Not Enough Altruists in the Post-Soviet Space
There is not a single country in the world where all people share the same system of values. Every society has members focused on serving others as well as those who value personal achievement above all and rely only on themselves. Independent altruists committed to helping others, yet expecting nothing in return, are relatively rare in all European countries, particularly in post-Soviet countries, where their proportion is among the smallest, according to Vladimir Magun and Maksim Rudnev of the HSE's Laboratory for Comparative Studies in Mass Consciousness.
Parents Foster Individualism in Children
Russians would like their children to value achievement and wealth more than they themselves do. This stems from the reality and norms of modern life, Maxim Rudnev and Alexandra Savelkayeva from HSE’s Laboratory for Comparative Studies of Mass Consciousness noted in a study on intergenerational value transmission.
‘Conducting Comparative Research Requires One to Leave a Comfortable Environment’
Students of the international Master’s programme in Comparative Social Research, which opened in 2014, spent their first semester studying at the Moscow campus of the Higher School of Economics; the second semester was spent in St. Petersburg. Another six months will be devoted to study abroad. Mobility in the educational process is an important principle of the programme that allows future sociologists to better understand social reality. The English-language programme turned out to of interest not only to Russian students, but also to graduates of prestigious foreign universities.
Host Country Affects Migrants’ Values
The values of migrants in Europe are more affected by their host country than by the country where the migrants were born and raised. In other words, the sociocultural environment migrants live in changes their value systems, Maksim Rudnev, a Senior Research Fellow in HSE’s Laboratory for Comparative Studies in Mass Consciousness, said in the study ‘Value Adaptation among Intra-European Migrants. The Role of Country of Birth and Country of Residence’.
Conference ‘Islamic Migrants in Russia, Europe and America’
On December 15, 2011, the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR) held a conference 'Islamic Migrants in Russia, Europe and America' in St. Petersburg.
New, but Already Successful
On November 25th a reporting conference of the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR) on ‘Comparative Sociology in Quantitative Perspective’ was held at the HSE.