is higher, but also the practices themselves are more associated with active socio-cultural activities in the urban space. Two factors that determine the experience of real participation in the socio-cultural development of cities are characteristic of both Russian and Armenian students. The real experience of volunteering is more likely to be acquired by those students who are motivated to receive information about the culture and history of their cities, as well as the ability to see and identify significant cultural and historical objects where they live and study. In the Russian scenario, the importance of the city, the need for its development increases for students if they, being armed with certain knowledge about its culture and history, consider that the city is an interesting object (including a tourist one) for promotion. For Armenian students, knowledge of the culture and history of their place of birth is a basic factor that shapes their interest in further exploring their cities, the desire to make them better.

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При цитировании ссылка на журнал «Интеграция образования Integration of Education» обязательна. Полное или частичное воспроизведение в СМИ материалов, опубликованных в журнале, допускается только с разрешения редакции ИНТЕГРАЦИЯ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ INTEGRATION OF EDUCATION