Russian sociological and psychological research of the family: meta-analisys

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of specific features of the publications devoted to family in Russian sociological and psychological journals.  The author analyzes the materials from four scientific publications during the 2000-2016 period from the related field. The data of the review partially check with the results of the analysis of the articles published form 1986 to 1991, which allows the author to evaluate certain changes. Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of certain markers, the author draws conclusions concerning the specifics of scientific paradigms and the state of normal science (according to T.Kuhn) applied to Russian sociology and psychology of family. The number of publications in the Russian psychological journals shows that family is a low-priority topic which is only viewed as a “context” for studying personalities (mainly child’s personality) or interpersonal relationships. The concept’s heterogeneity translates into a pronounced interest of psychologists towards methodological framework and a wide variety of tools to collect empirical evidence and is accompanied by the fragmentation of the professional community on the “school-journal” principle. The significance of family studies in the Russian sociology varies greatly but its paradigm is dual (with the natural sciences being dominant), more consistent and stable; it is more open for cross-disciplinary research and more oriented towards studying the family structure and interaction between family and other social institutions. From this perspective, it is personality (of spouses and children) that becomes the “context”, and the “school-journal” fragmentation characteristic of the Russian sociologists manifests itself in relation to foreign rather than domestic researchers. This requires from the family researchers more inter-disciplinary efforts and cooperation.