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DOI: 10.12731/2218-7405-2015-6-46 UDC 316.334.2
THE SUBJECTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT OF YOUTH IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA
Vasileva E.N., Vasilev E.S.
Investigation of socialization of youth and development of socio-economic engagement in post-Soviet Russia is an important purpose of social research. Socio-economic and political situation, traditional forms of government affect the socio-cultural settings and socio-economic engagement of Russian youth. The subjects that determine the information and communication space of the modern Russian society are public associations, educational institutions and the state. This article explores the process of institutionalization of socio-economic engagement of the Russian youth; political and non-political factors of this process are also researched. At the first stage of the research we conducted a qualitative study; at the second stage we conducted a quantitative research method. Results and practical implications approbation in the International Congress on: Global-regional-local. Institutions, relations, networks. Past andfuture of the sociology of law (21-23 May 2014, International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Oñati-Gipuzkoa-Spain).
Keyword: Socio-economic engagement; social activity; youth; education; management; resources; efficiency; inefficiency.
субъекты институционализации социально-экономической АКТИВНОСТИ молодежи В ПОСТ советской РОССИИ
Васильева Е.Н., Васильев Е.С.
Важной целью социальных исследований является изучение социализации молодежи и развития гражданской активности в пост советской России. Социально-экономическая и политическая ситуация, традиционные формы управления влияют на социокультурные установки и гражданскую активность российской молодежи. Субъектами, определяющими информационно-коммуникативное пространство современного рос-
сийского общества, являются общественные объединения, образовательные учреждения и государство. В этой статье исследуется процесс институционализации социально-экономической активности российской молодежи, изучены политические и неполитические факторы данного процесса. На первом этапе исследования использовались качественные методы исследование, на втором - количественные. Результаты исследования апробированы на Международном конгрессе «Глобальное-региональное-локальное. Институты, отношения, сети. Прошлое и будущее социологии права» (21-23 мая 2014, Международный институт социологии права, г. Оньяти-Гипускоа-Испания).
Ключевые слова: Социально-экономическая активность; социальная активность; молодежь; образование; управление; ресурсы; эффективность; неэффективность.
Index
1. Introduction.
2. Methods.
3. Children's and youth's public associations as subjects of socialization.
4. Educational institutions as subjects of socialization.
5. Conclusions.
6. References.
1. Introduction
We consider civil society not only as an institution that guarantees political freedom, but also as a community where the economic interests are implementing. The main question of our study is: is it likely that civil society and socio-economic engagement will be formed in modern Russia? The issue is raised because the socialization of modern Russian youth takes place in families whose members were born in Soviet Russia. In this situation institutions of secondary socialization - public associations and educational institutions - begin to play an important role as discussed by several authors [5, 6, 9]. The analysis of institutionalization of activities of these subjects is based on the following concepts [2]. First, forming-up of institutions is taking place in the context of social interaction, which Fligstein [4] considers within a political-cultural approach as «games». He notes that the process of institutionalization can fail: disparate interests and conflicting identities can prevent the emergence of stable institutions. Regulations in this field define the acceptable boundaries providing the actors with the tools to communicate. They also encourage them to think about their interests, to interpret the actions of others and to define the strategy of the future behavior.
Political and cultural approach, thus, shows the relationship between the processes of institutionalization and culture. This suggests that the establishment of formal institutions (the Constitution and other laws) occurs along with the formation of groups of informal institutions: traditions, habits, stereotyped behavior and other sustainable forms of interaction between people, which are determined by the culture of a given society.
Abolafia [1] notes that in the course of repeated interactions participants form expectations about appropriate behavior and scenarios of their role-playing action. The researcher has found that in addition to the rules that make up the interaction, the participants designed a multi-faceted social identity, which began to define the behavior of those who hold a relevant role positions. Abolafia's position here intersects with issues investigated by G. Simon, who explored the issues of system equilibrium, and said that a balance is achieved exactly in the process of «identification of the individual with the organization». For the successful functioning of the organization, the activities of all of its members should be motivated by the desire to contribute to the organization through optimal identification of personal and common goals. The «identification» function actually lies in creating certain conditions and motivation which would encourage all company members to identify their personal interests and the interests of the company, and thus to take the right decisions for the latter. This is a relevant research topic at the present stage of countries development: they are the organizations whose interests must be identified with interests of both private individuals and large social groups and layers of the population.
During substantiation Socio-economic engagement many authors answer the question: how are the social mechanisms of economic activity functioning [3, 8, 11, 12, 14]? Each country designed its state institutions so that they become an integral part of state policy [10], each nation has developed industrial ideology which corresponds to its political culture, since the policy which it has chosen to protect the political rights were associated in the minds of citizens with economic growth. That is why the main aim of our study is the identification of socio-cultural factors and subjects of the formation of the young people's activity by means of measuring of new practices of work with youth carried out by the institutions of education and public associations; structuring of the subjects of the formation of the young people's activity; comparative analysis of the life strategies of different groups of youth.
