Vol 31, No 2 (2025)
THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
Categorization as a Form of Theorizing in Sociology
Abstract
Formalization of scientific knowledge is underlain by the process of categorization. Searching for the subject of a study is conditioned by the creation of relevant categories that name it, defining its contents and draw a line between the subject and other related categories. In the process of theorizing the subject acquires predicates — a collection of indictors that identify its contents and meaning. The process is tantamount to institutionalization of the subject and expansion of its description with the help of complex predicates of the second and third level. Hence the subject is embedded into a descriptive structure, formed by a set of interconnected scientific categories. The structure of theoretical categories and the empirical study are engaged in a complex theoretical interaction that imply a change of language constructs and a possible reduction of key concepts to facilitate the creation of empirical indicators. The contradiction between the theoretical construction and empirical, inductive basis of a study often led to a denial of the necessity and existence of the high-level conceptual structures that inform scientific reflection. Further complications were related to the fact that many categories used in sociology are metaphorical and therefore vulnerable to ideological manipulation. However, the praxis of sociology, as any other science, shows that high-level reflection and general categories are necessary. They sustain the continuity of research and allow to observe changed in the subject under study.
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):9-28
9-28
SURVEYS, EXPERIMENTS, CASE STUDIES
Dynamics of Happiness and Life Satisfaction Under Conditions of Exogenous Shocks
Abstract
The papers aims to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine on the Russian people’s happiness and life satisfaction. It relies on three waves of a national panel study conducted via CATI. We failed to identify any substantial impact of those two exogenous shocks on average dynamics of happiness and life satisfaction. Our research, however, shows significant variation between groups of different means. In general, respondents of poor financial status and external locus of control show a higher decrease in happiness and life satisfaction. Following the onset of the SMO and the pandemic, people with internal locus of control, in contrast, report higher levels of life satisfaction. Happiness follows the same pattern, but exclusively in connection with COVID-19. Social capital, operationalized as social support networks, mitigates the otherwise negative effect of the SMO, but not the effect of pandemics. Our findings support earlier research on the stronger influence of economic status and locus of control on life satisfaction compared to happiness.
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):29-50
29-50
ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY
Inequality of Russian Households in Housing Wealth: Level and Dynamics
Abstract
As mass strata accumulate property, its use, not just income growth, becomes a factor in the formation of socio-economic stratification. Housing occupies a special place in the range of assets that constitute household property, since the proportion of the value of housing assets in the total wealth of households is high, and inequality in housing wealth makes a decisive contribution to inequality in wealth in general. In Russia a house or an apartment is the most common object of private household ownership, but the conditions for the accumulation of housing assets in the post-Soviet period were inconsistent. The purpose of this study is to identify the degree of inequality of Russian households in the dynamics when it comes to housing wealth — the valuation of apartments and houses owned by household members. Data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey — HSE and the All–Russian Survey on Consumer Finance (Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Central Bank of the Russian Federation) are used; the chronological scope of the analysis is 2006–2022; indicators of housing wealth are the cost of the household’s main residence and all apartments and houses belonging to the household.According to the RLMS data for 2006–2022, the highest housing inequality was observed at the end of the “aughts”, when the Gini coefficient for the cost of household main residence was in the range of 0.599...0.633; after a relatively stable level of housing inequality during the 2010’s (G=0.517...0.531), ever since the end of this decade it has slowly increased to G=0.551 by 2022. The differentiation in total housing wealth, measured on the All-Russian Survey of Consumer Finance data, shows the same trend. And by 2022 differences related not only to the cost of separate housing objects, but also to the number of apartments and houses owned by households began to make a greater contribution to the growing inequality. However, only analyzing the data from the next waves of surveys will make it possible to understand whether these trends indicate changes in the mechanism of housing stratification formation or whether these are situational variations in inequality indicators.
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):51-78
51-78
SOCIOLOGY OF LABOR
Flexible Work Arrangements as a Desired Future or a Vague Prospect: Dilemmas of Working Russian University Students
Abstract
Flexible employment arrangements seem to be an attractive proposition in the modern labor market. Young people are often seen as focused on a flexible schedule, remote work and platform employment. At the same time, sociologists warn about the downsides of flexibility associated with the risks of precarity, deprofessionalization and decreased work efficiency.This study analyzes the preferences of young people regarding the organization of their future work. Based on the materials of 38 interviews with working undergraduate students in different fields of study and from different regions, narratives of understanding the problems of choosing a form of employment are highlighted, associated not only with the analysis of contextual opportunities in the labor market, but also with the correlation of work with one’s own life and professional trajectories. We identified dilemmas centered on the problems of productivity, convenience, and the rationality of flexible work arrangements. The “professionalization dilemma” draws attention to the contrast between the convenience of remote work and the relatively higher subjective assessment of work efficiency and professionalization opportunities in the office during early stages of the career-planning process. The “dilemma of maturation” introduces the life trajectory of an employee into the discourse. Respondents, in addition to the established efficiency of working from home, begin to rethink the concept of “comfort”, which in the long run implies separating the realms of work and personal life and is tightly connected to acquiring new social roles (marriage, parenthood). The dilemma of “free employment” demonstrates that students receiving tertiary education at Russian universities who identify themselves with specific specialties perceive freelancing as a temporary and frivolous activity that does not provide the potential for professional development, and, as such, is not included in the pool of long-term career strategies. The article is useful for understanding youth`s discourses around preferred work arrangements, as well as the inconsistency of their statements regarding work flexibility, which taken as a whole questions the general prioritization of new types of employment and can be interpreted as the priority of variable work arrangements for various professional groups, and at different stages of the modern youth’s maturation.
