Contents

Economic theory

Evolutionary Approach to the Concept of Robust Control of Economic Systems
A.A. Tropin,  E.V. Freydina,  Mikhail Alekseev
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-3-23
Abstract:

Fundamental goal-setting of the functioning of economic systems is manifested in the intention for the sustainable development in the environment which is represented by “chaos” and is filled with uncertainty and the fundamental goal-setting is limited to “fundamental stochasticity” and “fundamental instability”. This feature stimulates the development of theoretical and practical aspects of new control mechanisms which include robust control that is a control configured to dampen uncertainty in an application to open systems. The article considers the development of the concept of robust control of economic systems in the continuum of fundamental paradigms “subject-object”, “subject-subject” and “subject-polysubjective environment” which determine the evolutionary view of control. The research is aimed at revealing the changing environment of the functioning of economic entities and developing models of reflexive and robust control of their interaction.             The model of market (polysubjective) environment used in the analysis takes into account the chaos and uncertainty and reflects the fundamental characteristics of the behavior of market participants: the existence of different pictures of subjective perception of the surrounding reality, the need for decision-making in the conditions of uncertainty, the emergence of reflexive processes that accompany the interaction of market actors. The methodology of introdu robust control into the polysubjective environment is based on the approach to structuring a reflexively active method, where the business situation, regarded as the carrier of uncertainty, and the elementary organizational structure, is the "subject-subject" interaction as its elementary organizational structure. The action in the context of "subject-subject" is determined by the generated model of reflexive control, which differs from the model of J. Soros, by the introduction of an interpreting function. It is shown that the result of interaction between economic entities is a random variable and to assess the admissibility of making a decision in the "point of agreement" it is necessary to seek compliance of the meeting result with the constraints imposed by the robust limit. The image of the process of generating control actions is represented by means of functions of reflexive governance acting within the limits of a robust limit.

Cryptocurrency and Conventional Money: A Friend among Strangers, a Stranger among Friends
L.G. Golubkova,  Vadim Rozin
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-24-38
Abstract:

The article analyzes the phenomenon of cryptocurrency. The authors reconstruct three versions of its creation: 1) it is a scam in the spirit of the Mavrodi pyramids, 2) it is new money that allows to earn adequately, 3) a conspiracy version. The authors sort out the myths about cryptocurrency. Namely, that money must necessarily be provided by gold or the economy of the country, and also be material (visible and perceived). Today, money is not provided with anything, and the "materiality" of money lies in their importance and efficiency. In this case, the authors characterize the efficiency with the help of four classical functions of money: money as a measure of value, a means of circulation, accumulation, and a means of payment. In addition to these functions, two more are singled out: money as a social institution and money as a tool for regulating economic relations. Cryptocurrency in its functions and structure is correlated with the sphere and functions of conventional money. The conventional money and cryptocurrency are two different systems of principles and conditions. In the first system, the state and elites are interested in manipulating conventional money and therefore created financial and other institutions that guard these manipulations. In the second one - financial institutions and consumer societies are still developing, but, in terms of their principles, they look like opponents of the first system. The authors suggest a hypothesis that the idea of creating cryptocurrency is to block manipulations with conventional money (their source is the state, economic and financial elites). With further improvement, as well as the disappearance of feverish demand, the cryptocurrency is likely to be able to more or less effectively perform the first four classical functions of money, and it wasn’t supposed to provide the other two functions (if we are talking about the existing system of management, economy and supporting social institutions). The paper considers different variants of the development of cryptocurrency and the possible interrelationships of crypto-communities with the state. The authors come to the conclusion that the victory of the state over the crypto-communities is not predetermined, both because of the crisis of modern civilization and its institutions, and the lack of control over these communities by the state.

