Russian universities in recent years are increasingly positioned as centers for the development of Russian regions. As part of their third mission, universities are beginning to be included in the ...socio-cultural development of the territories. In these processes, student social initiatives and sociocultural projects with their participation are playing an increasingly important role both for the students themselves and their self-realization, and for the Russian regions in the context of increasing their sustainability. The article was based on the materials of two studies: monitoring of the students of the Sverdlovsk region and a survey of the youth of the Sverdlovsk region, implemented in 2020. The authors explore the experience of social participation of university students in the Sverdlovsk region, their involvement in the practice of volunteering in the cultural sphere. The purpose of this article is to characterize the volunteer experience of students in the field of culture, to assess the potential of youth cultural volunteering in the context of solving urgent problems of universities as regional development centers. The authors record an increase in the proportion of students involved in volunteering on a regular basis, with a sufficiently large number of those who, after a one-time participation, are not ready to help in specific volunteer practices. The article deals with groups of students with and without experience of volunteering in the field of culture. The authors prove that students with experience in cultural volunteering are more interested in it and are really involved in the cultural life of their cities. The potential for the development of volunteer activity among a wider range of students lies in the increased interest of young people in major cultural events. The social participation of students in the eventful cultural agenda of cities and regions can increase the competencies of young professionals that are in demand, while it works to form the social responsibility of universities. The identified characteristics of the cultural volunteering of youth in the Sverdlovsk region are also inherent in other Russian regions.
Introductio
n. In many countries around the world, the increase in life expectancy leads to significant social transformations. Institutional structures, social protection policies and legislation on ...the life and employment of older citizens are being changed today. In Russian higher education, more than a third of professional community belongs to the group of teachers of the third (pre-retirement and retirement) age. The modernisation of this area and the raising of the retirement age will make it possible to study the peculiarities of this group of faculty members as a reserve of the vocational training system.
The aim
of the present article is to characterise the adaptive potential of social community of teachers of the third age in the context of the transformation of higher education.
Methodology and research methods
. The methodological framework of the article is based on the set of general scientific approaches: communal, comparative, institutional, resource. The first method provides an opportunity to consider teachers of the third age as a social community with their own specific features. The comparative approach is used to see specific features in dynamics (on the materials of official statistics) and to compare them with similar characteristics of teachers of other age groups. The institutional and resource approaches are aimed at identifying adaptive abilities of teachers of the third age against the background of current restructuring processes in higher education. The article is based on the materials of research projects conducted in 2017–2019 and on a mass survey of teachers. The general population consisted of 51 universities of the Ural Federal District. The volume of the sample of teachers is 810 people.
Results and scientific novelty
. The study showed that teachers of the third age are characterised by a high level of adaptation to changes in higher education. They successfully fulfill themselves in scientific and pedagogical activities. They are characterised by relatively high publication and grant activities, realisation of new educational forms and high motivation and readiness to improve their com petencies and qualifications. At the same time, teachers of the third age estimate their social security in the professional sphere as extremely low. This community is characterised by a high level of criticality in relation to the implemented institutional changes in the field of higher education, which is based on a socially mature responsibility formed within their professional activities for the consequences of decisions taken.
Practical significance
. The research undertaken demonstrates the stereotype inadequacy concerning non-adaptability of third-age university teachers to technological, content and organisational innovations. Moreover, teachers of the third age are a significant factor in the sustainable development of universities. Therefore, it is necessary to develop management models and create institutional conditions for maximum use of human capital of third-age teachers, whose peculiarities, needs and opportunities in the system of Russian higher education are inadequately taken into account today.
Introduction
.
