PurposeThis article aims to explore the dominant normative patterns that establish the timing and order of life events, determining the desirable life strategies for working-class youth in modern Russia.Design/methodology/approachExploring the interrelationship between new working-class studies and life-course studies, this research combines the consideration of life course as a structurally organised integrity with a phenomenological perspective on the study of life strategies. The empirical basis of research consists of a survey of 1532 young working-class representatives living in the Ural Federal District of Russia and biographical in-depth interviews with 31 of them.FindingsThe study resulted in persisting significance and values of traditional life-course structures while showing that the current social conditions do not allow for this life strategy to be fulfilled. Young workers choose adaptation and survival life strategies that restrict the realisation of their professional and cultural potential. The obtained data have confirmed the presence of some worldwide tendencies, such as the dispersion of events during transition to adulthood, a combination of schooling and full-time work and an earlier career start of working-class representatives.Originality/valueThe sequencing and timing of life-course events of Russian working-class youth is an original research topic. The present study proposes and substantiates the notion of the new working class and criteria for its definition.
boundaries between the academic tradition and emerging mass culture through actions of the administrative machinery were aimed at the formation of a new kind of individual and achievement of class solidarity. All these trends led to the deconstruction of the traditional repertoires of art existence, determining the specific condition of blurring the boundaries between the sciences, arts, cultural policies, and the social realities of the USSR. Considered in this light, an essential artistic practice, which influences a large number of people, is music. Concentrating collectively shared occurrences in the form of emotional experiences, this art entails a high subjective significance and is directly involved in the construction of cultural identity and the creation of sustainable forms of social solidarity. The historical period under consideration granted composers and performers of popular music unprecedented access to the domain of society. Organizing music assistance for mass events and political actions, trying to create highly artistic and understandable music culture for people by synthesizing peasant folk art and academic forms of expression, 800828S GOXXX10.
The article represents an analytical review of the axiomatics of sociological approaches to class analysis, taking into account gender diferentiation since the 1940s till nowadays. Te problems of primary units selection of the class analysis, conceptual grounds for determining the class position of women and the features of their social status, conditioned by this position, ways of normalizing gender inequality in conventional approaches and criticizing their legitimacy have been considered in the research. It has been found that within the framework of the structural and functional approach of T. Parsons, the class status of the individual is ascetic, the main mechanism for its acquisition and transmission is kinship, while gender inequality is regarded as condition for maintaining the stability of the social system. Te changing structure of employment and women’s emancipation has led to the revision of the conventional approach foundations by problem consideration of families as the primary units of class analysis. Subsequently, the dominant approach of J. Goldthorpe eliminates the gender inequality aspect, linking the class position of the household with the position of the partner who plays a leading role in its economic provision. E.O. Wright’s approach, representing an infuential neo-Marxist alternative model of class analysis, presupposes the existence of an individual actor as the initial element of class analysis. At the same time, the author emphasizes the existence of exploitation relations in the family, as well as the high degree of risk and uncertainty of the social status of a signifcant number of women. Awareness of the role of individualization in social dynamics, changes in the structure of the global economy and the consequences of de-industrialization in the 1990s changed the original axiomatics of class analysis. Te focus of attention has shifed from the disputes about the criteria of class diferentiation to the analysis of real diferences in people’s way of life, generated by social inequality. Modern studies of social inequality take into account the intersection of gender, class, racial and other characteristics of individuals and communities.
The article considers the social self-identification of the Russian working youth and its class identity. The relevance of the topic is due to the need to search for basic indicators of the identity of the working class in the post-industrial era as connected with the fundamental differences between wage labour in the service sectors from the labour of industrial workers. The article presents an overview of contemporary concepts of multiple and fragmented identity, outlines the main vectors of controversy in the debates on identification processes and identity politics in contemporary societies; describes the basic features of the identification of the working class in the post-industrial era - the nature and content of labour; ownership of property and participation in the management of the enterprise. The contemporary working class is defined as a nonhomogeneous entity with internal differentiation determined by such factors as the form of employment, sphere of employment, income level, lifestyle and cultural capital. The empirical part of the research was implemented in the Ural Federal District in 2018 based on the mass and expert surveys. The results of the study prove that there are active processes of class formation in the Russian society; therefore, we need to revive the class approach to the description of the social structure. More than 50% of young people from the traditional industrial working class still identify themselves as members of this social group, while the same applies only to every third worker of routine service; and identification with the middle class loses popularity. The empirical data show the paradoxical nature of the working-class thinking and the instability of its basic orientations. The contradictory assessments and statements of the respondents confirm the vagueness of their class consciousness and the instability of their class identity.
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