Images of Neighboring Countries in the Perception of Students (Results of Sociological Studies)

The article presents a review of the existing models and identifies grounds and results of a trial sociological measurement of stable stereotypes existing in the mass perception of the young as regards neighboring countries. Understanding and accepting the conditional and sketchy character of the obtained results, the authors, however, believe that the proposed model (the information sources, own life experience, well-known public figures, the image of a typical resident, a classification in terms of geo-political friendship/hostility) may serve as a basis for conducting further image-country comparisons in other socio-cultural contexts.