Sociology of Youth: Ural School

Abstract

The article presents a review of the activities of the scientific school of sociologists of the Urals in the direction of "sociology of youth". The authors note the historical dynamics in the development of youth sociology, its gradual embodiment in the organizational and scientific structure in the form of scientific conferences and Ural sociological readings. The Ural sociological school paid special attention to the problems of youth – the research of this group began in 1973, and ten years later the problem of sociology of youth became one of the most important links of scientific activity of the Ural sociologists. By the end of the 20th century, the problem of the study of youth has become large-scale, began to study a variety of aspects of its activity, and the Committee on Youth Affairs and the Ural Institute of Youth were established in Ekaterinburg. The concept of youth itself is not unambiguous, leading sociologists of the Urals – Yu.R. Vishnevsky, V.T. Shapko point out a number of difficulties in the interpretation of this concept associated with the problems of the integrity of the generation, its systemic quality and diversity of properties of people of this social group. In this regard, various approaches to the study of youth were developed, which allowed to identify their specific features. In this article, the authors dwell upon such aspects of the study of youth sociology as values and value orientations, their relationship to the economic and socio-cultural situation in the country. Dynamics of values of the Ural youth over the period from 1999 to 2016 is monitored. The researchers discuss the phenomenon of the working student, study how the dynamics of full-time student involvement in child labour, its motivational attitudes, communication of work produced with the major obtained in the University, and the problems caused by the combining of these two activities. The study undertaken analyzes the state of modern higher education in its interpretation by leading sociologists of the Ural scientific school. The attention is focused on the school of G.E. Zborovsky, who devoted his science activity to the problems of education, especially higher education in Russia, highlighting a number of problems that allowed to conclude about the lack of a successful system of higher education in Russia.