Sociological Studies

The central topic of the article is analysis of modern trends in sociology. The author shows the inextricable link between global challenges and their specific understanding by various national and regional scientific schools. The methodological basis of the research is a comparative analysis of program documents, stated priorities and expert positions of leading international and national sociological associations (ISA, ASA, ESA, ALAS, APSA, ROS). The paper identifies five universal challenges consolidating the global sociological community: the crisis of trust in social institutions and attacks on science, social inequality, the environmental crisis, the digitalization of society and the demand for the decolonization of knowledge. It is shown that, despite the commonality of global issues, the reaction to it varies depending on the regional socio-political context: from critical and antagonistic in Latin America and practice-oriented in the Asia-Pacific region to focused on the domestic agenda in the United States and addressing the problems of historical memory in Russia. It is concluded that modern sociological discourse is a polyphonic dialogue enriching global science due to the unique contribution of each region.

This essay presents a theoretical and methodological framework for a new scholarly field – the sociology of integrative socio-neural network interaction. Since this topic is new and discursive, the following is preliminarily considered: trend toward expanding the subject field of sociology, relationship between the concepts of “neural network agency” and “artificial intelligence”, conceptualization of “hybrid vs. integrative” sociality, and signs of the institutionalizing integrative socio-neural network interaction. Thus, sociology of integrative socio-neural network interactions being developed might be classified as a mid-range theory. The object of the new theory’s research is the integrative transformational practices of interaction between people and neural network systems. The subject area is defined as identifying specific mechanisms and processes within these relationships with an analysis of their impact on the social environment. The goal and objectives of the new theory, levels of analytical transitions, key concepts, and possibilities for their operationalization are formulated. Methodological resources for testing theoretical concepts are clarified, and cases of hypotheses for empirical analysis are offered. Prospects for multidisciplinary analysis and scenario development of integrative socio-neural network interaction are also presented.

The adaptation of young people to the changing realities of modern Russia should be considered taking into account the qualitative differences between different subgroups of young people and long-term trends in the development of the society to which they adapt, reproducing it. The authors have developed and tested on large arrays of empirical data an original method for assessing the adaptability of young Russians using an index that integrates characteristics of the most important aspects of subjective well-being, reflecting the gaps between the real achievements of young people and their needs. The adaptability index (AI, varies from 0 to 10 points) is based on self-assessments by Russians aged 18–35 of their satisfaction with the situation in those five aspects of life (material security, clothing, nutrition, leisure opportunities, social status), for which the correlation with self-assessments of satisfaction with life in general is stronger. Based on the monitoring data of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (mainly data for 2018 and 2024), young Russians were divided into groups with different levels of adaptation: poorly adapted (14% in 2024), with an average typical level of adaptation (47%), and well adapted (39%). The developed methodology made it possible to record an increase in adaptation. Adaptation increased the most (by 17% in 2018–2024) in the group of 25–35-year-olds – in the group of young people who are objectively (due to the beginning of independent life) in a more difficult situation than young people aged 18–24. An inverse relationship was found between the age of Russians and their adaptation.

Between 0.6 and 1 million child migrants permanently reside in Russia. Their parents, the vast majority of whom are not entitled to social benefits, find themselves in a difficult life situation, facing problems with accessing the labor market, housing, healthcare, and education for their children. Irregular legal status, informal employment, and insufficient human capital of migrants determine the level of their income not allowing them to provide their families with a decent standard of living. Children of migrants living in poverty and facing problems with their physical and psychological development, socialization, and integration into the host society are especially vulnerable. This work aims to solve following problems: assessing the prevalence of poverty in families where migrants live; analyzing the socio-demographic characteristics of migrants from low-income families; the level of Russian language proficiency of child migrants and their parents; the availability of preschool and school education for children from low-income families, as well as the housing conditions in which these children are growing up; an analysis of the human and social capital of parents of low-income family children; an assessment of the level of integration and migration strategies of respondents from low-income families. The work is based on sociological surveys conducted in 2011, 2017, 2020, and 2023, which collected data on 2,760, 7,245, 673, and 2,697 households respectively, for which budget information was available. According to surveys, approximately three-quarters of migrant children live in poverty in Russia. Between 22% and 34% of children lived in deep poverty. Children in low-income households have worse starting conditions and are more likely to fall into a “poverty trap”.

