THE RELEVANCE OF STUDYING FAMILY LAW IN COLLEGE SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSES

Abstract

The article examines the teaching of family law within the social studies course in secondary vocational education. The relevance of the topic is determined by the redistribution of school curriculum hours from 1 September 2026 (34 hours in the ninth grade, 102 hours each in the tenth and eleventh), which shifts the systematic study of branch-specific legal blocks to the college level. The study aims to substantiate the pedagogical potential of family law for developing the legal culture and value orientations of students enrolled in non-legal specialities. The methodological framework comprises a review of normative legal documents, pedagogical observation, induction and content analysis; the theoretical basis draws on J. H. Pestalozzi’s unity of intellectual, activity-based and moral development and K. D. Ushinsky’s thesis on the independence of acquired knowledge. A system of active formats is proposed: case studies based on judicial practice and literary plots, a business game simulating mediation, a panel discussion of contested issues in family law, and project and visual forms linking academic material to students’ family experience. The assimilation of family law norms is shown to perform a compensatory function for students from single-parent and disadvantaged families, shaping an idea of partnership relations as the norm. Data from an all-Russian survey (1,600 respondents aged 18 and over, December 2025) are cited, according to which seven out of ten respondents report their father’s active involvement in their upbringing. It is concluded that teaching family law as a unity of axiological and practice-oriented aspects contributes to strengthening family values and reducing the risk of legal errors in the family sphere.