Today’s deviant behavior, and the youths’ attitudes to its manifestations

The article considers the attitudes of the school youth to different types of deviant behavior (alcohol, drugs, and smoking) based on the results of the longitudinal study conducted under the guidance of the author from 1998 to the present in twelve Russian regions: Astrakhan and the Astrakhan Region, Grozny, Ivanovo, Krasnodar, Maykop, Makhachkala, Moscow, Nazran, Nalchik, Pskov, and Stavropol. This study has no analogues in Russia or abroad being a part of the international project “Dialogue partnership as a factor of stability and integration” (“Bridge between East and West”) and of the program “Youth in poly-ethnic regions: Views, attitudes, and orientations” (the author is the initiator and head of the project and program) that for thirty years have monitored schools with a multi-ethnic composition of students. The monitoring aims to assess the development of values, attitudes and identity of the youth in different regions of the Russian Federation, the level of legal culture and how law-abiding the schoolchildren are, the protest activity and potential of younger generations, and the ways to develop appropriate and timely programs to prevent the youth’s deviant behavior and illegal actions. The results of the surveys conducted within the program “Youth in poly-ethnic regions: Views, attitudes, and orientations” were compared with other Russian and foreign studies and presented at the international scientific forums: World Congress of Political Science in Berlin (1994), World Congress of Sociology in Montreal (1998), Russian Sociological Congresses (2000, 2008), Humanitarian Forum “Younger Generations - Life without Borders” (2011), UNESCO International Forum “Dialogue as a Path to Understanding” (2013), and at the “Week of Science and Education for Peace and Development” (2017).