The relevance of the study is conditioned by the changes in the content of socio-humanitarian education, aimed at the acquisition of knowledge, the development of tolerance, civic and moral education. The purpose of the paper is to identify the modern functions of a textbook on social sciences and humanities as an informational management tool of university education. The leading approach to the study is the functional-oriented approach, allowing identifying the functions of information objects and objective criteria for their evaluation. The study involves 350 teachers, 350 students who have expressed their demands to the functions of textbooks on social sciences and humanities, participated in the selection of the most effective books. The main results of the study are to identify the characteristic features (including in the contents of the scientific material in accordance with the teaching, educational, developing educational objectives, consistent and systematic knowledge presentation, the figurative representation of the educational material, the availability of multiple questions of different levels  for self-control and Exercises for independent work) publications features (multilevel system of different types of books editions), functions (adaptation, systematizing, methodical, ideological, managerial) textbooks on social sciences and humanities. The significance of the results obtained is that the revealed characteristic features of the textbooks provide the unity of logical and rational, artistic and imaginative ways of presentation of knowledge; publications’ characteristic features - compliance with the requirements of state educational standards, training, educational, developmental objectives of the educational curricula, didactics of university education; functions - integration of cognitive, research and professional activities of students. Identified features of a textbook on social and humanitarian disciplines contribute to the formation of the students’ holistic humanitarian view of the world and reliability of higher education, which manifests itself in the awareness of the objective laws of the functioning society and its development trends.

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