Student civil activism: Risk of destructive manifestations in the Volga Region

The article presents the results of the regional sociological study of the student youth civil activism and predicts the development of its destructive manifestations in the Volga Region. Civil activity is an integral component of renewal and social development, which is based on the multi-format and multi-vector activity of young people who strive for social transformations ‘here and now’. For some young people, activism became a kind of employment in offline and online formats. In some cases, destructive (even delinquent) civil activism of the youth is a response to an unfair, unlawful action or attitude, primarily of the authorities. Based on the theoretical ideas of structural functionalism, conflictological and interpretive approaches, the article reveals peculiarities of the youth activism in the Volga Region and presents their interpretation. The expert survey allowed to identify relationships between social injustice and civil activity. The authors also identified active dissemination of radical ideas at the grassroots level of everyday life, within everyday forms of interaction and under the decrease in public civil activity, which determines latent conflicts between the population and the government. The risk of an increase in social destructiveness is determined by the crisis of expectations of changes, unsolved social-economic problems, renaissance of socialist ideas that become popular among the youth, and an increase in the number of nonresident and especially foreign students. The student civil activity in the Volga Region focuses on the most pressing challenges at the federal and local levels. Sanctions against students participating in rallies and protest groups in social networks only stimulate the youth’s interest in protest activities. The region needs a youth policy responsive to the needs and demands of the youth and capable of creating a multi-format space for positive youth activism.