The image of the future through the eyes of Ural students

Abstract

The study of the temporal attitudes of young people is one of the relevant topics, given the situation of uncertainty and riskiness in which society is today, including due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem considered in the article consists in identifying the social construction determinants of one’s personal future in conjunction with the future of one’s country in the minds of the younger generation. The purpose of the article is to show how students of the Urals see the future, to highlight changes in attitudes during a pandemic. The article is based on the data of the 8th stage of monitoring the student body of the Middle Urals, carried out in 2020, that is, during the coronavirus pandemic. A total of 2,000 students from 13 universities of the Sverdlovsk region took part in the survey. The paper uses the methods of descriptive analysis, the method of correlation analysis based on the Spearman coefficient, and the index method. According to the results of the study, a general tendency was highlighted: in the assessments of students, confidence in the future (post-COVID?!) day is lower than in the distant future. At the same time, the impact of the pandemic on the perception of their own future by students was not as strong as one might expect. Some contradiction is noted: assessing their present and future, students turn out to be more optimistic than assessing the future of the country. It is concluded that there is a bias in the temporal attitudes of students. Discrepancies in the images of the “desired” and “expected” future are indicated. Ural students speak about positive changes in the country much less often than about negative ones. Combined with a declining self-esteem of being protected (0.49) from persecution for political beliefs, this poses a potential threat that requires the close attention of all youth workers. It is recommended to form strategic thinking in young people, developing the ability to see future threats and problems, while they are just emerging and there is time to mitigate them or prepare for their impact.