Youth in the Age of Global Challenges: How International Conference in Honour of the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Centre for Youth Studies Went
The Centre for Youth Studies at HSE University-St Petersburg has held the International Research Conference 'Agency and Sustainability of Youth in the Age of Global Challenges'. More than 100 researchers from Russia, India, Argentina, and Brazil discussed the adaptation of young employees in the labour market, the influence of digitalisation on the youth's lives, the role of youth culture in the city, and other issues. The article outlines the highlights of the conference and its results.
The conference 'Agency and Sustainability of Youth in the Age of Global Challenges' was dedicated to the fifteenth anniversary of the Centre for Youth Studies and lasted for two days. The participants from eleven Russian regions as well as India, Argentina and Brazil gathered at HSE University-St Petersburg to discuss the most topical problems and challenges that the youth has to face. The central elements were three plenary sessions which were held in a hybrid format involving international researchers.
The plenary sessions started with a speech by Elena Omelchenko, Head of the Centre, about the young researchers at HSE University. She talked about how young researchers developed, what was the difference between the generations of millennials and zoomers as well as prospects for research career development. The research showed that millennials considered themselves more conservative in comparison with the younger generation but at the same time more free than their parents. They grew up under the difficult circumstances of the 90s, which made them strong and goal-oriented. But zoomers grew up in the internet environment, that's why they are more immersed in the global culture, more free, they start to earn money earlier and have a high life speed. The rapid development of zoomers causes millennials' lack of confidence in themselves and encourages them to strive to move faster and reach the better not to be inferior to the younger generation. Elena Omelchenko underscored that it was impossible to divide the youth clearly and categorically into zoomers and millennials as they didn't always understand which group they belonged to and found themselves somewhere in between.
In the academic environment, the youth's life is built around work. It is the academic activity which brings them happiness and joy. At the same time, the youth needs certain freedom and personal comfort: hybrid or remote work format, lack of overtime work, and an opportunity to engage in volunteering activities in addition. Despite the salaries, uncertainty and excessive demands, the informants were determined to continue their academic careers and find ways to reach their goals.
Anuja Agrawal, Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at Delhi School of Economics University of Delhi (India), presented the research on youth resilience and gender roles in India. She reviewed in detail how the youth dealt with various challenges and difficulties arising in the process of socialisation and growing up, especially taking into account the specifics of gender roles and expectations in the Indian communities. Anuja Agrawal shared that in India, guys and girls socialise differently. Young men often have more carefree lives and various options for self-fulfilment. While girls have to fight the patriarchal organisation of society for their right to education, career and independent choice. According to the research, a significant contribution to the development of Indian women's lives was made by the protest movement which has become more active over the recent years.
Anuja Agrawal
Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology at Delhi School of Economics University of Delhi
I really liked the conference and this plenary session. Thanks to the Centre for the organisation, and congratulations on your fifteenth anniversary! Youth is an important part of society, and in many countries including India, it is dominant. If we don't study them, we won't be able to truly understand what is happening now and what will happen in Indian society if we don't look at it from the youth's point of view. It was pleasant to get so many questions from students and colleagues, talk to them and discuss my research. Especially, I would like to acknowledge the hospitality of the organisers, HSE University-St Petersburg and the city in general. This is my first visit to Russia, and I hope one day, I will return here to learn more about its culture.
The scientists also discussed education, urban space, the digital environment and social and political processes concerning the young generation and the situation in the labour market.
Yana Krupets, Deputy Director of the Centre for Youth Studies, and Yulia Epanova, Research Fellow, presented the report on the sustainability of young entrepreneurs in St Petersburg. The researchers studied the difference between freelancers and entrepreneurs and looked into how they provide stability for themselves during crises. It turned out that there were several tools, which helped the self-employed to go through the changes of the market. For example, diversification of skills and business allows them to provide sustainability and quickly reorient themselves in a crisis. One of the informants told the sociologists: 'Every time, business has to change. Business in Russia is generally structured like this. If you don't change, you stay on the same line, put all eggs into one basket and do not diversify, you won't survive'.
The research results also showed that entrepreneurs are more sustained because they have more ways to change the situation for the better.
Yana Krupets
Deputy Director of the Centre for Youth Studies
The self-employed, both freelancers and entrepreneurs, deal with crises in almost the same ways. In the meantime, entrepreneurs have two extra ways that, in our opinion, increase their sustainability. The first one is that they normalise the crisis by redefining it as a 'normal state of affairs'. The second is the 'disenchantment of business' or the maximum rationalisation of business processes, turning them into more controlled and predicted. Thus, entrepreneurs in comparison with freelancers become more sustained because they use more ways to cope with the changes. Moreover, they provide sustainability not only to themselves but also to the surrounding people, in the first place, their employees.
