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This article examines the relationship between different aspects of cognitive development: formal-logical thinking, dialectical thinking, imagination, and cyclic representations. The findings of their research allow the authors to claim that there are two pairs of relationships which can conditionally be called the “standard cluster” (cyclic representations and formal-logical thinking) and the “cluster of transformation” (the action of mediation and image activation within the imagination). This means that the understanding of the world around us and the creation of something new turn out to be not alternatives, but mutually reinforcing tasks. Dialectical thinking acts as a psychological mechanism for understanding consistent patterns and the creation of new things. The article concludes that developmental processes should be the most essential part of education. Creative thinking will develop provided that the processes of development are given to children as a problem that must be solved and not as information that must be learned. Consequently, children will simultaneously comprehend the world around them and learn to create something within it.

This article deals with the implementation of the federal state educational standard as guarantee of psychological safety in the learning environment of a post-conflict area. The optimal ways of implementing the federal state educational standard for all participants in the learning process are distinguished, with the goal of increasing the level of psychological safety in respect to difficulties connected with the particularities of the post-conflict area. The sources of the threats that should be taken into account for guarantee of psychological safety are pinpointed. The psychological follow-up of the implementation of the federal state educational standard is discussed.

This article presents the findings of research on the quality of early childhood education and care in Moscow. This research is based on insight into the quality of early childhood education and care built in to The Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education and the cultural-historical ideas of L. Vygotsky. The main aim of this field research is to investigate “the strong points” and drawbacks of early childhood education and care in the capital city. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R) is used as an instrument of field research. The results are based on a random sample of 36 preschools and kindergartens in one of the districts of Moscow. The research gathers data about the most comfortable and least comfortable aspects of the learning environment in the preschools and kindergartens of Moscow. Taking into consideration the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standards, the findings of the research revealed that the most important line of learning environment development in preschool and kindergarten are individual early care and education program, support for the independence of children, the creation of a more available and mobile environment, and optimal conditions for the development of thinking, imagination and child creativity.