More than 400 observers and practitioners took part in the IV International Scientific Conference "Interaction. Integration. Inclusion: labyrinths of meanings and horizons of possibilities"
The IV International Scientific Conference "Interaction. Integration. Inclusion: labyrinths of meanings and horizons of possibilities" has recently concluded. This year, 17 sections and a round table meeting were organized, which brought together more than 400 participants interested in the study and development of socio-cultural integration from different countries and regions of Russia.
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On August 5-7, 2024, our Laboratory, in partnership with the Journal of Social Policy Studies (JSPS), held the IV International Scientific Conference “Interaction. Integration. Inclusion: labyrinths of meanings and horizons of possibilities” in a remote format. Opening the conference, Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, doctor of sociological sciences, PhD, professor, head of the IL SIR and chief editor of the Journal of Social Policy Studies (JSPS), emphasized that the conference program this year is very rich, and the topics of each of the proposed sections reveal different aspects of the discussion of the central theme of the conference - integration and inclusion, various forms of exclusion development and ways of working with them, both in Russia and abroad. In her plenary report, Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova invited listeners to travel in space and time along the routes of transformations of the idea of social inclusion.
Elena Omelchenko, doctor of social sciences, professor, director of the Center for Youth Studies at the HSE in St. Petersburg, also spoke at the plenary session with a report entitled “Trends in the Generational Transformation of Urban Russian Youth: Horizons of the Future.” At the end of the session, a presentation of the book “Inclusive Education in the Russian Federation. Scoping International and Local Relevance” by the international publishing house Springer (2024) took place. The authors of the book included employees of our Laboratory, and the editors were Tsediso Michael Makoelle, PhD, associate fellow of the IL SIR and Professor of Nazarbayev University, Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, head of the IL SIR, and Maria Kozlova, chief research fellow of the IL SIR.
This year, reports were prepared by more than 250 researchers and practitioners from Brazil, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, representing research centers (for example, the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), including large universities (for example, the Institute of Interdisciplinary Medical Research at the European University in St. Petersburg), public organizations (for example, the "Perspektiva", the "Center for Curative Pedagogics", the Russian Society of the Deaf People), general education institutions, cultural institutions (the House of Culture "GES-2", the Tretyakov Gallery), state and commercial organizations (for example, the "Institute of Continuing Professional Education of Social Workers", Yandex). More than 140 listeners from different regions of our country also joined the discussion.
At the end of the plenary session, the participants were invited to switch to the section format to discuss a range of issues related to social policy and care, social activity, cultural citizenship and well-being against the backdrop of social inequalities, including hybrid forms.
One of the central topics of the conference – social policy and care – was considered in the context of evidence-based approach, critical analysis of the ideologies of professionalism and social management in the reports presented at the section “Evidence-based approach in social policy and practice of helping professions: tests, ideologies, interpretations”. The section dedicated to the memory of professor, outstanding Russian sociologist, co-founder and first editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Policy Studies Pavel Romanov (22.05.1964-09.06.2014) was chaired by the head of the IL SIR and editor-in-chief of JSPS Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, leading research fellow of the IL SIR Roman Abramov, leading research fellow of the IL SIR Daria Prisyazhniuk, head of the editorial board of JSPS Victoria Yakovleva, executive secretary of JSPS Radik Sadykov, research intern of the IL SIR, editor of JSPS Bulat Gilfanov, director of the Scientific and Educational Regional Center for Monitoring Research, associate professor of the Saratov State Technical University named after Gagarin Yu.A. Natalia Sorokina, professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the HSE Elena Rozhdestvenskaya and head of the Center for Evidence-Based Social Design of Moscow State University of Psychology and Education Tatyana Podushkina.
