ESSENCE, STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF PROFESSIONAL IMAGE OF THE SOCIAL TEACHER

Professional image serves as an indicator of professionalism, culture, professional and educational activities that provide professional identification, high level of activity, self-development of the individual social educator that is able to interact effectively with others. It helps to solve problems successfully in socially disadvantaged groups, to have the desire for self-improvement (both personal and professional), to be able to present yourself competently and create a positive impression of yourself as a professional. The consequence of this lies in the professional image of the social teacher that can be considered as a major providing resource of high social prestige of the profession and the specific institution of higher education. Under the professional image of the social teacher we purposefully understand the integrative created image of the personality, harmoniously uniting personality and competence, communicative, behavioral with visual components, the aim of which is to promote the profession, a more efficient solution of social and pedagogical problems and a personal self-affirmation of the social teacher. In this case, the active forms of manifestation of the essence of the “professional image” phenomenon serve its functions, which have regulatory evaluative and technological nature. In the context of the study we have identified the following main functions of a professional image of the social teacher as: communicative, developing, socializing, and reflexive function of self-promotion.