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being, it is expressed in acknowledging the lower importance of belonging
to a certain ethnos both in the personal life and in the society as a whole.
In the course of its development and formation, ethnic identity
passes a number of life stages that are comparable with the milestones in
the mental evolution of young children. It should be noted that ethnic selfawareness develops much later than any other forms of an individual’s selfcomprehension72.
J. Piaget distinguishes three stages in developing personal ethnic
identity:
1. 6–7 years. The first fragments and non-systematic understanding
his or her belonging to an ethnos appear in the child. In this period, his or
her family is the most important source of relevant information, since they
act as the immediate surrounding, not the state or the ethnic group.
2. 8–9 years. The child has already developed a clear selfidentification with his or her ethnic group; national self-comprehension and
feelings awaken; and the basics for identification are built up, such as
parents’ethnicity, location, and native language.
3. Preadolescence (10–11 years). Ethnic identity is completely
developed. As the specific features, the child distinguishes historical
uniqueness and the specificity of traditions, culture, and everyday
routines 73.
Other researchers, such as I.A. Snezhkova, also distringuish three
stages in developing ethnic self-identification. However, if, accoding to
J. Piaget, ethnic identity is completely formed at the age of 10 years,
I.A. Snezhkova’s periodization suggests that this is only the initial stage of
ethnic self-comprehension that has been built up by this age. Characteristic
of this age is the children’s still unclear awareness of their community with
the people of the same ethnicity as theirs, amotivational choice of their
ethnicity, and weak ethnic knowledge. Ethnic identification is formed by
the principle of “I am the same as people around me.” However, this period
72
Stefanenko, T.G. (2002) Individualnyye strategii konstruirovaniya etnicheskoy
identichnosti [Individual Strategies in Constructing Ethnic Identity]. In: Lebedeva,
N.M. ed. In: Identichnost i tolerantnost [Identity and Tolerance]. Moscow: RAS
Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. P. 35–48. (In Russian).
73
Jean Piaget: teoriya, eksperimenty, diskussii [Jean Piaget: Theory, Exoeriments,
and Discussions]. In the collection of articles: Obukhova, L.F. and Burmenskaya,
G.V. (eds.). Moscow: Gardariki, 2001. P. 41. (In Russian).
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
61
is fraught with a danger: It is this period when a clear and principled
framework is established for oncoming superstitions and conflicts. The
influence of the expanding social experience of a 6–8-year-old child upon
his or her personality becoming may sometimes result in developing ethnic
bias in children. Another danger of this stage is the potential development
of self-alienation and disengagement in their tasks. If a child discovers that
the color of his or her skin determines his or her value as a pupil to a much
larger extent , then his or her perceiving him or herself as unworthy or
unwanted may detrimentally affect his or her character 74.
At the second stage, at the age of 11–15, children get a conscious
attitude towards their ethnic group. At this age, an individual is interested in
his or her history, as well as the culture and particularities of other peoples.
The child forms a system of ideas and evaluations of the ethnocultural and
ethnopsychological specificity of his or her ethnic community as compared
to other ethnoses. Manifestation of one’s ethnic identification contains the
principle of “I’m the same as my people”.
The third stage of forming the identity takes place at the highschool age (16–17 years). At this age, the comprehension of one’s ethnicity
strengthens, movitation to choosing one’s ethnicity is created, and one's
ethnic world view is constructed. Ethnic identity is formed according to the
structure: “I’m a representative of my nation”. Zccording to E. Erikson, at
this stage, the society gives a young person an opportunity to combine
individual and social identification methods. Alienation from public
ideology leads to negative consequences. The identity formed within this
period includes all significant identifications, including the ethnic one. At
the same time, identity changes identifications to create a single, casually
interrelated whole 75.
B.A. Vyatkin and V.Yu. Khotinets “also distinguish a fourth stage
covering later adolescence (18–22 years), which is a crucial period of
developing ethnic self-comprehension, its strengthening, and its anchoring.
74
Snezhkova, I.A. (1982) K probleme izucheniya etnicheskogo samosoznaniya u
detey i yunoshestva [On Researching in the Ethnic Identity of Children and Young
People]. In: Sovetskaya etnografiya [Soviet Ethnography]. N. 1. P. 23. (In
Russian).
