Vladimir S. Sobkin

Background. The aggressiveness of social networking is a significant component of the risk modern teenagers face during socialization, and cyberbullying is one of the most controversial forms of aggressive behavior on social media.

Objective. This paper deals with the study of secondary school students’ behavior on social media. The parameters characterizing teenagers’ usage of social media – their activity, intensity, motives, and self-presentation – are analyzed with respect to gender, age, and social psychological factors. The main focus is teenagers’ personal experience dealing with aggressive situations on social media: their role in aggressive situations (as aggressor, victim, or witness); the form of aggression (public or private); the aggressor’s characteristics (acquaintances or strangers, persons, or groups); and their views on what action victims should take (ignoring it, confronting it, or asking for help).

Design. This article is based on data obtained by researchers at the Center for Sociology of Education of the Institute of Education Management of the Russian Academy of Education in 2020-2021. Using a specially developed questionnaire, we collected responses from 40,575 students from grades 7-11 in 17 regions of Russian Federation through an anonymous online survey. Mathematical statistical methods were used for data processing, specifically, the chi-square test in the “Basic statistics-Difference tests” module of the “StatSoft Statistica 7.0” package.

Results. The data showed that the adolescents with high status among their classmates (“leaders”) used social media as an important educational resource, while those with low status (“loners”) used it to compensate for their poor real-life experience. Aggression on social media appears to be quite common among adolescents. The traditional differences between male and female subcultures appeared in the choice between private or public forms of aggression. The increase in aggressive interactions with strangers as the youth aged indicated that the realization of the teenage distinctive basic need for "expanding one’s social environment" in online interaction comes with the risks of encountering unfriendly, aggressive reactions.

Conclusion. Communication on social media reflects an adolescent’s real-life interaction in school: those who have experienced psychological or physical bullying are more likely to become both victims and offenders in aggressive situations on social media. This transfer of group bullying from real life to the virtual can be seen as the main feature of adolescent cyberbullying.

Preschool childhood is a time of rapid development. During this period a child`s interaction with significant adults plays a very important role. The parent, as a mediator, defines the “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1984). The common assumption is that to determine a parent’s position, it is important to acknowledge both socio-demographic factors and the parameters which define the socio-psychological aspects of parent-child relationship. Hence, the type of research where a child’s psychological development is studied in the context of the socio-demographic and socio-psychological factors which determine the social situation of development, is very promising.

Based on our previous research (Sobkin, Marich, 2002; Cheie, Veraksa, 2015), a program of experimental research intended to determine the interconnections between the socio-demographic and socio-psychological parameters of parent-child relationships, and the level of a child’s psychic development, was designed. The research was based upon the material obtained through testing 59 children between 5 and 7 years old with specially collected psychological testing methods (Veraksa A.N. etc), as well as from the results of a special sociological questionnaire presented to their mothers (Sobkin V.S. etc). The research was carried out in 2014-2015 in municipal kindergartens of Moscow.

Among the socio-demographic factors analyzed, the most significant results were related to the child’s gender, the family structure, and the mother’s education. Thus, boys showed higher results on visual memory tests, and girls scored better on tests for self-control and social intelligence (higher ability to detect the reason for someone else’s negative emotions). Children from single-parent families had better results on verbal memory tests, but scored lower on those for self-control. Also they had less ability for decentration. The differences in mothers’ educational levels influenced the number and intensity of children’s fears, as well as their inclinations to avoid fearsome situations.

The analysis of features of the parenting position (such as attitude toward one’s future, positive/negative emotional state during the interaction with the child, authoritative/ democratic approach to upbringing) revealed two different strategies which children used to perform executive tasks.

Thus, the present research showed a significant degree of essential connections between socio-demographic factors and parent-child relationships to the specifics of a child’s mental development.

This article presents the results of a study of sociometric status and its relation to personal characteristics and educational activities conducted on 96 first-year and 52 second-year students at the Moscow Theatre College. The sociometric study included three sets of questions combining the everyday life and communication of a student: educational activities, leadership and interpersonal communication. To determine the diagnostics of personality characteristics, Cattell’s multiple-factor personality questionnaire 16 PF was used.

The comparative analysis of the group unity sociometric index has shown that there is more mutuality in the choices dealing with interpersonal communication than in the choices dealing with professional activities. The grades that teachers give in actor training appear as a steady focus that determines the degree of leadership/reject not only in the professional but also in the social and interpersonal spheres. The high level of motivation (energy and determination) captured by Cattell’s factor test Q4 is one of the most significant qualities that determines the number of choices in various spheres of student activity (mastering the profession, leadership qualities and interpersonal communication).

The data reported in the article describe the attitudes of teenagers to problems concerning sexual violence and aggression. Given the lack of any national systems that could monitor negative factors in the teenage environment, including sexual aggression, special value lies in the data obtained through questionnaires, as these data allow us to evaluate the prevalence of such factors, and they also describe the typical lifestyles of modern Russian teenagers.
The main objective of the study was to describe the age dynamics and gender specifics of teenagers’ attitudes toward the problem of sexual aggression: its prevalence, probable reasons for it, ways of dealing with such situations.
This article is based on data from a research project conducted in 2012 in the Krasnoyarsk region. The research particularly addressed various aspects of schoolchildrens sexual behavior and their attitudes toward sexual violence. The main research method was a paper questionnaire. It was administered to 1,540 children in the 7th, 9th, and 11th grades.
The results showed that every tenth teenager indicated the presence of sexual-violence victims in their circle. According teenagers’ opinions about the reasons for sexual violence the main reasons are “bad luck,” “provocative appearance” “carelessness”. The majority of teenagers will seek help in case of rape.
The answers of teenagers who have sexual experience regarding possible solutions for sexually traumatic situations show their readiness to take responsibility for their behavior and its consequences, as well as for their mental and physical health. In this respect sexual experience can be viewed as an indicator of teenagers’ personal and psychological readiness to lead a grownup life independently of their parents.
To sum up, analyzing schoolchildren’s replies, even to those questions that were not asked directly but in oblique form, allows us to conclude that the teenage environment involves an aggressive (unlawful) component, which usually appears to be a “hidden layer” of interpersonal relations in the microsocial circle of a schoolchild. As a result, the threat of becoming a victim of bullying (ostracism) can block a teenager’s search for help.

This article studies the structure of the pastime of contemporary preschool children and the importance and prevalence of various kinds of activities that parents and their children share. The emphasis is on those features of parental behavior that are determined by gender role (mother/father), family status (two-parent/separated family), style of parentchild relationship, and also child’s gender. The work is based on data from 1,936 questionnaires received from parents of preschool children (from 1.5 to 7 years old) who were attending Moscow kindergartens. The research was carried out in 41 kindergartens in 9 districts of Moscow. The survey uncovered several social-psychological features of the position parents take while organizing their shared pastime with preschool children: the influence of traditional gender-role models of parental behavior; the “complementary” principle of mother’s and father’s social-role positions in the upbringing of a daughter; the distortion of traditional maternal behavior in the upbringing of a son in a separated family; the reduced organization of shared play with a child in a separated family; the influence of the style of the parent-child relationship on the participation of parents in their children’s activities. The dynamics show how the parents’ position changes as their children grow older (from 1.5 years to 7 years): namely, the decrease of parents’ organization of and participation in a preschool child’s activities has a negative impact on their emotional state while interacting with the child.