IN last years in Russia in the context of ongoing instability in socio-economic and political life, the decline moral values There is a steady upward trend in the number of orphans and children left without parental care. According to statistics, their total number is currently more than 700 thousand people. However, only a small number of these children were left without care as a result of the death of their parents. The rest belong to the so-called “social orphans,” that is, they are orphans with living parents. The main reasons for the increase in the number of orphans with living parents are the decline in the social prestige of the family, its material and housing difficulties, interethnic conflicts, the increase in out-of-wedlock births, and the high percentage of parents leading an antisocial lifestyle.
A child who does not receive enough warmth, love, care, mutual understanding, but constantly experiences a feeling of defenselessness, pain, humiliation, violence, begins to defend his right to survival and existence in his own ways, often illegal. This leads to escapes, deviant and delinquent forms of behavior.
Along with this, it can be noted that the socialization of a person in the process of his development goes through a number of stages, which he can successfully or unsuccessfully overcome. So, R.M. Granovskaya and I.M. Nikolskaya identifies three main forms of human adaptation to external environment: - a person’s search for an environment that is favorable for his functioning; - changes that he makes in the environment to bring it in accordance with his needs; - internal mental changes of a person, with the help of which he adapts to the environment.
These forms can be considered as a certain moment in the development of a person’s protective behavior.
With the help of psychological defense mechanisms, according to R. Plutchik, which are formed at an involuntary level, a person successfully adapts to the general and specific conditions of his life and activity. The conditional-compensatory nature of psychological adaptation is given by its primary focus on maintaining the subjective comfort of the individual, rather than on the objective tasks of activity. Timely detection of the action of defense mechanisms and the establishment of the reasons for their activation serve as prerequisites for increasing the effectiveness of activities while maintaining the integrity and harmony of the “I”.
Various types of deprivation, which affect a person’s adaptive ability, contribute to disruption of the adaptation process.
The list of reasons for this phenomenon is quite diverse. main reason is that at the time of identifying children who find themselves in difficult life situations, the very possibility of providing them with assistance lags significantly behind. Late identification of children in need of government assistance and support, as well as families at risk, complicates the rehabilitation process of both the child himself and his family, as a result of which parents are deprived of parental rights and the child is placed in government institutions different types or trying to find him new family. At the same time, an incoming child has a whole range of consequences of late detection of family troubles, the presence of a set of problems associated with his mental and physical development, training, education, socialization.
We have repeatedly emphasized that society as a system of norms, roles, statuses, and institutions is a condition of human existence. What happens when participation in this system is violated. Let's get acquainted with another peculiar fact of human existence. This marginality. This word means the exclusion of an individual or group from one social environment and the inability or unwillingness to enter another. The situation or state of marginality suggests that the connection of a person or group of people with a system of social norms, roles, statuses, public values broken. Such people are called marginalized.
They should not be confused with the lower classes of society. The latter are part of society. For them, there is a system of roles and statuses within which they live. In society they perform certain functions. Those who cannot adapt to the existing social environment, or those for whom society has not found suitable roles and statuses, become marginalized. There is also no need to confuse marginalized people with criminals. A criminal is someone who violates relevant legal norms. Those who do not participate in the performance of social functions, have not been able to adapt to them, and have not found suitable statuses and roles in society become marginalized.
Marginalized people are not homogeneous. We can distinguish a category of people who were thrown out of any social environment or who found themselves in some already established social system against their will. They are usually called status marginals. For example, the unemployed and refugees.
But marginality may be the result of active rejection of existing social relations or traditions that have developed in a particular area public life. People of this type - they are called normative marginals– may consider their lifestyle normal and do not want to change it (for example, those homeless people who are quite satisfied with their lives). They want to be marginalized.
But there are people who are not satisfied with the current state of society and want to change it. These are innovators in science, art, and in any other sphere of public life. As a rule, their community does not accept them because they put forward ideas that are in no way consistent with generally accepted ideas. Such people are called cultural marginals.
Exclusion from the social environment creates a special psychological state. This is a feeling of dissatisfaction. It arises because old models of behavior no longer provide normal life, and the new social environment either rejects the newcomer or remains unusual for him for some time. The person does not understand the new rules of the game or does not yet know how to follow them. It is usually said that people in this position are on the border between two worlds. Dissatisfaction is caused by this state of uncertainty about one's situation. Uncertainty, in turn, gives rise to such psychological states, like uncertainty, worry, anxiety, fear, anger.
Dissatisfaction causes a certain social behavior. There is a growing distrust of existing social relations, longing for the past, and a desire for rapid change. Cases of violation of social norms are becoming frequent. For those who have recently moved to a new social group, marginality is manifested in increased and even excessive adherence to the entire amount of regulations in force in this group. Such people begin to very meticulously follow all the rules without exception. The reason for this behavior lies in the fear that otherwise they, as newcomers, may not be recognized as one of their own.
