Risks in Youth Education: Institutional and Self4regulating Management Mechanisms

Abstract

Risk and uncertainty are well"recognized features of modern, dynamically changing societies. They penetrate social development mechanisms and become an integral part of social reality. Risks are felt particularly acutely by the youth as an objective part of life. Fundamental theoretical research is conducted to elucidate methods for managing risk. In this regard, the article examines how uncertainty and risk emerge in the social development of youth, it uncovers changes in the level of environmental and activity risks, and considers how these risks might be regulated. The analysis deals with the grounding of sociological mechanisms for risk management rather than with concrete risk trends. Due to its extreme importance for the social development of youth, the case of education is used to study changes in the institutional regulation of risks, and in school and college students’ self"regulation of risk. Particular attention is given to youth’s attitude to the National Project “Education” as to an institutional means of reducing risk, and to youth’s attitude to non"institutional regulation mechanisms involving social stratification, social organization, and cultural mechanisms of individual self"regulation. Sociological mechanisms of risk management are considered in the perspective of the nonlinearity of social changes in modern society and in education as an integral part of society. The study is based on representative surveys conducted by the Youth Department of the Social and Political Studies Institute of the RAS. The conclusion is that the social changes manifest themselves in modern Russian education in a variety of ways.