W artykule poddano analizie proces kształtowania się i rozwoju edukacji dwujęzycznej. Nakreślono charakterystyki kształcenia dwujęzycznego specjalistów w zakresie pedagogiki społecznej i pracy socjalnej, uzasadniono konieczność wprowadzenia do planu studiów przedmiotów specjalnych w dwóch językach i przedstawiono wybrane zagadnienia edukacji dwujęzycznej przyszłych pedagogów społecznych w Uniwersytecie państwowym imienia Iwana Franki w Żytomierzu. Udowodniono ponadto, że kształcenie dwujęzyczne jest niezbędnym elementem nowoczesnego systemu edukacji w uniwersytecie, który wymaga dalszych badań i opracowania z punktu widzenia naukowego i metodologicznego. Rozwiązaniem pomocnym w jego realizacji w procesie kształcenia na uczelni może być organizacja nauki dyscyplin specjalnych metodą dwujęzyczną.

The article deals with bilingual education (teaching academic content in two languages), which provides general and further education to students of different nationalities. The United States is considered one of the most multilingual countries in the world, which is why the American experience in bilingual education is very valuable. Ukraine is a multinational country too. So, it is important to solve the problem of the introduction of bilingual education to determine the components of the content of such education and its main features for its effective functioning and development. The article considers the peculiarities of the content of bilingual education in US secondary education. Based on the analysis of the content of bilingual education in secondary schools in the United States, the most important components that can be used in Ukrainian secondary schools are identified. The article considers and compares the content of bilingual education in some American schools in different states. The introductory course of a bilingual secondary school includes compulsory and elective subjects. In the most populous states, bilateral bilingual programmes are common. They are the most effective and therefore prestigious, but also costly. Low-efficiency programmes are common in many other states, which cannot fund expensive projects, such as transitional bilingual programmes, double immersion programmes, monolingual programmes, etc. The most common minority languages involved in bilingual programmes are Spanish, French, German, oriental, and other languages. To assess the level of knowledge of bilingual students, tests with tasks in the native language of students, accompanied by descriptive explanations and expected answers, are used. This type of testing is called Multiple choice. The acquisition of a second language occurs in parallel with the process of students’ acculturation. The specifics of the multicultural development of students in US schools are revealed in the article. The use of bilingual education is one of the leading trends in developing the content of US school education. That is why the positive experience of the United States is valuable for Ukraine.

The article deals with issues regarded to implementation of bilingual education in Ukrainian universities. This process can be considered as part of Ukrainian integration into European and world scientific and educational space. Furthermore, this area is being developed according with the National Doctrine of Educational Development. Specific aspects of bilingual education development at the end of the 20th century are noted. Bilingual educational system leads to both getting the education as provided by the bilingual system itself and personality formation when an individual is open to the interaction with the whole world. Applied to obtaining a certain specialty at the university, the goal of bilingual education is a synthesis of communicative and subject competencies. It is reported that a foreign (in particular, English) language is not only the goal, but also a means of understanding the world of special knowledge. Bilingual education features are examined in detail. It is noted that at the moment a comprehensive concept of bilingual professional education in Ukraine has not been built. Currently, only certain aspects of the problem of bilingual education in higher education have been defined. А number of issues have been formulated which need to be theoretically comprehended in order to implement succefully the bilingual educational system at the universities. Attention is paid to the complex of didactically and methodically relevant factors which depend on the students’ future profession and qualifications. Appropriate criteria have been identified, which influence on many levels on the content, organization and choice of methods of bilingual education in a certain field of study. It is underlined that the factors (criteria) are both the linguistic ones and non-linguistic ones. Finding and taking into account all these factors is mandatory to create the scientifically based concept of the bilingual educational system at the non-language departments.