Abstract
The purpose of the article is to analyze the social conditions of school problems. The empirical basis is the data from the international TALIS study; the sample consists of 15,980 respondents. Using mathematical procedures of multidimensional scaling and clustering, analysis of the data on the questionnaire was carried out, in which school principals were asked to identify problems complicating the organization's activities. The study shows that a third of the principals note a shortage of teachers capable of teaching students with disabilities and support staff, slightly less – difficulties with digital technologies, the availability of educational space and physical infrastructure, and one in four supervisors sees a lack of time to communicate with students. The scientific significance of the article lies in the expansion of the methods of analysis of the indicated research to understand the problems in the field of secondary education. Based on the results of the simulation, two scales and six clusters were obtained, which showed that school problems can be divided, on the one hand, into material-oriented (lack of digital technologies, inadequate physical infrastructure, limited Internet access, lack of educational materials) and human-oriented aspects (lack of teachers and support staff, lack of time for mentoring); On the other hand, there are basic problems (low qualifications of teachers and difficulties with educational literature) and promising ones (professional growth of teachers and high-quality teaching, including inclusive education). Understanding school issues and their relationship to social factors contributes to informed decision-making in policy development in secondary education.