Informal youth associations briefly. Informal youth associations. Politically oriented youth subcultures

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Moscow Psychological and Social Institute

Discipline abstract

"Social Psychology"

"Youth Informal Groups in Russia"

is done by a student

2 courses group 27Yuz

Politov V.V.

supervisor

Sitnova E.N

Kurovskoye, 2009

Introduction

Youth has always been scolded - both in the papyri of Ancient Egypt, and in the letters and essays of the ancient Greeks, one can find complaints that the youth went wrong, that the former purity of morals was lost, etc., etc. Even today, young people are being reproached from all sides for immorality, for rejecting traditional values ​​for Russians, for mercantilism, and so on. How true are these accusations? Goals and objectives: It is impossible to analyze everything thoroughly, but still I will try to determine the role and place of amateur public formations in the life of the country at the present time. Today, despite the active activity of informal associations, not much is known about them. Separate publications in the press do not allow to get a complete picture, and sometimes give a distorted idea of ​​certain formations, since, as a rule, they consider only one side of their activities. When writing this essay, a fairly large amount of literature was used, including monographs, memoirs of former informals, articles and stories of contemporary authors about informals. First of all, I tried to make the abstract not a dry statement of facts, so I used excerpts from the story of A.M. Korotkov "Accident - the daughter of a cop", which perfectly characterizes the modern youth environment. The memoirs of A. Shubin, a former informal, theorist of informal movements, helped to draw up a portrait of a modern informal. On the works of V.T. Lisovsky and A.A. Kozlov built most of the essay.

1. Something about informals

In recent years, sociologists have paid much attention to the study of youth groups and youth subculture. For a long time it was believed that in a socialist society striving for social homogeneity, young people cannot and should not have their own specific values.

Manifestations of originality, unusual forms of behavior were regarded either as an anomaly, social deviation, or as an imitation of the West. Another position presented these deviations as a way of self-expression, as an opportunity to declare oneself to society, to draw attention to oneself. This is how the term “informal youth associations” appeared, which was fixed in scientific and journalistic literature, as well as in everyday word usage. In Western sociology, the category peer group is used to refer to the same phenomenon. This concept originated in American sociology and means more than a group of peers or a homogeneous (homogeneous) group. The word peer comes from the Latin paar (equal), and the indicated equality refers not only to age, but also to social status, attitudes, values, and norms of behavior. Formal is usually called a social group that has a legal status, which is part of a social institution, an organization where the position of individual members is strictly regulated by official rules and laws. Informal associations are a mass phenomenon. I will consider their classification according to two authors: a. According to Fradkin, informal groups are: - pro-social, anti-social, anti-social; - belonging and reference groups; - large and small (here we are not talking about quantity, but about quality (groups in which all adolescents directly communicate with each other are small, and where they cannot communicate - large)); - permanent and occasional; - with democratic and authoritarian submission; uneven-aged and same-aged; - same-sex and heterosexual, etc. b. According to A. V. Tolstykh: - socio-political groups (set as the goal of promoting certain socio-political views, non-aggressive); - radicals (luberas, skins - very aggressive (leaders - mostly from the older generation)); - ecological and ethical groups (“green”); - lifestyle groups (actually informal youth associations - punks, hippies, etc.); - non-traditional religious (Satanists, Buddhists, cult groups); - interest groups (badge artists, philatelists, sports and music fans, etc.). Informal youth associations differ in the nature of the social orientation of their consciousness and behavior, the type of group values, and the characteristics of leisure activities.

The most popular of them are groups of lovers of modern music, dance, various sports (football fans, bodybuilders) - about 80%.

Less widespread in our country are groups engaged in socially useful activities - the protection of cultural monuments, environmental protection, etc. - no more than 4%.

There are groups whose behavior can be characterized as socially pathogenic and even criminal: drug addicts, drug addicts and others. Such groups make up approximately 9% of all informal youth groups. Many do not quite understand the concept of "informal group" and they associate this expression with "patsy" guys in leather jackets and chains. This is not entirely true, although such a type is also found among informals. First of all, it is important to separate the "informal movement" from the "neighbors" in the historical era: the dissident and democratic movements. At first glance, these three movements line up in a row, similar to the famous Leninist three generations of the liberation movement. The 20th Congress woke up the dissidents, the dissidents woke up the non-formals, the non-formals "unwound" the democratic movement.

In practice, the process of development of the "liberation" movement was not linear. The erosion of the totalitarian regime led to the formation of an informal environment earlier than a dissident one. Already in the late 50's - early 60's. non-dissident social movements arose, which still exist and are considered classic examples of informal ones - ecological (nature conservation teams) and pedagogical (communards). Dissidents, informals and democrats represent three waves of social movement, which are characterized by different features. Dissidents are distinguished by the priority of human rights issues and the taboo on cooperation with the authorities and the use of violence. Democrats were characterized by a much broader range of political interests and an orientation toward cooperation and even subordination to that part of the ruling elite that publicly shared the ideological postulates of democracy (often negative - anti-bureaucratic and then anti-communist, anti-chauvinist).

Despite the initial dislike of violence, the Democrats quickly got rid of the non-violent “prejudices” inherited from the beginning of Perestroika and quite actively supported the demonstration shooting on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment in 1993.

Informals in this row are located “in the middle” and at the same time, somehow outside the row, “on the side”. If we consider the phenomenon as a whole, then very few taboos and restrictions are found. Despite the fact that each informal group had its own myths, stereotypes and limitations, there was practically no common ideological outline. In an informal environment, “democrats”, “patriots”, anarchists, monarchists, communists, social democrats and liberal-conservatives of various shades quite calmly communicated. Sometimes the grouping of non-formals took place not at all according to ideological principles, but according to the areas of activity - defenders of monuments, teachers, environmentalists, etc. Nevertheless, it is easy to separate informals from both the dissident and the general democratic movement. In contrast to the dissidents, the informals were calm about interacting with the authorities, entering state and semi-official structures. Without any pangs of conscience, they expressed loyalty to the dominant ideology, methodically destroying the foundations of the regime (sometimes, by the way, unconsciously). In contrast to the “democrats,” the informals were skeptical of the recognized “foremen of perestroika” and “democratic leaders” from the old ruling elite, they preferred actions in small groups, now and then splitting the democratic front. Informals preferred to put some specific social activity at the center of their activity, despite the fact that almost all informal groups had their own, sometimes very exotic ideology. All this, coupled with the duration of the existence of the informal movement (at least since the late 50s), suggests that the informals are not just a generation of social movement that was predominant in 1986-1990, but a broader socio-political phenomenon.

I will highlight the main, in my opinion, features of the informal environment:

the predominance of connections of a horizontal nature (in contrast to the democratic-populist movement and party structures of a later time);

Commitment to social creativity, a tendency to search for new social forms, alternativeism, “constructive utopianism”;

Organic democracy, striving for self-government, internal anti-authoritarianism, “collective leadership”;

Weak articulation, "prescription" of formal relations, the formation of the internal structure of organizations under the influence of real personal connections, the desire to create their own microenvironment, lifestyle (like dissidents, but not democrats, for the most part sharing life and "social activity");

The absence of strict restrictions on cooperation, for example, with the authorities (unlike dissidents and, say, people's will);

The absence of a clear ideological “framework” with the high ideologization of each group separately (unlike dissidents);

The desire to “think globally and act locally”, to have specific socially oriented (that is, aimed at obtaining a social effect, not profit) projects that confirm ideas or contribute to their implementation.

All this variety of signs can be reduced to a few simple ones - social creativity, self-government, horizontalism, orientation towards cooperation, concrete social “doing” under the radicalism of ideas.

It is easy to see that such an environment could have arisen (and has arisen) immediately after the authorities gave up total control over society (that is, in the 1950s).

It follows from the foregoing that informals are the most stable and long-standing core of civil society in our country (at least for today), its connecting element. In connection with the foregoing, another question arises: how do informals differ from the Masonic lodge and the mafia? After all, some external signs coincide - the ability to penetrate into any environment, branching, the private nature of connections. But the essence is fundamentally different - non-formal people do not recognize an imperious and even more so violent hierarchy, their connections are mostly horizontal, and authority, as a rule, is personal. In addition, the activities of the informals are mostly public, while the Freemasons and the mafia cultivate secrecy. According to these parameters, party and state institutions are closer to the mafia and Freemasonry. The traits of informals mentioned above are not absolute. To communicate with the outside world, a very flowery title is sometimes invented, and in conflicts the formal right of the majority is occasionally used, which likens informals to party structures. Sometimes during social actions there is a strict discipline based on formal submission to a pre-appointed commander (coordinator, etc.), whose power is dissolved at the end of the action. Informals - social activists as a phenomenon do not have rigid boundaries and partially mixed with dissidents, and with democratic movements, and with the environment of official organizations (parties, trade unions, societies, etc.). For the sake of what interests do people and children, teenagers and youth, adults and even gray-haired old people unite? The number of such associations is measured in tens of thousands, and the number of their members is measured in millions.

It is necessary to decide to leave the habitual, stable, but disgusting hierarchical world and rush "to storm the sky" (especially since the picture of "heaven" has not yet been completed). As a rule, the role of the last push is played by the example of those who have already crossed the line between a hierarchical person and an ideological person. This ensures the continuity of the movement. If at this time you meet a good priest, your path lies in the Church. If on your way at such a moment there is a bright informal group, the microclimate of which can solve your psychological problems, you will become an informal. The first experience is especially important here.

Alexander Shubin, himself a former informal, recalls his first group of informals. The group, held in 1986 - 1988. several actions that shocked those around them with their unusualness for that time: a strike at agricultural workers, a “theatrical discussion” in which participants frankly expressed opposition views, an evening in memory of the victims of Stalinism, the first in the 80s. mass democratic demonstration on May 28, 1988. And each such action led to an influx of tens, and then hundreds of people into the movement, ready to spend time and effort for the goals of the movement, still vaguely realized by neophytes. It was unusual, “for the first time” (an important motive for participating in social creativity), it was “effective”, it was “together” (overcoming alienation, isolation of the individual, characteristic of industrial society). The possibility of long-term realization of the personality in motion depended on the possibility of fixing this effect. But its very direction (regardless of productivity) determined the first step. Depending on what interests of people are the basis of the association, various types of associations arise. Recently, in large cities of the country, looking for opportunities to fulfill their needs, and not always finding them within the framework of existing organizations, young people began to unite in the so-called informal groups, which would be more correctly called amateur amateur youth associations.

Their attitude is ambiguous. Depending on their orientation, they can be both an addition to organized groups and their antipodes. Members of amateur associations fight to preserve the environment from pollution and destruction, save cultural monuments, help to restore them free of charge, take care of the disabled and the elderly, and fight corruption in their own way. Spontaneously emerging youth groups are sometimes called informal, sometimes amateur, sometimes amateur. And here's why: firstly, they are all formed on the principle of voluntariness and are organizationally independent; secondly, for the most part they are engaged in some particular type of activity, counting on a real return. That is why the term "informals" originally used is not entirely accurate and can only be used in relation to such groups and associations as "Hippies", "Punks", "Metallists" and other other groups. They are characterized, most often, by a spontaneous, unorganized, unstable character. It can be said with an even shorter definition, which I will try to formulate myself: "Informals" is a group of people that arose on someone's initiative or spontaneously to achieve some goal by people with common interests and needs.

1.1 External culture

External cultures have existed and exist in different societies.

Early Christians were externals in the Roman Empire. In medieval Europe, these are numerous heresies. There is a split in Russia. External cultures accumulate certain norms and symbols.

If the main culture is those norms and symbols that set the basic principle of ordering a given society, then everything that remains outside the main myth - the self-description of society - flocks to the external ones. There is a balance between the two subsystems of society: a counterculture is unthinkable and does not exist without an official society. They are complementary and connected.

This is one whole. For this kind of crops that have fallen out, the term "external" (from the Latin "externus" - someone else's) can be proposed. The sphere of external culture includes, in fact, many different subcultures: for example, criminal, bohemian, drug mafia, etc. They are external to the extent that their internal values ​​are opposed to the so-called generally accepted ones. They are united by the fact that they are all local communication systems located outside the framework of the main network (the one that determines the state structure). External culture, according to public opinion and scientific tradition, belongs to the sphere of the underground (from the English "undeground" - underground), counterculture. All these definitions point to externality, which is characterized by the prefixes "counter -", "under -", "not -". It is clear that we are talking about something opposing ("counter-"), not visible and secretive (sub-), unformed. The cultural activity of young people depends on a number of factors: -on the level of education. For persons with a lower level of education, for example, vocational school students, it is significantly higher than for university students; - from age. The peak of activity is 16-17 years old, by the age of 21-22 it drops noticeably; - from the place of residence. Informal movements are more typical for the city than for the countryside, since it is the city with its abundance of social ties that provides a real opportunity to choose values ​​and forms of behavior. External culture categorically rejects attempts to reduce it to any social scheme. A typical example of its self-determination is an excerpt from an article by A. Madison, a very old hippie from Talyn: certainly, especially to each other for the right to oversee the imperishable relics of orthodoxy, finally, did not bring any special hippie philosophy, ideology or religion under this non-existent orthodoxy. Without exception, all "People" (from the English "people" - "people") insist on their non-participation in society, or otherwise - independence. This is an important feature of their self-consciousness. W. Turner, speaking about the communities of Western hippies, referred them to "liminal communities", that is, emerging and existing in the intermediate areas of social structures (from Latin "limen" - threshold). This is where "liminal" individuals gather, persons of uncertain status who are in the process of transition or who have fallen out of society. Where and why do fallen people appear? There are two directions here. First: in this fallen, indefinite, "suspended" state, a person finds himself in a period of transition from the position of one to the position of another social structure. Then, as a rule, he finds his permanent place, acquires a permanent status, enters society and leaves the sphere of counterculture. Such reasoning is the basis of the concepts of W. Turner, T. Parsons, L. Feuer. According to Parson, for example, the reason for the protest of young people and their opposition to the world of adults is "impatience" to take the place of their fathers in the social structure. And they are busy for a while. But the matter ends with the rubbing of the new generation into the same structure and, consequently, its reproduction.