Besides, Yana Krupets and Yulia Epanova discovered that in response to the crisis, the self-employed most often do not get into a panic and abashment, and manoeuvre through the difficulties thanks to creativity and use instability as new opportunities for development. At the same time, coping with the difficulties increases individualisation and decreases the solidarity of the self-employed.
The topic of unstable employment was covered in the presentations of colleagues from other universities. Anastasia Melnik, senior research fellow of the Ural Federal University, shared her preliminary studies on the topic of precarious or unstable employment among the youth. Based on the data about alumni, she started to explore whether young specialists were involved in precarious employment and why. It turned out that in recent years, young people have been prone to non-permanent workplaces and asked themselves more often if they should 'go or stay'.
Anastasia Melnik
Senior Research Fellow of the Research Laboratory of University Development Problems of the Ural Federal University
It is yet to be identified if precarious employment becomes a new norm or if by graduation, a student receives not-so-in-demand and up-to-date education, so they have to seek an implementation for their knowledge. The research proved that approximately half of UFU alumni do not use the knowledge and skills received at the university. Consequently, we're talking about how higher education works to meet the needs of the market but not to outgo them, so young specialists have to adapt to the circumstances. The value of higher education is in an attempt to overplay the market with the help of knowledge and be successful in it. For this reason, the issue of specialists' success when entering the labour market after university is crucial.
Another important topic was educational migration. Irina Lisovskaya, Research Fellow at the Centre for Youth Studies, explained what helped the youth to adapt to life in a new city. It emerged that at the beginning, first-years from small towns often romanticise big cities and universities but get stressed later: not all expectations coincide with reality. Sometimes, it is difficult for them to find new connections beyond the university: all the leisure is focused on the university, and the adaptation doesn't happen. Students get support for coping with the stress from informal meetings inside and outside the university, career and cultural city events, and university psychological services. At the same time, sociologists underscore that universities do not have a profound solution to the adaptation of nonresident students.
Irina Lisovskaya
Research Fellow at the Centre for Youth Studies
Solving the problem of the nonresident students' adaptation requires a comprehensive view of the problem. Firstly, we have to admit that the student youth is very diverse and divided not only into two large groups—'Russians' and 'international students'. Nonresident students are not only those who come from agglomeration to St Petersburg or from Moscow suburbs to Moscow, receiving significant support from their families. A lot of students enrol from remote regions, these students are the most vulnerable group. They lack family support and many other things. Besides, in St Petersburg, there are a lot of students from national republics. All of them, just like international students, may face 'cultural shock' after moving.
It might seem that nonresident students get assistance with difficulties from a dormitory, however, it is not true. The youth often worries about not only everyday problems which are solved by the dormitory but 'social' ones, among which are inequality of opportunities, disorientation and loneliness.
Irina Lisovskaya
Research Fellow at the Centre for Youth Studies
The generation of zoomers is very sensitive to such difficulties, so they can become very serious for them, and impact their academic performance and mental health. However, the problems of these people often go unnoticed. It seems that it has always been this way: the youth move from their towns to study, cope on their own, and grow up under these new conditions. My colleagues and I believe that we need subtle methods of working with groups that need support. For instance, a chatbot, which can help to find your way in the chaos of a new life, psychological help, and special programmes from a university and a city that assist students in immersing in a new environment comfortably.
Irina Lisovskaya highlights that lots of projects already exist in one or another format but there is no united mechanism and goal. Often, they are just individual initiatives of professors.
Students also presented their reports. Thus, Alina Petrova and Evgeniya Egorova, 4th-year students of the Bachelor's programme 'Sociology and Social Informatics', studied how the concept of a small motherland was changing for students from towns and villages after moving to St Petersburg and presented the analysis results. The research is a project of the mirror laboratory of the Centre for Youth Studies and the Kazan Federal University. The results proved that after moving, the students felt aloof when coming back to their native towns and villages. The informants highlighted that they felt like guests when they came to their parents and were losing the feeling of belonging to the house where they grew up. Nevertheless, they believe that educational migration has influenced their lives positively and they have no plans to return.
Summing up the conference results, the organisers underscored the high level of the presented works and expressed their hope that the conference would gather talented researchers, who contribute to the development of youth research in Russia and abroad, at HSE University-St Petersburg again.
Elena Omelchenko
Head of the Centre for Youth Studies
An interest in youth research is constantly growing, which is related to new challenges of the time in which we live. The youth is like a barometer of the future—it's not just a popular phrase. Researches on diverse sides of youth life, and the analysis of changes in the youth environments help, though not fully, to look into the future, and feel the vibe of the new generation’s involvement and participation in the future life of a family, city, country and world. For us as scientists, it is extremely important to avoid excessive politicisation of the youth issue, overcome moral panic, try to listen and hear the young and accept their right to subjectivity and full-fledged participation in society life.