Where do the marginalized come from? It is not surprising, but they are generated by society itself. After all, marginality exists only where norms have arisen and begin to operate. The existence of social norms creates conditions for dividing people into those who comply with them and those who do not. The last category of people receives the status of marginalized.
The more dynamic a society is, the more often situations arise when people have to move from one social environment to another. For example, you find yourself in the habitat of other social groups with different standards of behavior: an area of the city where representatives of a different nationality, religion, or status live. This could be a transition to a different social environment, for example, moving to another city, marriage with a representative of a different faith, nationality, culture, moving to a new social group, etc. As a result, a situation and even a state of marginality arises. It is clear that every person can experience it from time to time.
Finally, quite typical cases are when people themselves are unable or unwilling to enter the existing social environment. Then the situation of marginality develops into marginal position.
Let's try to evaluate this phenomenon and determine its place in the life of society. First of all, one should not consider marginality as an exceptional, atypical or even negative phenomenon. Rather she is symptom of the state of society. As the social structure becomes more complex or the society becomes more dynamic, the state of marginality becomes very common. Everyone experiences it to varying degrees, since everyone has to move frequently and encounter representatives of different social groups. In addition, modern society itself focuses on growth and the desire to move from one group to another. Therefore, the emergence and intensity of the state of marginality can be considered a kind of indicator of society’s ability and readiness for change.
In addition, we see that marginality is often created by society itself. The more rigidly it formulates a system of norms and ideals, the less choice it gives people, the more likely it is that marginalization will arise. Therefore, marginality is an indicator of the presence of problems in society, and the diversity of social norms, roles and statuses becomes a condition for overcoming it.
Finally, marginality is even necessary for a society that is oriented towards change. After all, such a society is constantly in need of new ideas, new forms of life, and they can be found among the cultural margins.
CONCLUSIONS
1. In society a person behaves differently than in interpersonal relationships. That's why social relations are special relationships. They are determined by public interest and social norms, orientation towards others and the status-role system.
2. A person’s position in society is usually determined by his status. Status presupposes the existence of a scale of values, the degree of possession of which shows the height of status and endows their owner with a set of rights and obligations. The reason for the emergence of a status system lies not only in the personal desires of people to achieve a high position and secure it, but also in the public interest.
3. Possession of status or the desire to achieve it requires each person to have a certain line of behavior, which is denoted by the word “social role.” Fulfilling a role presupposes the presence of role distance, the organization of all one’s behavior, the ability to make an impression and the expectation of an appropriate reaction from others. The role system performs the functions of communication, socialization and self-realization in society.
4. An indicator of the stability and sustainability of a society is the presence of a system of social institutions, which are a set of relations regulated by social norms, performing the functions of communication, integration and broadcast in society and having a legitimate character.
5. The loss of an individual or group from the system of social norms gives rise to a situation of marginality. Marginalized are individuals or groups who, by their own free will or due to the peculiarities of the structure of society, are unable or unwilling to adapt to the existing social environment.
Control questions
1. What are the features of social relations?
2. What is “other-oriented”: the desire to be like everyone else or something else?
3. Why are statuses needed?
4. Why do people play roles in society?
5. If stable connections and habits of acting in a certain way have been formed in people’s relationships, does this mean that social institutions have emerged?
6. Where do marginalized people come from?
DICTIONARY
Social status is the position that a person (or group) occupies in society relative to other people (or groups) and which determines his rights and responsibilities in society
Ascribed status is a status that a person has regardless of his efforts and merits (gender, age, ethnicity, for example)
Achieved status is the status that a person acquires through his own efforts.
Social role- this is behavior determined by status, or behavior that a person must perform if he wants to be understood and accepted by society
Role distance - awareness of one’s difference from the roles played and the ability to show it
Social institution is a complex of relationships (statuses and roles) or organizations that perform certain functions in society and are recognized by it (are legitimate)
Legitimacy is the recognition by society or the state of certain human actions, relationships, associations
Marginality is the position and condition of a person outside the established social structure or the loss of a place in one social structure and the inability (or unwillingness) to take a place in another
(answer only “yes” and “no”)
1. Relationships become social when many people begin to interact.
2. In society, people behave differently than when they are alone, because society is always coercive towards individuals
3. Relationships become social when they begin to be built on the basis of generally accepted norms
4. In social relations, people are guided not by their own opinions, but by the opinions of other people, but by the compliance of their actions with generally valid norms