The second direction explains the appearance of fallen people by shifts in society itself. For M. Mead, it looks like this: “Young people, growing up, are no longer in the world for which they were prepared in the process of socialization. The experience of the elders is not good. it doesn't have it." The new generation is stepping into the void. They do not emerge from the existing social structure (as in Parson or Turner), but the structure itself slips from under their feet. This is where the rapid growth of youth communities begins, repelling the world of adults, their unnecessary experience. And the result of being in the bosom of counter-culture is already different here: not embedding into the old structure, but building a new one. In the sphere of values, there is a change in the cultural paradigm: the values ​​of the counterculture “emerge” and form the basis of the organization of a “big” society. And the old values ​​descend into the underground world of counter-cultures. In fact, these two directions do not reject each other, but complement each other. We are talking simply about different periods in the life of society, or its different states. In stable periods and in traditional societies (as studied by Turner), the people who have fallen out are really those who are currently, but temporarily, in transition. In the end, they enter society, settle down there, gain status. Many people, left to themselves, interacting form similar communicative structures. L. Samoilov, a professional archaeologist, by the will of fate ended up in a forced labor camp. He noticed that informal communities with their own hierarchy and symbols are emerging among the prisoners. Samoilov was struck by their resemblance to primitive societies, sometimes down to the smallest detail: “I saw,” he writes, “and recognized in camp life a number of exotic phenomena that I had studied professionally in literature for many years, phenomena that characterize primitive society!” Primitive society is characterized by initiation rites - the initiation of adolescents into the rank of adults, rites consisting of severe trials. For criminals, this is a "registration". Various "taboos" are characteristic of primitive society.

But the main similarity is structural: “At the stage of decomposition,” writes L. Samoilov, “many primitive societies had a three-caste structure, like our camp (“thieves” - the elite, the middle layer - “muzhiks” and outsiders - “lowered”), and above they were distinguished by leaders with fighting squads who collected tribute (as ours select transmissions). A similar structure is known in the army units under the name "hazing". The same is true in the youth environment of big cities. For example, when metalworkers appeared in St. Petersburg, they developed a three-layer hierarchy: a clearly defined elite headed by a generally recognized leader named "Monk", the bulk of the metalworkers grouped around the elite, and finally - random visitors who wandered into the cafe where they were going to listen to "metal" music. These latter were not considered real metalworkers, remaining in the status of "gopniks", that is, strangers who did not understand anything. It is the "excluded" communities that demonstrate the patterns of self-organization in their purest form. There is a minimum of external influences, from which the excluded community is fenced off by a communication barrier. In an ordinary team, it is difficult to single out those processes that take place spontaneously in the community itself, that is, they relate to self-organization proper. There is another way to define (or represent) a community other than through its localization in the social structure: through symbolism. This is exactly what usually happens at the level of everyday consciousness or journalistic practice. Trying to figure out who "hippies" (or punks, etc.) are, we first of all describe their signs. A. Petrov in the article "Aliens" in the "Teacher's Newspaper" depicts a party of hairy: "Shaggy, in patched and badly worn clothes, sometimes barefoot, with canvas bags and backpacks, embroidered with flowers and covered with anti-war slogans, with guitars and flutes, guys and girls walk around the square, sit on benches, on the paws of bronze lions supporting lanterns, right on the grass. They talk animatedly, sing alone and in unison, have a snack, smoke "... Almost everything that A. Petrov mentions serves as identification marks for the hairy "their". Here is the symbolism of appearance: a shaggy hairstyle, shabby clothes, homemade bags, etc. Then graphic symbols: embroidered flowers (a trace of the Flower Revolution that gave birth to the first hippies), anti-war slogans, such as:

"Love, don't fight!" - a sign of the most important value of this environment - pacifism, non-violence. The behavior described in the above passage: leisurely walks, free music-making, generally exaggerated ease - the same sign. It is all the form, not the content of communication. That is, the signs of belonging to the community are the first to catch the eye. And it is they who are described, wanting to represent this community. Indeed, the presence of a special symbolism, regarded as "one's own", is already an unconditional sign of the existence of a communicative field, a kind of social formation. June 1, 1987. This is, of course, a mythological starting point (it is believed that on June 1, 1987, the first hippies took to the streets in Moscow on Pushkinskaya Square and called for a renunciation of violence):

They, says one of the old hippies, came out and said: Here we are representatives of this movement, it will be a system of values ​​and a system of people. it is said: Live like children, in peace, tranquility, do not chase ghostly values ​​... It’s just that the arrival was given to humanity so that they could stop and think where we are going ... I have already given above a list of features inherent in informal associations, below signs are given that are visible to the "naked" eye, from the point of view of an amateur.

1.2 The main external signs of informals

Informal groups have no official status. - Weakly expressed internal structure. - Most associations have weakly expressed interests. - Weak internal communications. - It is very difficult to single out a leader. - They do not have an activity program. - Act on the initiative of a small group from outside. - They represent an alternative to state structures. - Very difficult to categorize.

2. History of the informal movement. Causes

During the period from 1988 to 1993-94, the number of informal associations increased from 8% to 38%, i.e. three times. The informals include the medieval Vagants, Skomorokhovs, Nobles, and the First Vigilantes. 1) The wave of informality after the revolutionary years. Counter-cultural youth groups. 2) Wave of the 60s. Khrushchev thaw period. These are the first symptoms of the decomposition of the administrative-command system. (Artists, Bards, Hipsters). 3) Wave. 1986 The existence of informal groups was recognized officially. Informals began to be identified by various somatic means (clothing, slang, badge attributes, manners, morality, etc.), with the help of which the young were fenced off from the adult community. Defending your right to an inner life. Causes of occurrence. - A challenge to society, a protest. - Calling the family, misunderstanding in the family. - Unwillingness to be like everyone else. - The desire will be affirmed in the new environment. - Draw attention to yourself. - Undeveloped sphere of organizing leisure activities for young people in the country. - Copying Western structures, trends, culture. - Religious ideological beliefs. - Tribute to fashion. - Lack of purpose in life. - Influence of criminal structures, hooliganism. - Age hobbies. 2.History of occurrence. Informal associations (contrary to popular belief) are not an invention of our days. They have a rich history. Of course, modern amateur formations differ significantly from their predecessors. However, in order to understand the nature of today's informals, let's turn to the history of their appearance. Various associations of people with common views on nature, art, with a common type of behavior have been known since ancient times.

It suffices to recall the numerous philosophical schools of antiquity, orders of chivalry, literary and artistic schools of the Middle Ages, clubs of modern times, and so on. People have always had a desire to unite.

Only in a team, - wrote K. Marx and F. Engels, - does an individual receive the means that enable him to develop his inclinations all-round, and, therefore, only in a team is personal freedom possible. "In pre-revolutionary Russia, there were hundreds of different societies, clubs, associations created on various grounds on the basis of voluntary participation.However, the vast majority of them had a closed, caste character.At the same time, for example, the emergence and existence of numerous workers' circles, created on the initiative of the workers themselves, clearly testified to their desire to satisfy their social and cultural needs Already in the first years of Soviet power, fundamentally new public organizations appeared that gathered millions of supporters of the new system in their ranks and set as their goal active participation in the construction of a socialist state. society "Down with literacy". (ODN), which existed from 1923 to 1936. Among the first 93 members of the society were V.I. Lenin, N.K. Krupskaya, A.V. Lunacharsky and other prominent figures of the young Soviet state. There were similar organizations in Ukraine, Georgia and other union republics. In 1923, a voluntary society "Friend of Children" appeared, which worked under the leadership of the children's commission under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky. The activities of the society, held under the slogan "Everything to help children!", Stopped in the early 30s, when it was basically done away with child homelessness and homelessness. In 1922, the International Organization for Assistance to the Fighters of the Revolution (MOPR) was created - the prototype of the Soviet peace fund, which was formed in 1961. In addition to those named, dozens of other public formations operated in the country: the Union of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the USSR, OSVOD, the Down with Crime Society, the All-Union Anti-Alcohol Society, the All-Union Society of Inventors and others. In the first years of Soviet power, numerous creative associations began to emerge. In 1918, the All-Russian Union of Workers' Writers, the All-Russian Union of Writers and the All-Russian Union of Poets were created. In 1919, a free philosophical association was organized, among the founding members of which were A. Bely, A. Blok, V. Meyerhold. This process continued into the twenties. For the period 1920-1925. dozens of literary groups arose in the country uniting hundreds and thousands of poets and writers: "October", "Left Front of Art", "Pass", "Young Guard" and others. A lot of futuristic groupings appeared ("The Art of the Commune", the Far Eastern "Creativity", the Ukrainian "Askanfut"). Expressing its attitude towards various literary movements and groups, the Central Committee of the RCP(b) in 1925 emphasized that "the party should speak out for the free competition of various groups and movements in this area.

Any other solution to the issue would be executed - a bureaucratic pseudo-solution. In the same way, the legalized literary publishing business of any group or literary organization is unacceptable by decree or party resolution. "In the post-revolutionary period, favorable conditions arose for the creation of a number of new art associations. The largest of them was the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, which included artists - In addition, at the same time, the Society of Easel Painters, the Society of Moscow Artists, etc. were formed. Myaskovsky and others.In 1923, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) was organized, in 1925 - the production team of students - composers of the Moscow Conservatory ("PROCOLL") and a number of others.The rapid expansion of the network of various associations for the first time after the revolutionary years made it possible to hope for their distance the most rapid development. However, the path that amateur public formations have traveled turned out to be by no means cloudless.

In the second half of the twenties, the process of consolidation of artists and literature began: groups and movements began to merge into larger formations on the principles of a single political platform. Thus, for example, the Federation of Soviet Writers (1925) and the Federation of Soviet Artists (1927) emerged. At the same time, the process of disintegration of many literary and artistic associations was taking place. In 1929-1931. The Literary Center of the Constructivists "LCK", the literary groups "October", "Pass" and others disappeared from the cultural life of the society. Finally, such associations ceased to exist after the adoption of the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On the restructuring of literary organizations" (April 1932). in accordance with which groupings were liquidated and united creative unions of writers, architects, and artists were created.

By the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of July 10, 1932, the "Regulations on voluntary societies and their unions" were adopted, depriving many public organizations of their status and thereby contributing to their liquidation (to this day this document is the only one that gives characteristics and signs public organizations). After the adoption of these decisions for more than two decades, new public organizations, apart from sports ones, were practically not created in the country. The only exception was the Soviet Peace Committee (1949). Then came the period of the so-called Khrushchev thaw. So in 1956, such public organizations as the United Nations Association in the USSR, the Committee of Youth Organizations of the USSR, the Committee of Soviet Women, etc. were created. The years of stagnation were also stagnant for public associations. Then only three public organizations appeared: the Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation in 1971, the All-Union Copyright Agency in 1973 and the All-Union Voluntary Society of Book Lovers in 1974. Such, in brief, is the history of amateur social formations. It allows us to draw some conclusions. It is not difficult to see that the rapid development of various associations coincides with periods of expansion of democracy. This implies the fundamental conclusion that the level of democratization of society is largely determined by the number of voluntary formations, the degree of activity of their members. In turn, another conclusion follows from this: the appearance of modern non-formals is not the result of someone's evil will, it is quite natural. Moreover, we can safely assume that as democracy expands further, the number of informal formations and their participants will increase. The emergence of modern informals. First, we note that the majority of voluntary public formations have ceased to reflect the interests of their members. The increase in the number and size of public organizations was accompanied by an increase in the passive part of ordinary members, who limited their participation in the work of a particular society to the payment of membership dues. The policy issues of the societies, the procedure for spending their money, representation in party and Soviet bodies depended less and less on the bulk of the members of the societies and more and more concentrated in the hands of the respective apparatuses and the boards obedient to them. It was these circumstances that to a large extent contributed to the rapid development of various alternative amateur formations, whose members set themselves tasks consonant with the goals of a number of societies, acted more dynamically, much more actively, gaining more and more popularity among various segments of the population. The main, determining factor in their development, undoubtedly, was the processes of democratization and glasnost, which not only awakened millions of people to vigorous activity, but also set new tasks for them.