The article is based on survey data collected in seven regions of Russia and examines significant differences in the online activities of their residents. The results demonstrate that despite a wide availability of digital technologies, the culturally determined digital inequality persists there reproducing differences in Internet use motivations and purposes. Authors analyze sociocultural factors particularly roles of education, digital competencies, and value orientations shaping users practices. The study shows that consumer respect of the digital environment prevails over productive one and that engagement in consumption is a primary source of risks. Using cluster analysis, six types of Internet users are identified characterizing such groups as: “uninvolved”, “passive traditionalists”, “consumption-oriented”, “communication-oriented”, “active users”, and “active workers”. The article contributes to the discussing contemporary digital inequalities and offers recommendations to mitigate its negative consequences.

Expectations of poverty in retirement prevail among working citizens in all generational groups and reflect Russian realities. The main source of income for most pensioners is a pension, which does not provide them with economic sustainability, despite the forced continuation of employment by some of them. The information basis of the study was made up by data obtained during the secondary processing of the results of a number of sociological studies, as well as data from Rosstat, including microdata from Comprehensive monitoring of living conditions (CMLC), and the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation for 2022. The article provides a comparative assessment of the standard of living of pensioners under the current Russian pension system and in the case of the introduction of a basic pension income set no less than at the federal minimum subsistence level for a pensioner, while maintaining and subsequently increasing the insurance part of the state pension. It is shown that this can lead to a significant reduction in poverty, an increase in the standard of living (purchasing power) of pensioners.

The article raises the topic of social transformations indicating the emergence of a post-capitalist society. Two opposing approaches to understanding the post-capitalist perspective are considered: versions of socialism or communism constructed by many left-wing theorists, on the one hand, and concepts of neo- or techno-feudalism, on the other. The article shows that both the optimism of the first approach and the pessimism of the second are not confirmed by the observed social dynamics. Post-capitalism may be understood as a gradual erasure of the differences between labor and capital – the personalization of production relations. Accordingly, a hypothesis is put forward that a post-capitalist society will be neither socialist nor neo-feudal, but personalistic. It is shown that today models of capital as self-increasing value, ensured by maximizing the appropriation of surplus labor, are gradually losing their significance. Using the example of the gig economy and the content creators economy, it is demonstrated how production relations can change as a personalistic society is emerging. Extremely pessimistic assessments do not correspond to sociological data: many people benefit from the fact that the economy is turning into a set of interactions between independent agents. Online platforms allow people to realize their personal potential and accumulate the key resource of the modern world – attention. However, in the new realities, there is a significant share of losers – those who are unable to profitably realize their personal potential and are forced to engage in routine and exhausting work. Personalization also means that success or failure will depend more on personal efforts, and responsibility for failures will be more difficult to shift to others.

The article is devoted to defining the boundaries of applicability and the research potential of the term "institutionalism" in sociology. It is shown that the economic and political science interpretations of institutionalism are inadequate for sociology. The economic interpretation covers only economic constructions that take into account the role of institutions in modeling economic behavior. Such an understanding is too narrow for sociology and designates only a very small part of sociological theory dealing with institutions. The political science interpretation, on the contrary, encompasses the entire range of theoretical frameworks that consider the influence of institutions on social reality, regardless of their disciplinary origin. This interpretation is too broad and embraces almost the whole of sociological theory, making it impossible to use the term as a meaningful marker. At the same time, it is argued that a distinct sociological interpretation of institutionalism can be useful for systematizing research programs that study institutions and for analyzing the relationships among these programs. A possible sociological reconstruction of institutionalism is proposed – as a set of research programs that employ a developed concept of the institution, or a closely related formal analogue, to explain social reality. This interpretation places specific requirements on the role of the institution within a research program in order for it to be regarded as a form of institutionalism: the program must (1) possess well-developed conceptual frameworks for describing the content of institutions, their dynamics, and their influence on the individual and on social processes; (2) provide the possibility of operationalizing the key concepts of the theory; and (3) have an established practice of applying these conceptual constructions to the interpretation of empirical facts.