5. A role is a set of statuses
6. You cannot play the role of an adult or an elderly person, because these are natural, not social qualities of people.
7. People role-play because it creates mutual understanding and consistency.
8. Status is a person holding a high or low position in society
9. Power, wealth and prestige are the main indicators of high or low social status
10. Social status is the ideal that a person sets for himself
11. The more achieved statuses in a society, the more democratic it is
12. If others do not pay attention corresponding to the position occupied, then it is very difficult to determine the height of status
13. In an industrial society, ascribed statuses prevail, and in a traditional society, achieved ones
14. The status-role system arises only where inequality, enmity and conflicts arise between people
15.V primitive society there was no status-role system, because relationships between people were very simple and aimed at helping each other
16. A social institution is any group of people regulated by habits, customs and mores
17. The function of social institutions is to make our behavior standard, which is why social institutions stifle creativity.
18. Social institution is the highest educational institution
19. Marginalized people are people whom society has thrown out of its ranks
20. Marginalized people are representatives of the lower classes of society
CHOOSE THE CORRECT ANSWER
1. “An individual, seeing an object in front of him, say 30 cm long, gradually changes the initial correct assessment in the experimental group, all members of which persistently insist that the length of the object is no more than twenty cm. Is it any wonder that group opinions on political, ethical or aesthetic issues have a much greater impact...” P. Berger. This happens because
a) there is no ruler or measure at hand with which you can confirm the correctness of ideas or refute incorrect ideas
b) it’s simply easier for a person to agree so as not to waste time arguing
c) a person is afraid of becoming a stranger in the group
2. What actions can be classified as social interaction?
a) it started to rain and people opened their umbrellas
b) on a crowded bus, one person pushed another
c) the boss reprimanded the subordinate for mistakes in work
3. The social status of an individual is
a) a set of legal rights and obligations of a person
b) respect from the wife
c) a person’s place in the system public relations
4. The place that an individual occupies in the social structure is designated as
a) social status
b) social role
c) social institution
d) social stratification
5. Behavior that is expected of a person when he takes up specific place(position) in society is designated as
a) social status
b) social role
c) social institution
d) social stratification
d) possession of prestige
6. Social status is
a) a person who occupies a high position in society
b) an ideal that every person in society should strive for
c) the position a person occupies as a member of society
7. Female, English, 50 years old, member of the royal family. These features relate to
a) achieved status
b) ascribed status
8. Does not relate to the achieved personal status
a) farmer, Protestant
b) entrepreneur, member of the liberal party
c) man, 30 years old, Belarusian
d) teacher, candidate of physical sciences, chairman of the trade union organization
9. The achieved status in a traditional society refers to.
a) peasant
b) feudal lord
d) Spaniard
10. Social roles exist in society, first of all, because
a) it is beneficial to the dominant social groups
b) people have not yet found a real natural way of relating to each other
c) it’s easier to control people’s behavior this way
d) this is the only way to ensure mutual understanding and mutual coordination of actions in society
e) people like to create an attractive image of themselves
11. Role distance is
a) the ability to separate oneself from the roles performed
b) distrust of roles performed
c) inability to effectively fulfill social roles
d) reluctance to fulfill social roles
12. Legitimation is
a) creation of legal norms regulating certain social relations
b) formation of law-abiding citizens
c) recognition by society of certain social relations or associations
d) actions government authorities
13. Marginalized people are, first of all,
a) representatives of the lower classes
b) people who left their country
c) people who find themselves outside the status-role system
d) people who have lost their livelihood
d) people who have broken the law
14. Social institutions are
a) any large group of people
b) social relations characteristic of industrial society
c) social relations recognized by society and performing certain functions in it
d) this is a set of rules of law governing certain relations
1. If society shapes people’s worldview, prescribes how they should behave within it, and punishes people for not following the rules, does this mean that society is actually a “prison” for the individual?
2. “Perhaps the true crime of a swindler is not that he robs people of money, but that he robs everyone of the belief that the manners and appearance characteristic of the middle class can only be demonstrated by solid middle-class people, in fact belonging to it” I. Hoffman. How to interpret this thought? About what features social life she says?
3. French anthropologist F. Boas cites this case from life North American Indians. One young Indian named Quesalid did not believe in the power of shamans. To expose them, he began to visit them and learn their craft, and then he himself began to practice it practically. After some time, he discovered that the patients for whose treatment he used shamanic techniques were recovering. On his next visit, F. Boas discovered that Quesalid had begun to believe that not all shamans were deceivers. What features of social life does this example indicate?
4. “If one of the participants in a game of cards consciously and deliberately plays contrary to his perceived meaning of the rules of the game, that is, plays “wrongly,” he nevertheless remains a “participant” in the society of players, unlike the one who leaves the game , just like a thief or a murderer, hiding the crime he has committed or hiding himself, still orients his behavior towards those institutions that he subjectively and consciously violates” M. Weber. What features of social life does this argument speak about?