The solution of these problems within the framework of the former social formations was either difficult or simply impossible, and, as a result, new amateur associations appeared. And, finally, the removal of a number of unjustified restrictions on citizens' associations has played its role. The result of all this naturally was a rapid growth in the number of amateur public formations and an increase in the activity of their members. Today again, as in the first post-revolutionary years, the active life position of millions of Soviet people began to be expressed in specific organizational forms, and most importantly, began to be embodied in their real deeds. This is what I'm going to talk about. But first, let's take a closer look at the various types of informal associations. In the beginning, let's say a few words about the main object of our attention - about modern informal associations, i.e. voluntary amateur formations that arose on the initiative "from below" and express the most diverse interests of the people included in them. They are very heterogeneous and differ from each other in their social and political orientation, organizational structure, and scale of activity. In order to give some more or less ordered picture of such formations, we can divide them into politicized and non-politicized.

Some of them do not really have a political orientation. For others, it is barely noticeable, and they only occasionally, due to some specific circumstances, come to political issues, which, nevertheless, do not form the basis of their activities. Still others are directly occupied with political problems. As for the politicized amateur public formations, the majority of them seek to improve, improve the political system of our society through the development of democratic institutions, the formation of a rule of law state and similar means, without changing its fundamental foundations. But among them there are associations that deliberately set the goal of changing the existing system. Thus, in the second group one can more or less definitely single out socially progressive and asocial, anti-socialist formations.

3. Classification of informals

Informal associations are not registered anywhere, they do not have their own charter or regulation. Terms of membership in them are not specified, the number of groups fluctuates. However, informals do exist. They can successfully fit into the process of democratization of society, or they can become a destabilizing factor, acting from the positions of naked criticism and open opposition to law enforcement agencies and authorities. Let's consider some of them, from my point of view, typical associations of this kind.

3.1 Asocial

They stand apart from social problems, but do not pose a threat to society.

They mainly perform recreational functions. Examples: punks motto “we live here, now and today”, majors are people who preach the theory of highlifeism “high standard of living” - these are people who know how to make money, they are attracted to the Western way of life. Among the majors are Americans, Finns. Rockobbilis are fans of rock and roll - the motto is "combining grace with free behavior", bikers, hippies, etc. These young people often attract the attention of passers-by. Someone with an extravagant hairstyle, someone with a painted denim jacket, someone with an earring in his ear, and sometimes more than one. They stand near the entrances to popular youth cafes, crowd at the entrance to the subway, sit on the lawns of city squares, loitering with a detached look along the streets of cities. They call themselves “people”, hairasts and consider themselves free people, independent of parents and society. V. Nikolsky, nickname Yufo: “We are able to approach some kind of “hairy” on the street. I never saw him, I just walk up and say, “Hi!” And he answers me the same.

They say: you are some strange people. Why do you know each other? You trust people. They can rob you, they can rob, steal, and so on - you understand? ... This only says that we are the germ of the future in our society, because that theft, the desire to steal, rob - this, apparently, belongs to the past and must disappear. I think that this is precisely the distinctive feature of the “hairy”... We think that even now the “hairy” have had a huge impact on the evolution of society. In particular, Soviet rock music, which is now so much talked about, was mostly created by “hairy”. These people are capable of sacrificing the latter. With the latest clothes and other things in order to create a truly youth culture in the country. I note that the desire to be original, which many young men and women sin, has its own history. Many seem to have long forgotten, and the youth of the 80s probably never knew that the French poet Charles Baudelaire dyed his hair purple. However, this did not prevent him from writing beautiful poems. Fundamental anti-aestheticism was adopted at the beginning of the 20th century by Russian futurists. Proposing in their manifesto to “throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and others off the ship of modernity”, V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, D. Burliuk and A. Kruchenykh deliberately threw a rough challenge to society and the literary trend that dominated at that time - symbolism. V. Kamensky recalled: “Here they all three appear in a crowded audience of the Polytechnic Museum, buzzing with voices, sit down at a table with twenty glasses of hot tea: Mayakovsky in a top hat on the back of his head and a yellow jacket, Burliuk in a frock coat, with a painted face, Kamensky with yellow stripes on his jacket and an airplane painted on his forehead ... The audience is making noise, yelling, whistling, clapping their hands - it's fun. The police are at a loss.” In the older generation, the claims of original young people, their attempts at “novelty” cause a smile. Who doesn't love fast driving? In the mid-80s, in the capital of our soviet homeland, along with heavy metal music, strong guys appeared, riding motorcycles, despising law enforcement officers and traffic rules. Then they were called in the same way as fans of heavy music - rockers, but it would be more correct to call them "bikers". Who are they? The movement was not as numerous as, for example, rock music lovers, but it was distinguished by a significant organization - outsiders were not allowed into a narrow circle, new people underwent the strictest selection, and only a physically developed person who was able to defend his rights in a fight and beliefs. The main emphasis of the newly-minted motorcyclists was on strength - many hours of hard training in gyms made them so powerful that opponents of any deviations from the norm looked warily at groups of broad-shouldered speed lovers. Bikers, in turn, loved heavy metal, dressed in the same style (leather jackets, berets) and served as a kind of guard at heavy music concerts. Many bikers were just transformed metalheads, but if lovers of "gravity" often studied at vocational schools, then only a more or less wealthy person could become a biker - a motorcycle, gasoline, beer and complete independence require money. One of the symbols of bikers was the Confederate flag, borrowed from the history of the United States and symbolizing complete and absolute freedom.

3.2 Antisocial

Antisocial - a pronounced aggressive character, the desire to assert oneself at the expense of others, moral deafness. However, the activities of the groups described above pale in comparison to the “activities” of the youth “gangs”. Youths with a swastika. I think everyone knows that there are those among us today who shout: “Heil Hitler!”, wear a swastika and use completely fascist methods to protect their “ideals”. Who wears the swastika? This is not about the “veterans” of the Wehrmacht or the SS living out their lives. These are not young idiots who are ready to put on any trinket, as long as it is unusual and shiny. They were born many years after the victory over fascism, which we so dearly inherited, they are our contemporaries, calling themselves fascists, acting like fascists and proud of it. These are skinheads - "skinheads" (from the English "skin" skin and "head" - head). They are easy enough to stand out from the crowd. Shaved heads, all-black clothes, trousers tucked into boots. Most often they move in a group of 5-10 people, but you can also meet loners. During the day they try not to appear on the streets, but the evening is their time.

They call themselves “fascists”, “fascists”, “Nazis”, “Nazis”, National Front” and refer to the followers of Adolf Hitler. He is the theorist of their movement. Some are familiar with individual sayings and works

Nietzsche and Spengler. For the majority, the "theoretical" basis is a poor set of Nazi dogmas: there are "superior races" and subhumans; most of the “subhumans” must be destroyed, and the rest turned into slaves; the one who is stronger is right, etc. The Gestapo father Muller "has worthy students who, in the manifestation of the" innate human quality "- cruelty, perhaps surpassed their teachers. Russian Independent Institute of Social and Ethnic Problems in November-December 1997 by order of the Moscow office of the Foundation. F. Ebert conducted an all-Russian representative sociological study on the topic: “The youth of the new Russia: what is it like? What does he live? What are you striving for?” The object of the study, conducted according to a special sociological questionnaire (formalized interview), included two groups: the main one, young people aged 17 to 26 inclusive (a total of 1974 people were interviewed) and the control group, representing the older generation aged from 40 to 60 years (a total of 774 people were surveyed) The overwhelming majority of Russians (88.3%) have a negative attitude towards people who use fascist symbols and profess the ideas of fascism, including 62.9% of them - extremely negatively. Only 1.2% of Russians have a positive attitude towards fascist symbols and fascists (including 0.4% very approvingly); 10.5% of Russians are “indifferent”. The main age "centers" where supporters of fascist ideology exist are youth groups under 26 years old. But even in this age group, they do not make up the number that would allow us to talk about the widespread “fascist infection” in the minds and behavior of modern Russian youth. If we talk about socio-professional groups, then most of all those who approve of the manifestations of fascism are among university students, the unemployed and workers. Based on the results of the study, it seems that there is every reason to conclude that, despite the presence of separate “foci” where there are supporters of the fascist ideology among young people, there is no serious scale for the spread of this phenomenon in Russia.

3.3 Prosocial

Prosocial informal clubs or associations are socially positive and benefit society. These associations benefit society and solve social problems of a cultural and protective nature (protection of monuments, architectural monuments, restoration of temples, and solve environmental problems). Greens - call themselves various associations of ecological orientation that exist almost everywhere, the activity and popularity of which is steadily growing. Among the most acute problems, the problem of environmental protection is not the last. For her decision and took the "green". Environmental consequences of construction projects, location and operation of large enterprises without taking into account their impact on nature and human health. Various public committees, groups, sections launched a struggle for the removal of such enterprises from cities or their closure. The first such committee for the protection of Lake Baikal was established in 1967. It included representatives of the creative intelligentsia. Largely due to social movements, the “project of the century” for the transfer of the waters of the northern rivers to Central Asia was rejected. Activists of informal groups collected hundreds of thousands of signatures under a petition to cancel this project. The same decision was made regarding the design and construction of a nuclear power plant in the Krasnodar Territory. The number of environmental informal associations, as a rule, is small: from 10-15 to 70-100 people. Their social and age composition is heterogeneous. Their small size, environmental groups more than compensate for the activity, which attracts to them large numbers of people who speak in support of various environmental initiatives. Also, pro-social informal associations include associations for the protection of monuments, architectural monuments, the society for the protection of animals. 3.4 Artistic non-formals. They say every generation has its own music. If this position is true, then the question arises: the music of which generation is rock. Rock artists sang about the problems that worried the rebellious youth: about the violation of the civil rights of the disadvantaged, about racial prejudice and the persecution of dissidents, about the need for social reforms, about the expansion of the anti-war movement in connection with the US aggression in Vietnam, and much more. They were listened to, they were understood, they sang along. One of the most popular songs of the Alisa group, My Generation, was sung by the whole audience. “Tomorrow may never come!” - American guys who were sent to die in Vietnam repeated after Janis Joplin. Rock performers sang about what was close and understandable to their listeners. All the singers and musicians who touched on the topic of the day on a global scale, in the refrains, gave a motto for action to solve this problem. This baton was picked up by many well-known pop singers, for example, Michael Jackson about the problems of wars, or Russian performer Grigory Leps about the games of the Russian soul. Amateur artists are no less popular with young people. However, the situation with them is not so good. Muscovites and guests of the capital are accustomed to exhibitions and sales of paintings by amateur artists on the Arbat, in Izmailovsky Park. Residents of St. Petersburg have the opportunity to see a similar exhibition on Nevsky Prospekt next to the Catherine's garden. There are similar exhibitions in other cities. They exist quite officially, but they allow solving an insignificant part of the problems facing this type of amateur creativity. Strictly speaking, only one thing is giving young artists the opportunity to exhibit and sell their paintings. The range of problems that they do not solve is quite wide. First of all, they should include the lack of a single center that could become a kind of creative workshop for amateur artists. There is a need to establish a close connection between amateur artists and local organizations of the Union of Artists, which has not been so far. Such a community would make it possible to significantly enrich the art of amateur artists, raise their professional level, and help to reveal brighter talents and talents. The issue of informing the public about the activities of amateur artists has not been resolved, there is no discussion of their paintings, the directions of creativity they develop. Finally, the exhibitions look good in the summer, but make an extremely miserable impression in the winter: amateur artists do not have a roof over their heads (in the literal sense).

Conclusion

This concludes our acquaintance with informals. It is difficult for me to judge how successful it was, but it is good that it took place. For today's youth, rest and leisure is the leading form of life, it has replaced work as the most important need. Satisfaction with leisure now determines satisfaction with life in general. Here there is no selectivity in cultural behavior, stereotypes and group conformism (agreement) prevail. It has its own language, special fashion, art and style of communication. More and more, the youth subculture is becoming an informal culture, the carriers of which are informal youth groups. Young people are motivated to "go into informals" by inner loneliness, the need for friends, conflicts at the place of study and at home, distrust of adults, protest against lies. Almost every eighth comes to the group because "did not know how to live on." I would like to remind you that I have only talked about the most massive and well-known informal associations, and the assessments I have given are valid only at the time of writing the abstract. Of course, they can and probably will change as the informal associations themselves change. The nature of these changes depends not only on informals, but to a large extent on us - on our support or our rejection of this or that association. The youth subculture is largely surrogate in nature - it is filled with artificial substitutes for real values: extended apprenticeship as pseudo-independence, imitation of the relationship of adults with a system of domination and domination of strong personalities, ghostly participation in the adventures of screen and literary heroes instead of realizing one's own aspirations, finally, flight or rejection of social reality instead of its reconstruction and improvement. Having chosen such a complex problem for the abstract, I tried to show that the time had come to turn to the informal people. Today they are a real and rather powerful force that can promote or hinder the development of society and the state.

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Large social groups include formal (official) and informal

1 DemidovaA. Running line of memory. -M., 2000.-S. 175.

nye (informal) youth associations. Young people are girls and boys of adolescence and youth (from about 14 to 25 years).

