The system of education exerts a substantial, positive influence on all social processes in society, and that includes upbringing. Owing to a number of specific causes, however (in particular, inadequate material, technical, and organizational support), the system has not performed that function very well for about ten years. Moreover, various…

These days politicians and scientists refer to the importance of consensus for understanding society's new ideological need, but the path to consensus is difficult. Political differences account for the wide variety of approaches to the problem. The United Russia Party supports a "conservative European" ideology, while the Communist…

The future of Russian society is manifested in the new generation, the community of children and young people. To a large extent, the country's social and economic development depends on the health and education of the rising generation, on its social values and orientations, its spirituality and morality, and its level of cultural accumulation.…

Russia's declining birth rate is linked to a delay in a family's decision to have children and to uncertainty about the place of children in a couple's relationship. Despite the rise of individualism and the importance of career and self-realization, however, the family retains a very important place in Russian society. (Contains 1 table, 1…

The crisis of rural life in Russia involves a declining and aging population, emigration of rural young people to urban areas, lack of employment, and farms in urgent need of modernization. Programs in rural schools can be used more deliberately to encourage young people to remain in the village and to equip them to be agents of rural…

In Russia in the nineteenth century, educators and professional teachers paid a lot of attention to formulating principles of the upbringing and education of the kind of person who is worthy to be a citizen of his Fatherland; this was reflected in their scientific writings and literary works. The idea that patriotic upbringing was a part of moral…

Data from a survey of the value orientations of young people in Russia regarding work, family, and sex show that the balance between personal and societal concerns is changing. (Contains 5 tables.)

This article discusses the implications of the survey results involving young people in the Siberian Region on their value priorities. In the process of their socialization, special importance attaches to the problem of the value priorities of young people. Among these, in the authors opinion, it is possible to single out both spiritual and moral…

An analysis of the influence of the mass media on the moral state of Russian society discerns negative consequences of that influence, and sees the mass media (particularly television) as involved in the cultural degradation of the population. It argues in favor of state, social, and pedagogical controls to facilitate a more positive role of the…

Attention to virtual space is growing in Russia. Russian politicians have an interest in the Internet: the president has his own blog and reads Twitter, and the United Russia Party is starting to work with the iPad on a mass scale. Opposition leaders and movements are not lagging behind either. Online surveys of various Internet resources are…

A survey conducted in two provincial areas of Russia provides the basis for an examination of the relation between the self-identification and the social status affiliation of young people. Self-assessments serve as the basis for a model of the social structure and a typology of the younger generation in these regions, in accordance with their…

The process of the formation and functioning of youth associations and organizations in today's Russia (whether on the basis of their formal registration or without it) can be looked at as a manifestation of personally and socially important active involvement. Participation in their activity is based on freedom of choice, value preferences, and…

In this article, a civil society is viewed as the qualitative state of the social organism as the result of the social actions of individuals in the framework of the particular culture. Such a representation is based on the sociocultural approach, and it finds expression in the formulation of the terms "culture of civic-mindedness" and…

Over the span of all of the years that the Levada Center has been in operation, one of the tasks of the research collective has been to analyze the behavior of "advanced" groups whose characteristic way of life, attitudes, and assessments might have the significance, to other strata of the society, of a model, and provide them with an…

The urgent demographic situation has led to an acute awareness of the necessity of far-reaching decisions to strengthen the family and implement radical measures of family policy. Many experts are talking about the crisis of the institution of the family, about the loss of the importance of family values among a substantial portion of Russians,…