Cryptocurrency as a Tool of Financial Market
Alexandra Shmyreva,  Nikolay Anokhin
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-39-49
Abstract:

The subject of the research is a relatively new financial market instrument - cryptocurrency. The authors use methods of comparative analysis and logical investigations, which allow to evaluate a variety of cryptocurrency characteristics and a mechanism of its regulation. The article considers debatable issues about the essence of cryptocurrency. In the sphere of practical application cryptocurrencies are treated like digital currencies, electronic means of payments, new forms of electronic money, “new money” and even a mirage. The paper analyzes the current state of cryptocurrencies in different aspects (structures, user communities, gender component, age characteristics of users, use of device-type and browser). The authors give an assessment of the mechanism for regulating cryptocurrencies in separate countries, which recognize this instrument and actively regulate it, as well as countries, which reject or just tolerate cryptocurrency, but do not have the regulatory framework for its use. Obviously, cryptocurrency is a relatively new instrument of the financial market, but its value does not depend on the amount of labor invested, as it is traditionally characteristic for conventional goods and services. The analysis of the cryptocurrency structure shows that bitcoin still remains the most widespread type, although ethereum is building up its volumes. The bitcoin users are mainly men of the age category from 24 to 44. An important and significant aspect of cryptocurrencies functioning is their regulation. Cryptocurrency has an official status (goods, financial asset, payment means or other instrument) in forty countries. Venezuela became the first country to sell its cryptocurrency “petro”, a distinctive feature of which is its real provision. As far as Russian regulation is concerned, there is no legislative certainty yet, although some efforts have been made in this direction for the past two years. However, while the cryptocurrency is not recognized by the state, there are doubts that it will enjoy full confidence. In the long term, it seems certain that cryptocurrency will be regulated at the international level, and the emphasis will be on preventing the use of digital assets for money laundering and illegal financial transactions.

Considerations on the Research Interest to the Application of Fuzzy Sets Method for the Analysis of the Effectiveness of Innovation Projects in Dissertations in Russia
Elena Muzyko
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-50-65
Abstract:

The paper presents a critical review of dissertations defended in Russia during the period 1998–2017 devoted to the application of fuzzy sets theory for the evaluation of investment and innovative projects. The author analyzed about 150 dissertations. The analysis has shown that the methods of the fuzzy sets theory are actively used by scientists. The explosion of interest to the application of the fuzzy sets method to investment analysis is observed in 2003–2006 after defending a doctoral dissertation by A.O. Nedosekin. The author highlights the appearance of a number of works in the area of technical and physicomathematical sciences related to the use of fuzzy sets method for the analysis of investment and innovation activities. In these research studies the authors usually examine the issue from the point of technical execution – substantiate the algorithms and methods of assessment and decision-making under the conditions of uncertainty, automatize this process. Russian authors study the investment potential of industrial, construction, high-tech, IT-enterprises, as well as the industrial complex as a whole, transport and scientific and innovation infrastructure that indicates the gradual deepening of specialization in this field of research. Despite the fact that Russian researchers show rather a high interest in the fuzzy sets method, only a small part of the works uses it in combination with the real options method (9 %) to assess the effectiveness of investment and innovative projects. The author comes to the conclusion that to analyze the effectiveness of venture financing of innovative projects, the combination of real options method and fuzzy sets method does not occur in the works of Russian authors.

Analytics of Spiritual Culture

Traditional Understanding of Creativity and Human Existence
Vasiliy Kurabtsev
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-66-81
Abstract:

The article analyzes the ontological aspects of creativity and the human existence. The main research methods are hermeneutical and analytical. Resorting to the values of creative work became a logical continuation of spiritual and philosophical search of the Holy fathers and Russian philosophy. Humanistic character of creativity is connected with Christian morality and manifested in recognition of the values standing above material interests of a modern man. The author analyses the exclusiveness and degeneration of the soul and civilization, where the leading parts are played by anti-creativity and anti-freedom. The article considers the nature of misunderstanding and ignorance of the true creativity and the life creativity. The article also analyses the opposition of the fertility spirit and the creativity spirit, the Christianity spirit and the creativity spirit. The author considers creatodicy or justification of creativity. The paper highlights the ontological aspects of creativity and its meanings. The author reveals the meanings of the expressions: “to do serious work”, “God’s will”, the existence of a man, human dignity. Anti-creativity is perceived as unkind exclusiveness of the headstrong, shameless and inhuman. The author analyzes the creativity of his life and “the creative tragedy of human life” (Florovsky). This creativity is impossible without the priority of true faith and recognition of the Predestination of every person. The article emphasizes the Christian idea of godliness of a man, that is, overcoming evil in himself. The author pays special attention to the ideas of preserving honor and dignity as well as self-application of efforts in the Affairs of the God. The author stresses the necessity of radical (in the spirit of creativity) rethinking of accepted values of a modern man.