Official (formal) groups are groups recognized by society associated with some state or public organizations. For example, a school and, accordingly, school classes are official (formal) groups that are specially created by the state in order to educate children. The Ministry of Education decides at what age children should be taught, how many years to teach, how many students should be in one class, what exactly they should do, etc. Formal groups can also include the country's youth hockey team, children's or youth choir at the music school and many others.

The official youth associations included pioneer and Komsomol organizations. Pioneer was a children's communication

nistic organization, whose members were pioneers - children 9-13 years old. The Komsomol is the vanguard of the young builders of communism. Members of this organization could be teenagers and young people from 14 to 28 years old.

These organizations had (and still have) a clear ideological focus and exist under the leadership of the Communist Party.

Now there are few such organizations, but quite recently they were an obligatory component of any educational institution: schools, colleges, universities. Komsomol organizations were created at all enterprises, in all areas of the country's cultural, social, economic and other life.

Belonging to a Komsomol organization was considered prestigious in Soviet society, in addition, it contributed to the promotion of Komsomol members up the ladder of education, career, and power.

Informal (informal)

no one specially organizes and controls groups of young people, they arise and exist as if on their own. Why do they arise?

Adolescence and adolescence is a special period in a person’s life, when you need to independently (and not from the words of parents or teachers) understand who you are, what you are, where and where you are going in life, why you live at all, etc. etc. It is very difficult to answer all questions, and it is the group that can help to do this. It’s hard to understand what you are personally, but in a group it’s easy to understand what “we” are like: we dress like this, we joke like this, we love this, but we fight with this, we don’t look like these. Such is the "we", and therefore such is the "I" - this is the logic of finding a way to understand yourself in an informal way.

group. Since the teenager chooses an informal group himself, he perceives all these ideas not as imposed by someone, but as his own. Sometimes a teenager, a young man tries himself, searches for himself, joining one or another informal group of peers, trying himself in one or another role. Psychologists call this role-playing, seeing the process as an important way to "find yourself".

In a group of peers, adolescents, as a rule, easily master patterns of behavior that correspond to the ethnic, religious, regional, social, and professional affiliation of group members.

Youth is a huge part of the people of any society. She not only differs from both adults and children, but also emphasizes this in every possible way. It is very important for her to be original, difficult, such that people pay attention to her.

So, in the summer of 1968, thousands of young people took to the streets of Paris, who behaved violently and terribly frightened not only other residents of the French capital, but all of Europe, the entire Western world, especially since a wave of such youth actions swept through many cities in different cities. countries. The essence of the slogans, statements, declarations that the demonstrators came out with was a statement that there are such special people - young people who are not satisfied with the orders invented and preached by adults, who want to live differently and intend to rebuild the world in their own way.

Young people declared themselves as representatives of a special culture - youth. Such a culture is called a youth subculture (a special culture within the existing traditional culture of a particular country). The youth subculture presented to the world its ideas about what is important and not important in life, new rules of behavior and communication for everyone.

ideas, new musical tastes, new fashion, new ideals, a new lifestyle in general. \y

Young people are united in various informal groups. No one knows how many of them are informal youth groups. They are all very different. Some of them exist for a short time, others for a very long time. There are groups that either disappear or reappear. No one can describe them all to one. And even if I could do it today, then at the hour when you pick up this textbook, such information will already be completely outdated, because by this time, completely new groups not known today will probably appear. But nevertheless, we will describe some of the most numerous informal youth groups at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Let us consider them as examples in the development of youth associations.

You must have heard about such bands as hippies, punks, rockers, mods, skins, lubers, etc. etc. and know something about them. What are these groups? Where do they come from and why are they so popular? In the next paragraph, we will try to answer these questions.

Questions and tasks

1. What is the difference between formal and informal youth associations?

2. Ask your parents, grandparents about what they know from their experience about the life of the pioneer and Komsomol detachments.

3. Why do youth informal associations belong to large social groups?

4. What do you know about Scouts? What type of group - formal or informal - do they belong to?

3.1. Youth lifestyle groups

In the 1950s, young people appeared who were called “dudes” in our country.

Word“dude” was formed from the French word “style”, which has long entered the Russian language, meaning: the writer’s style, method, technique, manner, taste, etc. The word “stylish” also originates from here - sustained in a certain style.

Tight trousers, bright shoes with thick soles, colorful shirts and scarves around the neck instead of ties, a special gait, dancing to completely different music ... In our country, dudes were disapproved of, they were often expelled from institutes, cartoons were drawn on them in satirical magazines , ridiculed and condemned. The satirist writer D. G. Belyaev, in his feuilleton from the series “Types that are fading into the past,” shared with readers his impressions of meeting such a “dude” in one of the student clubs.

“... A young man appeared at the door of the hall - he had an amazingly ridiculous appearance: the back of the jacket was bright orange, and the sleeves and floors were green; I had never seen such wide canary-pea-colored trousers even in the years of the famous flare; his shoes were an ingenious combination of black lacquer and red suede... Stilyagi call themselves such types, in their bird language. They developed their own special style - in clothes, conversations, manners. The main thing in their "style" is not to look like ordinary people. And, as you can see, in such a striving they reach the point of absurdity, the point of absurdity. The dandy is familiar with the fashions of all countries and times, but does not know ... Griboyedov. He studied in detail all foxes, tangos, rumbas, lindas, but Michurin confuses astronomy with gastronomy with Mendeleev. Stilyagi, as it were, flutter over the surface of life ”(“ Crocodile ”, No. 7, 1949).

At the end of the 60s. of the last century, hippies have become a symbol of youth subculture.

Hippies - young people with long uncut hair in jeans and canvas shirts - did not just reject the cultural norms and values ​​\u200b\u200bin the society, for example, money as a measure of well-being and success in life. They preached and practiced other ways of growing up: play, not work; nomadic, not

Hippie group.

rich life, life, and not a cozy home nest; life in a group of like-minded people, not marriage; peace, not war.

Vasily Aksenov in his work “Non-Stop Round the Clock” describes his meeting with one of the hippies in this way.

“The first hippies sailed from California, unkempt, shaggy, in bells, beads, bracelets. Then they were talked about at all corners and in all houses.

A slender, smart guy with huge, curled hair in small ringlets ..., so be it, agreed to talk with a Russian prose writer ....

Our movement is cutting ties with society, - the big-headed Ronnie (we will call him that) told me. - We are leaving all public institutions. We are free.

We leave society not to despise it aside, but to improve it! We want to change society in our generation! How to change? Well, at least make it more tolerant of unfamiliar faces, objects, phenomena. We want to tell society - you are not pigs, but flowers... The eternal scourge of humanity is intolerance towards strangers, towards an unaccepted combination of colors, towards unaccepted words, manners, ideas. “Children of flowers”, appearing on the streets of your cities, will already say with their very appearance: be tolerant of us, just as we are tolerant of you. Do not shy away from someone else's skin color or shirt, someone else's singing, someone else's "isms". Listen to what they tell you, speak for yourself - they will listen to you ... Love is freedom! All people are flowers! .. "

Hippie groups were formed mainly among student youth. Hippies believed (and still believe) that every person is creative, that he is fundamentally free and must get rid of the prejudices of philistinism, a mercantile attitude to life. The essence of their activity is in intensive communication, in helping each other in difficult psychological situations. Real hippies strive to live in "communes" (in which they try to achieve a high level of spiritual interaction, emancipation. One way or another, hippies want to develop humanistic values ​​​​from their members (kindness, love for one's neighbor, equality, freedom, etc.).

It was among the hippies that the movement to protect animals, for the equality of women and men, the rescue of animals, the struggle for the environment and the Greenpeace movement itself, whose goal is to fight for the conservation of nature, flora and fauna of the Earth, was born (Greenpeace translated from English - green world) .

10. Order No. 3480.

Greenpeace action.

Later, many other youth associations arose: punks, mods, rockers, etc., etc. It is interesting that once they have arisen, these groups, as a rule, have not disappeared. Those young people who entered them at the beginning grew up, acquired a profession, got married and, thus, became ordinary adults, and others, young ones, came in their place. Sometimes, however, people remain for a long time at the mercy of some youth group, or rather its subculture, and then you can see an “elderly hippie” on the street - a cheerful grandfather in jeans and long gray hair.

Perhaps the most picturesque are the representatives of the group punks. The main distinguishing feature of a real punk, of course, is the hairstyle: most often the hair is dyed, the head is partially shaved, and the remaining hair looks like a dinosaur comb or a parrot crest.

Punks are trying to change the relationship between people through a variety of theatrical, ridiculing outdated, in their opinion, norms of behavior and communication. Street performances and shows are typical for them. Relations in the punk community are built on a rather rigid principle: there are recognized leaders and members of the group who obey them. Punks are rude and cynical towards girls and dismissive of the law and the criminal code. They don't even value their own lives.

The name of the community with k and n about in - or skinheads comes from the English word skinheads, which in translation means skinheads. A shaved head is a bright external distinguishing feature of the representatives of this youth association. Skins wear heavy work boots and jeans with suspenders.

This group originated in the UK in the second half of the 60s of the XX century. Groups of skinheads gathered on a territorial basis, showing extreme aggressiveness towards those whom they considered the sources of their troubles. Most often, their aggression was directed against immigrants and blacks. Skins often attacked and beat them. The love of skins for football is famous. In this fanatical love and in the constant fights and battles that they arranged and arrange after football matches, they show, as it seems to them, their “strong masculine spirit”.

Fight of English fans after a football match.

Russian skins are outwardly similar to foreign ones: the same shaved heads and deliberately rough

clothes. They are also quite aggressive, especially towards those whom they consider to be non-natives, visitors whose skin color they do not like.

In many ways, the so-called lyubers resemble skins. The name of this domestic group comes from the name of the village of Lyubertsy near Moscow, where this association first arose.

The basis of groups of amateurs are usually students of the eighth-ninth grades, and the leaders are young people aged 20-25. Sometimes there are adults in the groups of amateurs. There are few of them in such groups, but their authority is very high.

Lubers build their activities on the tactics of "aggressive" intervention in current events. For example, if something seems to them harmful to society - say, “Western influence”, manifested in the image of a hippie or punk, then their own active action (“action”) is taken: threats, beatings, haircuts, etc. At the dawn of their life as an informal group, the Lubers instilled fear in Moscow schoolchildren by coming to Moscow and arranging grandiose fights.

Extreme expression of aggressive w anti-humanist positions are distinguished by youth associations, the basis of which is the ideology of nationalism and fascism. These groups bring together young people and adolescents who are not satisfied with the situation in our society, their place in it. They are dissatisfied with the growth of peaceful moods of people and liberalism. For informals of this kind, the main thing is the physical impact on those who are objectionable to them, in other words, beating.

A group of young neo-fascists.

The structure of groups close in their ideology to fascist ones is complex. They are characterized by a clear hierarchy (leaders, members of the group close to the leaders, executors of small assignments, etc.). Usually there are clear rituals of greeting, initiation into the group. It is not uncommon for group members to wear the same paramilitary uniform with their own insignia.

This category of youth gives a great increase in crime, terrorizes other teenagers, youth. Membership in fascist youth organizations testifies to the complete moral underdevelopment of the young people who go there. These organizations are especially cynical and immoral in our country, where virtually every family suffered from fascism during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

Hippies, skins, punks and some other bands are called lifestyle groups because

the whole life of the members of these groups is determined by their belonging to one or another association. But there are also such youth groups in which teenagers and young men are united only by some common interests.

3.2. Groups by interests and hobbies

A typical example of such groups are fans of musical rock ensembles. Widely known, say, supporters of Heavy metal rock, the so-called metalheads. Generally speaking, they cannot be called an association, since they lack any structure, common centers, and generally recognized leaders. Metalheads gather in small teams, uniting in large crowds only at concerts. They are not aggressive unless provoked. Their appearance is often defiant: leather clothes, richly decorated

Rock concert.

metal fittings - bulky rivets on the arms, chains, etc. Among the metalheads, fans of different directions and different orientations of hard rock stand out.

Or another example. You probably know the musical group "The Beatles" - the idols of the youth of the 60s. But even today there are quite numerous groups of Beatles worshiping this wonderful four.

The Beatles: Paul McCartney, John Harrison, Ringo Star, John Lennon.

There is a large youth community of fans of Viktor Tsoi and his Kino group. Viktor Tsoi was very respectful and reverent towards the people who came to hear and see him. He wrote: “It is impossible to get a complete picture of the band only from its records. And since we don’t have the opportunity to shoot videos, we can only show ourselves at concerts, and this is very important.”

Quite different interests unite young people in a group of rockers. They ride motorcycles

decorated with various paraphernalia and sometimes are very aggressive and dangerous to others.

Rocker clothes - leather jacket, worn jeans, rough big shoes, long hair combed back, sometimes tattoos. The jacket, as a rule, is decorated with badges and inscriptions. The motorcycle is also decorated with inscriptions, symbols and images. A motorcycle is a symbol of freedom, power and intimidation, the main source of strong sensations. At the same time, technical knowledge and driving skills are highly valued among rockers. When driving, special techniques are widely used

Rockers on motorcycles.

we control a motorcycle - riding on the rear wheel or without hands, group races are often arranged at high speed. The main form of association of rockers is motorcycle clubs.