75
Erikson, E. Identity, Youth and Crisis (Russian edition, 1996). In: Tolstykh, A.V.
(translation from English, editing, and preface). Moscow: Progress. P. 76 (In
Russian)
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
62
Ethnic self-identification is formed at this age under the principle of “Us” –
“Them”. Thus, before this age, one’s identification was built up based on
detecting similarities with one’s own group, now differentiating signs are
being found 76.
Among Russian ethnologists, it is believed that, instead of ethnoses
reviving, forming, transiting, and disappearing, there is a travel of the
individual/group identity within a set of cultural configurations or systems
currently available, such systems often appearing as a result of such identity
drift, in some cases. Subject to the foregoing, ethnic identity of people
composing a social and cultural community is of multiple and situative
nature.
In all its multiple variations, ethnic identity manifests with different
intensities. In favorable socio-economic conditions, positive ethnic identity
is accompanied with patriotism and pride in the achievements of one’s
nation. Normal formation of ethnic identity suggests combining, within the
structure of ethnic identity, the positive image of one’s own ethnic group
with the positive value-based attitude towards other ethnic groups.
According to V.A. Tishkov, who developed the constructivist
conception of ethnicity, the processes of mobilizing an ethnic group get
stronger where the state machinery is harnessed to them. Some researchers
study the matters of social identification in crisis societies and, particularly,
the processes of reforming both personal and group identity in post-Soviet
countries due to the disintegration of the former state and formation of new
territorial and political entities.
At the same time, scientists attribute the growth of politically
charged ethnic self-assertiveness and armed nationalism to the profound
crisis of values. Every society needs a required set of values; since the
communist values and principles were massively eroded at the perestroika
times, the need for replacing the destroyed values is often realized using
nationalism 77. Self-comprehension and historical and cultural unity
76
Lebedeva, N.M. (2003) Psikhologicheskiye issledovaniya enticheskoy tolerantnosti
[Psychological Research in Ethnic Tolerance]. In: Lebedeva, N.M., Khotinets, V.Yu.,
Vyskochil, A.A., and Gayurova, Yu.A. eds. Yekaterinburg. UrMION. P. 58. (In Russian).
77
Tishkov, V.A. (2010) Natsionalnaya identichnost i dukhovno-kulturnyye tsennosti
rossiyskogo naroda [National Identity and Spiritual-Cultural Values of the Russian People].
In: Izbrannyye lektsii Universiteta [Selected Lectures of the University]. Issue 105. St.
Petersburg: University of Humanities and Social Sciences. P. 14–16. (In Russian).
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
63
perceived at a collective level are an important factor of ethnic
consolidation and consider the identity crisis at the individual level.
Ethnic groups exist as cultural communities, the differences
between which are determined by the following features: (1) Language; (2)
food; (3) clothes; (4) religion; and (5) feeling of identity. All this
is supported by the ideology of common origin, which provides real and
fictious family ties with emotional importance. The list of ethnic signs is
supplemented by: Common name, self-designation, association with the
given territory of residence, and the feeling of social solidarity.
A.P. Sadokhin and T.G. Grushevitskaya highlight national language and
living within a common territory as ethno-consolidating factors. National
language ensures the unity of an ethnos.
In studying the specific features and laws of forming ethnic
identity, an important role is attributed to the factors of ethnodifferentiation. These factors are considered by many ethnologists as minor
ones in defining the characteristics of an ethnos. However, in this case, the
entire sense of considering ethnic identity is omitted. The special feature of
ethnic communities consists exactly in their mutual distinguishing.
A.P. Sadokhin and T.G. Grushevitskaya argue that they include
racial characteristics and typical features of culture that are understood as a
totality of the individual ways of conscious activities and their results. As a
rule, the main distinctive features of ethnic groups are concentrated within
the cultural domain.
These include language, religion, arts, customs, rites, behavioral
norms, habits, gestures of courtesy, food ethics, etc. At the initial stages of
ethnic group development, confessional/religious factors were of great
importance.
This factor can also be considered crucial today. There is also a
cultural and economical factor suggesting dividing ethnic groups by
economy management types, such as gathering, hunting, farming, or
fishing, and a lifestyle factors, such as seminomadic, sedentary, or nomadic
lifestyles.