“Homo Mobiludens” in the Era of Postmodernity
O.N. Novikova,  L.A. Belyaeva
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-82-95
Abstract:

The paper considers the phenomenon of “a man the player” in the context of the axiological shift, which occurred in modern culture. The authors substantiate their assumptions basing on the experience of studying the game element in culture, conducted by J. Huizinga in the beginning of the twentieth century. The article also analyzes the reasons and grounds enhancing the game frame in the everyday life of a modern man, which primarily relate to the changes in the coordinates of a contemporary axiological worldview: pluralism of values, understanding the world and being as the text, which meaning is not apparent, eclecticism, consumerism, dominance of computer culture. The article proves that all of these lead to the gamification of human existence and a clearly expressed desire for escapism and transgression. The novelty of the article is support of the proposition that the era of postmodernity gives birth to a new “man the player” who represents a synthesis of Homo Ludens and Homo Mobilis (Homo Mobiludens) for whom the game becomes more than just an "element of the culture" (J. Huizinga), but the way of being in the culture, while the game element gradually smoothes, it turns into quite a serious act, it increasingly substitutes life. Using the philosophical-anthropological approach, the authors assert that for Homo Mobiludens (the authors’ term – L.B., O.N.) the game turns into a vital and necessary method of subjective interpretation of reality as the possibility to overcome the information and values chaos of the existence. Information technology has become the most affordable tool to get entertainment and distraction from the hardships of reality, the routine of everyday life, a fast way to meet the needs through the "digital services". Generating new meanings, Homo Mobiludens uses gaming principle as a sample of the possible existence and the risk for violations of our routine life, perceives them as personal discovery, innovation. Deconstructing and generating new meanings, a human eclectically plays with traditional forms and qualities of life, establishing new forms of language games, trying to fit into a particular narrative strategy his/her personal life set by the game. In search of the meaning of life and the place in it, a new “man the player” of the post-modern era Homo Mobiludens gradually loses his/her personal identity and takes on a new form of identity-role identity, characterized by plurality and the definite situation. The introduction of alternative scenarios of life through gaming practice helps offset time and space by connecting together the real and virtual in the playing field. A virtual human being becomes dependent in sociocultural and anthropological contexts, forming an attitude to life as a game, in which there is an easy way to change the situation and receive different sensations and emotional states.

Trends in Changing Media Space: from Text to Hypertext
Pavel Opolev
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-96-112
Abstract:

The world is rapidly becoming more complex. The proliferation of socio-cultural complexity has an impact on the media space of modernity. At present, the real-event environment of human existence is becoming more and more complex information-digital space. As a result, the world of a person, as well as his/her style of thinking are changing under the pressure of information complexity. The spheres of social life are integrated into the media space, there is an active mediatization of various social subsystems. The complication of culture threatens the human psyche. A man “drowns” in that complexity: in the details, nuances, unnecessary details and subjective opinions. Information noise, consisting of pieces of information and their unreliable interpretation, leaves no chance for an objective picture of the world. The explosive growth of sociocultural complexity changes the media space. The modern information space turns out to be an incarnate myth about the tower of Babel – the pandemonium of information flows devoid of linear logic and meaning. Modern macro-social changes express the fusion of many processes of different directions, which form a multidimensional and contradictory system of relations of solidarity and conflict, harmony and tension, complexity and simplification. All these processes have an impact on the nature of communication, determine the transformation of the media space. Modern media space is a clear demonstration of the conflict between the modern and postmodern episteme, linear logic of the text and the nonlinear logic of hypertext. Digital culture of modernity is objectively discrete, but subjectively it returns us to the “analog” forms of culture, experiencing the reality in audiovisual forms, mythological images. The media space is set by the network logic of electronic media, revealing a tendency to fragmentation and decentralization, rethinking the role of the author and the reader. The synthesis of television, the Internet and virtual reality creates a heterogeneous media space in which contradictory trends coexist, at the same time complicating and simplifying existence and thinking. The media space of modernity is nonlinear and narrative. The hypertextuality of the media space determines the complexity of the media space and the rhizomaticity of multidirectional information flows.

