Background. The paper provides the results of studying gender views on parenthood. For efficient performance of the parent role the system of the subject’s ideas about the phenomenon of “parenthood” and its specific features, as well as personal features aimed at the effective performance of parental functions by both women (mothers) and men (fathers) are laid emphasis on.

The Objective is to describe the pilot experimental research focused on males and females’ attitude to parenthood. The hypothesis of the study is an assumption about gender-specific attitude to parenthood in males and females in relation to the parental roles and functions that are eventually actualized in children.  Females are focused on personal relationships with a child and emotionally coloured attitudes towards them, while for males mostly active forms of parenting are typical.

Design. The first stage of theoretical understanding of the issue included the literature review of the foreign and Russian national psychologists focused on the psychology of parenthood (A. Adler, E. Badinter, D. Winnicott, M. Marcons, M. Mead, D. Peynes, S. Fanti, E. Erickson; T.V. Andreeva, K.N. Belogay, N.N. Vasyagina, A.I. Zakharova, O.A. Karabanova, S.Yu. Meshcheryakova, R.V. Ovcharova, V.A. Ramikh, Yu.A. Tokareva, G.G. Filippova, L.B. Schneider, etc.). The second stage of the research was focused on the study of gender-specific ideas about parenthood.

Results. Based on the analysis of the existing approaches to understanding the phenomenon of “parenthood”, we defined it as a complex personal education including positive affective manifestations of the subject in relation to children shaped in the process of his interaction with the child and having a positive impact on the entire harmonious development and education of children. The survey data showed that the respondents expressed gender-specific attitudes to parenthood. In particular, the discrepancy lies in the perceptions of males and females of the “ideal parent” and their parental roles.

Conclusion.The study proved the presence of gender features in the ideas of parenthood. To optimize the level and content of ideas about parenting will contribute to further rendering psychological support for the family.

Introduction. Interest in the issues of spirituality, moral background is objectively determined by the transformations in all spheres of life and human activity in recent decades, including fundamental changes in the value-based system.

The Objective is to describe an experimental program of studying the level of spiritual and moral education in children of preschool age. Based on the analysis of the data and considering the spirituality and morality in children as a complicated integrative education, we identify intellectual, cognitive, value-based, motivational and behavioural components. The main hypothesis of the study is the assumption of the dependence of the spiritual and moral level on the determined systematic work of the spiritual and moral potential of the person, their culture and valued at each age stage. The basic levels of ontogenesis are emphasized.

Procedure. The first stage of the research included analysis of the works in the field of «spirituality» and «morality», which allowed us to determine the specific features of spiritual and moral education of the 5-year-old children and to design a program of experimental study. The second stage was based on the comprehensive program of experimental research, i.e. a system of test methods aimed at studying the selected components of the spiritual and moral education. The population consisted of 90 five-year-old children.

Findings. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the experimental data obtained at the third stage of our study showed that a high level of spiritual and moral education is recorded only in 21% of the respondents. The majority of respondents (57%) scored the average level of spiritual and moral education. 22% of the respondents score a low level of spiritual and moral education.

Conclusion. The study showed that less than one third of the respondents demonstrated a high level of spiritual and moral education. The majority of preschool children did not know about the spiritual and moral norms of social behaviour, and also they lacked regular rules of behaviour, which suggests that the majority of the research participants did not correspond to age-related opportunities and require targeted psychological and pedagogical assistance.