No 1 (2012)

The article discusses the main current approaches to the interpretation of the term professional career, as well as the established lines of empirical study of the factors of career development. The author points out to the insufficient co-ordination between the efforts of theoretical conceptualization of career-related issues and the empirical studies of this subject. The author analyzes the most promising directions for further career research in terms of Bourdieu's theory of social space. Primarily, the author focuses on elaborating the concepts of career field and career capital related to it.

The author of the article speaks about the impact of the investment rating on the image of the country and about the peculiarities of forming Russia's brand, comprising some stable non-material assets. The term 'Hallo-effect' is introduced as a positioning instrument used to strengthen the country's image affecting the situation in business and politics. The author also analyzes the problems, resulting from this, in the instruments of sociological measurement proper and the problems of social after-effects of these studies.

The article analyzes how the youth, as a specific social-demographic group, are affected by the processes moulding a transitive society in Russia. The author considers the specific nature of socialization and social development of young people in today's conditions in Russia, concluding that these processes have some dysfunctional features, which create the social basis for extremism among the youth.

This article aims to provide the first complete overview of the nature and content of the historical consciousness of the Czech population on the basis of sociological methods. Historical consciousness is understood not only as a body of knowledge, impressions, and images of the past, but, above all, as an awareness of certain connections between the past (stored in collective memory), present and future; as a consciousness which has contributed to people's attitudes to the present and the future. The issue of historical consciousness is examines with the tools provided by sociological methods, in particular, quantitative methods. First, the size of the population interested in the history of the Czech Republic as such is assessed; then the focus is shifted to some general aspects of historical consciousness, particularly the ideas of people concerning the importance of the forces shaping the course of history, and their assessment of the general importance of history. In conclusion, the authors present the evaluations by the Czech population of their national history, its key stages and major events. In the final discussion there is a comprehensive interpretation of the empirical data in terms of the existing theoretical research models. In this discussion attention is paid to patterns of historical changes in people's perception of their past, as well as the selectivity of historical consciousness and its influence on the political situation, social changes and personal life experience.

In this article the author analyzes two basic interpretations of the phenomenon of diaspora, singles out and compares groups of the Belarusian diaspora, defining it in general as a particular group of Belarus citizens residing abroad. A detailed description of the key social features of the group is provided, namely, its composition, size and development trends.

The article raises questions pertaining to ex-convicts as well as confined prisoners - one of the most marginalized groups among all exclusive groups in society. The authors speak about deprivation of convicts and former convicts, as well as their discrimination by the state, identifying the spheres of maximum discrimination of the exclusive group under investigation. On the basis of a sociological study, the authors analyze the most significant barriers preventing the ex-convicts from re-socialization. According to the authors, the task of the government agencies and public organizations is to reduce the number of barriers, which put the socially excluded groups in isolation.