Vol 18, No 3 (2018)

The article considers the current discussion on the possibilities and limitations of different theoretical-methodological approaches to the study of the representation of expert knowledge in court proceedings, and on the peculiarities of interaction of forensic experts and jurists. The author emphasizes contribution and methodological limitations of the interpretative traditions and focuses on the potential of the actor-network theory for the study of interaction of forensic experts and jurists, such as implementation of Bruno Latour’s principle of “generalized symmetry” and the concept “juridical chain” for the analysis of the legal sphere. The author believes that Latour’s exclusive attention to the “specific rationality” of judicial practice prevented him from revealing complex trajectories of networks both within and outside the particular legal institution that he studied. The article claims that representatives of science and technology studies contribute to de-legitimization of the results of scientific research represented in forensic expert reports for this approach ignores the asymmetry of power relations between experts and jurists. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the juridical field allows to overcome the one-sidedness of the actor-network theory for it considers the inner logic of the juridical field development, reveals the asymmetry of power relations within it, competition between bearers of different forms of juridical capital with specific interests and resources, and the influence of other fields on the juridical field. The author believes that the most promising perspective is the combination of actor-network theory, its interpretations in science and technology studies and Bourdieu’s theory of the juridical field, which would allow to analyze not only the inner logic of circulation of expert knowledge but also the external context of its production and transformations within the juridical field.

The article considers the issue of how the Orthodox community as the most traditional social community adapts to the contemporary system of technologies. First, the author describes the phenomenon of technological system, identifies its main features, capabilities and limitations. Among the key features of the technological system, the article focuses on decentralization, weakening hierarchy and strengthening horizontal links, flexibility, self-regulation, adaptability, totality and the use of man as an algorithmically acting subject. The author emphasizes that the system approach in sociology plays an important role in the study of technological systems, and N. Luhmann’s approach is relevant for the study of parish communities, though the author mentions the limitations and critique of his works. The article examines contemporary church discourse about modernization of parish communities, which is also determined by the popularization of the views of Luhmann and other representatives of the system approach. The author also focuses on the most important question of the contemporary world under the technological development, which is the future of the mankind, and the article mentions concepts ‘cyborg’, ‘mutant’, ‘clone’, ‘virtual person’, and ‘posthuman’. The author makes a number of conclusions about how the parish community will react to the changes of the mankind, and what the most possible risks for the parish communities are considering such changes. Thus, the transformation of the parish community into a well-managed and well-functioning system or network means its rationalization, which at first seems necessary and solving urgent problems, but then one can see that it deprives the community of its vitality: a man finds himself in the community, but it does not seem to be Christian any more.

The article considers the younger generations’ perception of religion and the role of religious values. The authors argue that in the last decades the attitudes to religion in the Russian society have transformed. Religion determines values of every culture that influence the worldview of different generations. In the contemporary secularized society, religion plays the role of a moral referee, forms a national mentality and a worldview. Younger generations as a dynamic social group do not tend to follow conservative traditional values, which allows to understand further trajectories of social development. The youth’s interpretation of key life values significantly differs from the understanding of the same values by older generations. Younger generations are usually characterized by social dynamism, psychological lability, changing perception of cultural traditions and values, constant search for innovations and revision of the established traditions. Religious values are traditional and conservative by nature, thus they turn people to the past rather than to the future, that is why the youth is often unclear about religion. The data of international and Russian surveys prove that the youth consider religion quite pragmatically, as a kind of psychotherapy. The article presents the results of the sociological research, in which religious values were compared with other cultural values - artistic, scientific, moral and practical. According to the data, the number of people interested in religion and faith issues has significantly increased compared with the late Soviet period but religious values for younger generations are not a priority for other cultural values seem to be more important.

The article considers the challenges for the development of the theory of family education as one of the youngest and most promising branches of the contemporary science. Today’s relevance of this theory is directly related to the transformations of the Russian society in the last decades, which had a great impact on the family ideology in general and changed the goals, objectives, content and methods of family education in particular. The theorists of the family education intensified the search for a new self-determination and a new identity for the Russian family as an educational institution. Under such conditions, the theory of family education adopts the conceptual findings and relevant ideas of other social sciences to develop methodology and techniques of raising and educating children in the family context. The article considers the sources of such ideas in the particular theories in the field of pedagogy, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, economics and informatics. The author identifies and briefly characterizes three groups of different social theories that contribute to a deeper understanding of the goals of family education: pedagogical theories (of free education, self-determination, self-education, culturally appropriate education, ecological education, assimilation and accommodation, pedagogy of cooperation, programmed teaching, pedagogical empiricism, and pedagogical education focused on children), psychological theories (of step-by-step formation of mental actions, personality, adaptation, affiliation, interpersonal interactions, activity mediation of interpersonal relationships, isolation, and imitation), and sociological theories (of globalization, social capital, information, social inequality, social risks, power sharing, gender, rational choice, synergetics, small groups, and mass communications).