Research conducted in SOS Children Villages

On January 17, a joint seminar was held by the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research (NRU HSE) and the Russian Committee for Children Villages - SOS. The seminar was dedicated to the results of a study of the lives of SOS students.

The uniqueness of this project is proved by the fact that the “Research on life of young people aged from 14 to 18 in SOS villages” was conducted by the students themselves, under the guidance of Tatyana Smirnova (Advisor for Youth Programs and Educational Projects of the Russian Committee of Children's Villages - SOS), along with the participation of curator-methodologist Sergey Gorbunov (a student of the Master’s program Sociology of Public and Business Analytics). The study was carried out using the methods of questionnaires (n=82) and semi-structured interviews (n=7). Presentations about the research were made during the seminar by Pavel Borisov and Evgeny Rostovtsev (Oryol), as well as Darina Pishchulina (Kandalaksha). The study focuses on the issues of participation in decision-making that directly affects the daily life and choice of SOS students, their relationship with peers, relatives, SOS mothers and school teachers. During the discussion that followed afterwards, researchers of different generations talked about issues of focusing, methodology, ethics, applied value of the research and its prospects. They all agreed that the research conducted in SOS villages is one of the innovative projects that is participatory in nature and involves students from child care organizations who find themselves in a difficult life situation, without parental care, in a reflection about their life positions and plans.

Sergey Gorbunov