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):79-95
79-95
SOCIOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT
Polysubjectivity as a Category of Sociology of Management
Abstract
The article substantiates the need to introduce such a general scientific category as “polysubjectivity” into sociology of management, clarifies its sociological content as a category of post-non-classical rationality, shows its role in explaining the institutionalization of management, and highlights the main approaches towards understanding polysubjectivity.A definition of polysubjectivity is given with it being described as a system of regulatory (self-regulatory) mechanisms that reproduce evolutionary forms of socio-cultural formations and lead to the formation and development of social institutions in the context of an increasingly complex polysubject environment. According to the author, this category allows us to describe the diversity and dynamics of the social environment, which is formed in the process of dialogue between controlled subjects who are carriers of various value-target structures, possessing certain resources and being in interaction with other subjects of social action.Polysubjectivity is recognized as the most important reason for changing the social order, as well as a factor in social development, without understanding which it is impossible to increase the viability of the social system. The properties and manifestations of polysubjectivity in the practice of social management are registered. It is proven that polysubjectivity is a condition and at the same time a result of polysubjective management, i. e. management through the environment. Further research prospects for applying the category of polysubjectivity are outlined, in particular, the matter of the universality of polysubjectivity as a factor in the effectiveness of regional development management.Further research prospects for using the category of polysubjectivity are outlined. The author used the results of an interdisciplinary study of polysubjectivity and showed its significance for sociology, as well as the importance of sociological research of polysubjectivity for other social and humanitarian sciences.
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):96-110
96-110
HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY
Social and Symbolic Spaces in the Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu
Abstract
The paper introduces the history of the concept of social space of Pierre Bourdieu in its interaction with symbolic space. The primary focus is such an issue as the relationship between the objective scientific classification of social relations and the practical everyday classifications of social agents. Symbolic space is realized as a space of lifestyles that express differences that are objectively inscribed in the living conditions of social agents. According to Bourdieu, the connecting mechanism between social space and symbolic space (the space of lifestyles) is habitus. It is a system of stable dispositions that incorporate the agent’s experience and function as a matrix of perception, evaluation and action. Bourdieu seeks to show how the same structural invariant is reproduced simultaneously in both social and symbolic spaces. He constructs a social space using contemporary French society as an empirical object. The study demonstrated how the French social space can be characterized by three dimensions, which Bourdieu identified as the total volume of capital, composition of capital, and evolution of capital (evolution of social position in time).
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):111-128
111-128
ON THE 80th ANNIVERSARY OF L.G. IONIN (1945–2024)
Diffuse forms of Sociality (Towards the Anthropology of Culture)
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):129-156
129-156
ARCHIVE
Zakhar Fainburg: “I an unwilling and incapable to live any other way”
Abstract
Z. Fainburg (1922–1990) is known as the founder of the Perm school of sociology, as one of the pioneers of economic sociology in the Soviet Union, a man who studied culture and science fiction work. Here he is presented as a 20 year old fighting in the Great Patriotic war (GPW), initially as an infantryman and spy, and later as an artilleryman, a master gunner. He was first deployed to Ukraine, and by the end of the war he wound up in Eastern Prussia. The article mainly focuses on extremely valuable historic material in the form of a series of letters written by Fainburg while he was on the front lines, often straight from inside the trenches. His letters captured the spirit of the times, of the battlefield, while at the same time giving us an insight into the life of a soldier who would go on to become one of the most prominent sociologists of the first Soviet/Russian cohort. The material presented contributes to the biographical portrait of a famous sociologist while also helping to preserve the historical memory about the GPW.
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):157-166
157-166
ACADEMIC LIFE
Section of the Department of Economic Sociology of Saint Petersburg State University at the IX Saint Petersburg International Labor Forum (April 2–4 2025)
Abstract
The article summarizes the discussion on the issues of labor, employment, human capital and its management that was had at a meeting of the scientific section of the Department of Economic Sociology of St Petersburg State University as part of the IX St Petersburg International Labor Forum, which was held on April 2–4 2025 in St Petersburg. The article summarizes three reports given at the section meeting that were devoted to the issues of pointless labor in the organization and management of it, the problem of forced overtime employment in Russian organizations and models of its construction by employers, the problem of labor organization in the workplace. The article also summarizes the scientific discussion as part of discussing the reports as well as other issues of the development of the labor sphere.
Sotsiologicheskij Zhurnal. 2025;31(2):167-178
167-178