Rockers are fond of rock music, listening to records is one of the main activities of rockers. They make extensive use of nicknames instead of real names. “Physical” methods of communication are popular with them, that is, all kinds of brawls, pushes, blows, attacks of an aggressive type. This is a necessary component of the rocker style, allowing them to demonstrate and prove their "masculinity".

Interest groups can meet young people with a variety of political and worldview orientations.

Such interests can be connected not only with music or sports. There are youth associations that focus on certain socio-political goals, tasks, and actions. For example, the struggle for peace.

Socio-political groups are not too numerous and widespread, as a rule, in big cities. Members of these groups aim to promote certain political and sometimes religious views. The socio-political groups of adolescents and young men are seriously influenced by the corresponding informal organizations of adults. In other words, these groups turn out to be, as it were, a youth branch of some parties or movements of adults. Often, the guys do not even know where these or those materials, information, opinions came from, but they are willing to pick them up, following the fashion.

In many such groups, adults may generally predominate, and high school students perform auxiliary work as secretaries, couriers, and distributors of campaign materials.

Let us also name ecological-ethical groups. Such groups are common in large cities, often in environmentally disadvantaged areas. Ecological and ethical associations are of different ages, but most of them have many schoolchildren; There are also groups for teenagers. Here are the "green patrols", consisting of adult leaders, and groups of the ecology of culture and human community, and groups that have arisen on any specific occasion (struggle against the construction of a "harmful" enterprise, saving a historical monument).

The ecological and ethical movement has developed a certain ideology, although not the same for all associations, but nevertheless focused on achieving harmony between man and the environment.

common environment, understood extremely broadly: not only nature, but also the urban environment, and human communication.

Participation in a variety of peer groups is usually perceived by the teenager himself, a boy or a girl, as simply a very interesting and enjoyable pastime.

However, an informal group really teaches a lot - not always, however, only good things. It is in the group that a teenager, as a rule, is enlightened about fashionable musical trends, finds a style of clothing suitable for him and improves it, learns to behave in a certain way with members of the opposite sex, hones youth slang, learns a lot of things that you cannot talk about with your parents. and teachers.

Thus, an informal group of peers sets not only the external style of behavior, but also largely influences the development of the personality of a young person in adolescence and youth.

Therefore, the role of informal youth groups in the life of a young person can be different: from very beneficial, useful to destructive. Given the power of group influence on a teenager, adults sometimes use youth informal associations (and, accordingly, those who are members of them) to achieve their own - sometimes truly terrible - goals. These are drug dealers who create a market for drug consumption, and leaders of religious sects who hunt for human souls, political "fuhrers". The latter at all times included carriers of nationalist

ski, fascist ideologies. In recent years, skinheads and other similar groups professing racial hatred, up to the idea of ​​physical destruction of those who do not like skin color, nose shape, etc., have become their “material” in the first place.

It is important not to let yourself be fooled, not to become a blind tool, material in the wrong hands, a means to achieve other people's goals.

Think about which group you are or might be in.

Questions and tasks

2. Think about the pros and cons of communicating in an informal group?

3. Why do you think youth associations arise?

4. If you want, tell us about any youth association that you are interested in. It would be nice to illustrate your message with pictures, photographs, audio and video materials, etc.

4. TV VIEWERS AND RADIO LISTENERS AS A LARGE SOCIAL GROUP

4.1. Communication through the media

Television, radio, newspapers, magazines - mass media (media for short). Their main task is to give people quick, up-to-date information about everything that happens in the world.

They are also called the means of mass communication, that is, mass communication. This refers to such communication, which is carried out with the help of technical means - complex television and radio equipment, printing presses, etc.

Thanks to modern means of mass communication, information can be transmitted over any distance, gathering huge audiences in different countries and continents, neither borders nor distances are important for these media. The most operational are, of course, radio, television and the Internet.

The media audience is a short-term, spontaneous group.

However, this group is special.

First of all, it exists only within the limits of watching or listening to a certain program, reading this or that newspaper, this or that magazine. It can include both those who consciously prefer this particular channel of mass communication, this program, this particular magazine, as well as those who turned to them by accident.

Spontaneity, disorder - the most important characteristic of this group. A person can enter this group at any time by turning on the radio or TV, selecting a specific radio station, channel or program. He can immediately switch to another, simply by switching the channel, turning off the TV, putting aside the newspaper.

Another important feature of such a large group is the combination of individual perception of a program, newspaper or magazine article and, at the same time, manifestations of typical, often even stereo-

typical characteristics of perception characteristic of one or another stable large group.

Therefore, for a better understanding of the needs, needs, characteristics of the perception of the audience, special psychological and sociological studies are carried out.

Psychological and sociological research is aimed at clarifying the needs of the audience as a whole and its members of certain large social groups (for example, the perception of television news by the entire audience, young men and women, workers, pensioners, etc.).

Modern researchers identify a number of basic needs of radio listeners and TV viewers as a large social group:

1) the need for orientation in the world around and involvement in what is happening in it;

2) the need to belong to a certain social group, identifying oneself with it, confirming one's own values, views, ideas. The impact of this need is especially noticeable during various election campaigns. However, in other cases, the impact of this need can be very significant. For example, a survey of MTV viewers showed that many of them, including this channel, feel they belong to today's youth, "to advanced" peers;

3) the need to communicate with a famous person, an interesting interlocutor, the desire to know his opinion, agree or argue with him.

V. Vysotsky wrote with some irony that the TV screen allows you to meet at home with world famous people:

There is a TV

My house is not an apartment,

I mourn the world with all sorrow.

I breathe with my chest

With all the air of the world

I see Nixon with his mistress.

Here you go - a foreign chapter

Straight eye to eye, head to head.

Slightly moved the stool with his foot

And turned out to be face to face.

How to convince me stubborn Nastya -

Nastya wants to go to the cinema like Saturday.

Nastya insists that I was imbued with passion

To the stupid idiot box.

Well, yes, I got into

I'll go to the apartment

Look at the houses of Nixon and Georges Pompidou 2 .

4) the need to know other people and oneself, in comparison with others. Television, radio, newspapers, magazines tell us a lot about the world, about people. By getting to know others, we get to know ourselves better. Many viewers watch intellectual television games, testing their erudition, their ingenuity. Often teenagers, watching youth series, programs about peers, seem to be looking into a mirror that reflects who they are, how they behave in a given situation, etc.;

5) the need for rest, distraction from everyday affairs, entertainment, emotional release, relaxation;

6) in some cases, the need of lonely people for communication.

1 Nixon Richard - 37th President of the United States in 1968-1974.

2 Georges Pompidou - President of France from 1969-1974.

Questions and tasks

1. What is the difference between communication through mass media and interpersonal communication?

2. What are the characteristics of TV viewers and radio listeners as a large group?

3. Remember 2-3 programs that you usually watch. Why do you think you like them? Explain this based on the description of the basic needs of the viewers, which were discussed in the paragraph. If you have a different opinion, justify it.

4.2. How does the media affect the audience?

Television, radio influence their audience not only by what they say, but also by how they do it. A famous saying says that there are 50 ways to say "yes" and only one way to write it. Therefore, the impact of radio, television on a person is very strong.

By transmitting directly from the scene, radio and television create for millions of their listeners the "effect of personal presence" in this place and make them, as it were, accomplices in the events. Therefore, they have a very big impact on people. One of the most famous examples of the impact of the media on large groups of people is associated with the fantastic story of H. Wells "The War of the Worlds" (about the attempt of the Martians to conquer the Earth). On October 30, 1938, the American director Orson Welles staged a radio play based on this book. And although everyone was warned in advance that this performance would be on the program (US national radio broadcasting), the listeners were very scared, many of them ran out into the streets, began to leave the city - they believed in the invasion of the Martians. More than 1 million 700 people believed in the reality of this invasion.

11. Order No. 3480.

a thousand listeners, and 1 million 200 thousand turned out to be very frightened.

The thing is that the transfer was made so believable that it created a complete impression of reality. For this purpose, for example, the broadcast of the concert of the famous conductor, who was actually on tour in New York at that time, was interrupted at that time. When the announcer interrupted this concert with urgent reports about what was happening on the scene, people were sure of the reality of what was happening.

Later, the listeners explained their behavior by the fact that they were used to trusting the radio, its messages from the scene, and therefore believed in what was happening. Here is how they described their feelings:

High school student: “I asked everyone what should we do? What can we do at all? And what difference does it make now, to do something or not to do it, if we are already going to die so soon? I was in complete hysterics... Both my girlfriends and me- we all wept bitterly, everything seemed meaningless to us in the face of death. It was terrible to realize that we would die at such a young age ... I was sure that the end of the world had come.

Mother of a small child: “I was constantly shaking with fear. I took out my suitcases, put them back, started packing again, but didn't know what to take. I found children's things, began to dress the child, wrapped him up. All the neighbors had already run out of the house, except for the upstairs tenant. Then I rushed to him, pounded on his door. He wrapped his children in blankets, I picked up his third child, my husband took ours, and together we ran outside. I do not

I know why, but I wanted to take bread with me, because you won’t eat money, but you need bread ... ”

The student recalls how he heard the message that the Martians released poisonous gas and that it is spreading throughout the state. “I only thought about how not to suffocate from the gas and not burn alive ... I realized that all of our people died, but most of all I was shocked that, apparently, the entire human race would be swept away,- this thought seemed to me especially important, even more important than the fact that we, too, were about to die. It seemed terrible that everything created by the hard work of people should disappear forever. The announcer continued his reports, and everything seemed quite real..

The panic that gripped radio listeners turned out to be akin to that which occurs in the crowd.

Special studies have shown that people who succumbed to it most had one or more of the following psychological characteristics:

Increased sense of danger, anxiety, fear;

Self-doubt;

conformism;

Fatalism (from lat. fatum- fate, fate) - faith in fate, the idea of ​​the inevitable predestination of events;

Faith in the end of the world.

However, not everyone panicked. Many understood that we are talking about a radio play. Such people watched the radio program in the newspaper, tuned the receiver to other stations, etc.

Studies have shown that these were mostly educated people who were able to critically

1 Cited. on: Kentril X. Instillation of fear // Fear: Reader. - M., 1998. -S. 167-168.

access the information received, do not take it for granted, check it.

The impact of the media is enhanced by the fact that the information provided is specially organized. Each message is worked on by many specialists who take care to make it the most interesting, effective, intelligible, so that a variety of people perceive it as important for themselves.

The work of these specialists is very difficult. Indeed, in communication through the media there is no direct feedback, that is, the response of the audience - viewers, listeners. Recall that feedback is a very important aspect of communication. It allows you to understand and feel how what you say, do is perceived and what, if necessary, needs to be strengthened or changed.

Communication through mass media is one-way. Nowadays, interactive television and radio techniques are often used - communication with viewers and listeners live, polls carried out during the transmission. But all the same, the feedback is limited and cannot give a complete picture of how different listeners and viewers perceive what they see, hear, what they think, feel.

The impact of radio and television is enhanced by the special perception of any message. It is perceived as addressed both to you personally and to a large mass of people. Indeed, we listen to the radio, watch TV and perceive messages as addressed to us personally. It is not for nothing that well-known announcers and journalists are perceived as well-known people, because they

they come to our house all the time. This feature is called the “personal communication effect”. Communication through radio, television is a special form of interpersonal communication, communication between well-known people with whom we have certain relationships (we can trust or not trust a journalist or announcer, he can cause us sympathy or antipathy).

On the other hand, we watch television or listen to the radio alone or in small groups (family, with friends), but we know that it is addressed to a large mass of people, and any message is perceived as an appeal to a large group. It is known that programs about some events are listened to, watched simultaneously by more than a billion people around the world. It is thanks to this that a person feels his involvement in what is happening in the world, often very far from his home. Therefore, communication through the media is considered as a kind of communication in a large group.

This combination of face-to-face and large group communication creates a special impression, further enhancing the impact of the media.

Questions and tasks

1. What determines the influence of the media on listeners and viewers? Give your own examples of such influence.

2. Suggest your own ways that can allow radio and television workers to better know the opinion of the audience of a particular radio or television show. Prove the effectiveness of these methods.

3. Some modern singers and singers perform, naming only their first name, without naming their surname (Anastasia, Yuli-

an, Valeria and others). Why do you think they do it? What features of the perception of the image by TV viewers and radio listeners do they use?

There are a number of youth public organizations of a positive orientation. All of them have great educational opportunities, but recently the number of informal children's and youth associations of the most diverse orientations (political, economic, ideological, cultural) has sharply increased; among them there are many structures with a pronounced anti-social orientation.

In recent years, the now familiar word “informals” has flown into our speech and taken root in it. Perhaps, it is in it that the vast majority of so-called youth problems are now accumulating.

Informals are those who get out of the formalized structures of our life. They do not fit into the usual rules of conduct. They strive to live in accordance with their own interests, and not those of others, imposed from outside.

A feature of informal associations is the voluntariness of joining them and a steady interest in a specific goal, idea. The second feature of these groups is rivalry, which is based on the need for self-affirmation. A young man strives to do something better than others, to get ahead of even the people closest to him in some way. This leads to the fact that within the youth groups are heterogeneous, they consist of a large number of micro-groups that unite on the basis of likes and dislikes.

