Book chapter
Российский средний класс о желаемом векторе развития страны
The article is devoted to studying styles of consumption in the field of leisure, focusing on sporting clays which became popular among the Russian elite in the second half of 1990s. The study demonstrates that today people with medium and low income are also engaged in sporting clays. The question arises as to whether sporting clays stimulates social differentiation or social integration. The empirical data collected from participants of a sporting clays club describe the institutionalization process of sporting clays in modern Russia, show social and economic qualities of shooters, and present a typology of people engaged in this kind of shooting.
This paper represents an initial report on findings fro a study aimed at analyzing several key aspects of middle class development in the Russian regions, namely:
• Federal and regional government programs to stimulate the growth of the middle class (content, tools of implementation, effectiveness); • Behavioral strategies and economic behavior (consumption patterns, propensity to save, investment) of different sections of Russian middle class; • Middle class value orientation and political preferences (including preferences for democracy).
The selection of regions for our study was made after consultations with the leading Russian experts on regional problems: Irina Busygina, Leonid Smirniagin, Nikolai Petrov, and Rostislav Turovsky. Their expertise and readiness to help us significantly aided us in choosing our case studies. The criteria we used in selecting regions were the following:
• A relatively high level of urban development (this excludes backward regions); • Variation in the level of socio-economic development: region-donor versus region-recipient of federal financial assistance; • Political orientation of the regional government: democratic versus authoritarian.
This paper represents an initial report on findings for a study aimed at analyzing several key aspects of middle class development in the Russian regions (subjects of Federation - oblasts, krays, autonomous republics), namely: Federal and regional government programs to stimulate the growth of the middle class (content, tools of implementation, effectiveness); Behavioral strategies and economic behavior (consumption patterns propensity to save, investment) of different sections of Russian middle class; Middle class value orientation and political preferences (including preferences for democracy).
The focus of this book - the middle class of post-Soviet countries
Research into social stratification and social divisions has always been a central component of sociological study. This volume brings together a range of thematically organised case-studies comprising empirical and methodological analyses addressing the challenges of studying trends and processes in social stratification. This collection has four themes. The first concerns the measurement of social stratification, since the problem of relating concepts, measurements and operationalizations continues to cause difficulties for sociological analysis. This book clarifies the appropriate deployment of existing measurement options, and presents new empirical strategies of measurement and interpretation. The conception of the life course and individual social biography is very popular in modern sociology. The second theme of this volume exploits the contemporary expansion of micro-level longitudinal data and the analytical approaches available to researchers to exploit such records. It comprises chapters which exemplify innovative empirical analysis of life-course processes in a longitudinal context, thus offering an advance on previous sociological accounts concerned with longitudinal trends and processes. The third theme of the book concerns the interrelationship between contemporary demographic, institutional and socioeconomic transformations and structures of social inequality. Although the role of wider social changes is rarely neglected in sociological reviews, such changes continue to raise analytical challenges for any assessment of empirical differences and trends. The fourth theme of the book discusses selected features of policy and political responses to social stratification. This volume will be of interest to students, academics and policy experts working in the field of social stratification.
This paper represents a synthesis of few working papers of the author, published in various mostly foreign publications. In the paper the author examines social consequences and social prerequisites for specific role that Russian state and Russian audiences are playing in the media. In our opinion the situation in Russian media cannot to be perceived outside the context of social structure of the Russian society and the role of the state in this society.
Based on the data of European Social Survey we made a research of the opinion of the middle class on the welfare and social assistance, the main functions of the state in resolving a number of social issues in different countries with different models of social policy. The results of investigation showed that the population's vision of the role of the government in solution of the social problems, as well as of its general functions is different in various countries. Besides we can speak about a certain difference of attitudes of the middle class and working class regarding the social support program.
social policies, Middle class, working class, Public opinion, welfare