The section "Open to the public, accessible and inclusive": the potential of museums in the socio-cultural integration of different population groups", organized under the leadership of the leading research fellow of the IL SIR Nikita Bolshakov, held two sessions for researchers and practitioners, the moderators of the latter were senior research fellows of our Laboratory - Konstantin Obukhov and Tatyana Vlasova. At the first session, the researchers addressed the issues of constructing the identity of the museum audience, forming inclusive communities around and within museums, preserving socio-cultural memory. In the second part of the section, the speakers focused on the experience of implementing inclusive practices in museums in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Crimea, etc
Head of the Center for Stratification Studies of the Institute for Social Policy of the HSE, leading researcher of the FCTAS RAS Svetlana Mareeva and leading researcher of the FCTAS RAS Pavel Sushko held the section "Objective and Subjective Social Well-Being in Modern Russian Society". The speakers' attention was focused on discussing economic, political-administrative, socio-cultural factors influencing the socio-psychological state and moods of different categories of the population. It turned out to be very interesting to correlate different forms of manifestation of objective and subjective well-being, taking into account their dynamics and in different socio-economic contexts.
The section "Digitalization, trends and technologies in the context of social inequalities", held under the supervision of Anna Strelnikova, associate professor of the Department of Methods of Collection and Analysis of Sociological Information at the HSE, senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the FCTAS RAS, aroused keen interest among participants from various scientific fields. The subject of discussion was hybrid forms of social inequalities and their consequences in the context of digitalization. The participants chose different aspects to analyze the factors increasing inequalities and trends in further changes in methods and approaches for risk management.
At the platform "The Sacred Beyond the Religious: Normative-Value Systems in Modern Russia and the Worldviews Following from Them" (headed by Maksim Bogachev, associate professor of the Department of General Sociology at the HSE), the participants discussed both theoretical and empirical issues of studying the forms and structure of the sacred in the social sphere. At the section “Interaction, Inclusion, and Integration of the Marginalized through Conflict and Negotiation: Multiple Trajectories of Socio-Political Transformations in BRICS+ Countries” (headed by research fellow at the IL SIR Arnab Roy Chowdhury and research assistant at the IL SIR Saikot Chandra Ghosh), reports were presented on the development of the potential of civil society in the BRICS countries, and various approaches and practices were proposed to support inclusive processes in these regions.
Researchers and practitioners were also invited to two sections - "Educational inclusion and a friendly school: cultural foundations, political strategies, everyday practices, innovative potential" (headed by chief researcher of the IL SIR Maria Kozlova) and "(Out)of-school career guidance and choice of educational focus: social stereotypes, boundaries and personal trajectories" (headed by leading researcher of the IL SIR Olga Savinskaya), the topics of which focused on the development of inclusiveness in Russian secondary education, on the problems and successful cases of reducing social inequality in school and extra-curricular spaces. For participants interested in the field of medicine and professions, a separate platform was organized - "Doctor - Nurse - Patient: Relationships, Boundaries, Practices in the Context of the Challenges of the Healthcare System" (headed by leading researcher of the IL SIR Daria Prisyazhniuk), dedicated to the study of relationships between doctors, mid-level medical personnel and patients in the context of managerialism and consumerism, (de)medicalization and professionalization of quasi-medical activities.
Productive discussion of the topics also took place on the second day of the conference. The content of the reports corresponded to the issues of each of the sections held that day, logically continuing and complementing the directions for theorizing and empirical measurement set on the first day. Participants talked about the forms, practices and features of social care in different contexts within the framework of the section "Temporalism of Social Care", dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Soviet and Russian scientist, professor Valentina Iarskaia-Smirnova (18.08.1935-12.11.2023). The heads and moderators of this section were the head of the IL SIR and editor-in-chief of the JSPS Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, director of the Scientific and Educational Regional Center for Monitoring Research, associate professor of the Saratov State Technical University named after Gagarin Yu.A. Natalia Sorokina, deputy director of the Scientific and Educational Regional Center for Monitoring Research, associate professor of the Saratov State Technical University named after Yu. A. Gagarin Nikolai Bozhok, associate professor of the Saratov State Technical University named after Yu. A. Gagarin Angela Chernetskaya, research assistant of the IL SIR Anna Emelyanova.
