The Contemporary Typologies of Generic Skills shaped in Upper Secondary School: the Critical Analysis and Perspective for Integration

The research is devoted to the analysis of discourse on modern typologies of general skills in school. The challenge of revising perceptions of skill typologies arises in the context of low returns to education, especially returns at the aggregate level (in the form of GDP growth) from cognitive skills measured by PISA (Komatsu and Repley, 2017). The study provides a meta-analysis of existing typologies of competencies and attempts to critically understand them based on the theory of human capital. The paper analyzes the context of the formation of a discourse about skills for the school education sector in the international and Russian fields, developed and presented directions for creating a new typology of general skills. A deconstruction of Russian and foreign discourse on skill typologies was performed using the method of discourse analysis based on the models of T.Van Dyk and N. Fairclough. The study includes an analysis of Russian regulatory documents. The study answers several research questions: how the discourse around the concept of skills is organized in the international and Russian expert communities, as well as in the Russian normative discourse. What typologies of skills exist, how do they relate to each other, and do they need to be updated to better reflect current trends? If so, in which direction? As the results of the research is proposed a generalization and critical analysis of existing typologies of General skills (taking into account current trends in socio-economic development) and the directions for refining the existing competence framework for more effective potential solutions in the field of education to meet the challenges of today are identified.