Strategic framework for consolidation of family institution in Russia

Abstract

The subject of this research is contradictory trends in transformation of the traditional Russian family into a family of modern type. The analysis of family transformation processes is conducted on the basis of the concept of familialism that puts family in the center of society, as well as on the basis of methodological foundations of the civilizational approach towards studying societal development. The perspective is substantiated that Russia as a separate civilization, with its own values and cultural foundations that differ fundamentally from the Western European civilization. It is demonstrated that the social institution of family is undergoing crisis in all civilized countries; but unlike an organic course of modernization in Western European, in Russia it is an inorganic modernization. The author explains the fatality of situation for the Russian family, when the external modernization processes contradict with the ethnic social archetype of the Russians. The article disputes the modernist concept of the transformation of family relations, which justifies the normality and naturalness of changes. It is underlined that modernization processes lead to the demise and extinction of family institution, which is disastrous for the society. The applied part of the article presents the results of the authorial research on determination of students’ stance on the family and family values; the respondents became the students of Siberian University of Consumer Cooperation in Novosibirsk. Student youth is the conveyors of traditional family values. On the verbal level, they translate tolerance and liberal values, and on the behavioral level are oriented towards family relations of traditional type. The recommendations are made on structuring the government policy in the sphere of family relations based on the foundation of Russian sociocultural values.