Recently, a considerable literature has grown up around the theme of a low level of social responsibility in communication in the global world, leading to a small contribution to Mankind development. As stated by modern researchers, the situation in the field of education is characterized by spiritual and moral surfing, the prevalence of individual values in the value hierarchy, and the dominance of utilitarian-rational morality.The research purpose is to formulate approaches to the spiritual and moral development of modern adolescents, taking into account modern trends in the Russian society. This study employed survey methodology together with essays to investigate adolescents’ values. The results show that depriving the educational process of an efficient spiritual and moral component based on the ethnic cultural heritage gives the effect inverse to the goals of the education process. The absence of moral codes and guidelines for setting life goals results in the education of not a socially active person but the opposite one. The authors propose intensification of the religious culture study coupled with the formation of the cultural identity through the cultural heritage (history, literature, folklore) using individual educational trajectories.The practical significance of the research results is proved by the experiment of implementing spiritual and moral education at a teacher training university, a college, and comprehensive schools.

spiritual and moral development of adolescents, literature, spiritually-oriented dialogue, real and fictional personality, cultural and religious identity formation