№ 7 (2024)

The article reveals new facets of such a recently revived sociological concept as the life world. It briefly describes the history of its emergence in scientific research and its embodiment in real practical activities of people. It reveals also how its individual characteristics and indicators were tested and refined in the process of theoretical and empirical studies. The most successful works describing and analyzing it are discussed, although not all of them used this concept. The author shows what role this concept plays in enriching our understanding of people’s lives in all its combinations. Citing the existing interpretations of the life-world in sociology, the author offers a possible variant of its analysis, when the life-world of a person is considered a) as a citizen, b) as a resident of a certain spatial formation (city, town, village), c) as a member of an industrial organization and finally d) as a participant in relations in the micro-environment, i. e. in the structure of interpersonal relations. In conclusion, the features of the use of the concept of life world in the context of the theoretical concept of the sociology of life are summarized.

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the journal Sociological Studies, we turned to Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Sociological Sciences Mikhail F. Chernysh – our long-time author and expert, member of the editorial board – with a request to answer our questions. I wanted to discuss not only the activities of our journal, but also the problems of sociology in general. In recent years, situation in sociology has been changing: alarming trends in sociological education in higher education are intensifying, decisions are being made to reduce the subject of social studies in school, the problem of reproduction of scientific personnel is becoming acute, and discussions about the subject of sociology are becoming more urgent. The interview raises such important issues as the essence of sociology as a science, provides an understanding of its functions and tasks, and outlines the structure and levels of sociological knowledge. Important elements of its existence and development are emphasized, in particular the impossibility of forming an exclusively “national” sociology. The development of sociological education in new conditions is discussed. The tasks of the functioning of the Federal Research Sociological Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences are outlined. Attention is focused on personnel problems in science and the perception of sociology by government institutions.

Trends in the problem and subject field of labor sociology were identified by referring to the Sociological Studies journal publications for 1974–2023. An array of 351 articles on labor sociology was selected for qualitative and quantitative content analysis. Eleven problematic subject areas of research were identified by the criterion of the leading target of the article’s text. Fourtime frames in Russian society and economic development over the past 50 years have been distinguished to identify the time challenges that vary in content. Each period was provided with a brief description of the content of the research problem and subject areas, as well as interpretations thereof with due consideration of the time challenges. Analysis of the publications permitted to reveal that by the criteria of how frequent and stable the sociologists’ referrals to the selected areas have been, the core, the margins, and the mobile realm may be identified in the Russian sociology of labor. The core is formed by the areas related to the studies of labor attitudes, labor incentives, labor values, employee behavior, and job satisfaction. The areas – whose principal object of study is labor itself, along with its role and significance in both the society and the employees’ values as well as social problems of work at the enterprise – are adjacent to the core. The margins are formed by rare areas of research such as the workers’ capacity to act, manifestations of independence and involvement in the organization’s affairs, problems of the socioeconomic standing of workers and degree of labor protection, labor culture, shortage and reproduction of workers. The mobile realm of labor sociology is composed by the areas treated generally depending on the context of time and the aggravation of particular problem situations (labor organization, labor relations, precarity of labor, etc). We observed adequate coverage of the critical time challenges in publications in all those time frames; however, that coverage was reactive and appeared to lack forward-looking ideas that are ahead of theory and practice.

Each historical era is characterized by its own “episteme” – a general system of thinking and scientific theorizing. The episteme of politics in Russian sociology was formed in conditions of confrontation between ideology and scientific analysis, state patronage and academic freedom. The main stages are highlighted: 1) the first decade 1974–1984; 2) Perestroika 1985–1990; 3) 1990s; 4) 2000s. The journal «Sotsiologicheskiye issledovanya» is considered as a specific form of representation of professional knowledge and ways of knowing, determined by the current level of development of the discipline and the concept of the journal itself. The increasing complexity of the thematic structure, transdisciplinary approach, and the project-based and discussion-based nature of publications help overcome the epistemological uncertainty of politics.

The article discusses the issues of publication activity of the journal «Socis» on education issues over 50 years of its work. The periodization of the journal’s publishing activities on education issues is proposed. Its four periods are characterized: 1974–1989, 1990–2000, 2001–2010, 2011–2024. The article reveals the growth trend of the journal’s publication activity on education issues over the past half century. The process of formation of the author’s asset on the problems of education, which includes the leading sociologists of the USSR and Russia, is shown. At the first stage, a system of “educational” headings is being formed, the publications of which reflected the constitution of the sociology of education as a branch of knowledge, its interaction with the sciences of education, “ideological” dependence on the position of the party leadership, as well as interest in school and vocational education in the country. The specifics of the publications of the second period, characterized by an interest in higher and sociological education, and in the methodology of studying educational problems, are revealed. The journal articles of the third stage reflect the expansion of research areas of education of different types and levels, as well as the dominance of the problems of higher education and university communities. The specificity of the fourth stage is revealed – an appeal to acute discussions about the fate of Russian education in the context of institutional reforms, social, economic and political challenges, and the connection of education with other subsystems of society.

The article was prepared for the 50th anniversary of the journal “Sociological Studies”. An array of articles (N = 29) on the topic of health care norms and practices published in the journal from 2010 to 2023 was analyzed. To validate the research presented in the publication and the results of qualitative content analysis, data from eight public opinion surveys were analyzed by the ZIRCON research group and the Higher School of Economics, conducted as part of various projects in 2010– 2023, including those with authors participation (five of them represent the population of the Russian Federation, three relate to individual regions and cities of Russia). Along with the identified thematic gaps in the field of modern sociology of health, it has been ascertained that the studies complement each other and make it possible to build a logic for the presentation of the health care topics covering all its main links.

The article deals with the problems of selection and formation of the authorship of the journal Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya [Sociological Studies] (SocIs). The parameters of their scientific and official statuses, affiliation with research organizations and educational institutions, gender mix, regional and international affiliation are used as the basis for the analyzing publication activity of the authors of the journal for the period 2014–2023. A comparative retrospective analysizing of the above parameters for the first and last (current) decades of the journal’s functioning was also carried out. On the basis of the analysis of formal indicators of effectiveness and efficiency of the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) the special leading place of SocIs in the hierarchy of domestic periodicals of sociological profile was stated. The long-term traditions and trends in the work of the journal’s editorial staff, related to the realization of a balanced approach to the selection and attraction of promising researchers to publications, are revealed. The conclusion is made about the journal’s publication accessibility for both high-level professionals and beginner researchers, as well as about the broad thematic, regional, and international orientation of the published materials. In general, the authors’ composition of the journal to a certain extent represents the national sociological community with all its achievements and problems.

The article presents a critical reinterpretation and reconstruction of а key problem of social science: how a logically consistent and empirically substantiated explanation of social phenomena generated by the voluntarism of human actions, linked into complexes by a seemingly infinitely multiple contingency, is possible? In other words, we are talking about an attempt to answer the questions: how such a logically imaginary contingency is capable to generate elements of order at the empirical level, why social interactions have relative stability and reproducible character, what role do so-called unintended consequences of socially oriented (but dictated by «personal motives») human actions play in the processes of morphogenesis of society?