Abstract ♦ This article aims to describe the youth as a protest subject, focusing on its features which contribute to or prevent realization of protest feelings. We present an analysis of the major sociological theories of the youth as related to studying protest feelings, such as the humanist, thesaurus and riskological theories. Special attention has been paid to stratificational, socializational, subcultural and group characteristics of the youth. We have shown that youth is a social group significantly important for the society’s sustainability and for the transfer of sociocultural experience, at the same time acting as a source of intergenerational conflicts and generational change as sociodynamics.
We argue that protest behaviour is attributional for the youth. Correspondingly, we can refine the definition of the youth, treating it as an age and social group based on self-identification and special social status and possessing major innovative and protest capabilities. These capabilities act as a factor for transformational social activity, with its dynamism and viability, paradoxicality and marginal character, with the youth realizing, formulating and defending their subject status. All of these together form a precondition for risks in the youth environment.
Protest behaviour is typical for the youth due to some peculiarities of socialization in this period. Young people often feel the society’s imperfection in a most acute way, demanding too much from themselves and others, realizing their own subjectivity and also the impossibility of using it to the full. Thesauri of the youth feature the idea of possible success of protest actions, and at the same time reveal no understanding of risks and of opportunities achieved through conventional politics. These factors contribute to the rise of protest feelings among the youth.
Keywords: protest feelings, thesaurus concept of youth, riskological concept of youth, marginality, subculture, socialization, mass media.
Gaba Oleg Ivanovich, Postgraduate student, Department of Sociology, Moscow University for the Humanities. Postal address: 5 Yunosti St., Moscow, Russian Federation, 111395. Tel.: +7 (499) 374-51-61. E-mail: . Research adviser: Val. A. Lukov, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor.
Citation: Gaba O. I. (2015) Molodezh' kak sub"ekt protestnykh nastroenii [Youth as a subject of protest feelings]. Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie, no. 1, pp. 144–151. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.17805/zpu.2015.1.13
Akunina, Yu. A. (2011) Molodezhnye dvizheniia sovremennoi Rossii: protest i sozidanie [Youth movements in contemporary Russia]. Vestnik MGUKI, no. 3 (41), pp. 123–127. (In Russ.).
Asadova, Z. N. (2014) Kontrkul'tura i problemy sovremennoi molodezhi [Counterculture and the problems of contemporary youth]. Mezhdunarodnyi zhurnal eksperimental'nogo obrazovaniia, no. 8-3, pp. 47–50. (In Russ.).
Barash, R. E. (2012) Internet kak sredstvo samoaktualizatsii i revoliutsionnoi samoorganizatsii [Internet as a tool of self-actualization and revolutionary self-organization]. Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniia: ekonomicheskie i sotsial'nye peremeny, no. 3 (109), pp. 100–109. (In Russ.).
Vishnevskii, Yu. R. and Shapko, V. T. (2006a) Paradoksal'nyi molodoi chelovek [A young man of paradoxes]. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 6, pp. 26–36. (In Russ.).
Vishnevskii, Yu. R. and Shapko, V. T. (2006b) Sotsiologiia molodezhi [Sociology of youth] : a textbook. Ekaterinburg, Ural State Technical University — Ural Polytechnic Institute Publ. 430 p. (In Russ.).
Zubok, Yu. A. (2003) Risk kak faktor sotsial'nogo razvitiia molodezhi [Risk as a factor of social development of the youth] : diss. … Doctor of Social Science. Moscow. 335 p. (In Russ.).
Ilinskiy, I. M. (1999) Molodezh' planety: global'naia situatsiia v 90-kh godakh, tendentsii i perspektivy [The global youth: global situation in the 1990s, trends and prospects] / I. M. Ilinskiy et al. ; ed. by I. M. Ilinskiy. Moscow, The Institute of Youth Publ. ; Golos Publ. 323 p. (In Russ.).
Ilinskiy, I. M. (2001) Molodezh' i molodezhnaia politika [Youth and youth policy]. Moscow, Golos Publ. 694 p. (In Russ.).
Ilinskiy, I. M. (2011) Proshloe v Nastoiashchem: Izbrannoe [The past in the present: selected works]. Moscow, Moscow University for the Humanities Publ. 840 p. (In Russ.).
Kovaleva, A. I. (2003) Kontseptsiia sotsializatsii molodezhi: normy, otkloneniia, sotsializatsionnaia traektoriia [The concept of socialization of youth: norms, deviations, social development trajectory]. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 1, pp. 109–115. (In Russ.).
Kovaleva, A. I. and Lukov, Val. A. (1999) Sotsiologiia molodezhi: Teoreticheskie voprosy [The Sociology of youth: Theoretical issues]. Moscow, Sotsium Publ. 351 p. (In Russ.).
Lukov, Val. A. (2007b) Teorii molodezhi: puti razvitiia (okonchanie) [Youth theories: Development trends (ending)]. Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie, no. 4, pp. 87–98. (In Russ.).
Lukov, Val. A. (2012) Teorii molodezhi: Mezhdistsiplinarnyi analiz [Theories of youth: Interdisciplinary analysis]. Moscow, “Kanon+” RPOD “Reabilitatsiia”. 528 p. (In Russ.).
Lukov, Val. A. and Lukov, Vl. A. (2008) Tezaurusy: Sub"ektnaia organizatsiia gumanitarnogo znaniia [Thesauri: The subjective organization of humanities knowledge]. Moscow, The National Institute of Business Publ. 784 p. (In Russ.).
Lukov, Val. A. and Lukov, Vl. A. (2013) Tezaurusy II : Tezaurusnyi podkhod k ponimaniiu cheloveka i ego mira [Thesauri II: The thesaurus approach to the conceptualization of the person and his/her world]. Moscow, The National Institute of Business Publ. 640 p. (In Russ.).
Mannheim, K. (1994) Diagnoz nashego vremeni [Diagnosis of our time]. Moscow, Iurist Publ. 700 p. (In Russ.).
Marcuse, H. (1995) Eros i tsivilizatsiia. Filosofskoe issledovanie ucheniia Freida [Eros and civilization: A philosophical inquiry into Freud]. Kiev, State Library of Ukraine for Youth Publ. 352 p. (In Russ.).
Sikorskaia, L. E. (2009) Krizis institutov sotsializatsii sovremennoi molodezhi [The crisis of institutes of socialization of contemporary youth]. Vestnik KGU im. N. A. Nekrasova. Seriia: Pedagogika. Psikhologiia. Sotsial'naia rabota. Iuvenologiia. Sotsiokinetika, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 258–265. (In Russ.).
Chuprov, V. I. (1992) Razvitie molodezhi: kontseptualizatsiia poniatiia [Development of the youth: A conceptualization of the notion]. In: Molodezh' Rossii: sotsial'noe razvitie [Russia’s youth: Social development] / ed. by V. I. Chuprov. Moscow, Nauka Publ. 184 p. Pp. 6–14. (In Russ.).
Chuprov, V. I. and Zubok, Yu. A. (2009) Ekstremizm sredi molodezhi [Extremism among the youth]. Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniia: ekonomicheskie i sotsial'nye peremeny, no. 1 (89), pp. 146–166. (In Russ.).