2. Methods
At the first stage of the research we conducted a qualitative study according to the selective method the «snowball». The socio-cultural space of children and youth public associations and informal organizations of Volgograd region had been analyzed. Using the method of semi-structured expert
interviews (sampling - 32 persons) with managers and supervisors, as well as with the participants themselves at the age from 12 to 17 years were revealed the most typical relationships between specific youth associations and their social environment. Data analysis was run by means of the procedure of open and axial coding; search of categories was carried out through constructs describing transpiration conditions, the implementating context, the types of actions on formation of the political and legal socialization of young Russian citizens.
At the second stage we conducted a quantitative research. The empirical base for the structure of the general population was the data of the Federal service of state statistics of the Russian Federation and of the Territorial body of Federal service of state statistics in the Volgograd region. We used disproportionate stratified sampling. In accordance with the percentages in the general population pupils of the senior classes of high school (22,52%), pupils of elementary vocational education institutions (2,89%), students of secondary special educational institutions (8,78%) and students of universities (22,59%), representatives of working youth of the age up to 30 years (43,22%) were interviewed. 72.12% of them are urban youth (of Volgograd and Volzhsky) and 23,88% - youth of the agricultural districts of the Volgograd region. Selection scope is 624 people. We used the research method of standardized interviews with representatives of various categories of the Volgograd region youth.
3. Children's and youth's public associations as subjects of socialization
Interviews with organizations' executives give us a detailed picture of the nature of the interaction between children's and youth's public associations with state authorities. Leaders respond positively or neutrally on cooperation with the Committee on youth affairs of Volgograd Region («...it directs our activities as stream-flow directs the ice-flows...»; «We feel pleasure in working with Committee on youth affairs»), at the same time they respond negatively on the work of high-ranking officials of the Administration of the Volgograd region. First, there is no clear mechanism of interaction between the regional elites with public organizations («...there are no built system of relations with the regional authorities»). Second, the level of bureaucratization in Administration is high («...sometimes you just need their consent, a nod, a signature, but... they deal with problems for a long time in administrative relation or the issues are not addressed at all»); third, governors often change («... we have to give up all that had been gained over the years, forced to change relations that have been built with the authorities, «to develop» your weight»); the fourth, the weakness of the associations themselves, which are forced to search not only financing, but also PR-support for their projects in the government agencies («If there is a Governor visiting our project, then of course we'll have a lot of
mass media and press, and everything else.... If the high officials did not pay any attention to us we'll most likely stay without press»).
Other data are presented by the results of interviews with members of associations. During the research we revealed the values, norms and requirements as reflected in the motivation of youth behavior. We performed analysis through the identification of standardized explanations that young people gave to their actions, values and norms. The social prestige of particular role positions, occupations, activities, ways of behavior, status minds of youth were analyzed as the elements of civil values. The activity of children's and youth organizations is oriented on creation of conditions for self-realization of young people that goes through the expansion of communicative space. The formation of pro-active stand of the young occurs in the process of information exchange. «Development of a volunteer movement...», «.. .I am a blood donor...», «we are engaged in voluntary work, we help people ...», «.for example, I went to Volzhskiy orphanage.», - these lexical values are widespread and show that young people highly appreciate their status position, and their economic culture goes beyond the utilitarian values.
Identifying the influence of public organizations on formation of intra-organizational relations of respondents, we have found that the activists of the organizations displays complete identification with its goals, and moreover, some failures are perceived as a personal offence. Making a higher level generalization we can state that the members of the organizations formed a strong economic position, commitment to success: «I want to open a shop», «Medicine is my nature and nothing more, nothing less», «I'm going to become a doctor and devote my life to serving and helping people», «As I am a future social worker all what I do is also a care about the social stratum of the population», etc. Thus, we can conclude that participation in these organizations focuses on the identification of personal interests with the interests of the organization, forms a social activity and economic ethics of youth. We have discovered that although the level of political and legal awareness of members of public organizations is quite high, programs, deliberately and systematically forming political opinions of young people are not implemented, this goal is not established by youth associations. Therefore, in the context of activities of children and youth public associations the process of political and legal socialization is basically of spontaneous character.
4. Educational institutions as subjects of socialization
At the second stage our research interest was better aimed at economic factors of realization of youth civil position were the expectations of the respondents and value orientation on economic success were discovered. In order to form the ideas about the structure of economic socialization
of youth we examined the financial strategy of young people. We have noticed that there are some contradictions in the expectation of students. Quite a high percentage of people wishing to do business does not correspond to a small percentage of young people having a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship (3,28%) (attitude towards entrepreneurship was measured using a Thurstone scale). However a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship have already expressed 32,38% of those surveyed; 56,97% - neutral; 3,28% - rather negative, and 0,82% - negative.
