Last few years were marked by growing civic activities in Russia (aid to victims of fires and floods, peaceful demonstrations and protests), including emergence of a very massive movement of domestic election observers. Hundreds of thousands of Russians across the country started to participate in election observation beginning from federal elections, 2011– 2012. In this context, tree main questions are relevant. How has this movement emerged and developed? What is the qualitative composition of its participants? How socially significat is the movement in terms of its impact on the development of civil society and democracy? Mixed method research was used: qualitative research (7 in-depth interviews), and a quantitative survey (N=1506) conducted online. Results of the study show that despite the fact that people’s participation in election observation was massive, this activity was not chaotic. Process of involving citizens in election observation was based on well-built system, coordinated by new organizations. They distribute videos aimed at attracting citizens to become election observers; train in election legislation; develop and distribute manuals, handbooks and “road maps”; organize “mobile groups”, hot lines, and parallel vote tabulation. Qualitative composition of domestic election observers feature educated people under 45 with relatively high level of material welfare, not members or supporters of parliamentary parties. Moreover, election observers are actively involved in NGOs as well as in volunteering and donations. Activities of domestic election observers in Russia for the last two years enhance development of civic skills and increase levels of legal awareness thus contributing to empowering Russian civil society and democracy.

Recent advances in neuroscience gave rise to new fascinating ideas and issues in social sciences. However, neuronal processes are still perceived as irrelevant for a typical sociological research. This is partially the sequence of a limited explanatory power of social neuroscience rooted in the mind-body problem. But sociological research ignoring brain processes is equally weak. We consider key features and problems both of neurophysiologic and sociological explanations, taking maternal behavior as an example. We then attempt to formulate conditions of integrative neurosociological explanation, and propose a three-factor model of maternal behavior.

The article discusses school violence. Absence of large-scale research in the country determined the choice of the questionnaire developed by German colleagues, adapted as a primary tool of survey in schools. The experience of conducting research in the Nizhny Novgorod schools showed that educational system is a closed one and is often unprepared to participate in polls, including those relating to urgent social problems. Research results also clearly indicate presence of violence in Russian school and allow us to estimate its extent. School violence is diverse in form: from "light" verbal version to fierce physical coercion; in the Nizhny Novgorod schools vandalism, violence against teachers, and other forms also exist. Experience of students' participation in acts of violence is considered from the position of the aggressor as well as from the perspective of the victim; socio-demographic factors (type of school, gender, age) are taken into account. In the article destructive actions of students are analyzed from the point of view of family (socializing) experience. The family, as primary medium of forming child's personality, creates social/regulatory parameters of his/her activity outside family, including the school. The research materials describe relationship with the parents of schoolchildren: subjective students' opinion of the relationship with their close adults and parenting style; parental involvement in the school life of the child; communication style and methods of influence on the child. Nizhny Novgorod schoolboy/girl does not always feel secure within the family. His/her well-being and comfort is destroyed by ignoring his/her concerns and interests, by application of hard (using physical force) methods of influence. Analysis of the data demonstrates correlation between advantaged/disadvantaged practices of parent-child relations, and students' involvement in the situation of school violence as both aggressor and victim. © 2016 r.

The article analyzes main causes and consequences of the interdisciplinary crisis of the reproducibility and reliability of the results of scientific research that has unfolded in the social sciences in parallel with the «data revolution». This crisis is expressed not only in the growing concern of scientists about the reliability of research results and the possibilities to establish the practices securing the transparency of empirical data and the statistical software used for their analysis, but also in disputes on limitations of the routine approach to significance testing and feasibility of alternatives based on Bayesian approach. Some aspects of the relationship between theory and data-driven methods of searching for patterns in empirical data are briefly discussed in the context of describing a new approach to multimodel analysis aiming at evaluation of model robustness and model uncertainty.