Russian sociological tradition in the context of international discourse: specific features, problems, and perspectives

Russian sociological tradition in the context of international discourse: specific features, problems, and perspectives


Sorokin P.S.

Candidate of Sociological Sciences, Associate Professor, Leading Research Fellow, Head of the Laboratory for Human Capital and Education Research, Institute of Education, HSE University, Moscow, Russia psorokin@hse.ru

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Sorokin P.S. Russian sociological tradition in the context of international discourse: specific features, problems, and perspectives. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2017. No 1. P. 117-126




Abstract

Is there anything in the professional heritage of Russian sociology, which may be considered a certain “competitive advantage”, of the Russian sociological community in its dialogue with foreign colleagues? Addressing this problem, we elaborate a comprehension of Russian sociology as a continuing and integrative tradition of social thought development, unified by a set of underlying common features: (1) publicism; (2) moral and ethical concern; (3) problem orientation. Contemporary Russian sociologists often tend to see these characteristics as obstacles to integration process in international arenas with their more rigorous methodological standards and more independent academic sphere. However, literature analysis demonstrates that attempts to make sociology an as “hard” science as possible, become increasingly questionable. The outlined three features are particularly important, for seeing the opportunities of Russian scholars to make valuable contribution to the global sociology in its response to the issues discussed by the foreign autors.


Keywords
Russian sociology; international sociology; public sociology; methodology in sociology; history of sociology

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Content No 1, 2017