Students’ Professional Strategies in the Context of the Image of the Social Future

Students’ Professional Strategies in the Context of the Image of the Social Future


Didkovskaya Ya.V.

Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof., Prof. of the Department of Sociology and Technologies of State and Municipal Administration, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia. I.V.Didkovskaia@urfu.ru

Trynov D.V.

Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof. of the Department of Sociology and Technologies of State and Municipal Administration, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia. DV.Trynov@urfu.ru

Chistyakov P.A.

Cand. Sci. (Physical and Math.), Assoc. Prof. of the Department of Computational Mathematics and Computer Science, Ural Federal University; Junior Researcher at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics of UB RAS, Yekaterinburg, Russia. pavel.chistyakov@urfu.ru

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The article was financially supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project No. 23-28-00603, https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-00603/.

Rubric: Sociology of youth

For citation:

Didkovskaya Ya.V., Trynov D.V., Chistyakov P.A. Students’ Professional Strategies in the Context of the Image of the Social Future. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2023. No 9. P. 63-77


 Full Text.


Abstract

The article studies how characteristics of image of social future of students influence on their professional strategies. The image of the social future is interpreted as a system of ideas, values and attitudes of young people regarding the prospects for the development of society and opportunities to realize their individual life project in it. The authors’ conclusions are based on the analysis of the results of the last stage of sociological monitoring «Student-2020» (quota-cluster sample; 13 universities of Yekaterinburg; N=2000). It is revealed that the dynamics of professional values of Yekaterinburg students is characterized by a slight strengthening of the trend towards utilitarianism and pragmatism of the image of the professional future by 2020–2021. By means of cluster analysis four types of professional strategies of students have been identified: the most represented among students of Yekaterinburg universities is the strategy of a career employee, the least – entrepreneurial, The procrastinated professional self-determination strategy and the escapism strategy are also common. The authors prove that social optimism greatly contributes to the preference of the employee’s professional career strategy, as well as to some extent entrepreneurial strategy; Social pessimism and the expectation of future negative developments contribute most to the formation of an escapism strategy.


Keywords
professional strategies; student youth; image of the social future; social expectations

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Content No 9, 2023