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Class and gender in Russian welfare policies: Soviet legacies and contemporary challenges

The book 'Class and gender in Russian welfare policies: Soviet legacies and contemporary challenges' by E.R. Iarskaia-Smirnova was published by the University of Gothenburg.

E.R. Iarskaia-Smirnova Class and gender in Russian welfare policies: Soviet legacies and contemporary challenges. Geteborg: University of Gothenburg, INEKO, 2011 — ISBN 978-91-86796-82-2 — ISSN 1401-5781

The goal of this thesis is to explore the gendered and classed nature of social work and social welfare in Russia to show how social policy can be a part of and reinforce marginalization. In particular, the thesis aims to analyse how class and gender are produced, redefined and experienced by different social actors in changing institutional and ideological frames of welfare policies and social work.  

Contents

ABSTRACT

SVENSK SAMMANFATTNING

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION: PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Class, gender and welfare: a theoretical background

Class and gender in Soviet welfare policies

Care and order: welfare policy and the shaping of good Soviet citizens

Current Russian welfare policy

The professional ideology of social work and issues of exclusion

METHODS

Study design

Study participants and data

Data collection methods

Methodological discussion and analysis

Ethical considerations

SUMMARY OF RESULTS

Study I: Visual case study in the history of Russian child welfare

Study II: ”What the future will bring I do not know...” Mothering children with disabilities in Russia and the politics of exclusion

Study III: “A salary is not important here…” professionalization of social work in contemporary Russia

Study IV: Gendering social work in Russia: towards anti-discriminatory practices

Study V: Doing class in social welfare discourses: ‘unfortunate families’ in Russia

CONTESTS AND CONTEXTS OF SOCIAL WORK

Symbolic roots of modern social work

Welfare, exclusion and agency as contextual issues of social work

CONCLUSIONS

Policy and institutional contexts

Knowledge production in social work

Actors and identity

REFERENCES

Introduction

See also:

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Caring for Loved Ones Motivated Young People to Wear Masks and Wash Their Hands More Often during Pandemic

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‘Studying at HSE Was a Chance for Me to Get to Know Some Supportive Seniors, Knowledgeable Professors, and Wonderful Friends’

On August 4, 2023, a pre-defence of the thesis on ‘Refugee-Host Community Conflict over Assimilation, Integration, and State Legitimacy: The Case of Rohingyas in Bangladesh’ by Md. Reza Habib will be held at HSE University. The preliminary defence will take place at a joint meeting of the HSE School of Sociology and the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research. Md. Reza Habib shared his experience of studying and preparing his PhD with the HSE News Service.

Factors Affecting Alcohol Consumption Are Shaped in Childhood

Economists and sociologists who study alcohol consumption patterns often link them to people's living conditions and human capital such as education, work experience, and knowledge. Researchers of the HSE Laboratory for Labour Market Studies and the HSE Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology have found that non-cognitive skills developed in childhood and adolescence can have a major effect on the likelihood of alcohol abuse later in life and can diminish the role of education in this respect. The paper has been published in the Journal of Comparative Economics.

Capabilities as an Indicator of Poverty

Using a multidimensional approach, sociologists from HSE University have identified some vulnerable categories of the population that have rarely been the focus of research on poverty. According to their calculations, pensioners and people with disabilities also fall into the ‘poor’ category. The study was published in the Russian Journal of Economics.

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An international team including HSE researchers has conducted the largest ever cross-cultural study of appearance-enhancing behaviours. They have found that people worldwide spend an average of four hours a day on enhancing their beauty. Caring for one's appearance does not depend on gender, and older people worry as much about looking their best as the young do. The strongest predictor of attractiveness-enhancing behaviours appears to be social media usage. The study findings have been published in Evolution and Human Behaviour.

Alcohol Consumption by Young Russians Drops by Half, Study Says

Sociologist Valeria Kondratenko used data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey-HSE (RLMS-HSE) to demonstrate that the percentage of young Russians aged 14 to 22 who consume alcohol decreased by 2.3 times from 62.1% to 26.9% between 2006 and 2019. This paper also explores the correlation between the alcohol consumption habits of children and those of their parents. A paper with the findings of this study has been published in the Bulletin of RLMS–HSE.