В статье предлагается анализ положения мусульман в рамках российской пенитенциарной системы. Эмпирической базой стали 74 биографических интервью с бывшими заключенными в трех регионах России. Фокус анализа – истории бывших заключенных-мужчин, назвавших себя мусульманами. Поддержка статуса мусульманина требует от человека готовности к проявлению агентности, сопротивлению, к отказу от следования правилам тюремной иерархии или дистанцированию от нее. Принятие ислама для одних – результат прагматического решения, что помогает адаптироваться и выживать, для других – это моральная основа для сохранения субъектности в условиях изоляции и насилия, сосуществования формальной и неформальной властной иерархии с присущими им нормами и требованиями. В статье показано, что «побег» в ислам может использоваться в качестве ресурса регламентации и дисциплинирования жизни заключенного, а также как механизм давления со стороны мусульманского сообщества в отношении того, что и как должен делать настоящий мусульманин.

In this article we address the question of how residents of several Russian urban centers perceive museums with displays highlighting Soviet political repressions (in particular, the Gulag). The empirical base consists of focus groups with different age groups. The method of intergenerational analysis was used to compare respondents' narratives in order to understand how their different life experiences and time distances from the tragic events of Soviet history affect their attitudes to such museums in urban spaces and their perceptions of how these museums shape local identities.

The article contributes to the discussions on the life strategies and migration plans of young people in a temporal perspective using the example of a study of young people in the northwestern region of Russia. Attention is drawn to the changes in values and perceptions of the future by young Russians in the context of recent geopolitical challenges and turbulences, with a focus on the search for more sustainable and externally influenced factors. The article expands the contexts of the discussion, includes stories related to the migration intentions of young people in the context of vital choices, shifts the focus from theoretical and analytical analysis of different approaches to life strategies to the specifics of making important decisions by young people in everyday life, and introduces a temporal dimension to the discussion related to the specifics of the project in 2021 and 2022. The analysis of the current discussion of the topic together with the data of the project devoted to the migration plans of young people in the North-West region of Russia allows to continue the discussion. The introduction of the time perspective contributes to the discussions around life strategies, to the understanding of current transformations in young people's perceptions of their life prospects and the life of society in the real-time.

This article considers the activism of a range of youth activist groups that seek to uphold the 'moral order' in contemporary Russian society. They promote strict adherence to a healthy lifestyle including avoidance of alcohol, drugs and sexual promiscuity and oppose those whose choices and behaviour do not conform to their own values and moral attitudes. Such 'pro-moral order' activism is associated with traditionalist, conservative, right-wing nationalist movements fighting for the morality of the 'ethnic Russian' population but also attracts young people engaged in movements formerly sponsored by the Russian state. The article traces the composition of this complex activist terrain, examines the motives of participants in a range of movements, identifies the ideas and principles underpinning participants' social mission and reveals intra-movement conflicts. The article explores the fine line activists tread between conflict and cooperation with the state and its law enforcement agencies and considers how some activist groups become stigmatised in public discourse. Drawing on a relational approach to morality, it demonstrates the importance of interaction - including conflictual interaction - to shaping what is considered permissible and valued and how the struggle for 'moral order' is a site of both community and conflict for young people in contemporary Russia.

