The growth of globalization and digitalization leads to the development of educational environments in which people of different cultures, mentalities, traditions, worldviews, possibilities and abilities meet with each other. We need to find ways and educational strategies which will support such multi-dimensional diversity. The relevance of the study is the need to take into account ethno- cultural factors in order to build inclusive education environments which will promote respect for other cultures, considering the abilities, health status, and at the same time, facilitate knowledge about own ethno-cultural identity.
The purpose is to justify theoretically the model of inclusive professional education development taking into account the ethno-cultural specificity of the countries of Russia and Kyrgyzstan, to test this model experimentally in the Kyrgyz Affiliated Campus of Kazan National Research Technological University (Kant, Kyrgyzstan) and in the Kazan Innovative University named after V.G. Timiryasov (Kazan, Russia).
The methodology is based on the concept of geographical determinism (Montesquieu), the principle of unity of consciousness and activity (Rubinstein), cultural-historical theory of personal development (Vygotsky), dialogue of cultures’ theory (Bakhtin and Bibler).
The novel aspect of the work is that the model of inclusive education development in the vocational educational institutions is developed for Russia and Kyrgyzstan taking into account the ethno- cultural specificity of these countries, as well as the system of enhancing the psycho-pedagogical and intercultural competence of students and teachers.
The results have been implemented in the vocational educational institutions in Russia and Kyrgyzstan through the inclusive teaching technologies and methods in the Elective course for students ‘Ethno-cultural aspects of inclusive education’ and methodological seminars and the training course ‘Inclusive Education in ethno-cultural context’ for teachers and directors of educational institutions.