PREPARATION OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION SPECIALISTS FOR THE ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE

The article depicts the subject of professional education for early childhood education teachers in the field of organization and execution of cross-cultural relationships among children and their families in Moscow area schools and kindergartens. The article also shows the request for such education based on current needs of the young citizens attending schools and kindergartens; and teachers working in the city education system. The article analyses published domestic and international studies describing research on multicultural early childhood education, organization of multicultural communications by the educators, as well as teacher’s professional education to raise their competencies in working in the polycultural environments. The authors discuss the research to study and reveal the teachers’ needs in obtaining and maintaining specialized professional skills how to organize and conduct multicultural communications. Experimental part of the research gives the actual data that researchers collected by using questioners. Results show that, in Moscow metropolis, early education teachers work in multifaceted multicultural environments. Each teacher, however, has own well-defined ethnic self-identity. In processional life, this self-identity presents itself when the teachers are comparing themselves with people of any other ethnos, then opposing counterpart may be seen to be a friend or an antagonist. In Moscow pre-schools and kindergartens, migrant families, children, and adults, have challenges in communicating with others due to cultural differences and the language proficiency. Failures to communicate lead to social isolation of the children. The research made obvious that teachers are aware of the deficiencies in specialized education, such as shortage of specialized competencies, to be able to effectively organize and conduct the cross-cultural communications in professional activities. Research found that specialized university level education to raise such competencies is needed and widely requested by the teachers. Moreover, research outlines the plan to resolve the issue by creating the education program for the educators to obtain knowledge and skills for professionally conducting multicultural communications.