RECONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CITY USING THE GO-ALONG TECHNIQUE

Abstract

Social representations are the results of the perceptions of social reality. Studying social representations is essential in applied sociology related to social improvements, social policies or sociology of management. A special attention is paid to studying social representation of the city. The issue concerning social representations remains open today. According to the J.-C. Abric’s concept, a dynamic component (peripheral element) and a static component (core) can be considered. The authors use the go-along technique, an ethnographical tool, to study the periphery and the association method to study the core. The case studies involve three respondents who visited Moscow for the first time (go-along technique); they filled in the questionnaires before and after their visits. This approach allows tracing changes in statistical part of social representations and making conclusions about the applicability of the proposed methods (go-along technique). Based on the study experience, certain methodical recommendations to use the go-along method in the urban sociology are drawn by the authors.