5. “It is necessary to distinguish between two concepts - prestige and status. Reagan and Johnson are US presidents. They have the same status, but different prestige” E. Bergel. What's the difference?
6. Compare these two statements. What is the difference? Try to use the knowledge acquired in this section to analyze them. Can we say that these statements characterize Various types public life? If possible, then determine - which ones?
A) “Thus, the culture has accepted the following three axioms: 1) “Everyone should strive to achieve equally high goals accessible to everyone,” 2) “Today’s failure is nothing more than an intermediate point on the path to complete success,” 3) “ Real failure consists only in reducing claims or completely abandoning them” R. Merton.
B) “He remains out of work,
Who rebels against his lot,
And your destiny is the peasant's plow,
Don't let him out of your hands.
Enough of the nobility without you!
Not loving my class,
You're just sinning in vain
This is a bad profit.
I swear that I know the real thing
He can only ridicule you."
7. A “savage” knows immeasurably more about the economic and social conditions of his existence than a “civilized” person in the usual sense of the word. And the actions of a “civilized” person are not always subjectively more rational in nature” M. Weber. But, nevertheless, the word “rational” is used to characterize not primitive, but modern societies. And why?
8. “To say “I am a man” means to make the same application for a role as if to say “I am a colonel in the American army” P. Berger. How to understand this statement? Isn't being a man or a woman a natural quality of a person?
9. “Once, when I was still young, I was returning on a large liner from Buenos Aires to Spain. Among my fellow travelers were several North American women in the full bloom of youth and beauty. ...I talked to them the way any man talks to a blooming young woman... And the American woman literally told me the following: “I insist that you talk to me as a person.” I could only answer: “Senora, I don’t know who exactly you call “man.” For me there are only women and men” H. Ortega y Gasset. How did you figure out what the problem was?
10. “The child discovers who he is by understanding what society is” P. Berger. What idea did the author of the statement want to express? What, in order to find out who I am, I need to take a social studies course?
11. “An officer can only be an officer where others agree to recognize him as such.” P. Berger. How to understand this?
12. Does the role theory of society mean that in it “everyone does nothing but weave intrigues and conspiracies and put on disguises with all their might to fool others” (P. Berger)? And what tasks does the idea of society as a set of roles perform?
13. “Marriage is not an instinct, but an institution. Although the way it directs behavior in a certain direction is very similar to the action of instincts” P. Berger. What idea did the author want to express?
14. Do you think religion in society is a social institution? What does it take for religion to become a social institution? Is it possible to give examples when religion was not a social institution?
15. The team has developed the habit of celebrating all holidays collectively. Do you think this habit can be considered to have become a habit? social institution? What is needed for this?
16. Thanks to a successful marriage, a person has found himself in the highest color of society and tries his best to follow the morals of this society. Do you think he can be considered marginal and on what grounds?
17. Do you think slaves were marginalized or not?
2.5. Social structure of society
2.5.1. Concept of social structure
2.5.2. Social stratification of society
2.5.3. The concept of social inequality. Types of social inequality
2.5.4. Reasons for the emergence and existence of social inequality
2.5.5. The role of social inequality in the life of modern society
Goals and objectives of the topic
1. Form the concept of social structure.
2. Show what are the features of social stratification as the most significant type of social structure.
3. Give an idea of social inequality as a complex phenomenon, identifying the types of social inequality and the reasons for its occurrence and existence.
4. Give an idea of the features of the functions of social inequality in modern industrial societies.
Test
“The social role of marginalized people in the formation of social structure”
Volgograd 2004
Introduction
1. The concept of “marginality”
2. The role of marginalized people in the formation of the social structure of Russian society
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The concept of marginality serves to designate borderline, peripheral or intermediate in relation to any social communities (national, class, cultural).
Marginal person (from Latin Margo - edge) - a person:
- located on the border of different social groups, systems, cultures; And
- influenced by their conflicting norms, values, etc.
A marginal person, simply put, is an “in-between” person. Marginality (Late Latin marginalis - located on the edge) is a sociological concept denoting the intermediateness, “borderlines” of a person’s position between any social groups, which leaves a certain imprint on his psyche.
The classic, so to speak, standard figure of the marginalized is a man who came from the village to the city in search of work: no longer a peasant, not yet a worker; the norms of the rural subculture have already been undermined, the urban subculture has not yet been assimilated. Main sign marginalization is a severance of social ties, and in the “classical” case, economic, social and spiritual ties are consistently broken. When including the marginalized into the new social community These connections are established in the same sequence, and the establishment of social and spiritual connections, as a rule, lags far behind the establishment of economic connections. The same migrant, having become a worker and adapted to new conditions, still long time cannot blend into the new environment.
