International E-Journal of Advances in Education

Öz

Introduction
Russian teachers of the third age are a social group
that is currently in a difficult and ambiguous situation. On the one hand,
raising the retirement age in Russia sets them the task of further professional
development. On the other hand, the level of professional requirements
associated with increasing the competitiveness of Russian higher education in
the global educational space is sharply increasing. The purpose of the article
is to answer the question - how the accumulated social potential of the third
age's teachers allows them to adapt to new conditions, to increase the
level of competitiveness, to act as a factor in the development of the
University teaching community and higher education in general.

Materials and methods   
The article is based on the materials of research team
in the Ural Federal University (2017-2019). The article uses quantitative data
of the mass survey of teachers in the Ural Federal district, implemented by the
method of questioning. The population is 51 University of the Ural Federal
district. Quota sampling was implemented in the study. The volume of the
teachers' sample is 810 people. Social community of the third age's teachers
was 38.5% of the total sample.

The results of research

The social potential of University teachers
was considered in the context of the following structural elements:
professional qualification, innovation, cultural, civil. Teachers of the
third age have higher professional and qualification potential (qualification
and status characteristics) than other age groups. The innovative potential
realized in research activity and educational process is also high. This
applies to innovation activity implemented in research projects and scientific
communication. Their cultural practices are quite diverse, and the activity of
cultural consumption is even higher than that of colleagues of other age
groups. Civic activity of the third age's teachers is manifested in various forms
of public participation, implemented through interaction with authorities of
different levels and public organizations. The specificity of their civic
activity is the implementation of expert functions that require high
qualification, which has this group of teachers. 
At the same time, the teaching community of the third
age notes the lack of sufficient institutional conditions for effective
development, manifested primarily in the low level of social protection in the
professional sphere.

General conclusions

University
teachers of the third age have sufficient adaptive potential in the new
challenges of the social environment. At the same time, the basic problem of
their development is the creation of institutional conditions for professional
activities and the effective realization of their social potential.