Features of Perceptoin of the City of Kharkiv by Young Students (by Survey Materaials)

Abstract

The article considers the results of the survey among students of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University within the framework of the project «Practices of self-presentation of the city in the industrial and post-industrial era». 202 students from School of History, School of Philology, School of Mathematics and Computer Sciences were interviewed. Respondents answered a special questionnaire with 12 «closed» and «open» questions. The «closed» questions allowed to determine the quantitative indicators of the Kharkiv young people preferences regarding objects, structures, enterprises, institutions, monuments, products, songs which, according to the students, present the «face» of city. In the same time the «open» questions gave respondents the opportunity to offer a particular option, to express their views on any issue. Relational database management system (RDBMS) program Microsoft Office Access 2013 was built to analyze the survey results. Unified responses of survey participants were entered into the RDBMS. Interpretation of the results was based on the lifestyle concept of a French sociologist P. Bourdieu and the theories of lifestyles of the German historian M. Dinges. In particular, objects, structures, enterprises, institutions, monuments, products, songs representing the “face” of Kharkiv were identified through a questionnaire. The article reveals the peculiarities of Kharkiv symbolic image among young people. The results also allowed to establish architectural dominants, landmarks and lacunae of urban space. Finally, the youth identified historical figures who, in their opinion, form a pantheon of prominent natives and residents of the city. The materials of the survey show the features of self-presentation of the city and the interaction/ interinfluence of residents and urban space.