Unlike the “classical” one, the reverse sequence of marginalization is also possible. Objectively, while still remaining within the framework of a given class, a person loses its subjective characteristics and is psychologically declassed. After all, declassing is primarily a socio-psychological concept, although it has economic reasons. The impact of these reasons is not direct and immediate: an unemployed person objectively thrown outside the proletariat in the West will not become a lumpen as long as he preserves the psychology of the class and, above all, its work morale. There is no unemployment in our country, but there are declassed representatives of workers, collective farmers, the intelligentsia, and the administrative apparatus. What is their distinguishing feature? First of all, in the absence of some kind of professional code of honor. A professional will not stoop to do his job poorly. Even in the absence of material incentives, a real worker will not be able to work poorly - rather, he will refuse to work at all! The physical impossibility of hacking distinguishes a professional professional worker (as well as a peasant and an intellectual) from a declassed brat and a flyer.
This work will examine the role of the marginalized in the formation of the social structure of society.
1. The concept of “marginality”
The concepts of “marginality” and “marginals” come from sociology and political science. They were introduced into science by the American sociologist R. Park in 1928 and were first used to designate a very specific ethnocultural situation when characterizing a “person at the border of cultures.”
In relation to the goals and objectives of historical analysis, the following points must be taken into account. In any society, including Russian, on the eve and after the revolution, due to objective and subjective reasons, marginal groups existed and reproduced. Marginality can be natural or artificially created and maintained. Natural marginality should be spoken of in relation to processes of an economic, social or cultural nature, due to which every society has its own “bottom” in the form of bankrupt and degenerate elements and groups, as well as antisocial elements - those whom society itself rejects. In other words, in any society, open or closed, stable or transitional, there are peripheral groups with relatively similar sources of formation, appearance and psychology. It can only be different specific gravity these groups.
It’s another matter if the process of restructuring in society is delayed, and marginality becomes an excessively widespread and long-term social phenomenon. In this case, the marginalized acquire features of social stability and “hang” on the breaks in social structures. This happens, as a rule, as a result of a policy of artificial marginalization deliberately pursued by the authorities, that is, the transfer of hundreds of thousands and even millions of people to a peripheral, discriminatory or restrictive position. For example, even in pre-revolutionary society, a deliberate policy of marginalization was carried out in relation to political opponents of the regime (revolutionaries), as well as those who were subject to discrimination and restrictions on national or religious grounds. However, in post-revolutionary society, artificial marginalization affected entire categories and groups of the population. There was a division of society into opponents and supporters of the regime. Groups that had not previously existed emerged and were artificially supported by the regime. Thus, special settlers had no analogues in pre-revolutionary society, but existed in Stalinist society from 1930 to 1955, that is, a quarter of a century. Never before has there been such a troupe as the rear militia - children of the "disenfranchised", who have reached conscription age and are conscripted not into regular units of the Red Army, but into the rear militia - an analogue of the future construction battalion. The group existed from 1930 to 1937. Thus, artificial marginalization acquired colossal, catastrophic proportions in Stalinist society and became an organic accompanying element of repression and one of the ways to solve political and even economic problems (the creation of a forced labor system).
Unfortunately, the topic “Marginality and marginalized groups” in relation to Russian history twentieth century is not sufficiently developed.
First of all, we should highlight the works of sociologists, which examine the problems of theory and partly the history of the marginalized in the first half of the twentieth century. The theory of the issue, together with excursions into our history, is presented most fully and skillfully in the publications of E. Starikov. He has priority in posing this problem as a research problem and the most important for understanding changes in the social structure of Russian society in the current century. He also raised the question of the depth and scale of the processes of refeudalization of post-revolutionary society. Thus, E. Starikov formulated the hypothesis that during destruction traditional society, if new structures fail to quickly consolidate, then the fragments of traditional society will be restructured earlier, and the newly emerged social system will be an order of magnitude lower than the destroyed one, that is, more archaic. And this applies to all elements of the structure. He was the first among Russian social scientists to put forward a hypothesis about the restoration of the class model of society after the revolutions of 1917 in Russia, albeit in a new, Soviet guise.
The works of M. Voslensky, devoted to the formation and development of nomenklatura as a special layer, were written in a similar vein. Voslensky directly states that the nomenklatura is a product of a declassed society and the nomenklatura itself is essentially a marginal group.
A number of domestic researchers (N. Ivanova, V. Zhiromskaya and others), analyzing the social structure of the beginning of the century and post-revolutionary years, also come to the conclusion that when describing the model of structural changes and shifts without taking into account the processes of mass marginalization, it is impossible to understand the nature of changes in the social structure impossible.
