Re-Educate, Not Punish? How Scenarios for the Reintegration and Resocialization of “Troubled” Adolescents Are Constructed

Abstract

The article describes the application of scenario approach to the analysis of resocialization and reintegration of “troubled” adolescents brought up in social assistance organizations. Case-study is used as the research strategy, four cases (institutions) are investigated in detail using the following methods: semi-structured interviews with the adolescents (n = 29); expert interviews with the personnel of the social assistance organizations (n = 11); the participant observation and the analysis of documents. Answering the research question about what scenarios exist for reintegration and resocialization of “troubled” adolescents and how they are constructed, the author emphasizes groups of constituent and partial criteria. Five scenarios are pointed out: “convergence”, “going beyond”, “submission to the regime”, “fugitive” and “isolation”, which reflect the situational patterns of the behavior of the adolescents brought up in social assistance organizations, as well as the transformation of the experience of a social group under the influence of the institutional design of the organization, modes of relationships between the personnel and the students, various special features of the cases. The article also analyzes the possibilities of scenario approach – its advantages and disadvantages.

Acknowledgments. I would like to express my gratitude to my scientific advisor prof. Elena Omelchenko, who provided me with great help and support in preparing my Ph.D. thesis (defended in January 2019), on the basis of which this article has been written. I also express my gratitude to all the organizations that took part in my study; all caring guides; the informants who agreed to be interviewed, as well as my co-interviewer in one of the cases – Olga Bagurina.