Stages of Growing up in Modern Russian Culture

Abstract

Recently, the discussion of the peculiarities and special features of boys and girls growing up has become more relevant. The aim of the study was to determine the main stages of ideas about growing up in adolescence, reflected through the interests and experiences of boys and girls. We assumed that during adulthood modern boys and girls go through several stages of changing their life task formed by their interests, expectations and experiences. What is new in the study is that the authors identified the relationship between the education level and the stages of growing up, expressed in personal interests and experiences. The author's projective technique "Growing Up" was used to conduct the research. This technique allows detecting experiences about one's own growing up through the interpretation of the "cultural image of growing up". The study sample consisted of 1,394 Russian boys and girls from 14 to 23 years old. Among them were 462 schoolchildren, 454 students of the vocational education system, and 478 university students. The study demonstrated that boys and girls consider creativity and achieving some goals to be the most interesting topics for discussion in the context of their own growing up. At the same time, for most schoolchildren the creative approach is more interesting than the discussion on achievements. On the contrary, for most university students the discussion on achieving success and goals is more interesting than the discussion on creativity. Moreover, university students find interesting the topics of relativity of adulthood and the brevity of life, but for students of vocational education system these topics are not interesting at all. Talking about life prospects, university students are sure that everything will be fine if you take into account the advice of seniors, but schoolchildren look at future life with pessimism, believing that everything will be ordinary. Most of all, the study participants worry about finding the meaning of life. In the experiences of growing up, schoolchildren are dominated by the comparison of childhood and adulthood, but university students have questions of choosing between life achievements and the charm of life. According to the results of the study, in changing ideas about growing up 4 stages were identified: 1) the experience of distinguishing childhood and adulthood; 2) interest in creativity and denial of the primacy of goals in life; 3) priority of life achievements; 4) worries about the choice between life achievements and the charm of life. It was revealed that self-awareness, expressed in the passage of the selected stages of changing ideas about growing up, is a vital task of an individual growing up. The relationship between this transformation and the level of received education has been established. In general, the data of the conducted research demonstrate the need to take into account the differences in the level of education received when discussing the issues of growing up of modern youth.