They also include national clothes and the forms of tools of trade
and of material culture elements 78.
78
Grushevitskaya, T.G., Popkov, V.D., and Sadokhin, A.D. (2003) Osnovy
mezhkulturnoy kommunikatsii: Uchebnik dlya vuzov [Basics of Intercultural
Communication: Textbook]. In: Sadokhin, A.P. ed. Moscow: UNITY-DANA.
P. 30–39. (In Russian).
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
64
The notion of demographic force is embodied in the categories of
‘majority’ and ‘minority’. Numerical superiority on the territory of
residence usually forms the sense of one’s importance and generates the
feeling of pride, confidence, and sehlteredness. Another ethno-social
measurement of the ethnic group status, reflecting the political and legal
aspect of interethnic relations, is being ‘titular/non-titular’. Ethnicity
performs a number of significant functions at both individual/personal and
group levels.
Ethnic identity represents a motivational core of ethnic selfcomprehension. So the first function of ethnic identity is its cognitive
function. G.M. Andreeva notes that, despite its independent status within
the structure of sociopsychological knowledge, identity is also a key point
in the psychology of social cognition. Ethnic self-comprehension is the
ability of an ethnic group to identify itself and to distinguish itself in the
continuum of ethno-social formations.
The process of becoming aware of one’s community’s peculiarities
always takes place in comparing them with those of other ethnic groups,
based on the principle of ‘us’ – ‘them’. This is why, in an ethnic group,
along with the knowledge of its own people, the knowledge of the features
of other ethnic groups and attitudes to them are formed, which predefines
this group’s perception of the representatives of such other groups.
The second function is the affective one. Ethnic identity, along with
the comprehension of one’s similarty to a certain ethnic group, helps an
individual evaluate it, define the role of his or her membership in it, and
share national feelings.
The effects of ethnic identity are also expressed in attitudes.
Positive attitudes include satisfaction with being the member of an ethnic
group and desire to comply with its regulations, rules, and traditions, to be a
part of it, and to be proud of the achievements of one’s nation. Negative
attitudes manifest in negating one’s ethnicity, feeling humiliated, preferring
to choose other ethnic groups as those closer to reference goals. The third
function is regulative one. For each member of a community, the ethnicity
mediating institutional norms acts as a regulator of their social behavior.
Ethnicity regulates interpersonal and intergroup communications, based on
traditions, customs, and lasting shared values.
The fourth function is the psychological or protective one. Ethnicity
helps satisfy one’s needs for psychological stability and determination.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
65
Ethnicity actualization is the protective response to the instability of social
environment.
The fifth function is the function of mobilization. In certain
conditions, ethnicity mobilizes the forces in form of a popular movement
and becomes an efficient tool to achieve economic, social, and political
goals. This tool turns out to be much more efficient than a political group or
a high social class79. A. Aklayev notes that the matters of identity are
beyond any negotiations or comprimises, which strengthens ethnic
controversies and increases the probability of ethnic violation. In such
conditions, the rapid proliferation of the ‘enemy image’ borne by
oppositional ethnic groups reduces the efficiency of attempts to relieve
interethnic tensions 80.
Age identity is one of the best described configurations of social
identity. Many authors have described it from various scientific points of
view. The reason for such a high degree of knowledge is the fact that this is
one of the widest-spread and obvious objects of society.
Age groups have been studied psychologically and
demographically for a long time. They were one of their main subject
matters. This is why age was defined and acquired relevance, while its
special features and characteristics were defined. Age peculiarities have
also become the subject matter of sociology. Upon developing the new
scientific paradigms of humanitarian thought, there takes place a
reinterpretation of both the category of ‘age’ itself, acting as a backbone
factor for such communities, and the essence of age groups themselves. Age
started to be considered as not just a quantitative characteristic, but also as a
qualitative one, to which many social processes are related.
Age, as a definition, has several interpretations that reveal the
conceptual meanings of this social phenomenon. On the one hand, it is an
individual feature of a person, characterizing the ontogenetically
determined laws at different stages of his or her development, i.e. age of
development. On the other hand, age shall mean a set normative and role
79
Andreeva, G.M. (1996) Sotsialnaya psikhologiya [Social Psychology].