The relevance of the study is associated with the need for scientific understanding of youth volunteering, deepening ideas about its educational potential, which is realised in the ...education system. In the context of international and national studies, it is important to evaluate the volunteer participation of the younger generation, its social effects on society. The social effectiveness of volunteering is a necessary condition, the result of educational activities organised in the educational environment. The study meets the practical request to determine the conditions for changing the qualitative characteristics of students volunteering with an active agenda of state assistance to the pro-social activity of the youth in the Russian Federation. Understanding the motivation, intentions and real opportunities for volunteer participation of high school students and students is important for improving the effectiveness of solving the task of increasing the social activity of young people, defined in the framework of the state youth policy.
Aim.
The
article
aimed
to concretise the social significance of the volunteer participation of high school students and students and to determine the conditions for overcoming the motivated refusal of youth volunteering in the educational environment in order to increase the effectiveness of its organisation.
Methodology and research methods.
The methodological basis of the article is a set of theoretical ideas about the formation of social solidarity and stimulation of pro-social behaviour of young people. The theory of social participation has received a certain development in the article. The article is based on the materials of the authors’ research projects implemented in 2017–2020 in the Sverdlovsk region. Having used the questionnaire method, the authors analysed the data of a mass survey of young people in the Sverdlovsk region from 14 to 24 years old from 81 settlements of the region. A representative sample consisted of 1105 people, the error is no more than 3,5%. The sample was based on four quotas: gender, age, the main type of employment (school, college, and university) and type of city by population.
Results and scientific novelty.
The study showed that while maintaining a large number of students with experience in volunteering, the number of those, who consciously refuse or doubt that they will be engaged in volunteering in their future, increases. In recent years, the number of those, who have gained volunteering experience through initiatives in educational institutions, has increased significantly. The involvement of young Uralians in social projects has decreased. The study proves that the voluntary activity of young people is a necessary condition for the accumulation of social capital in territorial communities. The involvement of schoolchildren and students in youth organisations, in socio-cultural urban life is an important and necessary condition for effective volunteer participation of young people. It was revealed that volunteer experience is directly related to student interest in public life. It is proved that high school students and students with volunteer experience and intentions to continue it are more likely to be involved in the social and political life of their city or village than those who do not have such experience.
Practical significance.
In schools, colleges and universities, there is an important task of organising not only the educational process, but also educational activities. When requesting mass youth participation and the typicality of socially significant events, it is important to understand the conditions when the qualitative characteristics of volunteering by young citizens as members of the local community are being developed.
Background. The relevance of the study is due to the rapid development of information technology, the growing popularity of social networks in modern Russian society. In the system of social ...protection of the population, the use of information and communication technologies helps to increase the satisfaction of citizens in need of state assistance with the activities of social specialists, improve the quality of services and information openness of social service organizations. The purpose of the article is to identify the characteristics of network interaction between specialists and clients of institutions subordinate to the Ministry of Social Policy of the Sverdlovsk Region, and to determine the prospects for the development of communication between specialists and the public in the social protection system. Materials and methods. The article presents the results of an initiative study – a content analysis of the communities of social services institutions of the Sverdlovsk region, implemented in 2019. 61 community in the social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook. The cases of successful implementation in the state and non-profit sectors of communication of specialists with the population in social networks were identified and presented. Results. The study made it possible to identify the existing and under development virtual communication practices of specialists in the field of social protection of the population of one of the largest Russian regions – the Sverdlovsk Region – with clients of their institutions online. A relationship was established between the existence of successful practices in the interaction of specialists of social service institutions with clients in social networks with high quality indicators of the services provided by institutions. The importance of the development of virtual communication in the activities of social institutions is substantiated. Possible problematic tricks that impede the development of this type of communication in the field of social protection of the population are outlined. The authors offer a number of recommendations in promoting this area of work. Conclusions. According to the study, we can conclude that the virtual communication of specialists of social institutions in the field of social protection of the population of the Sverdlovsk region is only beginning to develop. The dynamics of this development are weak, but some examples of the activity of communities of social institutions show that it has certain prospects in the near future.
