Social and Political Attitudes of Moscow Students on the Background of the All-Russia and Regional Youth Studies

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study the socio-political attitudes of Moscow students, which determine their life strategies in the public sphere. An empirical basis for the study was the sociological survey of students of three universities in Moscow (n = 768). The questionnaire was partially based on Milton Rokeach’s terminal personal values indicators and the methodology of studying political culture of Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, adapted to a Russian context. The survey data operationalization let us represent a structural model of socio-political attitudes of Moscow students, which consists of indicators of four levels: value, emotional, cognitive, and strategic. The results showed that students in Moscow share the values and patriotic feelings of the elder generations. The influence of gender and age factors was most pronounced on the level of personal values. Despite of the field of their study, students in Moscow can be described as quite energetic and optimistic young citizens, equally family and career oriented with not a high interest in politics and weak political activity. Authors discussed their main findings with the results of previously obtained all-Russian and regional youth studies.

Keywords

• social values
• political attitudes
• Moscow students
• all-Russia youth studies
• regional surveys