In: Andreeva, G.M. ed. Moscow: Kniga. P. 61. (In Russian).
80
Aklayev, A.R. (1990) Yazyk v sisteme natsionalnykh tsennostey i interesov
[Language within the System of National Values and Interests]. In: Dukhovnaya
kultura i etnicheskoye samosoznnaniye natsiy (Spiritual Culture and Ethnic SelfPerception of Nations). Moscow: Pechat. Vol. 1. P. 12–38. (In Russian).
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
66
characteristics derived from the education level, division of labor, and
social stratification of society; which set determines the requirements for
and the availability of various forms of social activities to a person of one
life age or another, i.e. social age.
Definitions of age as a certain social characteristic enabling a
person to perform certain activities at each stage of his or her development,
e.g. study in the period of adolescence, work at young age, and rest from
one’s labors at retirement age, allow considering it based on role-and-valuebased theories. An individual shares, more or less, the values of a relevant
age-based subculture and places him or herself within a certain age
category, based on the subjectively experienced age.
Age periods, such as childhood, adolescence, youth, adulthood, and
senility, have been studied for a long time as the invariant stages of life that
are clearly fixed within the relevant demographic categories and the
physiologically determined laws of development. In fact, each age level
represents a special historical and cultural phenomenon, the concept of
which can only be understood through analyzing the age-related symbolism
system of the relevant culture, reflecting the ways of understanding the life
trajectory of a person nd the age-based stratification of society, which is
illustrated by many sociocultural studies.
The term of ‘age’ is used to study closely related, but essentially
different phenomena – the ontogenetic development of a person and his or
her life trajectory. At present, scientists have come to a conclusion that the
content of the term ‘age’ integrated it as a certain characteristic of physical
features, mental development, and its sociocultural content. All this is
denoted with a single term, unlike, for instance, the terminologically
delimited notions of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’.
Age peculiarities of a person are analyzed through the prism of
contructionism. This approach represents the methodological basis of
theoretical status and empiric studies, allowing considering the age as one
of the aspects of this problem and as a socially contructable phenomenon,
reflecting the age-based interrelations established in a certain society. It is
this perspective that is closely related to a wide range of phenomena united
under the name of ‘age-based interrelations’: Intergenerational continuity
and conflicts, age-related discrimination, etc. For this reason, today’s agerelated social groups catch the attention of both demographists and
sociologists, and social psychologists.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
67
G.M. Andreeva studies the age-related features of people from the
viewpoint of social psychology. She interprets age as a determining factor
of large social groups, along with ethnic or gender groups and social strata.
G.M. Andreeva argues that social and psychological age studies of the
representatives of social groups are currently rather disjunctive and chaotic,
and the analyses performed of their characteristic features are often used in
considering the socialization and are often closely interrelated with studying
the specifics of ontogenesis. This contains an important methodological
difficulty related to studying the age-based specifics of the representatives
of social groups 81. The essence of this problem consists in the fact that this
phenomenon contains various specific features, both physical and social
ones.
Studying the age as a social phenomenon seems to be most
important. Since the age determined by society represents a multisided
aspect, a new symbolic meaning is attributed to it and, therefore, a
sociopsychological ‘spin’ is provided on age groups. There appears an
opportunity to consider age groups as the social life subjects taking a
certain place within social relations, living according to certain
requirements, and having a certain set of social roles and statuses.
H. Tajfel considers intergenerational relations (understood as a subtype of intergroup relations) as a function of the place a certain age group
takes within the system of social relations to other groups. Any intergroup
relation exists, first of all, at the level of social perception as an effect of
social stereotypes or asriptive age-related properties 82. For this reason, one
of the priority areas in investigating age groups is studying the perception
of them by society, how they adapt, associate, and identify themselves with
other age groups, their stereotypes, and the analysis of their role in
regulating intergenerational relations.
I.R. Sushkov considers the relations between age groups as
“interrelations between the elements of a social system, in which they are
included.” In this case, there is a scientific challenge related to the
proportion of various age group within social environment. Researchers are
interested in a question of whether the nature of interrelations between age
81
Andreeva, G.M. (1996) Sotsialnaya psikhologiya [Social Psychology].