The article tackles the issue of youth agency, understood as the desire and ability of young people to engage in the socio-cultural development of their cities of choice for pursuing higher ...education. This contribution tries to clarify factors to be considered in analyzing youth agency in an international perspective. It is based on an internationally conducted survey, in 2020, among students in regional centers from Russia, Armenia, Poland and Romania (target sample No =1272). Across their different socio-cultural backgrounds and context of living and studying, young people share similarities regarding their readiness to get involved in projects of territorial development but also display significant distinctive features to be considered in international comparisons. The cross-countrycomparison highlighted the existence of four models of agency. Russian youth is characterized mainlyby an "escapist" model of agency, with a low level of readiness for social participation and a lack of experience in such activities. Two models dominate in Armenia: "active" with a high level of readinessand real involvement, as well as the model of "potential development". In Poland, the level of socialparticipation among students is much higher than in other countries, but it is predominantly passive. Romanian students demonstrate an actualized "active" model of socio-cultural agency. At the same time, the potential for its development is low. These findings help explain the variations in students’ readiness to participate in urban socio-cultural development projects.
Introduction. Volunteering in the modern world is one of the basic resources for solving society’s problems, an activity that helps students in different countries to build personal and professional ...competencies. The limited research that makes it possible to analyse the cross-cultural elements of student volunteering has led to a scientific interest in the problem of matching the cultural context and volunteer activities of students from universities in India, Russia and Croatia. The new research perspective covered the perception of volunteering, the behaviour of Generation Z, to which the students of the three countries under consideration belong, as well as the significance of the peculiarities of national culture for the volunteering activity of university youth.The aim of this study is to assess the national cultural context and the level of its significance for the perception of volunteering, motivation and the experience of volunteering of students of management specialties at universities in India, Russia and Croatia.Methodology and research methods. Comparative sociological research is implemented based on the theory of generations, Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions and the cultural factors of the macro level defined by him. The study involved students from regional universities in three countries: India, Russia and Croatia. The main method for collecting primary data was questionnaire survey. The questionnaire consisted of several blocks of questions, which allowed assessing the subjective perception of volunteering by students, their personal experience and motivation for volunteering, demographic characteristics of the respondents. The total sample was 943 people; the average age of the respondents was 21 years. Students participated anonymously on a voluntary basis, without any incentives. A one-way analysis of variance, the Leuven test, was used to analyse the data. The collected data was processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 program.Results and scientific novelty. The results of the study showed that, in general, Generation Z actually has certain specific characteristics regarding volunteering and volunteering, while these characteristics do not depend on the national culture of a particular state. On the basis of the respondents’ answers, the factors influencing students’ volunteering were identified. Thus, the results of the study proved that the motivation of students for volunteering in the present and in the future does not differ significantly in the compared countries. The study results also did not demonstrate differences in the importance of utilitarian and altruistic motives for volunteering students from different countries. It was found that university students in India are more motivated to volunteer due to utilitarian motives; they are more likely to volunteer in comparison with students from Russia and Croatia. The level of uncertainty avoidance by students, personal benefits from volunteering, and their perception of the value of volunteering in general were measured. The authors provide an overview of the development of volunteering in the three compared countries, defining the social and cultural context in them.Practical significance. The conducted research in the context of popularisation of volunteering as a direction of practice-oriented education at universities in different countries enriches the field of knowledge about student volunteering and its cross-cultural elements.The results of this work can be useful both for universities in the implementation of the “third mission” for the development of the local community, and for all those involved in the promotion of volunteer activities and recruitment volunteering both locally, nationally and internationally with the aim of more engaging Generation Z in the volunteer movement.