I. Pavlova raised the question of the role of Stalinist repressions in the social transformation of Soviet society. Based on the scale and consequences of state repression, which directly affected a third of the able-bodied population and taking into account the fact that significant groups of society ensured the activities of the punitive machine, the researcher concludes about the violent criminalization and lumpenization of Soviet society.
Among Western researchers of the problem, it is worth highlighting the translated and original works of S. Fitzpatrick, where the problems of connections between refeudalization and marginality with the state of society and Stalinist policies are posed. In particular, she devoted Special attention the implementation by the Stalinist regime of a social policy of forcible restructuring of society through the use of the former feudal practice of “attributing” certain groups to the category of “friends” or “strangers”. When assessing trends in changes in the social structure of post-revolutionary society, she convincingly proves the inconsistency of Marxist doctrinal guidelines about the class character of society with real practice, which reproduced the class hierarchical system of relations.
As part of the study of individual marginal groups, it should be noted the emergence of the first research work, dedicated to the “disenfranchised” (A. Dobkin, M. Salamatova, T. Slavko, special settlers (V. Zemskov, N. Ivnitsky, V. Danilov, etc.), prisoners (V. Zemskov, A. Getty, G. Rittersporn, V. Popov and others). What is characteristic of these publications is that they devote a central place to the analysis of the policies of the Bolshevik regime in relation to marginal groups. Parameters such as the number: composition, territorial location of these groups are also noted. At the same time, sociocultural characteristics (. the appearance) of these groups still remains on the periphery of research interests. As for such categories as rear militias and exiles, at present there are only a few publications about them by the author of the book.
2. The role of marginalized people in the formation of the social structure of Russian society
The social transformation of society today is characterized not only by the emergence of previously non-existent strata in the stratification system - primarily the class of large and medium owners, the layer of “new poor”, marginalized, unemployed, but also the corresponding adaptation of these strata to the newly emerging status-role functions, the reorientation of social and personal identity.
Emphasis in different years focused on various aspects of structural inequality, its deepening, social polarization and marginalization of society, integration and disintegration of social space; on the problems of forming the middle class; power relations; labor autonomy in social and production structures.
In order to get a fairly complete picture of the processes taking place in the social-structural sphere of Russian society, it is necessary to consider the trends and scale of the formation of various social elements, social communities, the dynamics of which are determined by qualitative changes in the relations of property, power, in the level of income of various social groups and strata, laws of structural restructuring of the economy and employment of the population. It is known that a certain part of the employed population, as a result of sectoral shifts in the country’s economy and the crisis that affected entire groups of industries, remained outside the sphere of employment and acquired the status of unemployed. Today this is 8% of the active population of Russia. The appearance of this layer significantly affects the overall quality of life of the entire population. But at the same time, having changed their employment status, this part of the population formed the characteristics of a group identity with its own value and normative attitudes, consumption structure, quality and lifestyle, identification preferences and life values. Thus, a whole complex of new social-group processes was realized, the phenomenon of group consciousness and group consolidation and integration emerged.
The specificity of Russian society, among other things, is that the process of globalization is superimposed on the contradictory process of transformation, accompanied by deepening social inequality and the marginalization of a significant part of the population. The problem of deepening social inequality in world literature is called “Brazilification”. The growth of marginal layers (in the figurative expression of D. Copeland, “Generation X”) is also observed in Russian society.
The transformation of Russian society inevitably entailed not only changes in the social structure, but also acutely raised for traditional communities the question of awareness of individual and group social identity, integration and disintegration, place in the social hierarchy, solidarity, level of cohesion, and value system.
Marginality is now experiencing a very peculiar moment: while continuing to count all undesirable elements among its victims, society feels how its deepest foundations are being undermined from within, fundamentally
shaky economic processes. Now not only strangers are being published, but also those who are our own - those who are affected by the cancer that has settled in our society. Rejection appears as a product of the collapse of a society struck by a crisis. The word “marginal” is gradually falling out of use, since men and women living on the other side of the decorum do not make this choice themselves - they are quietly pushed into this state, without explicitly joining any of the traditional categories of exclusion.
Being, perhaps, weaker than others (although this should still be proven), they remain on the side of the road, along which the ramming cohort of those who remain in the saddle continues to move, indifferent to how the marginalized fall behind and fall.
The marginalized is no longer some kind of stranger or leper. He is similar to everyone, identical to them, and at the same time he is a cripple among his own kind - a man with truncated roots, cut into pieces in the very heart of his native culture, his native environment.
Marginals - designation of individuals and groups located on the “outskirts”, on the “sidelines” or simply outside the framework of the main ones characteristic of a given society structural divisions or prevailing sociocultural norms and traditions.
