IntroductionIntroduction. In the context of the constitutional entrenchment of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values as the foundation for preserving statehood, the search for effective legal mechanisms for their protection acquires particular significance. The sphere of education occupies a unique position, as it is precisely here that the socialization of the individual, the formation of a worldview, and legal impact form an indissoluble unity. At the same time, legal protection in this sphere faces objective complexities: the addressee is the developing personality of a minor, and the sphere itself lies in an area of potential conflicts between the rights of parents, the autonomy of the child, the principle of secularism, and the tasks of value socialization.ObjectiveObjective. The objective of this work is to substantiate the independent nature of the legal protection of spiritual and moral values in the educational environment as a direction of normative regulation of a public-law nature, as well as to identify the specifics of its intersectoral mechanism.MethodsMethods. The methodological framework of the research is based on the dialectical method of scientific cognition. The study employs general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, system-structural approach), as well as specific scientific methods of legal science: formal-legal, comparative-legal, the method of interpreting legal norms, and the intersectoral method of research, which allowed for the examination of regulation within the unity of various branches of law (constitutional, educational, family).ResultsResults. The article substantiates that the legal provision of spiritual and moral values in the sphere of up-bringing and education constitutes an independent direction of regulation, possessing its own object, specific subject composition, and a public-law goal – the value socialization of the younger generation. The author characterizes the educational environment as the central space for the reproduction of values, where socialization, upbringing, and law form a unified process. The normative consolidation of the universally binding nature of spiritual and moral values within the system of educational outcomes, standards, and upbringing practices is analyzed. The specifics of legal protection, determined by its addressee (the developing personality) and the nature of its impact (long-term, intersectoral, preventive, axiologically saturated), are identified. Conflicts between the rights of parents, the interests of the state, and the autonomy of the minor are examined.ConclusionsConclusions. The legal protection of spiritual and moral values in the educational sphere, despite the presence of objective conflicts, retains its legitimate character, as it is exercised not contrary to human rights, but through their implementation (human dignity, the right to education, the right of parents to raise their children). Such protection is consistent with safeguarding human dignity, the safe development of the child, and the interests of sustainable social development, ensuring the transition of external legal prescriptions into internal personal dispositions of lawful behavior.
