Sergey A. Borgoyakov

The research analyzes the theory and practice of preparing future teachers for professional activities in the conditions of the multicultural educational space of Russia. The author substantiates that one of the urgent problems of improving teacher education in the context of introducing a new generation of educational standards of higher education is the formation and development of multicultural competence of future teachers. The complexity of solving the problem is due to the complexity of defining the essential content of the concept of «multicultural competence» by the professional community and insufficient consideration of its integrative nature, which leads to difficulties of scientific, organizational, and methodological nature when it arises at educational processes of the universities implementing pedagogical educational programs.

The author shows that multicultural competence is a systemic phenomenon formed in the educational process through the integration of several academic disciplines, practices, and educational work, which form the components of this competence defined by the Federal State Standards of the Higher Education - universal, general professional, and professional competencies.

It was revealed that only a few universities that train future teachers are focused on forming a holistic multicultural competence of students. Simultaneously, separate components of multicultural competence are shaped during the formation of universal and general professional competencies in the context of implementing the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standards of Higher Education in the educational process. Rarely do university curricula include ethnocultural competencies in their list of professional competencies as requirements for mastering the Main Education Program. An unbalanced approach to the formation of professional competencies leads to insufficient consistency between the models of professional competence of future teachers, the Federal State Educational Standards of General Education, and the professional standard of a teacher

The author concludes that it is necessary to elaborate a unified approach to defining the list of professional competencies in the programs for training future teachers. The formation of multicultural competence of students should become a criterion for the effectiveness of contemporary teacher education in Russia