Молодежная политика как сфера государственного управления — это национальный проект, опирающийся на поколенческий контракт: государство конвертирует доступные ресурсы в социализацию молодежи, обеспечивая будущее развитие общества. В формировании молодежной повестки участвуют работники разных ведомств и институтов, задачи которых включают в себя и сопряженные с молодежью вопросы. В зависимости от приоритетов, молодежь может рассматриваться как ресурс, объект или значимый агент/субъект/активный участник социальных изменений. Степень агентности различных молодежных групп, их возможности (права) влиять на принятие основных решений может определяться экспертами по-разному, что формирует отличающиеся и противоречивые прочтения молодежной политики государства и ее ключевых проектов. Задача статьи — с опорой на анализ экспертных интервью (N = 30) реконструировать представления экспертов о месте и роли современной молодежи в будущем страны, а также о ключевых вопросах молодежной повестки в целом. В статье предложена интерпретация трех экспертных позиций, между которыми найдены линии напряжения и противоречия. Первая — оптимистический взгляд на будущее России, место и роль молодежи в его приближении, восприятие отношений государства в лице молодежной политики и молодежи как сбалансированного диалога. Этот подход характерен для руководителей молодежной политики высшего звена, а также руководителей НКО из «центра». Вторая — умеренно тревожный взгляд на молодежь и будущее страны, разделяемый руководителями госорганов, специализирующихся на молодежной политике, и НКО в регионах. Третья экспертная позиция сопряжена с критическим и скептическим отношением к ключевым программным документам молодежной политики и государственной риторике в отношении молодежи. Ее разделяют эксперты на местах — сотрудники муниципальных органов и региональных НКО, а также исследователи молодежи (как из центра, так и из регионов). В статье предложен анализ линий напряжения между условными кластерами экспертных оценок: от центра к периферии, от высшего звена руководителей молодежной политики и подведомственных органов к работникам на местах, от ученых — до практиков, от государственных структур — к НКО. Благодарность. В статье используются результаты проекта «Антикризисный потенциал молодежных политик в России и Европе в эпоху глобальных рисков: национальное воображаемое, патриотизм и социальная вовлеченность», поддержанного Российским фондом фундаментальных исследований совместно с Институтом экспертных социальных исследований, проект № 20-011-31412. Также в данной научной работе использованы результаты проекта «Взросление российской молодежи в 21 веке: поколенческий анализ», выполненного в рамках Программы фундаментальных исследований НИУ ВШЭ в 2020—2022 году. Авторы используют результаты дискурс-анализа для выделения этапов становления молодежной политики России. Выражаем признательность нашим коллегам Алине Майбороде, Анастасии Саблиной, Юлии Епановой, Дмитрию Омельченко, Святославу Полякову, Искандеру Ясавееву, участвовавшим вместе с авторами в сборе интервью и анализе исследовательских материалов.

The qualitative paradigm is at a new stage of development. That is the position of the well-known international journal FQS (Forum: Qualitative Social Research), which started the discussion “Quality of qualitative research”, where it raises topical issues of further development of the field as a kind of “Where is the qualitative paradigm going?”.Taking up this initiative, our journal invited the experts to speak on the block of questions proposed by colleagues, but with reference to the Russian-speaking segment of the field.Well-known leaders in this area – Elena Zdravomyslova, Elena Yarskaya-Smirnova, Elena Omelchenko, Ilya Steinberg – responded to the journal’s proposal. Here we publish their answers to the questions discussed.

Статья посвящена восприятию города студентами и выпускниками калининградских университетов, месту региональной идентичности в их жизненных стратегиях и миграционных намерениях в контексте дискуссий вокруг миграции интеллектуалов, значимости для молодежи принадлежности к месту, дружеским сетям локальных сообществ. Особую актуальность выбранная тема приобретает в последнее время геополитических изменений и турбулентности, находясь в центре остро дискутируемых вопросов в академической среде и политическом поле. Критически осмысливается адекватность использования теоретической рамки «утечки мозгов» из периферийных или опасных территорий в центральные регионы и другие страны. Анализируются факторы принятия молодыми калининградцами решения «уехать или остаться» в связи с их интерпретациями принадлежности к городу и патриотическими настроениями, того, как уникальная история и территория Калининграда влияют на их жизненные планы. Используемый подход позволяет показать связь миграционных намерений (или их отсутствие) с жизненными стратегиями и планами молодежи, подчеркнуть контекстуальность и подвижность решений в рамках меняющейся конфигурации политической и культурной жизни в локальном и глобальном измерениях. В статье используются результаты качественной части исследования, проведенного в Калининграде коллективом Центра молодежных исследований НИУ ВШЭ (Санкт-Петербург). Эмпирической базой статьи стали глубинные интервью со студентами и выпускниками калининградских университетов. Благодарность. Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке Российского научного фонда в рамках проекта Центра молодежных исследований НИУ ВШЭ Санкт-Петербург «Выбор жизненных стратегий талантливой молодежью и ее роль в повышении конкурентоспособности российских регионов как ответ на глобальные вызовы “утечки мозгов”» (грант № 21-18-00122). Выражаем благодарность коллегам, проводившим полевой этап исследования в Калининграде, всем участникам проекта за включенность и поддержку, а также, конечно, нашим молодым информантам, принявшим участие в исследовании.