They are very different - after all, those interests and needs are diverse, for the sake of satisfying which they are drawn to each other, forming groups, currents, directions. Each such group has its own goals and objectives, sometimes even programs, peculiar “membership rules” and moral codes.

There are some classifications of youth organizations in the areas of their activities, worldview.

Musical informal youth organizations.

The main goal of such youth organizations is listening, learning and spreading your favorite music.

Among the "musical" non-formals, such an organization of young people as metalworkers is most famous. These are groups united by a common interest in listening to rock music (also called "Heavy Metal"). The most common groups playing rock music are Kiss, Metallica, Scorpions, and domestic ones - Aria, etc. In heavy metal rock there are: the hard rhythm of percussion instruments, the colossal power of amplifiers and the solo improvisations of the performers that stand out against this background.

Another well-known youth organization is trying to combine music with dance. This direction is called breakers (from the English break-dance - a special type of dance, including a variety of sports and acrobatic elements that constantly replace each other, interrupting the movement that had begun). There is another interpretation - in one of the meanings, break means “a broken dance” or “a dance on the pavement”.

The informals of this trend are united by a selfless passion for dancing, the desire to promote and demonstrate it in literally any situation.

These guys are practically not interested in politics, their reasoning about social problems is superficial. They try to maintain good physical shape, adhere to very strict rules: do not drink alcohol, drugs, and have a negative attitude towards smoking.

The Beatles fans fall into the same section - a trend in whose ranks many of the parents and teachers of today's teenagers once flocked. They are united by their love for the Beatles, its songs and its most famous members - Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

Informal organizations in sports.

The leading representatives of this trend are famous football fans. Having shown themselves as a mass organized movement, the Spartak fans of 1977 became the founders of the informal movement, which is now widespread around other football teams and around other sports. Today, on the whole, these are fairly well-organized groupings, distinguished by serious internal discipline. The teenagers included in them, as a rule, are well versed in sports, in the history of football, in many of its intricacies. Their leaders strongly condemn illegal behavior, oppose drunkenness, drugs and other negative phenomena, although such things occur among fans. There are also cases of group hooliganism on the part of fans, and hidden vandalism. These informals are armed rather belligerently: wooden sticks, metal rods, rubber clubs, metal chains, etc.

Outwardly, the fans are easy to distinguish. Sports hats in the colors of your favorite teams, jeans or tracksuits, T-shirts with the emblems of “their” clubs, sneakers, long scarves, badges, homemade posters with the wishes of success to those they support. They are easily distinguished from each other by these accessories, gathering in front of the stadium, where they exchange information, news about sports, determine the signals by which they will chant slogans in support of their team, and develop plans for other actions.

Close to sports informals in a number of ways are those who call themselves "night riders". They are called rockers. Rockers are united by a love of technology and antisocial behavior. Their obligatory attributes are a motorcycle without a silencer and specific equipment: painted helmets, leather jackets, glasses, metal rivets, zippers. Rockers often became the cause of traffic accidents, during which there were victims. The attitude of public opinion towards them is almost unambiguously negative.

Philosophical informal organizations.

Interest in philosophy is one of the most widespread in the informal environment. This is probably natural: it is the desire to understand, comprehend oneself and one's place in the world around him that takes him beyond the framework of established ideas, and pushes him towards something different, sometimes alternative to the prevailing philosophical scheme.

Hippies stand out among them. Outwardly, they are recognized by sloppy clothes, long uncombed hair, certain paraphernalia: obligatory blue jeans, embroidered shirts, T-shirts with inscriptions and symbols, amulets, bracelets, chains, sometimes crosses. The Beatles ensemble and especially his song “Strawberry Fields Forever” became a hippie symbol for many years. The views of the hippies are that a person should be free, first of all, internally, even in situations of external restriction and enslavement. To be liberated in the soul is the quintessence of their views. They believe that a person should strive for peace and free love. Hippies consider themselves romantics, living a natural life and despising the conventions of the "respectable life of the burghers."

Striving for complete freedom, they are prone to a kind of escape from life, avoiding many social duties. Hippies use meditation, mysticism, drugs as a means to achieve "discovery of oneself."

The new generation of those who share the philosophical quest of hippies often refer to themselves as "the system" (system guys, people, people). “System” is an informal organization that does not have a clear structure, which includes people who share the goals of “renewal of human relations” through kindness, tolerance, and love for one's neighbor.

Hippies are divided into "old wave" and "pioneers". If the old hippies (they are also called old hippies) mainly preached the ideas of social passivity and non-interference in public affairs, then the new generation is inclined to fairly active social activity. Outwardly, they try to have a “Christian” appearance, to resemble Christ: they walk the streets barefoot, wear very long hair, are not at home for a long time, and spend the night in the open. The main principles of the hippie ideology became the freedom of man.

Freedom can be achieved only by changing the inner structure of the soul; the liberation of the soul is facilitated by drugs; the actions of an internally uninhibited person are determined by the desire to protect their freedom as the greatest treasure. Beauty and freedom are identical, their realization is a purely spiritual problem; all who share what has been said form a spiritual community; a spiritual community is an ideal form of hostel. In addition to Christian ideas. Among the "philosophizing" non-formals, Buddhist, Taoist and other ancient Eastern religious and philosophical teachings are also common.

Political informal organizations.

This group of informal youth organizations includes associations of people who have an active political position and speak at various rallies, participate and campaign.

Among the politically active youth groups, pacifists, Nazis (or skinheads), punks and others stand out.

Pacifists: approve of the struggle for peace; against the threat of war require the creation of a special relationship between the authorities and the youth.

Punks - belong to a fairly extremist trend among non-formal people who have a well-defined political coloring. By age, punks are mostly older teenagers. The boys take the lead. The desire of a punk to attract the attention of people around him in any way, as a rule, leads him to outrageous, pretentious and scandalous behavior. They use shocking objects as decorations. It can be chains, pins, a razor blade.

Punks are divided into "left" and "right" and promote the goals of "protest against existing mercantile relations in society."

Neo-fascists (skinheads).

In the 20-30s of the 20th century, something appeared in Germany that killed millions of people, something that makes the current inhabitants shudder

Germany and apologize for the sins of their ancestors to entire nations. The name of this monster is fascism, called the "brown plague" by history. What happened in the 1930s and 1940s is so monstrous and tragic that sometimes it is even difficult for some of the young people to believe what those who lived in those years tell them.

More than 50 years have passed, and history has made its new turn, and it is time to repeat it. In many countries of the world there are youth organizations of a fascist wing, or so-called neo-fascists.

"Skinheads" were born in the mid-60s as a reaction of a certain part of the British working class to hippies and motorcycle rockers.

Then they liked the traditional work clothes, which were difficult to tear in a fight: black felt jackets and jeans. They cut their hair short so as not to interfere in fights. By 1972, the fashion for "skinheads" began to wane, but unexpectedly revived 4 years later. A new round of development of this movement was indicated by already shaved heads, army boots and Nazi symbols. English "skinheads" began to fight more often with the police, fans of football clubs, the same "skinheads", students, homosexuals, immigrants. In 1980, the National Front infiltrated their ranks, introducing neo-Nazi theory, ideology, anti-Semitism, racism, and so on into their movement. Crowds of "skinheads" with tattooed swastikas on their faces appeared on the streets, chanting "Sig, heil!" Since the 70s, the uniform of the "skins" has remained unchanged: black and green jackets, nationalist T-shirts, jeans with suspenders, an army belt with an iron buckle, heavy army boots (such as "GRINDERS" or "Dr. MARTENS").

In almost all countries of the world, "skins" prefer abandoned places. There "skinheads" meet, accept new sympathizers into the ranks of their organization, imbued with nationalist ideas, listen to music. The inscriptions, quite common in their habitats, also speak of the foundations of the teachings of the "skins":

Russia is for russians! Moscow is for Muscovites!

Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf.

Skins have a clear hierarchy. There is a "lower" echelon and a "higher" - advanced "skins" with excellent education. "Non-advanced skins" are mostly teenagers aged 16-19. Any passer-by can be beaten half to death by them. You don't need a reason to fight.

The situation is somewhat different with the "advanced skinheads", who are also called "rightists". First of all, this is not just unbridled youth who have nothing to do. This is a kind of "skinhead" elite - people are well-read, educated and adults. The average age of the "right skins" is from 22 to 30 years. In their circles, thoughts about the purity of the Russian nation are constantly exaggerated. In the thirties, Goebbels moved the same ideas from the rostrum, but only it was about the Aryans.

Functions of youth organizations.

A conversation about the informal movement of youth will not be complete if we do not touch on the question of what functions amateur associations perform in the development of society.

First of all, the very layer of "informality" as unregulated social activity will never disappear from the horizons of the development of the human community. The social organism needs a kind of life-giving nourishment, which does not allow the social fabric to dry out and becomes an impenetrable, immobilizing case for a person.

It is correct to assess the state of the informal youth movement as a kind of social symptomatology that helps to diagnose the entire social organism. Then the real picture of modern, as well as bygone social life will be determined not only by the percentage of production tasks, but also because how many children are abandoned by their parents, how many are in the hospital, commit offenses.

It is in the space of informal communication that a teenager's primary, independent choice of his social environment and partner is possible. And instilling a culture of this choice is possible only in the conditions of tolerance of adults. Intolerance, a tendency to expose and moralizing primitivize the youth environment, provoke teenagers to protest reactions, often with unpredictable consequences.

The most important function of the youth movement is to stimulate the germination of the social fabric on the outskirts of the social organism.

Youth initiatives become a conductor of social energy between local, regional, generational, etc. zones of public life and its center - the main socio-economic and political structures.

The influence of youth groups on the personality of a teenager.

Many of the informals are very extraordinary and talented people. They spend days and nights on the street without knowing why. No one organizes these young people, no one forces them to come here. They flock themselves - all very different, and at the same time subtly similar in some way. Many of them, young and full of energy, often want to howl at night from longing and loneliness. Many of them are devoid of faith, whatever it may be, and therefore they are tormented by their own uselessness. And, trying to understand themselves, they go in search of the meaning of life and adventures in informal youth associations.

Why did they become informal? ј - because. activities of official organizations in the field of leisure are uninteresting. official institutions do not help in their interests. 7% - because their hobbies are not approved by society.

It is generally accepted that the main thing for adolescents in informal groups is the opportunity to relax and spend their free time. From a sociological point of view, this is wrong: "nonsense" is one of the last places in the list of what attracts young people to informal associations - only a little more than 7% say this. About 15% find an opportunity to communicate with like-minded people in an informal environment. For 11%, the most important thing is the conditions for the development of their abilities that arise in informal groupings.

The article gives a description of the informal youth associations currently operating in the Russian Federation, their features, classification, paraphernalia and symbols, prerequisites for formation.

CONSULTATION FOR PEDAGOGICAL WORKERS "INFORMAL YOUTH ASSOCIATIONS"

Shadrina N.G., methodologist

MBU DO "Center of Artistic Crafts"

Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region

Today, when terrorism becomes a threat to the whole world, when concern for the future of the younger generation is especially relevant, teachers need to be oriented in how children not only learn, but also spend their leisure time. It is good if the child attends organizations of additional education or is included in the activities of official children's public associations. But very often, neither teachers nor parents notice how a teenager falls under the influence of informal youth structures and becomes an active participant in an informal association.

In our country, there are tens of thousands of informal youth associations of various orientations, whose activities cannot be traced. The attitude towards informal youth associations is ambiguous. Much is said and written about the attributes of the street subculture, about the risk that this very subculture carries for the morality and life of children, and advice is given on how to interact with informal youth associations. Almost all existing informal teenage and youth associations (with the exception of radicals) can be classified as leisure, that is, focused on free time.

Leisure - time free from professional employment and household chores. The life of young people is organized mainly around leisure. To a large extent, the forms of such leisure are determined by the cultural potential of adolescents and young people.

The great potential for using amateur associations for the civic development of the young is evidenced by the fact that in practice they sometimes quite successfully participate in the social rehabilitation of the so-called "difficult", including representatives of spontaneous teenage and youth groups. It is very important to conclude that, with the right influence, informal associations are a kind of school of social creativity for a young person, due to the possibility of a systematic educational impact on a person. At the same time, they contribute to the development of collectivism, the formation of a socio-psychological community of people. Finally, participation in associations provides an additional opportunity for self-realization of the individual. This is especially important for those young people who, for various reasons, do not have such an opportunity at school, that is, with the proper organization of work with informal associations, in some cases we can talk about the compensatory function of such associations. Children are constantly looking for ways to meet their needs.

The ability to cooperate with informal associations implies, first of all, the ability to find the exact measure of one's activity in relation to the participants in these associations. D.V. Olshansky offers the following formula for informal cooperation: "Understand - help - do not interfere." In working with informal associations, the main cause of conflicts between teachers and informals is elementary ignorance of the subject of youth hobbies, incompetence and disinterest.

Informal youth association- a kind of cultural trend, which includes a large number of young people, existing for several decades, often of an international character.

