Soviet model of separate education (by the example of Penza region)

Background. In modern conditions, the question of the prospects for introducing separate school education is debatable. At the same time, historiography contains only fragmentary coverage of this problem, which makes it necessary to study the historical ex perience of implementing separate education in the USSR. The purpose of this work is to consider the implementation of the policy of separate education in the USSR on the exam ple of Penza region in 1943–1954. Materials and methods. The study was carried out on the basis of archival documents of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the State Archive of Penza Region, party and government resolutions. The implementation of re search tasks was achieved through the application of systematic and integrated approaches to the consideration of the organization of a system of separate education for boys and girls during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war years. Results. The development of this topic carries a historical novelty, in the course of the study, not only separate education in the USSR was considered in organizational, legal or pedagogical terms, but also from the point of view of regional history. The analysis revealed the prerequisites for the introduc tion of a gender model of education in the USSR. The dynamics of the activity of separate educational institutions is considered. The diverse difficulties in the organization of sepa rate education and the reasons for the abandonment of the system of men’s and women’s schools in 1954 were revealed. Conclusions. The introduction of separate education in the Soviet period was due to a government order. The party leadership, based on the experi ence of separate education in the pre-revolutionary period, in order to avoid social inequali ty of the sexes, maintained uniform school curricula in men’s and women’s schools, with the exception of military training programs. The refusal to implement a separate model of education in 1954 was due to the fact that the pedagogical and material and everyday diffi culties of the war years were not considered. During the implementation of separate educa tion in urban schools, class occupancy increased, problems arose with the distribution of students to schools, with the selection of staff, and there was a lack of educational equipment.