The article discusses the complex and critical moments of interfacing and / or mismatch of ethical and professional principles and skills of the sociologist that occur during the fieldwork concerning difficult, sensitive issues. The balance of permissible boundaries of intrusion into the personal spaces and the principles of voluntariness may conflict with the researcher’s obligations during the interview, and possible risks for the informant — with the preservation of the safe (physical, psychological) space of the researcher. This conflict is considered as part of the sociologist's emotional work in the course of direct communication with informants, as well as the experience and reflection before and after the conversation, that constructs sociologist’s professional identity as a whole. The article critically examines the permissible limit of the researcher's impartiality, the ability to breed personal and professional “Self” in the study of vulnerable (dependent) group or individual in difficult life situation. In this article, we are talking about life experience research of people undergoing rehabilitation (physical, psychological, social) in one of the public centers (NGOs) to help people recently released from local colony and found themselves in extreme social loneliness.

In this article, we analyze the independent Tatar rap scene in two relevant contexts: the globalization of this musical culture and the post-Soviet nation-building efforts in the Republic of Tatarstan (Russian Federation). Having analyzed 29 in-depth biographical interviews with young rap scene participants and diary entries obtained in the course of a month-long participant observation, we conclude that the Tatar rap scene is a special case in Tatar urban youth culture, shaped by the younger generation of the Tatar-speaking intelligentsia (humanities graduates and creative professionals), and in opposition to both the cultural policy of Russification of the imperial center (i.e., Moscow) and the folklorized version of Soviet Tatar culture.

The article focused on the experience of studying youth cultural practices and group identities in Russia in the post-soviet era. The attention to 25 years period of the youth cultural space transformation could be explained not only with scientific interest and an attempt to understand the changes that have occurred in this historical period, but with the fact, that during these years the theoretical and practical findings and work of the Scientific Centre “Region”, Ulyanovsk State University (founded in 1995) and Centre for Youth Studies, Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg (founded in 2009) were developed. The task to include in the frame of one article all our results is ambitious and perhaps could not be complete. That is why we will focus the main attention on the key directions of the transformation of youth cultural practices, on the crucial plots of the direct and mediated influence of global trends as well as local discourses. It is important to understand: did these changes follow the global tendencies (Europe, North America, and Australia) described in the key works of researchers of youth cultures and practices? Or is the Russian case an exception fallen out the ‘classical’ picture? The basis for the analysis is the data from key research projects of our Centers, as well as new theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of changing youth sociality in the frame of political and cultural transformations of Russian society.

The article focused on the experience of studying youth cultural practices and group identities in Russia in the post-soviet era. The attention to 25 years period of the youth cultural space transformation could be explained not only with scientific interest and an attempt to understand the changes that have occurred in this historical period, but with the fact, that during these years the theoretical and practical findings and work of the Scientific Centre “Region”, Ulyanovsk State University (founded in 1995) and Centre for Youth Studies, Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg (founded in 2009) were developed. The task to include in the frame of one article all our results is ambitious and perhaps could not be complete. That is why we will focus the main attention on the key directions of the transformation of youth cultural practices, on the crucial plots of the direct and mediated influence of global trends as well as local discourses. It is important to understand: did these changes follow the global tendencies (Europe, North America, and Australia) described in the key works of researchers of youth cultures and practices? Or is the Russian case an exception fallen out the ‘classical’ picture? The basis for the analysis is the data from key research projects of our Centers, as well as new theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of changing youth sociality in the frame of political and cultural transformations of Russian society.

Due to the Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, the world community is to obtain a quality education and a possibility for life-long education for everybody. Children from the families of international migrants are the most vulnerable category of the population. At the end of 2017 nearly 36 million of school age children grew in the families of international migrants. The author describes problems of the education of migrants’ children in the context of the importance of achieving Sustainable Development Goals, stated by the international community. There is an analysis of the European and Russian experience in the sphere of organizing access of migrants’ children to preschool, primary and secondary education. The author has gathered concrete statistics concerning the percentage of international migrants’ children at schools in different countries. Some approaches to teaching and creating a comfortable integration-oriented environment for such children are described. Based on analyzing Russian and foreign publications, as well as on her own research experience, the author names main problems that prevent international migrants’ children from the integration into a new educational environment. Special attention is paid to the linguistic, social and cultural adaptation of such pupils. The efficiency of several concrete integration practices and the potential to apply them in Russia is searched. The author shows that there are no approaches to diagnose processes and results of integration by means of education. There is also no legislative basis for the regulation of such processes. It is shown that it is crucial for Russia to elaborate and implement the united conceptual approach to the organization of social, cultural, linguistic and psychological adaptation of children from the families of international migrants. The author proves that the education of such children is an important strategic priority and investment into the future of the whole world.