Informal associations for children there is a way of free self-expression, unlimited manifestation of initiative and uncontrolled (by adults) communication. They can take on larger or smaller quantitative dimensions, be in the nature of an unhealthy epidemic, have both socially significant or indifferent, and asocial goals. The orientation of informal youth associations is represented by a wide range: from clearly asocial groups to completely harmless and law-abiding ones. Various informal youth associations have their own ideology, specifics of typical activities, clothing symbols, slang, etc. Informal youth associations should be distinguished from such related formations as an informal group, informal grouping and informal organization.

informal group- a group, the activity of which is determined primarily by the activity of its members, and not by the instructions of any authorities. Informal groups play an important role in the lives of children, adolescents and young people, satisfy their informational, emotional and social needs: they provide an opportunity to learn what is not so easy to talk about with adults, provide psychological comfort, and teach them how to fulfill social roles. As noted by V.V. Voronov, the less a student is involved in official structures, the more he aspires to “his company”, which indicates the need for developing contacts, recognition of the value of his personality. Usually an informal group has from 3-5 to several dozen people. The contacts of its members are of a pronounced personal nature. This group does not always have a clear organization, more often the order is based on tradition, respect and authority. The sympathies, habits, interests of its members serve as factors of its rallying. It has one or more informal leaders. The main form of activity is the communication of group members, which satisfies the need for psychological contact. As a rule, schoolchildren communicate in small contact groups of 5-10 people, often identify themselves as supporters of one or another trend, which are characterized by different characteristics: age and social affiliation, form of organization, orientation.

So, according to the direction of the group, there are prosocial, asocial, antisocial. Prosocial groups are characterized by socially approved activities, for example, participation in solving environmental problems, protecting monuments, etc. Asocial groups stand apart from social problems. They are characterized by the presence of a more or less clearly expressed motive for gathering: to drink alcohol, to find out relations with a neighboring group, etc. Antisocial groups are criminal, aggressive-nationalist groups. Of particular social danger is the obvious growth of nationalist youth and adolescent organizations, either informal or hiding behind the sign of "patriotic" activity. Belonging to one or another informal group is often an obligatory element of the process of socialization in adolescence. It is by entering a particular group of peers that a teenager has the opportunity to master models of interpersonal communication, “try on” various social roles. It is well known that children, adolescents and young people, who for various reasons did not have the opportunity to constantly communicate with their peers (disability, psychological characteristics of the personality, life in a place remote from people, etc.), at a later age experience difficulties in creating a family , in relationships with colleagues, intrapersonal problems, etc. According to V.D. Ermakov, the majority of members of informal associations, unlike their peers who are not members of such associations, are characterized by maturity in social terms. They are less prone to youthful infantilism, independently determine the truth of social values, are more flexible in their behavior in conflict situations, and have a strong-willed character. The process of entry of the vast majority of adolescents into one or another informal youth group is a process of consistent satisfaction of basic human needs: the need for self-affirmation, communication and self-realization. An informal communication environment is sometimes the only area of ​​socialization for a teenager (especially for a teenager of the "risk group"). Often, having difficult relationships in the family or not regularly attending any out-of-school institution, a teenager is forced to join a particular group (group), automatically accepting the system of its norms and values, which is not always socially positive. For a very large number of adolescents, the value orientations and moral principles preached by the referentially significant group are personally significant, and this significance far exceeds "family" and "school" norms and values ​​in the adolescent's mind. This is what largely explains the low effectiveness of the impact of educational measures on a difficult teenager: in his mind, the negative action he committed is not such, since it is approved from the point of view of the reference group (for example, rudeness towards a teacher at school is regarded by him not as a violation of the norms behavior, but as a feat that will be supported and approved by peers). Informal associations influence the socialization of adolescents and young people depending on their composition, orientation, leadership style, and most importantly, on the measure of significance for one or another of their members.

I.P. Bashkatov identifies four types of informal associations.

Type I: socially neutral (naughty) communication groups. The main types of these groups are self-arising "naughty" groups of children and adolescents, formed according to the house, yard or street principle at the place of residence. The main goal of these groups is to satisfy the need for intimate and personal communication with peers, most often expressed in games, in conversations about anything. A characteristic feature of these groups is that the relationship of adolescents in them is not actually mediated by joint activities. There is no preparation for group activities. Immoral acts and misdeeds are committed by individual members suddenly on the initiative of the most mobile and active members of a spontaneously formed group. There is also no intragroup structure. Interests, norms and values ​​exist only at the personal level and can be both positive and negative. The general orientation of activity and communication in these groups is socially neutral, with a tendency to develop in an asocial direction. Much depends on the previous experience of each teenager, on his involvement in socially useful activities. It’s good if teenagers in such informal associations are included in positive socially significant activities, but if yard, street companies of teenagers are beyond the control of adults, schools and public organizations, and are presented to themselves, then we can say with confidence that they will develop according to criminogenic way.

type II: pre-criminal or asocial imitation groups. These are asocial groups of teenagers and young men, which were formed on the basis of an imitative interest in foreign rock music, "heavy metal" - a group of "metalworkers"; technology - groups of "night bikers-rockers"; politicized fashion - groups of "hippies", "punks", "black shirts" and "brown shirts"; groups of sports fans - "fans" and others. The nature of their group activity is antisocial and has an intimate-personal bias. The main thing for teenagers is to be noticed, singled out from the environment of adults and peers. Therefore, everyone, to the best of their ability and ability, tries to stand out, draw attention to themselves: some with clothes, some with hair, some with behavior, some with knowledge of technology, music, etc. Most often, their joint activities are of a hooligan nature, expressed in violation of public order. Individual members of groups may commit more serious crimes: the use, sale and possession of drugs, theft of personal and state property, etc. But these crimes are not group crimes, since they are committed not by the whole group, but only by its individual members. Behavior deviating from moral norms, asocial orientation in outlook on life indicate that these groups are on the outskirts of illegal activities. If preventive measures aimed at preventing the emergence of pre-criminal groups are not taken in a timely manner, they will soon develop into unstable criminal groups.

III view: unstable criminal or antisocial groups. The main types of these groups are groups of hooligans, thieves, rapists, vagabonds, drug addicts, drug addicts, etc. Utilitarian interests and inclinations, base needs of group members are satisfied by antisocial or criminal means. Members of such groups already in full strength commit crimes and immediately disintegrate. But over time, groups may meet again. The leader and the antisocial core of the group are clearly distinguished, around which the rest of the members rally. Noticeable distribution of rights and responsibilities. A characteristic type of activity is antisocial behavior and the commission of various crimes in order to satisfy base personal interests and needs. If unstable criminal groups are not detected in a timely manner and preventive measures of corrective labor and medical influence are not applied to them, then they can develop into stable criminogenic groups.

IV view: stable criminal or criminal groups. These are stable associations of teenagers who, as a rule, are well organized. The high readiness of criminal groups for illegal actions contributes to the successful commission of crimes. They show a clear organizational structure. The quantitative composition of stable criminal groups is more or less constant. A "leading center" stands out - a leader, preferred and performers. These criminal groups have their own "laws", norms and values ​​that are carefully hidden from others. Non-observance or violation of these "laws" leads to the disintegration of the group, so violators are prosecuted and punished. In groups, there is always a cruel dependence of members on each other, mutual responsibility. The activity of such a group has a clearly negative anti-social character.

There is a large number classifications of informal adolescent and youth associations on various grounds. Currently, the most pressing issue of working with teenage formations is the preservation of public peace and the prevention of offenses. In this regard, the most acceptable is the classification proposed by V.T. Lisovsky. Based on psychological and pedagogical criteria, adolescent formations are divided into antisocial and prosocial, asocial.

Under antisocial or delinquent(lat. “delinquo” - to commit a misdemeanor, to be guilty) behavior implies a chain of actions, misdemeanors, petty offenses that are different from crime, that is, punishable under current legislation. The main feature of such behavior is the commission of actions that are contrary to ethics and morality, irresponsibility, ignoring laws and the rights of other people. In medicine, antisocial behavior is considered within the framework of "antisocial personality disorder". Signs of it appear already in childhood: lack of emotional attachment to parents and loved ones, lies, cruelty to animals and weaker children, aggressiveness. Such children often get into fights, commit hooligan acts, skip school, wander, commit petty theft. Antisocial adolescents are irritable, impulsive, prone to aggression, which is especially often manifested in the home (beating animals, younger peers, etc.).

To prosocial include social assistance clubs, ecological, ethnic, historical and patriotic associations and other formations.

Of the pro-social, from the point of view of public peace, only movements and formations that implement pro-social activities in extremist forms are of interest.

Youth movements and formations are also divided in accordance with the existing social stratification, which is manifested both in the inequality of material opportunities, and in the nature of life plans, the level of claims and ways to implement them. In terms of this division, the most characteristic movement among underprivileged teenagers was punks, and the most significant movement among middle-class teenagers was rappers.

For the purposes of prevention and correction of asocial behavior of adolescents, the most convenient classification was based on questions aggressiveness and intelligence formations.

Aggressive formations- those that pose a physical danger to the personal safety of citizens. Aggressive teenage formations are socially dangerous, but they do not have a specific independent goal - to "beat and rob" people.

Extremists (radicals) are trying to change the situation (really negative, or negative in their group understanding). Extremist (radical) organizations usually declare what they are fighting against and what legal and/or illegal methods they are going to use.

Extremist (radical) formations may or may not have an aggressive orientation.

For example, environmental extremists (contrary to the cliches imposed by feature films) are not aggressive. They don't attack people on the street. At the same time, skinheads (skinheads) often combine the qualities of an aggressive movement and an extremist formation. There are also formations, such as "Satanists", which are difficult to categorize as aggressive or non-aggressive movements. A number of youth formations of the third sector (non-governmental organizations), such as, for example, the “greens”, also have their own specific subculture.

There are also radical and radical-criminal teenage-youth formations: skinheads (skinheads), mimicrants - devil worshipers; political radicals: E. Limonov's "National Bolshevik Party", RNE youth groups and the Freedom Party, which considers itself to be a youth organization.

For intellectualized protest movements are expressed in philosophy, social activity (both pro-social and anti-social) and bohemian lifestyle. Moreover, the status of a teenager in the group hierarchy largely depends on these factors. For members of other movements, status largely depends on physical strength and criminalization.

Prerequisites for the formation of informal youth groups

For childhood and adolescence, the appearance of such a property as emancipation is characteristic. Emancipation - the desire to free oneself from leadership, guardianship, to oppose oneself to older ones. In the case of psychological opposition to everything “older”, troubles in the family and (or) a low level of intelligence, “poisoning with freedom” can be complicated by antisocial behavior. The latter may include the commission of illegal acts, substance abuse, vagrancy and promiscuity in their various combinations.

Informal groups perform a number of important functions:

adapt the teenager to society;

assign primary status;

facilitate the loss of ties with the parental home;

convey value ideas specific to adolescence and a given youth sociocultural stratum;

satisfy the need for sexual contact.

The socio-psychological mechanism of the formation of informal youth associations is approximately the same and depends little on the direction of the association's activities. And also from the socio-cultural environment. In adolescent protest movements, "protest" is usually expressed in the form marginalism and permissivity(permissiveness). Marginalism - (from the Latin "margo") - edge, line, that is, "beyond the line." Marginalism is a bloodless social protest, expressed in the individual's ignoring the requirements of official morality, the desire to get out of the control of public institutions. Marginalism originated in the depths of the radical left current. He condemns everything in the capitalist system - official culture, the cult of labor and family despotism, conservative dogmas, the purest structures of multinational corporations, urbanism for slaves. Leaving society leads to the creation of their own subculture, their own norms of behavior, morality and morality. At the same time, the culture formed in the movement can have any specific features (subculture), or be rebellious in nature, opposing itself to the generally accepted culture (counterculture). Permission - from the English "permission" - permission.

Addiction. Currently, it turns out that for teenagers, when they do not need to express their position in front of adults, the attitude towards drug use ranges from neutral to bad. For them, this is not a crime, as for adults, but simply a bad deed. At the same time, the category “try a drug” is singled out separately, in which drug use one (first and last) time is often not considered as a condemned act at all.

The youth subculture develops by itself. Each subculture has its own stereotype of substance abuse. So, for example, hippies - supporters of "free love" - ​​preferred hashish and hallucinogens to alcohol. "Punks", along with alcoholism, are prone to drug abuse (tranquilizers, cyclodol). Connoisseurs of modern pop music are prone to the use of hallucinogens and psychostimulants. Football fans abuse alcohol. There are movements such as the Acidists (Ravers) for which certain drugs (LSD) are cult, and their use and exchange of drug experience is the main occupation. In other youth movements, even with a harmless ideology (rappers, metalheads), drugs simply exist as a normal element of life.

Substance abuse - the consumption of toxic substances to achieve intoxication (close to alcohol). In the pre-perestroika period, substance abuse with gasoline was widespread among teenagers who came from working classes. In the future, organochlorine solvents and stain removers (such as the SOPLS stain remover produced in the Baltic States in the 70s on carbon tetrachloride - the strongest liver poison) gained great popularity. Occasionally, dichlorvos was used, which was added to beer. In the 90s, of the inhaled types of toxins, Moment and Sprut glue were the most common. "Moment" was so popular among teenagers that it entered the name of drug addict children: "momenters." After 1998, when the Moment glue manufacturer changed its formula, removing toluene from the composition, Moment ceased to be of interest to drug addicts. They switched to glues "Octopus", "88" and gasoline. Since 2001, the most widely used cream paint for shoes "Karat".