Front-Line Brigades: from the Front-Line to the True «Art Documentation»
Maria Oleynik
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-113-124
Abstract:

From the middle of the XIX century when the position of the artist was introduced in the Maritime Department, the display of military realities became the rule, first in the fleet, and later in the army. These were landscapes of famous marine painters - I.K. Aivazovsky, A.P. Bogolyubov, L.D. Blinov, genre paintings by V.V. Vereshchagin, I.A. Vladimirova. Full-fledged work of professional artists in the army and the navy broke down after the October Revolution of 1917. With the creation of the Battle Workshop, named after M.B. Grekov in 1934, in memory of the first Soviet artist-battalist M.B. Grekov, the battle genre began to develop in the vein of socialist realism. A colossal surge in the development of the battle genre falls on the years of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Under the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, the Political Administration of the Navy and the Chief Military Sanitary Directorate, propaganda and front-line art brigades started their work. Painting and graphics became not only a work of art, but a visual document of military reality. The subject of this article is the creation and work of front-line art brigades created by the order of E.I. Smirnov, the Chief of the Main Military-Sanitary Directorate (GVSU).The artists of the Moscow branch of the Union of Artists responded to the offer to work in the brigades: N.N. Volkov, D.N. Domogatsky, A.T. Ivanov, N.G. Kozlov, N.F. Korotkova, N.G. Kotov, E.A. Lvov, F.I. Nevezhin, Yu.G. Neroda, D.P. Pavlinov, N.S. Sergeyev, R.I. Sinilnikova, N.G. Yakovlev. For each trip of the brigade, an order was drawn up, a detailed route was prescribed, and a letter was sent to the heads of the sanitary departments of the fronts. The route could change in connection with the frontline situation and, as a rule the previously agreed route was enriched and additionally developed. Front art brigades worked on many fronts of the Great Patriotic War that enabled artists and photographers to cover a wide geographic range of military events. The artists had the task to portray the realities of the medical and sanitary service as truthfully as possible.

Between Two Worlds: Interaction between Northern and Italian Trends in Spanish Painting of the XV Century
T.A. Seglina
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-125-137
Abstract:

The article is devoted to the study of the influence of the Italian and Flemish Renaissance traditions on the painting styles of Castile and Aragon in the 15th century. The subject of the study is the artistic features, which connect Spanish paintings with the Italian and Flemish Renaissance. The object of the study was the life and work of a Spanish artist Bartolomé de Cárdenas (Bartolomé Bermejo). The analysis of “Saint Michael Triumphant over the Devil with the Donor Antonio Juan”, “Nursing Madonna”, “Saint Dominic of Silos”, “Piedad Desplá”, “Saint Engracia” (central part, the Arrest of Santa Engracia, the Flagellation of Saint Engracia, Crucifixion), “Saint Augustine”, and “Lamentation” demonstrates the following features, characteristic for the painter: attention to proportions, a sense of perspective, physiognomic accuracy, abandoning the estofado technique, work with the landscape, addressing nature, etc. An analysis of the Bermejo’s works showed that the master found no conflict between the motives and characteristics of the two traditions. They coexisted in the same works. The article also describes the circumstances that influenced the spread and rooting of the influence of Italian and Flemish painting in the art tradition of the Iberian Peninsula, including political and economic conditions, artistic tastes of Spanish rulers (Juan II, Isabella I and Ferdinand II), the Arab heritage and its influence on painting, the connection between Aragon and the Papal Court in Avignon, pieces of art trade with Flanders. The author considers the methods, with the help of which these two schools found the way into the Iberian Peninsula. The article gives the answer to the question of why the Italian and Northern traditions were of key importance in shaping the national painting tradition of Spain. The paper contains a brief description of two different systems with many similarities that yet represent two different aspects of Renaissance. The author puts forward a thesis that in spite of the features brought by the art of Italy and Flanders, the paintings of Spanish Renaissance have their own unique identity, which is manifested in the works of its artists.