The authors’ purpose is to identify possible problematic grounds for students’ involvement in volunteer activities and to propose solutions for university management that contribute to overcoming ...non-participation among students. The article is based on theoretical ideas about the role of volunteering for young people, on theories describing the phenomenon of non-volunteering and its possible causes, as well as on the concepts of volunteering management in higher education. The empirical base of the research is 740 students’ poll data (all levels and years of study being included the sampling) and 12 focus group interviews taken in 2022. The results reflect the students’ volunteer activity dynamics during their studies at the university and show that the key factor determining the orientation to volunteer participation in the future is the self-identification of a student as a volunteer. We have identified three reasons for strategies to justify volunteer non-participation: utilitarian attitude to life; disappointment with the volunteer work organization that does not meet young people’s expectations; infantilism as a philosophy of being inactive. It is concluded that by increasing students’ awareness of opportunities to participate in volunteer activities and specific organizations implementing volunteer projects, the university can contribute to the growth of volunteerism among young people in the future. Using the example of educational course, the authors show how possible barriers can be overcome by teaching students the basics of volunteerism. The results of the study and the described educational experience will be interesting to researchers and can also be useful for all Russian universities in connection with the current tasks of youth policy.
The article was prepared on the basis of an international comparative study – a sociological survey of students from regional universities from 37 cities in the Sverdlovsk region of the Russian ...Federation and 20 settlements of the Shirak region in the Republic of Armenia (targeted sample, No. = 715). The authors explore the potential for social participation of students from countries with a common political background of post-socialism and cardinal differences in the cultural and historical heritage of urban spaces.
The purpose
of this article is to determine the potential for social participation of students of regional universities in Russia and Armenia and the subjective factors that determine their activity in the development of cities. The article analyzes the experience of volunteering, as well as the willingness of students to different types of constructive social participation in urban development. To identify factors that activate the social participation of students, a discriminant analysis has been used. Discriminant models were constructed dividing groups of students from different countries with a high and low degree of readiness for social participation, as well as into groups with and without volunteering experience. The authors argue that Russia and Armenia are characterized by an identical structure of student involvement in volunteer activities, but the level of students’ readiness for social participation in urban development in the countries under consideration is different. For Armenian students, not only the willingness for social participation is higher, but also the practices themselves are more associated with active socio-cultural activities in the urban space. Two factors that determine the experience of real participation in the socio-cultural development of cities are characteristic of both Russian and Armenian students. The real experience of volunteering is more likely to be acquired by those students who are motivated to receive information about the culture and history of their cities, as well as the ability to see and identify significant cultural and historical objects where they live and study. In the Russian scenario, the importance of the city, the need for its development increases for students if they, being armed with certain knowledge about its culture and history, consider that the city is an interesting object (including a tourist one) for promotion. For Armenian students, knowledge of the culture and history of their place of birth is a basic factor that shapes their interest in further exploring their cities, the desire to make them better.
The basic conceptual characteristics of ‘regeneration’ are defined in this article, which demonstrates that the declaration of the authors of the project for the regeneration of industrial heritage ...sites can lead to the use of various methods and techniques, as well as to different results. Clarifying the question of what the meaning of the term culture-led regeneration in different countries is and analyzing specific projects with a culture-led concept, authors show the interdependence of the interpretation of culture and the scope of actions for updating the historical and architectural industrial heritage. It is defined that the term culture-led regeneration arises in specific sociocultural and theoretical circumstances of the rapid degradation of industrial heritage at the time of transition of the world’s economies to other forms and structures. It marks a paradigm shift in the attitude of specialists towards industrial heritage. From conservation and museification in increasingly alienating industrial zones, they move on to the actualization of industrial architecture objects by strengthening their ties with all urban processes, primarily sociocultural ones. The most prominent role in such an activity is played by institutional or non-institutional understanding of culture by the authors of the project, experts, administrations, and the community. To clarify the dependence of the culture interpretation and the goals of the regeneration projects, an analysis was made of the culture-led aspects of the rehabilitation of the industrial area of Emscher Park (Germany), the creation of an industrial park on the site of the former industrial zone in Bolzano, the decision to turn the post office building in Buenos Aires into a classical music center. The experience of these projects can be taken into account by the initiators of similar projects in Russia.
Keywords: regeneration, historical and architectural heritage, industrial heritage, culture-led regeneration, culture
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