Centre for Modern Childhood Research

Publications

• Book

  Mikhaylova O.

  Comparative Semantic Network Analysis of the Satanic Discourses in the Russian Social Network "Vkontakte"

  Satanism definition has been a significant issue for the various social actors through ages. Satanic moral panic could be treated as one of the examples for the social struggles on the power to name something satanic or not. For contemporary Russian society the satanism definition also became relevant, Russian politicians, lawmakers frequently use the word “satanism” in their claims and have to make decisions on what should be named satanic. Due to the significance of satanism definition for the scholar and non-scholar public, in this thesis, I dealt with the development of the application of sociological classifications to the distinction between satanic discourses. In particular, I attempted to compare three types of satanic online discourses (using definition of satanism proposed by Petersen) and discover the distinctive features of the satanic discourses in Russian social network “VK” on the semantic level. For that purpose, semantic network analysis was used, in addition to this, the social network analysis was applied to the reconstruction of the structure of the satanic discursive field. The results of my Thesis contribute to the satanism research, discourse analysis studies of online discourse propagation, digital religion research, social network analysis studies and could be utilized as a first step towards the formation of the mechanisms for the automatic distinction between satanic discourses in the Russian social networks.

  Master dissertation, HSE University, 2020.

• Article

  Tsyganova E.

  Nisskaya, A.K., Tsyganova, E.M. (2024). Parental Practices of Controlling and Supporting the Autonomy of Elementary School Children and Early Adolescents in Russia: A Qualitative Study, Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 17(1), 00-00. DOI: 10.11621/pir.2024.0201

  Background. Children’s and adolescents’ development of autonomy depends on the relationship with their parents and the parents’ child-rearing practices. These might be aimed towards supporting or restricting autonomy, as well as its different aspects, such as independence or volitional functioning.

  Objective. To compare the practices described by foreign researchers as being the most beneficial for supporting autonomy with those used on a daily basis by Russian parents of primary school children and early adolescents.

  Design. We conducted 26 semi-structured interviews with 16 mothers and 10 fathers of primary school children (n = 10) and early adolescents (n = 16).

  Results. The practices of autonomy support and control used by parents were mostly similar to those described in foreign literature. However, new features were found: Guidance, Explanation of Patterns, and “Area of Responsibility”. The behavior of Russian parents can be described through practices specific to different situations. Qualitative research suggests the absence of a unified style of behavior in relation to children’s independence. Two types of autonomy support practices were used: encouraging independence and support for volitional functioning.  Encouraging children’s volitional functioning was perceived by parents as something that guides their behavior, yet mention of this practice was much less explicit than mention of encouraging independence.

  Conclusion. Further reflection is required on the observed situationality of practices – whether it should be assessed as chaotic, hindering autonomy, or flexible, promoting it.

  Psychology in Russia: State of the Art. 2024. Vol. 17. No. 1. P. 00-00.

• Book chapter

  Sivak E., Smirnov I.

  Measuring Adolescents’ Well-Being: Correspondence of Naïve Digital Traces to Survey Data

  Digital traces are often used as a substitute for survey data. However, it is unclear whether and how digital traces actually correspond to the survey-based traits they purport to measure. This paper examines correlations between selfreports and digital trace proxies of depression, anxiety, mood, social integration and sleep among high school students. The study is based on a small but rich multilayer data set (N = 144). The data set contains mood and sleep measures, assessed daily over a 4-month period, along with survey measures at two points in time and information about online activity from VK, the most popular social networking site in Russia. Our analysis indicates that 1) the sentiments expressed in social media posts are correlated with depression; namely, adolescents with more severe symptoms of depression write more negative posts, 2) late-night posting indicates less sleep and poorer sleep quality, and 3) students who were nominated less often as somebody’s friend in the survey have fewer friends on VK and their posts receive fewer “likes.” However, these correlations are generally weak. These results demonstrate that digital traces can serve as useful supplements to, rather than substitutes for, survey data in studies on adolescents’ well-being. These estimates of correlations between survey and digital trace data could provide useful guidelines for future research on the topic.

  In bk.: Social Informatics. 12th International Conference, SocInfo 2020, Pisa, Italy, October 6–9, 2020, Proceedings.. Springer, 2020. Ch. 26. P. 352-363.

• Working paper

  Mikhaylova O.

  Mapping Sociology of Mental Health and Illness Articles in American Sociological Review

  Using two samples of research articles published between 1936 and 2024, I map the topic structure of the sociology of mental health and illness in the American Sociological Review (ASR) journal. One sample has 116 articles on the sociology of mental health and illnesses, and the other contains 13,645 papers published across all topics since the journal’s founding. To achieve this, I used word co-occurrence networks with several other Bibliometrix package modules to investigate four study questions: 1. What percentage of articles included in ASR are from the sociology of mental health and illness, and has this percentage evolved over time? 2. Out of all journal articles, how often is this kind of research cited? 3. What fields of research does the sociology of mental health and illness cover now? 4. How has the scientific discourse on the sociology of mental health and illness changed over time? The results of this study show that, despite making up a tiny percentage of publications, the share of journal articles on mental health and illness in ASR began to increase yearly in 1999. Additionally, the sociology of mental health and illness publications frequently receive more citations than conventional journal articles. In conclusion, until 2015, articles on social ties had a significant impact on the corpus of papers on the sociology of mental health and illness in the journal; articles on families, however, were cited almost continuously over time, and starting in 2016, articles on race began to have an impact.

  OSF, 2024