Russian Journal of Sociology

3-18

Authors: Olga Yu. Larionova, Lyubov L. Nizhegorodova

The article analyzes the dynamics of technical education development in Izhevsk and Votkinsk from the beginning of the XIX century to the present day: from the mining school to the university. The complexity of factory technologies has led to a significant increase in the period of specialist training and the number of subjects studied: from 6 years and 8 academic disciplines in the early XIX century to 16-17 years (including the secondary education) and more than 100 disciplines by the beginning of the XXI century. A study of the first years of the Izhevsk mechanical institute and IMI first branch in Votkinsk revealed a deeper cultural connection with the Bauman Moscow state technical university than previously thought. By establishing the official patronage links between the country's leading technical university and the newly created institute in the peripheral region, the government managed to decentralize the training of high-quality personnel for industrial enterprises and other sectors of the Udmurtia economy.

3-9

Authors: Olena V. Kupenko

The neighboring community in Ukrainian city is considered as a controversial phenomenon. The resource potential of such communities requires implementation in such contexts: helping people in difficult life circumstances; promotion of democracy and wide participation of citizens in solving local issues; ensuring proper condition and improving the quality of housing stock in apartment buildings in the context of reforming the country's housing and utilities sector. We focus on the principle of enhancing the resource potential of the neighborhood community. The practice of implementing this principle is developing slowly, and a theoretical analysis of the concept of “neighbor community” reveals a number of significant contradictions, which are caused by this. The article uses a systematic approach in the aggregate of structural and functional analysis, analysis of mutual relations and influences of subjects, analysis of the external environment of neighboring communities, their contradictions are highlighted. Each of these contradictions requires separate discussions about the proposed formulations and approaches to their resolution.

28-38

Authors: Oleg V. Tikhanychev

The work is devoted to the issues of forecasting the interaction of ethnic groups, carried out in terms of modern society. The subject of the research is the influence on the interethnic interaction of borders and state relations, taking into account these factors in modeling the processes of interethnic interaction. As the analysis of the subject area shows, the most important stage of a typical management cycle, in any area, is to predict the consequences of decisions. The main forecasting tool that provides the most objective estimates is mathematical modeling. In modern conditions, with the increasing role of non-military methods of inter-state confrontation, the importance of predicting the consequences of political decisions is growing. But, as the analysis shows, there is no reliable mathematical apparatus for such forecasting. The use of qualitative estimates based on the theory of passionarity or quantitative estimates obtained using the apparatus of the dynamics of averages to obtain forecasts does not always provide an acceptable accuracy of the forecast. The main reason for this is the lack of consideration in these methods of modern conditions of inter-ethnic interaction, characterized by the presence of state borders, factors of domestic and international law. The article describes the mathematical apparatus based on the methods of the theory of similarity and the model of the electric circuit, forming the prerequisites for solving this problem. The possible advantages of its application are evaluated and the principles of its implementation are proposed. The conclusion is made about the possibility of practical application of the proposed mathematical apparatus for the formation of boundary conditions in models of interethnic interaction based on proven principles of dynamics of averages.

4-16

Authors: Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff

The Western world two, three or four generations ago manifested forms of the political life that is widely separated from these forms that prevail today. European and other nations often preferred authoritarian regimes to democracy, sustained colonies and imperialistic systems, tended to antisemitic and other prejudices, and led horrifying wars. The article shows that the so-called humanitarian revolution of the past decades, which has ameliorated our lives, exhibits psychological changes of modern humans measurable by modern psychological theories and methods. The cognitive-developmental approach or structure-genetic theory programme bases the historical anthropology and delivers the decisive theory to explain that what happened in history. The historical disciplines are requested to surmount the idea that the human being across continents and times has always had the same internal nature.

23-29

Authors: Diana D. Chelpanova

The article reviews the V All-Russian Congress of Sociology “Sociology and Society: Social Inequality and Social Justice”. It took place on October 19–21, 2016 in Yekaterinburg. The reports of leading Russian sociologists are in the focus of this paper. Presentations of this congress identified the limits of various types of social inequalities, determined the role of government in minimizing of social inequality, characterized a new kind of social inequality – a digital social inequality in Russia. The reports examined the regional inequality in the system of Russian higher education, social trauma affecting on different spheres of life. The participants discussed the future of sociology including possibilities of research forecast, actively debated on the political instability and the formation of collective action, social movements in conditions of social inequality. At the end of the congress the role of the ISA in the support of the sociological community was stressed, as well as the principles and functions of sociology in the modern world. As a result, potential vectors of international cooperation were identified and the potential of studies with the involvement of young Russian researchers was discussed.