The article discusses the map of youth cultural scenes in Makhachkala, the capital of the Republic of Dagestan, and the third largest city in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. The uniqueness of Makhachkala's youth space is associated with the specific geopolitical and cultural circumstances of the history of the republic. This is set against the context of post-Soviet transformation: rising unemployment and severe inequality; the revival of Islam; radical changes in the gender regime, the ethnic and religious composition of Dagestanis; and a complicated political agenda involving the struggle with radicalization, and the growth of a terrorist threat. Thus, we consider it important and timely to study the local youth socialities, which exist in such a contradictory context. The research that underpins the article is focused on two opposing youth scenes in Makhachkala: street workout (inscribed in the context of the local patriarchal regime), and the anime community (symbolically resisting the pressure of social 'normativity'). Using the theoretical concept of cultural scenes and a case-study approach (in-depth interviews, participant observation, community mapping), the potential to categorize youth that are not centred (that is, who are outside the 'core' of the capitalist world-system) is critically considered through the opposition between subcultural and mainstream groups. The key aim of the article is to demonstrate the importance of using the construct of the 'other' (that which is alien or dangerous) as the main way to define the more subtle (often latent) structure of group identity and cultural capital of a community. This also describes the intra- and inter-group solidarities and the value conflicts of youth in a complex and contradictory local urban environment. In this case, the process of growing up and the socialization of youth involve the selection of different strategies of acceptance and resistance to the social order, the structure of normativity and images of success.

The contemporary sociological debate highlights that youth is a category of age, but actual chronological youth is hardly viewed as a period of age production. Transition studies exclude youth as a stage of age identity production, while age studies do not problematize young people's experience. This article focuses on age construction by two groups of chronologically young women. The analysis of 40 qualitative interviews with 15- to 20-year-old girls and 30- to 35-year-old women from Saint Petersburg shows that the concept of youth is slipping away from the biographical narratives of the informants from both age groups. Subjective adulthood experienced by young women is a goal and a value, while a young body does not prove to be a significant and available resource. At the same time, adulthood is not constructed as a set of clearly defined social characteristics but as an identity, a subjective experience, embodied adult personhood.

This article analyses the everyday consumption of young people who live in villages and small towns in modern‐day Russia. Based on 59 semi‐structured interviews conducted in three districts of the Leningrad region, the authors try to answer the following questions: How does everyday consumption fit in the biographical experience of rural youth? What consumption styles are implemented in small towns and villages? The conceptual framework of the analysis is the perspective of ‘the lifestyle’, which connects everyday consumption practices with the construction of youth identities. The authors come to the conclusion that the differentiation of the consumption styles of modern rural residents can be explained in the context of life strategies, construed on the basis of family capital, education, employment and orientation towards success. The article describes four basic styles that characterise the consumption of young rural residents, namely ‘family’, ‘status‐oriented’, ‘individualistic’ and ‘conformist’ styles.

This paper discusses the perspectives of the post-subcultural term "scene" as a conceptual framework in the study of contemporary youth cultures. In current academic literature, the conceptualization of the concept of "scene" is represented by a range of competing interpretations: the scene as a place, the scene as a space (real or virtual), and the scene as a field of cultural production. The key points of discussion are identified by researchers with the following dimensions: its theatricality, its regularity, authenticity, legitimacy, and a DIY-economy. From our point of view, the "scene" has a number of heuristics advantages which are missing in "subcultural" and post-subcultural concepts. Firstly, it is the connection of group cultural practices and specific places/spaces that allows for the comparison of the configuration of youth communities and cultural coalitions in different geographical locations (cities, countries, or regions). Secondly, the focus here shifts from the analysis of cultural texts and discourses to the implicit rules and meanings according to which individuals produce a "scene" in a particular place/ space and time. The concept of "scene" can be used productively in the solidarity approach. This theoretical and methodological composition allows us to analyze the reaction of local youth communities to discursive pressure, the forms of value conflicts typical to modern Russia, and the universal and specific features of local youth group identities.

This article contributes to a comparative analysis of the meaning of citizenship for youth. Young people, traditionally seen as incomplete' citizens in the process of transition to adulthood, possess their own everyday understanding of what it means to be a citizen in the contemporary world. Based on empirical qualitative material collected in two Russian cities, it is argued that there is a disjunction among young Russians between the ideal-typical perception of citizenship and the practical realisation of it. Particular emphasis is put on the emotional' understanding of citizenship by Russian youth involving the experience of particular feelings towards fellow citizens and the country.