No 2 (2013)

The article focuses on the role of cultural codes in forming value orientations. The cultural code is considered as the “ideal unit”, which attributes symbolic meanings to objects and phenomena, and creates the basis for forming notions about the value of these objects and phenomena to the individual. The cultural codes form the system of subjective coordinates within which the individual's life-activity unfolds.

Recently Russia has seen a growing civic activity and realization of values in various social-demographic groups, especially — among the youth. Civic activity and the corresponding values are usually considered in the context of political involvement, taking into account the social capital, and in view of participation in non-government public movements. But this approach is too narrow, as civic activity is related not only to politics and socially significant actions, but is also part and parcel of the people's everyday life. On the basis of secondary analysis of the empirical data (received, primarily, in in-depth interviews) and the results of the focus-groups realized by the author, we can conclude that civic activity, besides its objective outer component, by all means includes the inner aim at active transformation of self and the social world around.

The article considers social orphanhood as a phenomenon where children and teenagers have parents who for some reasons are not engaged in their upbringing, do not take care of them and have no control over their children's actions. As of today, the main reasons for social orphanhood are the following: the crisis of the family in modern society, unstable marriages, divorces, deprivation of parents' rights, rejection of newly-born babies, financial problems in the family. Social orphanhood increases when the social-economic situation in the country gets more complicated, with drug addiction, alcoholism and other pathological conditions in society getting wide-spread.

The article is based on the materials of the sociological study “The outlook of state and municipal servants of the Russian Federation: professional ethics, political views, peculiarities of interacting with the central government and the local population”, conducted in the summer of 2012 by sociologists of the RANE&PS in several regions of Russia. The author of the article personally participated in studying the outlook of officials in Arkhangelsk region, where he collected twenty in-depth interviews with municipal officials in two districts of Arkhangelsk region, as well as in Arkhangelsk itself.

The article analyzes the value aspect of electoral choice, examining the dependence of value orientations on the socio-demographic characteristics and quality of life. In the context of election campaigns conducted in 2007 and 2011, the nature of the influence of values on the political choices is described on the basis of the data of opinion polls.

The paper describes organizational behavior of Russian professionals at the individual and organizational levels. The characteristics of Russian professionals’ organizational behavior are examined on the basis of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of HSE, depending on the qualification level and age.

The article describes the nature of the relationship between the researcher and the respondents. The authors prove that reliable and complete sociological information can be obtained in case of establishing equal relations and holding a free discussion between them. The article analyzes the accompanying problems of interrelation between the sociological factors of emergence of advertising as a mass phenomenon and their inseparable connection with mass culture and the mass media.