Formation of the social functions of the library
N.Yu. Dolgova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-138-151
Abstract:

The article considers the genesis and essence of a library as a social institution and also the role and functions of the library in different periods. The author highlights the importance of emergence of libraries during every historical epoch and their performance of invariable initial functions and tasks. The mission of the library is implemented by means of concrete social functions, that’s why its transformation leads to changes of social functions of the library. The author shows the value of the library for the society depending on its type. The paper analyzes a library as a social institution, characterizing its historical variability. The purpose of the first libraries and their first mission was to store documented knowledge. The first libraries were storages-treasuries of mostly closed type as the collections of books existing in them had material value. The antique library can be considered both as a public library (for readers from certain strata of the society) and as the academic establishment. Monastic libraries played the leading role in saving the cultural heritage of antiquity, in maintaining continuity in the development of education, sciences and culture. During the Middle Ages monastic libraries significantly developed. In the early Middle Ages they were the only centers of culture and education. In the late Middle Ages they conceded the place to university libraries. The universities and their libraries played an important role in the distribution of books and education. Theology started gradually to concede its superiority to secular sciences in university audiences (respectively the structure of the libraries holdings changed). The circle of users of university libraries was much wider, than in other medieval libraries. The library has gradually become such an establishment which defines the character of educational, scientific and cultural policy of the state. The library development has passed a long evolutionary way from the collections of different plates and scrolls in the libraries of ancient empires, small book collections in monasteries comprised mainly of religious literature and having a very limited circle of users, to the university libraries and private collections which were a prototype of a modern public library with its universal book holdings of public use. During a long period of human history the libraries social functions have undergone essential changes.

Problems of national discourse

Oriental Gown of I.I. Oblomov and Metaphysics of "Oblomovism"
Igor Likhomanov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-152-168
Abstract:

The author substantiates his opinion that I. A. Goncharov's novel "Oblomov" is a philosophical and symbolic literary text. The method of symbolization the characters allows the author to include into the novel a system of philosophical ideas revealing the cultural and historical specificity of Russia. So, for example, the character of Oblomov, according to the author, was formed as a generalizing type of some psychological traits of real Russian people. But gradually it was transformed into a symbol of the Russian "in general". Another character, Andrey Stoltz, symbolically embodies the synthesis of the Russian world and the West. Not only people perform a symbolic function in the novel. Oblomov's gown is a symbol of the Islamic East, which is sharply different from the Indo-Buddhist Far East. Thus, the philosophical depth of the novel is achieved through symbolization of characters, not by a collision of abstract ideas. The philosophical content of the novel is to identify the specificity of Russia (the "Russian soul") in its opposition to "the West" and "the East”. The "West" is treated as the mechanical, moving force, opposed to the fixed, inert "East". At the same time, the Western principles are immanent to the Russian ones, while the Eastern principles are transcendent, and they are connected with the Russian principles only mechanically. The specificity of Russia is in its "spiritualized" impulse towards the transcendental meaning of the existence. The philosophical content of the novel, thus, reproduces the Slavophile complex of ideas. However, unlike the Slavophiles, Goncharov created the novel not about greatness, but about self-destruction of the "Russian soul." The main characters of the novel experience an existential crisis due to the loss of meaning in life. But the feminine part of the "Russian soul", which embodies its dynamic and strong-willed principle, is not capable of transcendence. And the male part of the "Russian soul", which has this transcendence ability, is weak-willed, passive and cannot resist the fatal influence of the "East". Thus, the novel "Oblomov" is considered to be anti-Eurasian and it warns against "the Eurasian temptation".