Sexual freedom. Worldwide, ages between 14 and 16 are sexually active. Adolescent hypersexuality is a universal biological phenomenon. There are no restrictions to deal with it. 14-15-year-old teenagers not only have clearly expressed sexual interests, but also show initiative in this regard. External manifestations of a teenager's hypersexuality are expressed in behavior: rudeness, rudeness, obscene language, and so on. Traditional pedagogy, as a rule, tries to distract a teenager from thoughts about sex. Most often this comes down to carefully avoiding any questions regarding gender issues so as not to "arouse unhealthy interest" in adolescents. Sex education campaigns since the early 1990s have been very aggressive. It should be noted that all the functions of sexual education have now been taken over by the porn-sex industry, which does not recognize any moral and ethical restrictions at all. The school and the church could seriously compete with her. Shifts that have taken place in the field of sexual and erotic values ​​as a result of the "sexual revolution": earlier sexual maturation and the awakening of erotic feelings in adolescents; earlier start of sexual life; social and moral acceptance of premarital sexuality and cohabitation; the narrowing of the sphere of the forbidden in culture and the growth of public interest in erotica; growing tolerance towards unusual, variant and deviant forms of sexuality, especially homosexuality (mainly among younger people - 18-24 years old); the widening gap between generations in sexual attitudes, values ​​and behavior - much of what was absolutely unacceptable for parents, children consider normal and natural.

Now it is difficult to predict in what directions the youth sexual revolution will develop. However, it is possible to assume: firstly, the decriminalization of pedophilia has already begun, those children and adolescents under 14 no longer consider sexual relations with adults to be something terrible. And, although legally it will remain a criminal offense, a noticeable increase in pedophilia can be expected. Secondly, it is most likely that the children themselves will attempt to enter into sexual relations at an even earlier age. For example, in Los Angeles there is a René-Gugnon society, which operates under the motto: "Sex starts at 8 years old, otherwise it will be too late." The purpose of this organization is to legalize sexual relations between adults and children. Thirdly, teenagers very often make the successful "new Russian" their ideal. At the same time, an idealized summary image of such a “new Russian” appears, which they are trying to imitate.

There is also a trend towards an increase in the popularity of sadomasochism with an orientation towards sadism. Gradually becoming the norm among young people and sexual violence. It has not yet found wide distribution. However, the mass nature of such violence within adolescent groups is so great that the question of the "acceptability" of violence in one's own environment is only a matter of time.

Symbols and paraphernalia in youth informal associations

The attitude towards any youth movement is understood by teenagers primarily as a sum of external features, like fashion.

That is why members of various youth movements attach so much importance to hairstyles, cuts of clothing and all kinds of jewelry. Formation, starting from the association, visibly acquires attributes that are called "unification centers". These are meeting places, characteristic details of appearance, symbolism, specific words and expressions, conventional signs - everything that distinguishes this formation from others at the external level.

Attributes are a means of communication and identification: visible (clothing, hairstyle, jewelry) or audible (language, music) signs serve a young person as a means of showing who he is and recognizing “friends”. In addition, this is a means of acquiring status in one's environment: since the norms and values ​​of the youthful subculture are group, mastering them becomes mandatory and serves as a way of self-affirmation. Each youth subculture has its own specific set of paraphernalia. Moreover, it is the combination of several attributes that shows the attitude of a teenager to a particular movement.

For example, skinheads, despite the apparent (based on the name: skin - “skin” and head - “head”) mandatory presence of a shaved head, a “hedgehog” or any intermediate hairstyle is allowed. But the presence of light-colored jeans or military trousers, rolled up or tucked into high military boots Dc. Martens (or similar) is a must.

A characteristic attribute of punk in the West - a comb of hair on the head with shaved temples, in Russia turned out to be not very common among punks, and among underground punks it is almost completely absent. But our punks are easy to confuse with our skinheads, not quite shaved. Here the distinctions are made by the presence/absence of piercings. Skinheads in Russia (unlike their Western counterparts) ideologically do not accept piercings, including those in the auricles. Punks have a lot of piercings.

As symbols, specific symbols (logos, labels) of various rock bands, groups, public associations, political and non-political movements usually act. A feature of general youth paraphernalia is to indicate the difference from adults. Moreover, each age group of teenagers is trying to form its own youth fashion, which distinguishes it from the previous age group. This leads to a very fast dynamics of change in generally accepted youth attributes for each specific period of time.

General youth paraphernalia actively incorporates traditional elements of paraphernalia of youth subcultures. All this makes it difficult to clearly distinguish between the external characteristics of representatives of informal movements and persons who are not related to them.

Along with officially registered (registered) public youth associations, informal youth associations (IMOs) are widespread in modern society. A distinctive feature of informal associations is the lack of official, for example, state registration; their self-organization (originally); spontaneous (based on the desire and mutual agreement of the group members) the emergence of group-wide symbols, rules, norms, values ​​and goals of the group's life.

NMO should be distinguished from such related formations as an informal group and an informal grouping. The association of a small number of adolescents based on the proximity of age and territorial community (for example, a yard company or classmates) is called informal group.

An informal group is characterized by friendly relations between its members, high variability and personal freedom of group members in the process of joint activities, the choice of which is carried out by common agreement of the majority of the guys (“Ah, let's go to the cinema!”, etc.). etc.), socially positive orientation of activity. informal grouping- a concept more often used to refer to informal groups of asocial orientation. It is characterized by the presence of a more or less clearly expressed motive for collecting (drinking alcohol, sorting out relations with a neighboring group, “shaking off” money from passers-by, etc.).

Informal youth association- a kind of cultural trend, which includes a large number of young people, has existed for several decades, often of an international character. The orientation of NMO is represented by a wide range: from clearly asocial groups white power- white power (nationalist movement) to completely harmless and law-abiding beatniks (a variant of the modern development of the hippie movement).

Various NMOs have their own ideology, specifics of typical activities, clothing symbols, slang, etc. Informal youth associations as peculiar elements of the cultural environment of society (the so-called subculture) is a phenomenon that arose in the 50-60s. XX century. The most famous movements of those years were the movements of hippies, mods, majors, teddy boys. For example, teddy boys are a subculture of working youth that appeared in the 1950s. against the background of a relative increase in living standards, in conditions of "abundance" and economic recovery.

These are the first post-war dandies, people from the working class with an unfinished secondary education, unable for this reason to get well-paid positions or working specialties that require high qualifications. They simply copied the style of behavior and clothing of the youth of the upper strata of society. The typical tad wore a loose-fitting jacket with a velvet collar, pipe trousers, rubber platform boots, and a drawstring tie.

A little later, at the end of the 60s and 70s, movements of rockers, punks, etc. arose. These youth movements were a kind of countercultural formations that opposed the official state system of norms and values. Along with asocial formations in the same historical period, pro-social youth associations also developed quite actively. (Greenpease, various religious movements, etc.).

During the last decade of the XX century. a new trend has emerged and is gradually developing in the field of non-formal youth associations. It consists in the following. If NMOs of the “classical” period (hippies, punks, etc.) were groups that were quite clearly formed according to an ideological principle that determined all the parameters of their life: from the specifics of clothing to the peculiarities of interpersonal communication, slang, etc. , then in recent decades there has been a gradual transition of "informal belonging" from the basic form of life to the form of leisure, hobbies, a way to establish communication with peers. For the majority of modern non-formals, their belonging to one group or another is not a way of life at all, but just a global hobby to one degree or another, often not affecting the main life.

This is easy to follow by analyzing the main informal groups (groups) of young people that are currently widespread in society. "Ravers", "Grunge", "Metalists" are often no longer specific youth communities, but rather layers in the youth environment, all the informality of which is often limited to bright clothes and paraphernalia (rings, chains, badges, etc.). .P.).

For the current state of the informal youth sphere, it is much more characteristic not to have a variety of pronounced groupings, but to confront the general mass of informals (“nefors”) - young people who have a certain hobby (music, technology, etc.) and the so-called "gopniks" - teenagers who do nothing special in life, do not stand out from the general mass. At the same time, the obvious growth of nationalist youth and adolescent organizations, either informal or hiding behind the sign of “patriotic” activity, poses a particular social danger.

Belonging to one or another informal group is practically an obligatory element of the process of socialization in adolescence.

It is by entering into one or another group of peers that a teenager has the opportunity to master models of interpersonal communication, “try on” various social roles. It is well known that children and adolescents, due to various reasons, who did not have the opportunity to constantly communicate with their peers (disability, psychological characteristics of the personality, life in a place remote from people, etc.), almost always in a later age, they experience difficulties in creating a family, in relationships with co-workers, intrapersonal problems, etc.

The psychological basis for the emergence of adolescent youth groups (groups) is one of the leading behavioral reactions of this age period - the reaction of grouping with peers.

The process of entry (adjacency) of the vast majority of adolescents into one or another informal youth group can be reflected as a process of consistent satisfaction of basic human needs: the need for self-affirmation and communication (see Diagram 1).

It should be especially noted that the informal environment of communication is sometimes the only area of ​​socialization for a teenager (especially for a teenager of the "risk group"). Often, having complex relationships in the family or not regularly attending any out-of-school institution, a teenager is forced to join a particular group (group), automatically accepting the system of its norms and values, which is not always socially positive.

For a very large number of adolescents, the value orientations and moral principles preached by the referentially significant group are personally significant, and this significance far exceeds "family" and "school" norms and values ​​in the adolescent's mind. This is what largely explains the low effectiveness of educational measures of influence on a difficult teenager: in his mind, an objectively negative action committed by him is not such, since it is approved from the point of view of the reference group (for example, rudeness towards to a teacher at school or disrupting a lesson may not be assessed by him at all as “bad behavior”, but as a “heroic feat” supported by peers).

One of the features of modern youth groups is their location outside the main institutions of socialization (schools, clubs, etc.). Groups (groupings) most often gather either on a territorial basis (yard company) or on the principle of proximity of interests (fans of a football club, etc.). Based on this, it turns out to be quite problematic to attract such groups to “official” social and pedagogical institutions.

An attempt to solve this problem led to the emergence in the United States in the early 30s. XX century of the so-called street social work, which is currently one of the most widespread and promising forms of interaction with informal youth groups in the world. Street workers - street workers carry out socio-pedagogical activities directly in places where young people spend their time, trying to establish contact with the guys, provide timely assistance and support.

In our country, the activities of street social workers began in the second half of the 90s. XX century. Recently, the work of social educators in informal groups under the so-called cover has begun to develop. A social educator enters a youth "party" as a legal member, participates in its life, at the same time trying to collect the information necessary for work, quietly help one of the guys, redirect (if possible) the activity of this group into a positive channel.

One of the leading areas of work with informal groups (groupings) of pre-school institutions is, on the one hand, the development on its basis of various types of activities that are attractive and popular among the youth (rock clubs, fan clubs, etc.) and, on the other hand, organizing and holding a series of events and actions in the microsociety aimed at attracting young people (holidays, contests, discos, etc.).

The so-called youth music clubs have recently become a widespread form of work with the informal communication environment of children, providing them with the opportunity for regular communication and quickly becoming the main hangout place for most.

Of great importance in the socio-pedagogical activities carried out with youth groups is the process of constantly monitoring the so-called group dynamics, i.e. timely detection of the fact of the emergence of a group, the establishment of the most frequent places for "hanging out" children, the numerical and demographic composition (a small group - 3-5 people or a grouping of 10-12 or more), the nature of the orientation of the group ( asocial/prosocial).

Quite often, the key to determining the strategy for further work with a group is to determine the type of its informal leader (physical or intellectual). It is also important to establish the totality of the basic moral, ideological and other values ​​that guide this group in their lives.

The main areas of social and pedagogical activity in the field of informal youth groups are:

Prevention of the expansion of the number of informal groups of asocial, criminogenic orientation by eliminating the possibility of creating a youth group under the leadership of an adult who has illegal convictions (for example, one who has returned from places of deprivation of liberty), as well as by reorienting the group for socially approved activities (creation of temporary jobs, change of the informal leader of the group, etc.);

Finding opportunities for providing (material, etc.)

the existence of an informal group of a positive orientation (offering various employment options, socially useful activities, physical education and sports, mastering martial arts, etc.), for example, creating a group on the basis of an amateur musical group that performs on an official basis.

Questions and tasks

1. You have been contacted by a teenager's parents for advice. It turned out that their son had been associated with the "Satanists" sect for about six months. This worries them. Suggest possible solutions to this problem.

2. You were approached by the mother of an eight-year-old boy. According to her, her son is being terrorized by a group of older teenagers (teasing, beating without visually observable consequences, taking away money, etc.). Your actions?

3. A teenager came to you for help. Taking part in gambling, he lost a large amount of money. The mother is raising her son alone (it is practically impossible to pay the amount of the debt from the family budget). The teenager is put "on the counter", the amount of debt increases. There are threats of physical violence and material damage. What will you decide?