Структурно-функциональный подход к анализу социальных представлений о бедности (на примере работников бюджетной сферы)

Abstract

The article presents the program and the outcomes of a study of the structure and function of social representations of poverty among Russian public sector employees. The study involved 199 people aged 30 to 60, working in the fields of education, culture and medicine. All respondents were residents of Moscow. To identify the content and structure of social representations, we used a modified version of the psychological distance method (D. Feldes), Methods of value orientations (E.B. Fantalova) and the Subjective Happiness Scale (S. Lubomirska). According to the study outcomes, the research nucleus of social representations of poverty in the group of working adults only includes four elements that indicate an understanding of poverty as a relative category. The elements included in the periphery close to the core of social representations reflect the actual emotional experience of poverty by respondents. The most common of them is attributing of responsibility for the state of poverty to outward circumstances. Short psychological distance that our middle-class respondents have in their minds vis-a-vis the poor, indicates that they are not trying to rule out their own possible descent into poverty. The interpretation of poverty as constructed by our respondents performs several psychological functions, such as self-assertion and protection, expressed in terms of asserting that it is their professional employment, diligence and hard work that keeps them away from the category of the poor and disadvantaged. Another function it performs is to form the basis of self-representation. By virtue of their professional affiliation our respondents tend to have a humanist worldview. This is revealed in the emphasis on the vital problems associated with poverty: humiliation, discomfort, hardships suffered, etc., and in the overall acceptance of the dictum “Poverty is no crime, which prevails in the core of their social representations. Yet another prominent feature of the identified representations is the moral mode of representing poverty.