DEVELOPING SOCIAL HEALTH IN FUTURE TEACHERS AS A PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEM

Abstract

The article examines the development of social health among future teachers as an important problem of contemporary higher pedagogical education. The study is relevant because digitalization, increasingly complex social interaction, emotional pressure, and professional risks have changed the requirements placed on teachers. The research aims to clarify the concept of future teachers’ social health, determine its structural components, and substantiate the pedagogical conditions required for its development in the university educational process. The study employs theoretical analysis, comparison, synthesis, and systematization of psychological, pedagogical, and interdisciplinary literature. Social health is defined as an integrative personal and professional quality manifested in the ability to build constructive relationships, adhere to humanistic values, regulate behavior, and responsibly perform social and professional roles. Its structure comprises four interrelated components: value-motivational, cognitive, communicative-activity, and reflective-regulatory. The study identifies four pedagogical conditions for developing this quality: a psychologically safe educational environment, participation in socially significant activities, use of interactive teaching methods, and organized reflection and self-regulation. These conditions should be integrated into everyday university practice as elements of a unified educational process. The scientific significance of the study lies in refining the pedagogical meaning of future teachers’ social health and substantiating its four-component structure. Its practical significance consists in proposing a system of conditions that can be incorporated into teacher education programmes, teaching practice, mentoring, volunteer projects, interactive courses, and student support activities. The proposed framework may assist university instructors and programme developers in strengthening future teachers’ communicative culture, social responsibility, reflection, self-regulation, and readiness for professional interaction.