The discussion on social policy continued at one of the platforms - "Social Policies of Post-Socialist Countries in the Context of Cultural Transformations" (headed by chief researcher of the IL SIR Maria Kozlova), where the participants' reports analyzed inter-country similarities and differences in the values and inclusive attitudes of citizens of post-socialist countries. The discussion of international experience in the development of educational inclusion was held in the format of a round table organized by our colleagues from the A. A. Pinsky Center for General and Additional Education (headed by the director of the Center and leading researcher of the IL SIR Sergey Kosaretsky).
A methodological and substantive discussion of the directions of empirical research of self-preservation and risk strategies and tactics of human behavior took place at the section "Health-preserving, self-preservation and risk behavior in various social, territorial and ethnic groups" (headed by leading researcher of the IL SIR Andrey Kozlov).
At two more sections - "Representatives of socially vulnerable groups in companies: approaches to studying and issues of implementing inclusive policies" (conducted with the support of the Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Center, headed by leading researcher of the IL SIR Viktoria Antonova) and "Employment of people with disabilities: research results and an insider's view" (headed by the director of the Laboratory of Social Research and Analytics "VER.SIA LAB" Yulia Skokova) representatives of the commercial and non-profit sectors, the academic community problematized the labor activity and the process of employment of representatives of socially vulnerable groups. The reports presented practices for implementing inclusive policies in government agencies and businesses, and discussed the accessibility of professional activities for people with mental disabilities, the deaf and hard of hearing, and people with orphan experience.
The discussion of the diversity of contexts for implementing the activities of helping professions took place at a separate platform - "Professional Communities on the Wave of Change: Emotional Labor, Professional Ideologies, and Revision of Intraprofessional Hierarchies" (headed by Olga Simonova, associate professor of the Department of General Sociology at the HSE, and Roman Abramov, leading research fellow at the IL SIR), which attracted the attention of researchers in the fields of medicine, education, and culture.
Many participants joined the discussion on the impact of technological development on social inclusion. At the section "Inclusion. "Digital." Artificial Intelligence" (headed by Sergey Davydov, senior research fellow at the IL SIR), researchers discussed the ambivalent nature of the results of the digitalization of the social environment that has taken place.
For the first time, our conference held a workshop for beginning researchers - high school students and 1st-2nd year undergraduate students. Participants from Smolensk, Minsk and Moscow presented reports on multiple identities of youth subcultures, inclusion of children with speech disorders and cultural aspects of using emotionally charged phraseological units. The speakers received detailed comments from the head of the workshop, chief researcher of the IL SIR Maria Kozlova and young researchers of our Laboratory – Igor Mikheev and Natalia Bulchenko.
On the final day of the conference, there was a discussion of ways of youth participation in the life of society, in social changes and relationships developing with institutional actors and representatives of different generations. The section was organized by our colleagues from the Center for Youth Studies at the HSE in St. Petersburg – professor and director of the Center Elena Omelchenko, and Deputy Director of the Center Yana Krupets, who noted the importance of further interregional cooperation, comparison and discussion of results within the framework of future events, for example, at the International Conference “Agency and Resilience of Youth in the Era of New Global Challenges”, applications for which are accepted until September 5, 2024.
For many conference participants, the discussions were rich and exciting. The section chairs received many words of gratitude for organizing a platform open to interdisciplinary academic cooperation, forming partner networks and plans for work on participatory projects, for inviting participants from different countries and regions of Russia, for the collective efforts made to create a comfortable and friendly atmosphere in the sections.
The staff of the IL SIR and the Journal of Social Policy Studies (JSPS) thanks all participants for their understanding, support and comments, for their active interest in the discussions that took place, despite the difference in time zones, for their willingness to continue cooperation in the future - in the format of conferences or joint research seminars, which our Laboratory and the JSPS editorial board are always happy to join.