In: Andreeva, G.M. ed. Moscow: Kniga. 375 p. (In Russian).
82
Tajfel, H. Social identity and intergroup relations / H. Tajfel // II European
studies in social psychology. 1982. P. 15–40.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
68
groups is arranged horizontally. Seeing social relations from the prospective
of an age-stratified system, it can be noted that the interrelations of age
groups may also be arranged vertically 83.
Another problem in scientific studying the age-based identity is
related to the realization of the stereotypic age images in human behavior,
which are used by people in various areas of their everyday activities, such
as professional, family, leisure, and other activities. There appears a
question about the integrity position of the subject, i.e. an age group, as a
sociopsychological system with its own peroperties and particularities. In
this prospective, the identity of an individual may be defined as not just a
configuration of individual properties, but also as a set of properties
inherent to a certain group. i.e. age-related stereotypes realized in
interaction with the surrounding society.
The problems of distinguishing the intergenerational interrelations
from the general context of social interrelations, which occur in this case,
may be solved via referencing to considering the ‘age identity’ that is
understood as the result of an individual’s self-comparison to and adusting
his or her behavior to a certain age category in accordance with the norms
and rules of the given group’s functioning. Intergenerational interrelations,
in this case, are considered as the relations between individuals, in which of
importance are age identity and understanding by the involved parties of
their belonging to different (or to the same) age levels 84.
Thus, age identity represents a process and a result of an
individual’s own identification him or herself with a certain age group. As a
result of such identification, the individual accepts the code of conduct of a
certain age group as regulating his/her own behavior to a certain extent.
Age identity acts as a regulator of human behavior in
a situation of interpersonal communication and allows a person to
distinguish age-related particularities of a partner by his or her
83
Sushkov, I.R. (1997) Psikhologiya vzaimootnosheniy [Psychology of
Interrelations]. Moscow. P. 18–20. (In Russian).
84
Miklyayeva, A.V. (2008) Sotsialnaya identichnost lichnosti: soderzhaniye,
struktura, mekhaniszmy formirovaniya [Social Identity of a Person: Content,
Structure, and Development Mechanisms]. In: Monograph by Miklyayeva, A.V.
and Rumyantseva, P.V. eds. St. Petersburg, Herzen University Publishing House.
P. 95. (In Russian).
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
69
communication patterns and choose the relevant ways of contacting him or
her.
The ideas of age identity are created in the course of an individual’s
understanding his or her chronological age due to the social age constructs
that compose an integrated system of the age-related cultural symbolism.
Understanding the essence of age is based on stereotypic images reflecting
the content and special characteristics of one age or another. Stereotypic
images are constructed in the course of the development of society, social
relations, and social reality.
According to E. Erikson’s concept, the most important tasks facing
a person in the period of his or her youth or early adulthood are to establish
his or her identity in professional sphere. However, it should be understood
that, in the course of his or her professional self-identification, a person
should not just choose an occupation at his or her young age, but also
develop and choose new career trajectories and pofessional ambitions
throughout his or her life.
This is explained by the fact that an individual may repeatedly get
into a situation, such as staff reduction, employment terminations for
various reasons, inability to perform his or her professional duties, etc.,
which leads him or her to changing his or her professional sphere; and by
the fact that the content of a certain occupation may be essentially changed
due to scientific advancements.
Professional identity is an individual’s perception of him or herself
as a member of a certain labor group of people. In this case, a person
identifies him or herself with a certain circle of specialists having similar
qualities, abilities, education level, and working background. The
community of specialists, with which an individual identifies him or
herself, can be real or ideal. In case of a real community, the individual has
already had certain qualities and abilities. When aiming at an ideal
community, he or she is still developing, studying, and self-improving to
achieve the desired result. In forming his or her professional identity, the
individual is completely included into his or her profession and establishes
emotional relations, which stabilizes his or her professional activities and
development. Professional identity is one of the configurations of social
identity. The built-up professional identity allows a person to take his or her
place in a group of professionals and come up with the place of this group
within the system of social interrelations. Professional identity allows an
individual to be up to speed on the world of careers and professional
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
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