Scientists have drawn attention to the fact that a significant and, moreover, very active part of American society (ethnic and religious minorities, representatives of non-trivially thinking artistic and scientific intelligentsia, etc.) is in the situation of marginalized people. It was also noted that the “marginal” are not only limited in their status positions, but also sometimes find themselves unable to realize creative opportunities and thereby enrich society both materially and spiritually.
A marginal situation arises at the boundaries of dissimilar forms of sociocultural experience, is always very tense and is implemented differently in practice. It can be a source of neuroses, demoralization, individual and group forms of protest. But it can also be a source of new perception and understanding of the Universe and society, non-trivial forms of intellectual, artistic and religious creativity. A retrospective look at the history of world culture shows that many renewing trends in the spiritual history of mankind (world religions, great philosophical systems and scientific concepts, new forms artistic display world) largely owe their emergence to marginal individuals and sociocultural environments.
Technological, social and cultural shifts last decades gave the problem of marginality a qualitatively new outline. Urbanization, mass migrations, intensive interactions between bearers of heterogeneous etho-cultural and religious traditions, the erosion of age-old cultural barriers, the influence of mass media on the population - all this has led to the fact that marginal status has become in the modern world not so much an exception, but rather the norm of existence for millions and millions of people. At the turn of the 70-80s. it became clear that it had become impossible to express and defend, using the interests of these huge masses of people and the intellectuals who sided with them, the usual forms of social management (state institutions, political parties, traditional church hierarchies, etc.). It was during this period that a rapid process of formation of the so-called “informal” social movements began in the world - educational, environmental, human rights, cultural, religious, community, charitable, etc. - movements, the meaning of which is largely connected with connecting to modern public life specifically marginalized groups.
Conclusion
Marginality is not a state of autonomy, but the result of a conflict with generally accepted norms, the expression of a specific relationship with the existing social order. Marginality does not arise outside of a sharp real or imagined collision with the outside world.
Going into marginality involves two completely different routes:
Either breaking all traditional ties and creating your own, completely different world;
Or gradual displacement (or violent ejection) beyond the limits of legality.
In any case, be it the result of a “free” choice or a consequence of the process of declassification, which is provoked by a frightened society, the margin does not mean the underside of the world, but its whirlpools, its shadow sides. Society puts the outcasts on display in order to reinforce its own world, the one that is considered “normal” and light.
The presence of significant marginalized groups is becoming a serious threat to public morality, social development of the country.
Bibliography
1. Social stratification of Russian society. Ed. Doctor of Philosophy, Prof. Golenkova Z.T. "Summer Garden" Moscow 2003
2. Petrov D.V. “Use of the concepts of marginality and liminality in the study of youth subcultures” // Petrov D.V. Youth subcultures - Saratov, 1996
3. Rozhansky M. “Marginal Russia” // Friendship of Peoples -1998-No. 2
4. Dakhin V. “State and marginalization” // Free Thought 1997 - No. 4
Rozhansky M. “Marginal Russia” // Friendship of Peoples -1998-No. 2. P. 17
Social stratification of Russian society. Ed. Doctor of Philosophy, Prof. Golenkova Z.T. "Summer Garden" Moscow 2003. P. 9
10-09-2015, 15:47
Other news on the topic:
The current stage of development of Russian society is characterized by numerous processes of fundamental changes and reforms in all spheres of public life. These processes are complex and contradictory.
The theory of social structure and its place in the system of sociological knowledge Subject, object, purpose and objectives of the training course. The structure of the course and the logic of considering the main problems. Experience in teaching the discipline in domestic and foreign universities. Relevance of problems of social structure in modern stage development of Russian society.
The concept of marginality. The main sign of marginalization is the breakdown of social ties. Causes of disorganization and overcoming them. Class marginalization.
It is generally accepted that the main elements of social structure are: individuals with their status and social roles (functions), the association of these individuals into social groups (for example, classes), socio-territorial, ethnic and other communities.
Social and philosophical refraction of the phenomenon of marginality through general theoretical, conceptual, historical, philosophical and situational aspects. Prospects for marginal elements in changing social conditions, their impact on Russian society.
Socialization as a process of personality formation. Forms of socialization: adaptation; integration. Social conflict as a condition for the successful functioning of society. Social conflict as a decisive factor in social development (views of sociologists).
Marginals (from the Latin marginalis - located on the edge) are a set of people whose consciousness, behavior and status are at the junction of social groups. These are those people who, having found themselves cut off from one social environment (for example, national, religious, rural), were unable to join a new social environment. cultural environment(foreign national, urban, etc.). The status of the marginalized is of a borderline nature - between the group of origin and dominant group, and therefore the marginalized person is not capable of unambiguous self-identification.