38-43

Authors: А.P. Abramov

The article discusses evolution of conceptual socio-economic approachesfor various forms of economic behavior.The economic motivation is expressed by such formsof coercion asexternal economic, economic, technological and ideological coercion.The social norm is determined as the main source of motivation. The new social reality presented by the non-institutional structures gives rise to the introduction of irrational motivational variablesin terms of global economy and transition of cultures, where affective economic action becomes dominant, and value-oriented, based on cultural scrapie, religious faith and aesthetic taste is the least important. It is concluded that the socio-cultural approach is fundamental in the study of socio-economic systems, since it allows the systematically and holistically imagine a new model of "economic man".

52-61

Authors: Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff

The incidents in Cologne at the New Year´s Eve with sexual attacks against young women performed by some hundreds of Arabian refugees and migrants have originated a debate both about the causes to such strange forms of behavior and about migration policy. Most experts earmark either the specific social situation of migrants or their traditional values regarding gender relations as causers to these forms of delinquency. The article shows that explanations of this type are not sufficient to explain such extreme forms of behavior unknown in the crime history of Germany. It is evidenced that instead only developmental psychology is able to explain these crude and brutal patterns of behavior. Different nations stay on different stages of psychological development, as Piagetian cross-cultural psychology found out. Therefore, it will need generations to raise in the new migrants those higher stages that carry a civilized conduct peoples of the most advanced nations of today usually exhibit. The incidents of Cologne shed a light on the modifications of culture modern societies have to face when they follow the migration policy Germany currently practices for whichever reasons. The new approach shows a fundamental theoretical alternative both to social psychological and racial-biological theories regarding the scrutiny of the psychology of different nations and of the problems of migration policy.

4-9

Authors: Alexander Fedorov

The author uses the hermeneutic analysis– a study of the process of interpretation of media texts, cultural and historical factors influencing the views of the agency / author on the media text. This analysis suggests media text comprehension through comparison with historical, cultural tradition and reality; penetration of its logic; through comparison of media images in historical and cultural context by combininganalysis of the structural, plot, ethical, ideological, iconographic / visual, media stereotypes and analysis of media texts’ characters. As a result, the author concluded that the era of the Cold War, which spawned mutual ideological confrontation of the communist and capitalist countries, covering all categories of media texts, including animation / cartoon. Cartoons were used as levers of power required reports confrontational ideas in attractive folklore, fairy package in order to influence not only adults but also on children's audience.

20-34

Authors: Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff

The realistic school of political sciences explains politics and wars by reference to “rationality” and “material interests”. However, a look at the political world of the first half of the 20th century shows forms of mind, culture, worldview, and behavior that are predominantly submerged in today´s most advanced nations. Racism, antisemitism, aggressive nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, and warfare for conquest targets shaped the political life. Cross-cultural psychology has evidenced that the generations born around 1870 or 1900 stood on intermediary psychological stages between those of humans from folk societies (R. Redfield) and from today´s most advanced nations. The rise of the adolescent stage of formal operations stepwise unfolded during the whole 20th century, while the earlier generations stood on lower stages. Accordingly, the intelligence of the peoples increased especially between 1950 and 1990 in consequence of school and job enrichments, a phenomenon the psychometric intelligence research calls Flynn effect. This article demonstrates that only the new developmental approach has the means available to disclose the psychological structures behind the former political life and the two world wars. The psychological advancement after 1950 is the main motor behind the humanitarian revolution (S. Pinker) that caused the changes and ameliorations of the moral and political life observable both on the national and international level. The considerate analysis of the causes to the world wars reveals that the instability of the international system originated in forms of mind and reason that are vanished nowadays not only in the Western world but partially beyond. The former instability of the international system, which led to the wars, has not institutional causes but mental ones describable by modern psychological approaches. On the whole, the 20th century catastrophe does not originate in the eternal structure of the human psyche but in a certain developmental stage modern humans occupied at that time.