2022. N 17

Individual, Family, Society

Socio-structural characteristics of coping strategies of the Vologda region population

The aim of the work is to study strategies for overcoming stress by the population of the region. The data of the sociological survey of the Vologda Oblast population (sample size of 1500 respondents; questionnaire method, apartment-by-apartment survey) act as an information base. A rating of coping strategies of the Vologda Oblast population has been compiled. Differences in the use of coping strategies by various socio-demographic groups were revealed, while they are most pronounced in income groups. With the help of cluster analysis, the typology of the population was carried out according to the criterion “applied coping strategies”, three clusters were identified. Data on the occupancy of clusters by representatives of various socio-demographic groups are presented. The differences between the clusters in the perception of the stressful nature of life, the actual psychological state of the members are revealed. The article was prepared in accordance with the state task for the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the topic of research No. FMGZ-2022-0013 “Social reality: national development and regional trends”.

 

Features of the COVID-19 pandemic experience in the informants’ diary storytelling

The article summarizes the impact of the pandemic on the behavior of urban residents. The central place in the article is given to three descriptions of life during the pandemic, which the informants voluntarily submitted to the author of this work for publication. At its core, these descriptions are nothing more than diary storytelling, the comprehension of people of different genders and ages of their interactions with each other, family, friends and the healthcare system. Often, in addition to patient diaries, researchers do not have sources for analyzing and describing life in a pandemic. The usual methods of sociological interpretation are ineffective, and the researcher needs a fundamentally new approach to the perception and analysis of the material. The fact that we use the method of diary storytelling allows us to understand the problems and experiences of informants directly from themselves, without the participation of a researcher. Informants talk about the peculiarities of life during the pandemic, ask questions and create discussions, give advice for themselves and for anyone who may find themselves in a similar situation. Each story is accompanied by a brief comment by the authors of the article.

 

Methods of data analysis

Conceptual Integration of Studies of the Regional Economics by Narrative Methods

The article discusses the problem of conceptual integration of research in the socioeconomic subject area on the example of the regional economy of the North-West. According to the results of the analysis of publications of the journal “Economics of the North-West: Problems and Prospects of Development” it is shown that the analytical tool of such integration is the narrative. The shortcomings of this analytical tool are emphasized: arbitrary statements by the author, the lack of clarity of links with facts, and the unverifiable conclusions. An approach is proposed to overcome the noted shortcomings by means of a structural narrative created by methods of analytical coding. This approach combines the semantic and ontological linking of verbal statements of the narrative. On the example of expressing knowledge about the house, the main stages and principles of creating a structural narrative are demonstrated. The advantages of structural narrative as a method of conceptual integration of research in the subject area of regional economics are noted: preserving the usual verbal way of describing socio-economic processes, managing verbal knowledge using ontological methods, increasing the validity of the narrative by presenting semantic relationships in an explicit form. There were discussed: the independence of the difficulty of semantic integration of knowledge from its volume; interweaving of semantic and instrumental parts of a narrative; a decomposition of subject knowledge by the method of analytical coding.

 

History of Sociology

Zakhar Ilyich Fainburg’s scientific heritage and Leningrad sociologists

The article contains materials from unpublished works and the personal archive of Zakhar Ilyich Fainburg, the central core of whose work was the transition of a developing society from individualistic formations to collectivist ones. The development of Z. I. Fainburg’s methodology for analyzing the processes of a developing society and many of the results of the study of the “historical place of socialism” remain relevant today. The relationship between the activities of Leningrad scientists and the work of the Perm School of Sociology is described. The relevance of the creative heritage of Zakhar Ilyich Fainburg for the modern sociology of the future and the theory of Soviet socialism is revealed.

 

Preservation of the history of people’s everyday life as one of the important functions of sociology (on the example of the journal “Telescope”)

The main focus of the article is on the publications of the first years of the journal, when its original title “’Telescope’: Observations on the everyday life of Petersburgers” accurately reflected the direction of the journal. The article argues that sociology is akin to photography and documentary films — the results of research allow us to preserve and transmit to the future the description of time in those facts, details, angles that are available specifically to sociology.