Education as a functional resource for the development of the State: an analysis of the socio-economic views of Russians

The study was devoted to identification of the population’s everyday ideas about the functional capabilities of education that can have an impact on the development of the state. The methodological approach and research methods are based on the fact that the perception of macroeconomic processes determined by the development of education will be reflected in the everyday ideas of the population, which can be studied through structural and content analysis of the texts of messages on social networks. The work used methods of grounded theory, neural network analysis, analysis of the frequency of occurrence and emotional background of words, content and expert analysis. It is shown that, according to users of social networks, the leading functions of education are associated with its ability to influence the social, economic and political development of society and the state, including as a geopolitical subject. Users associate education with various levels of development of socio-economic processes — from personal to national. The functional essence of education as a resource for the macroeconomic development of the state dominates over other aspects (micro- and meso-levels) of ideas and demonstrates a clearly defined hierarchical relationship of priorities: national, historical, systemic, global, institutional, regional and meso-economic. As part of the discussion of educational processes, differences arise between supporters of state-oriented and socially-centered ways of developing society. The historical conditionality of Russian education among users correlates with the peculiarities of its development in the USSR, and there is no connection to earlier periods of history. Education from a functional perspective is assessed by users as a benefit for individuals and society, the achievement of which requires significant time and socio-economic costs on the part of all its participants (the state, teachers and students). Insufficient satisfaction with higher education is manifested by the majority of users and is due to an assessment of its current state. The identified results require further specification, for example, the study of algorithms proposed to overcome the current situation.