Marginality as social phenomenon widely distributed in modern society. At the same time, social marginality is most widespread in those societies that are experiencing acute social cataclysms (in a stable and quietly evolving society, the marginalized do not occupy any significant place in the social structure of society and do not have a great impact on its development).
IN modern Russia The problem of marginalization of the entire social structure (homeless people, street children, etc.) is acute. Marginalization is the process of increasing the number of marginalized people in society. Thus, in recent years, the number of people who moved from villages to cities (lack of work in villages, etc.), refugees (interethnic conflicts, etc.), and unemployed ( mass layoffs, job cuts, etc.), persons released from prison, etc. Along with the marginalization of Russian society, the disorganization of the social structure increases (deprofessionalization of the population, etc.).
IV
Some patterns and trends in the social stratification of modern Russia can be described on the basis of data from a survey conducted by VTsIOM from March 1993 to January 1998. sociological monitoring (see article by academician T.I. Zaslavskaya). The following were identified
the main directions of stratification shifts in Russian society.
The social structure has become less rigid and more flexible. The diversity of social statuses has increased. Old social groups were eroded and new social groups formed. At the same time, the downward mobility of large social groups and strata dominates over the upward mobility, which in Russian society is still strictly individual in nature.
If the stratification of Soviet society was based primarily on the administrative and official criterion (the place of the employee in the system of power and management), now the criterion of property and income has acquired a decisive role. Previously, the financial situation of people was determined by the level of their positions; now their political weight is increasingly determined by the amount of capital. Thus, the connection between the political and economic elements of social status, on the one hand, strengthened, and on the other, changed its sign.
The role of professional, qualification and cultural factors in the formation of high-status groups has increased, and in the social differentiation of the bulk of the population the role of these factors has weakened significantly.
Localism and isolation of regional labor markets in the absence of a nationwide market have given rise to significant stagnant unemployment and weakened the dependence of income on personal labor efforts. So, in 1996 average level The per capita cash income of Muscovites exceeded the average income of residents of the poorest regions by 9.5 times, and of all residents of provincial Russia by 3.2 times.
The legitimacy of the statuses of the upper strata, whose social ascent turned out to be inextricably linked with shadow and criminal activities, has significantly decreased. The differentiation of the population according to such characteristics as gender, age, and nationality has sharply increased. As a result, society has become even less fair. The social polarization of groups and strata has increased many times over. The status of the sub-elite reached unprecedented levels, and the economic status and lifestyle of the middle and lower classes declined sharply. The boundaries of poverty and poverty have expanded, and the lumpenization of the population has accelerated.
The concept of marginality serves to designate borderline, peripheral or intermediate in relation to any social communities (national, class, cultural).
Marginal person (from Latin Margo - edge) - a person: - located on the border of various social groups, systems, cultures; and - influenced by their conflicting norms, values, etc.
A marginal person, simply put, is an “in-between” person. Marginality (Late Latin marginalis - located on the edge) is a sociological concept denoting the intermediate, “borderline” position of a person between any social groups, which leaves a certain imprint on his psyche.
The classic, so to speak, standard figure of the marginalized is a man who came from the village to the city in search of work: no longer a peasant, not yet a worker; the norms of the rural subculture have already been undermined, the urban subculture has not yet been assimilated. The main sign of marginalization is the breakdown of social ties, and in the “classical” case, economic, social and spiritual ties are consistently broken. When a marginalized person is included in a new social community, these connections are established in the same sequence, and the establishment of social and spiritual connections, as a rule, lags far behind the establishment of economic connections. The same migrant, having become a worker and adapted to new conditions, cannot merge with the new environment for a long time.
In contrast to the “classical” one, the reverse sequence of marginalization is also possible. Objectively, while still remaining within the framework of a given class, a person loses its subjective characteristics and is psychologically declassed. After all, declassing is primarily a socio-psychological concept, although it has economic reasons. The impact of these reasons is not direct and immediate: an unemployed person objectively thrown outside the proletariat in the West will not become a lumpen as long as he preserves the psychology of the class and, above all, its work morale. There is no unemployment in our country, but there are declassed representatives of workers, collective farmers, the intelligentsia, and the administrative apparatus. What is their distinguishing feature? First of all, in the absence of some kind of professional code of honor. A professional will not stoop to do his job poorly. Even in the absence of material incentives, a real worker will not be able to work poorly - rather, he will refuse to work at all! The physical impossibility of hacking distinguishes a professional professional worker (as well as a peasant and an intellectual) from a declassed brat and a flyer.
This work will examine the role of the marginalized in the formation of the social structure of society.
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