Abstract:

Introduction:
The modern city offers young people various forms of self-realization, creates conditions for self-education and cultural and educational activities. The open educational space of the city comprize a complex of social relations between the subjects of educational activity and the socio-cultural environment, represented by the infrastructure of education, culture, and leisure. Its study is a condition for the effectiveness of culture and educational policy, forms an information base for managing the development of the urban environment. The purpose of our research was to analyze the successful practices of self-education of student youth in the open educational space of the city, to identify the actual cultural and educational landscape of the city, reflecting the real interests of youth.

Research Methods:
The research methodology involved a combination of two methods: a sociological essay and virtual mapping. In the essay, the respondents were asked to reflect their own experience of self-education related to the development of urban space. The object was the 1st and 2nd year students of the Ural Federal University. 237 essays were received, in which more than 200 socio-cultural objects of the city significant for self-education of students were presented. When mapping the virtual map of the city, places were plotted that were significant for each participant, as a fragment of the cultural and educational space of the city effectively mastered by them, which became part of their personal history.

Results:
During the analysis of student essays, successful practices of self-education of students in the socio-cultural space of the city were typologized. Cases of self-educational activities related to the urban infrastructure of culture, additional education, leisure, volunteer activities and public organizations, public spaces and current events of the city were identified and described. The virtual mapping method made it possible to create an interactive map of Yekaterinburg, which visually shows the location of objects that are of a certain value for students' self-education.

Conclusions:
The change in the meanings and practices of self-educational activities of youth in the urban environment is carried out dynamically. Students associate a wide range of activities in the open educational space of the city with self-education. Their core is institutional activity related to the receipt of cultural and educational services. Moreover, the range of city institutions providing them is extremely wide. With self-education, students correlate various forms of public participation and volunteering in an urban environment. Situational self-education practices associated with participation in urban events, development of urban architecture and public spaces are essential for young people. Understanding how the self-education of young people in the urban environment functions and changes, what meanings it puts into it, it allows you to set and solve administrative tasks related to the cultural policy of the city in a new way.

Keywords:

Self-education, higher education, virtual mapping, urban research.