For the formation of conception on the economic activity of young people it is important to measure the readiness of youth to migrate for the sake of improvement of material well-being. On the question «Are you ready to go to another region of the Russian Federation if you are offered a well-paid job?» the answers were as follows «Yes, even if I have to go to Siberia» - 36,0%; «Yes, but only if it will be Moscow or St. Petersburg» - 35,2%; «No, I am not ready to leave for another region» -25,82%; could not say - 2,8%.
However, young people evaluate their futures quite positively and indicate such causes preventing to improve their financial situation as «laziness», «unwillingness to change the way of life», i.e. the reasons which the individual is able to eliminate upon the proper organization of its activity.
Such system approach affects the activity of life and socio-economic position in general, since the growing globalization destroys the traditional social patterns and creates cross-cultural social space. Severe competition is becoming one of the dominant factors. In order not to be an outsider in this competitive struggle and to appropriately respond to external challenges and threats, young people need to develop their creative skills rather fast and be able to adapt to changing social conditions. Interestingly, that the in this case we mean not only students; the educational work in school deliberately and systematically affects the socialization of youth regardless of the parents' opinions and methodological settings of teachers, if the educational institution has positive image (both internal and external). This is the task - socialization of personality adaptive to modern conditions - that is indirectly assigned by the Ministry of education and science of the Russian Federation, and it meets the goals set in the context of the main directions of education development in the Russian Federation until 2020. Today's tasks of Russian universities are formulated in Russian Federation Presidential Decree from May 7, 2012 № 559 «On the measures on realization of state policy in education and science», the state program «Development of education» for 2013-2020, approved by Russian Federation Government Edict from November 22, 2012 № 2148-p, and in other documentation. However, young people are not very active in participation in extra-curricular activities - 46,3% do not participate in the events held in educational institution. Stage of involvement is as follows: participation in the creative and sporting events (14,1%), in scientific and educational activities (12,3%), in volunteer
work (3,5%), in creative, sports and scientific events (3,3%), in artistic, sporting events and volunteer work (2,5%), in scientific events and volunteer work (0,4%), participate everywhere (3,4%), cannot say (14,2%).
On the whole educational institution is capable of forming socio-economic and socio-economic engagement of youth. Positive image of universities, their directors and professors has a great socializing potential, as it increases the level of trust to the information get by the students, and in the process of intense scientific and creative activity the ambitions of youth are stimulated. There is no question of increase of the economic and innovative layer of Russian society; the relatively low percentage of unambiguously positive attitudes to entrepreneurship and small number of active youth say that the model of economic modernization of the Russian Federation is inorganic modernization carried out by borrowing Western values (that is why it is a high percentage of those who do not want to live in Russia). Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the value matrix of the Russian society, which is still under the influence of values of Soviet Russia.
5. Conclusions
Answering the question: is it likely that civil society and socio-economic engagement will be formed in modern Russia? Can say:
1. Youth organizations and educational institutions were powerful ideological instrument shaping the worldview in Soviet Russia. Their members could be described by using W. Whyte's term «the organization man» which refers to the individual who placed the collective (external towards him) interests ahead of his own existential needs to the detriment of natural rights and freedoms [15].
2. Economic activities have been suppressed for a long time (at the Soviet time the main blow was taken to socially and economically active population) and people were punished for the display of individualism. Today educational institutions and youth and children public associations act as subjects of the formation of the active citizen. The absence of a clear program as well as a lack of resources, strong economic and political (but not ideological) dependence on the state would do no harm to this process. It is rather a positive factor, because a free person, a personality which is not the subject of systematic ideological pressure, becomes active and responsible naturally; the values of the younger generation of Russian citizens are changing, socio-economic engagement of youth and individualism are being formed. Process is very slow in the absence of systematic pressure, but in a natural, not artificial communicative space (and therefore in the future) the process of formation of civil society will be completed after all.
The research was hold with the support of the President grant of the Russian Federation (project
МК-2659.2014.6).
Работа выполнена при поддержке гранта Президента РФ (проект МК-2659.2014.6).
References
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DATA ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Vasileva Ekaterina Nikolaevna, associate professor, candidate of Sociological Sciences Volgograd State University
100, prospect Universitetsky, Volgograd, 400062, Russia e-mail: vasilevaen@yandex.ru
Vasilev Evgenii Sergeevich, associate professor, candidate of Economic Sciences Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (Volgograd) 11, street Volgodonskaya, Volgograd, 400131, Russia e-mail: vasileves@gmail.com
ДАННЫЕ ОБ АВТОРАХ
Васильева Екатерина Николаевна, доцент, кандидат социологических наук, Волгоградский государственный университет
проспект Университетский, 100, г. Волгоград, 400062, Россия e-mail: vasilevaen@yandex.ru SPIN-код в SCIENCE INDEX: 8682-4325
Васильев Евгений Сергеевич, кандидат экономических наук
Волгоградский филиал Российского экономического университета им. Г.В. Плеханова
ул. Волгодонская, 11, г. Волгоград, 400131, Россия
е-mail: vasileves@gmail.com
SPIN-код в SCIENCE INDEX: 4494-4448