‘The Great Retreat’ or ‘the Great Maneuver’: N. Timasheff’s Concept and Ideological Changes in the USSR of the 1930s
M.Yu. Shmatov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-169-184
Abstract:

The article deals with problems of ideological, cultural and social transformations in the USSR during the 1930s. The main purpose of the research is to show how historians can use the concept of a famous Russian and American sociologist N.Timasheff to study Bolsheviks’ policy in the period when Stalin’s regime had already been approved. The author tries to verify some Timasheff’s positions using Soviet and foreign empiric materials of that age. First of all, there is a detailed overview of Soviet everyday-life and analysis of changes in this sphere during the 1930s. Secondly, the author tries to find and explain the reasons of those transformations in Soviet official documents and in discourse of the authorities, media and culture. As a result, the author shows that all processes of ‘reforms’ were under total control of the Centre. The article gives a review of the situation inside the country and in the Soviet foreign policy. The author comes to the conclusion that ‘the threats of war’ and the crisis in ideological sphere made Stalin and his regime drive to some changes in the official ideology, not in the real policy. The author disagrees with N. Timasheff, who said that the reforms were the part of the ‘national process’, but all changes were only in the interests of the authorities and the process of Soviet nation-building was not completed. However, the scientific value of Timasheff’s concept of ‘the Great Retreat’is recognized. The main result of the research is the idea of a new term to explain Stalin’s policy in the 1930s: ‘the Great Maneuver’. According to the author it gives a better understanding of the nature of visual changes in the country and its social and cultural life.

Determinants of the reproduction of ethnic diversity: market, state, informal institutions
Elena Erokhina
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-185-197
Abstract:

The article is dedicated to the role of institutional determinants in the reproduction of ethnic diversity. Ethnic diversity is considered in two aspects: as a result of personal identification (nominative aspect) and as a supra-individual phenomenon (normative aspect). The aggregate of ideas about "what means to be someone" and "who is called to be someone" by nationality (ethnicity) is the basis for the reproduction of ethnicity as a set of rules that includes membership rules and borders management mechanisms. However, the ethnicity itself is inscribed into broader social context from which these rules and mechanisms have been growing. Objectified structures which together constitute a social order are the institutional determinants of ethnicity. As such ones, the article stands out the State, the market, and some informal structures: family, kinship, and community. The author notes the distinction between the economic-cultural types and economic structures of different peoples as the basis of ethnic inequality. The article highlights the role of the State in strengthening or mitigation of status inequality of ethnic groups and reveals the significance of informal institutions in the reproduction of ethnic diversity. Informal institutions can relieve the tension caused by social barriers, can guard the society from rifts, and can prevent excessive polarization of its various segments. Another aspect of informal institutions is their ability to create new barriers and constraints. The author concludes that an activity of formal institutions creates prerequisites for ethnic stratification, while informal institutions represent self-organization. Ethnicity exists in both fields: in the field of managed modernization and in the field of spontaneous self-organization. At the intersection of formal and informal modes of social institutions work, special conditions for ethnicity reproduction are formed. The author provides examples of how the status of separate classes of Russian Empire patrials determined the specificity of ethnicity reproduction in the Russian Empire. On the examples of individual cases, the paper considers the specific occurrences of reproduction of ethnic diversity at the intersection of activities of informal structures, the state, and the market in the conditions of modern Russia.

Problems of the Formation of Civil Culture in Kyrgyzstan
A.K. Bektanova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-198-220
Abstract:

