THE MCDONALDIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The article deals with the manifestations of McDonaldization in higher education. The main problem is the possibility of transferring the functional principles of the fast food network to the activities of educational institutions. The purpose of the work is to characterize the process of McDonaldization of higher education: description of the features of McDonaldization, its causes and sociocultural consequences. The methodology of the research is based on the approach of M. Weber and G. Ritzer, who analyze the development of social institutions as a process of formal rationalization, as a constant increase in the calculability and control over the behavior of individuals. According to M. Weber, the predominance of formal rationality presupposes the priority of effective achievement of goals before the meaningful goals of social development. Relying on M. Weber's methodological project, J. Ritzer considers McDonaldization as a phenomenon of the process of rationalization of modern society. McDonaldization assumes the spread throughout the world of the management strategies on which the activities of McDonald's are based, and their transformation into fundamental guidelines for the process of social organizing. Results: 1) modern trends in the development of the institution of higher education can be described as a manifestation of the functional principles on which the activities of McDonald's are based - the desire for efficiency, calculability, predictability and control; 2) the reasons for the McDonaldization of higher education are the transformation of education itself into an object of consumption and the use of the management model of a large corporation in higher education; 3) sociocultural consequences of this trend are the strengthening of simulation practices in the activities of universities, the growth of false interactions in the educational process, the substitution of the meaningful goals of education for formal goals.