YOUTH PROBLEMATIC AND APPROACHES TO THE DEFINITION OF “YOUTH” IN SOCIOLOGY

• Main Author: S. O. Elishev
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Publishing House of Lomonosov Moscow State University 2017-10-01
• Series: Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta: Seriâ 18, Sociologiâ i Politologiâ
• Subjects: youth; socialization; young age; integrative approach; object manipulative influence
• Online Access: https://vestnik.socio.msu.ru/jour/article/view/296

The features of studying youth problematic in domestic sociology during various periods of the Russian history (Imperial, Soviet and post-Soviet) are discusses in this article. The effect have made historical features of development of our society, state, a scientific thought on development of domestic sociology of youth are analyzes. Author pays attention to little known works and unjustly neglected classics of Russian socio-political thought, conducted a very interesting and large-scale sociological research on youth problematic. The author analyzes various theoretical approaches to the definition of “youth” in sociology. Describes three basic (sociopsychological, social, socio-cultural) and less common (reproductive, out risk assessment, thesaurus, integration and other) approaches to the definition of youth. The author consider the integration approach to the definition of youth asthe most successful which take into account both psycho-hysiological and age peculiarities, typical of young people, its place and function in the social structure, socio-cultural group values and interests, its participation in the life process of society, characteristics of identity and self-determination. The author defines young people as a socio-demographic group (the generation of people in the age range from 14 to 30 years) in their development of emerging and gaining social maturity, namely the acquisition of basic social roles and functions, life choices, self-determination, self-identity and awareness of their values and interests, its place in the world. At the same time, he consider young people as one of the most vulnerable category of the population, because of the lack of a significant part of the relevant knowledge, experience, and economic independence. Therefore, it is an attractive target for manipulative action of the various actors of the public life. The author notes the prospect of a large-scale study focused on the impact on youth of different, not unique subjects of a public life, using her as an object of manipulation, as well as approbation of it political, socio-psychological technologies and experiments.