The problem of the formation of civil society is relevant in the post-Soviet space for nearly thirty years. Formation and foundation of a civil society is a fairly long-term historical process, conditioned by certain economic, political, legal and sociocultural factors. Emphasizing that the formation of the economic and political and legal foundation of a civil society is of paramount importance, the author believes that the creation of socio-cultural conditions and the prerequisites of civil society is not less important, and represents a process that is considerably complex and time-consuming. One of the most important socio-cultural components of a civil society is civil culture, which is a subsystem of a complex integrated system of culture. The author notes that the basic elements of civil culture are legal, political and ecological culture. Using the data from sociological research, the author studies the state of civil culture in Kyrgyzstan and comes to the conclusion about the low level of general and civic culture of individuals and society as a whole, the lack of self-reliance and independence of civil institutions, the lack of mutual consent and trust in society. This hinders the process of the formation of civil society. In this regard, the need to use the historical experience of the political, legal and ecological culture of the traditional Kyrgyz society, which relied primarily on morality and integrity, is actualized. The author notes that the peculiarities of the existence of nomads living in extremely difficult natural conditions contain a considerable potential and resources for effective regulation and coordination of collective interconnections in society and in nature, which seems to be quite important for the formation of civil society. At the same time, it is noted that there is a need for a dialectical approach to the problem of the formation of a civic culture that involves the denial of negative manifestations of the past culture while preserving everything positive and conducive to the progressive development of the society.

Education in Modern Culture

The McDonaldization of Higher Education
A.P. Nikitin
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-221-232
Abstract:

Abstract The article deals with the manifestations of McDonaldization in higher education. The main problem is the possibility of transferring the functional principles of the fast food network to the activities of educational institutions. The purpose of the work is to characterize the process of McDonaldization of higher education: description of the features of McDonaldization, its causes and sociocultural consequences. The methodology of the research is based on the approach of M. Weber and G. Ritzer, who analyze the development of social institutions as a process of formal rationalization, as a constant increase in the calculability and control over the behavior of individuals. According to M. Weber, the predominance of formal rationality presupposes the priority of effective achievement of goals before the meaningful goals of social development. Relying on M. Weber's methodological project, J. Ritzer considers McDonaldization as a phenomenon of the process of rationalization of modern society. McDonaldization assumes the spread throughout the world of the management strategies on which the activities of McDonald's are based, and their transformation into fundamental guidelines for the process of social organizing. Results: 1) modern trends in the development of the institution of higher education can be described as a manifestation of the functional principles on which the activities of McDonald's are based – the desire for efficiency, calculability,  predictability and control; 2) the reasons for the McDonaldization of higher education are the transformation of education itself into an object of consumption and the use of the management model of a large corporation in higher education; 3) sociocultural consequences of this trend are the strengthening of simulation practices in the activities of universities, the growth of false interactions in the educational process, the substitution of the meaningful goals of education for formal goals.

Social and Professional Well-Being of the Russian School Teachers During the Period of Reforms and Counter-Reforms
Maksim Golovchin,  T.S. Soloveva
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2018-3.2-233-252
Abstract:

The article focuses on the changes, which have occurred in the staffing situation of the Russian schools at the time of educational reforms and counter-reforms, and a certain pull of the state and society exerted on teachers. Methodology and research methods. The research suggests a comprehensive methodological approach to studying the social and professional well-being of representatives of the teaching profession in the context, where a teacher is seen primarily from the perspective of his/her social well-being and economic status. This study is based on the monitoring data carried out among school teachers in the Vologda region. The monitoring was conducted in the three stages: a) 2011 – the beginning of modernization in the field of education; b) 2012 – the new round of educational modernization associated with the special attention to the teacher problems by the state; c) 2017 – disavowal of the modernization principles and retreat to the policy of “educational counter-reforms”. Results. The data collected during the monitoring allow to suggest that there are changes in the social well-being, patience, attitude to the state policy, job satisfaction and social activity of teachers. In conclusion, the authors suggest a number of mechanisms for overcoming the teacher problems at the federal, regional and local levels. The article puts forward an approach to the chronology of events of the state reforms in the Russian education system and foreign countries. In particular, it allows to reveal the multidimensionality and nonlinear nature of the reforms; presents a point of view on the retrospective of reforms as a historical cycle consisting of a phase change of partial innovations, modernization, modernization “breakup” and counter-reforms (a set of measures aimed at disavowing the reform experience, a return to pre-reform models). Practical significance. The presented results, discussions on the nature of changes in the social and material well-being of teachers, as well as some ways for improving their socio-economic status can be used in the development and adjustment of strategic measures for the development of the regional education system.

Announces