Socialization of School Youth of the Southern Urals in the 1950s - Early 1960s

Abstract

The author considers the influence of the main social institutions of the state and society on the socialization of school youth in the post-war decades. The use of archival materials and sources of private origin allows highlighting the behavior and leisure activities of adolescents aged 14-18 years. Based on the materials of the RSFSR, there is analyzed the contradictory impact of social reality on the moral and ethical standards of Soviet schoolchildren’s behavior declared by the Soviet state. At the same time, the focus is on urban school youth of the Southern Urals - the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Kurgan, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk regions during the Khrushchev Thaw. In addition to the high moral stability of the younger generation, which was required in the conditions of the ideological confrontation between the two systems, Soviet schoolchildren were seen as a powerful labor resource for restoring the economy and building the communist future. The author identifies numerous difficulties that hindered the formation of the “new man” of communist society. There are revealed the main activities of schools and out-of-school institutions for the education of Soviet youth. Special attention is paid to the study of social problems and offences among young people. The main reasons for the shift in moral and ethical standards of adolescents’ behavior are determined. It is concluded that in the conditions of contradictions of the state, society and school, a significant role in the socialization of youth was played by education in a team. The main institutions of the state and society formed in schoolchildren such moral qualities as honor, dignity, friendship, and mutual assistance.