The civilization has a long history. It was formed in the framework of history and philosophy of history. In sociology it was used from time to time and only as a means of analysis of religion and culture. However in the middle of the XX century in the context of post-colonial studies it became evident that both the process of movement of different societies to modernity and the results of this movement show the lack of universalist patterns. It also become clear that one can use theory of civilization to explain all these phenomena. In fact the civilization approach turned out to be a useful alternative to the universalist approach as a way of understanding the contemporary global world especially of the processes of modernization.

The civilization approach has made it possible to work out a new version of global sociology. It shows the way to investigate the culture-civilization complex which includes religion social institutes and identities. 

The article discusses the concept of human planning proposed by Danish architect Jan Gehl. He criticizes the main trajectory of urban development in the twentieth century and points out that for several decades architects were more concerned about creating space for the free movement of cars. With this approach, the interests of pedestrians are ignored; as a result people are gradually squeezed out of the streets by cars because of streets’ low comfort for them. Gehl suggests revising the priorities of urban planning and creating urban space for pedestrians to intensify social interactions. He believes that creating conditions for walking and increasing the number of public spaces can help to improve citizens’ quality of life. Gehl‘s proposals today become the basis for the reorganization of some cities in the world, including Moscow.

The paper deals with the knowledge of Moscow students about the processes, institutions of socialization and the subjects of youth policy in Russia. The basis of the empirical base is the sociological study conducted by the authors in April–May 2019 in Moscow. It is noted that students adequately and critically assess the state of modern Russian society and the state, understand the causes of the crisis. The greatest impact on the formation of value orientations of modern Russian youth is provided by the media, family and education institutions. Moreover, the media form both positive and negative benchmarks for young people. Students are aware of the presence of various negative phenomena in the youth environment and show a critical attitude towards them. Comparative analysis with 2013–2017 studies shows that in 2019 the levels of patriotic sentiments among Moscow students and their approval of the activities of political figures, socio-political institutions decreased. The trends of prevalence in the values of young people of consumer orientations, approval of traditionally negative phenomena intensified. This contributes to the desocialization of youth, the manifestation of asocial and unlawful forms of their self-realization, the development of various countercultures, increased conflict tension and aggressiveness of young people, and the growth of extremism in the youth environment. Measures are proposed that increase the social efficiency of the state youth policy of the Russian Federation. The research materials are of interest to specialists involved in the problems of youth socialization and the implementation of state youth policy.

The digital environment is forming new social reality: the structure of society and principles of formation and functioning of social groups are being changed, identity is being blurred, as well as the labor, education and consumption markets are experiencing changes. These changes demand serious social thought. The article presents social inequality transformation issues in conditions of digitalization and its probable reasons. In particular, some of the reasons, that influence new inequity forms, are: identity bounds violation, due to technological progress affecting personal space; simultaneous existence of virtual (online) and real (offline) spaces, severely increased multiplicity of statuses (including fictional), migration virtualization, and transition of some parameters from rank to nominal, etc. Digitalization also impacts on social institutions, such as education one. For instance, part-time or full switch to online-education is gaining popularity. The article shows some researches among students about online educational programs: respondents claim that the traditional and online models should be combined. For sure, online platforms have advantage in access to variable sources, such as particular online courses, subscription to EJ, useful data bases, permanent chatting with students and professors, etc. In addition, it is assumed that the social structure of the education system that has implemented e-learning becomes less hierarchical, which is associated with the digitization of the text.

The article is devoted to the problem of relationship between social, techno-social subjects and artificial intelligence systems in the future mixed society. The threats of possible techno-social inequality both between humans and robots, and between ordinary people and persons, implanted chips to increase their intellectual capabilities, are considered. The necessity of development moral and legal norms of subjects behavior in the mixed society is emphasized. The author reveals methodological foundations of bioethics and proposes strategic steps for constructing interactions of actors in a mixed society.

The article examines the financial behavior of Russian customers of Sberbank of Russia. As an information base of the study, we use aggregated open data on the behavior of the Bank’s customers in all regions of Russia.

The author characterizes the key trends of financial behavior of Russians, pointing to the growth of the tendency to saving.

The article describes two models of financial behavior of the Bank’s customers. In the first, citizens are focused on the widespread use of credit funds, regardless of their own income. The second involves a more rational attitude to finance and is determined by the size of the average wage. The article concludes about the low financial literacy of Russians, which is manifested in the use of such inefficient financial instruments as bank deposit for savings and investments. The author points out that only a small part of Russians have formulated a financial strategy, a comprehensive plan of personal investments using a wide range of tools such as individual investment account, mutual funds, stock and bond markets.

At the end of the article, some aspects of regional specifics of financial behavior are considered. Subjects of the Russian Federation are analyzed through the prism of the volume of bank deposits, expenses on plastic bank cards, the volume and number of mortgage and consumer loans. 

In contemporary political science time is becoming a portmanteau-concept. It forms terminological concatenations in all fields of theoretical and applied researches. At the same time methodological status of time in political science is still not clear. Author suggests a systematization of those researches there time is viewed as a meaningful factor in political process. On the analysis of theoretical basis, methodology and tools four approaches are introduced: narrative approach, psychological approach, institutionalist approach and cyclic approach. The order of introduction of these approaches is based on the degree of intentionality of political actors in their treatment of time: from the most to the least conscious end.

The article is dedicated to development and current state of the interest groups system in France. The author shows that the development of the French interest groups system occurred under the influence of historical, cultural, social and institutional factors. For comparative researchers who analyze interest groups in different countries France represents a special case since it cannot be classified as either corporatist or pluralistic. Although initially the French model was closer to corporatism, the trade unions — an essential element of classical corporatist systems — always played much smaller role. In addition, in France there is a tradition of close interaction between elites, which directly affects the interest groups system. The most influential groups are those that enjoy privileged access to government officials which allows us to talk about sectoral corporatism. At the same time, pluralistic tendencies can be traced in the development of the French interest groups system. However, in France, the pluralization of the interest groups system is associated not with the development of market relations but with the fragmented structure of state power, in which the decision-making process is concentrated in pluralistic and at the same time elitist communities. The author concludes that the peculiarities of the development of the political system and political culture in France led to the existence of such a system of interest groups that combines both corporate and pluralistic features, but the logic of their interaction with the government is based on the principle of inter-elite interaction.

The article analyzes the role of mass media in the process of political socialization of the Russian youth, taking place in the context of deep socio-economic and political transformations. The crucial impressionable years in the development of citizens’ political outlook are between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Young Russian citizens are just in the process of developing political habits and are easily influenced by different factors. Much of political information comes from the traditional and innovative mass media: newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. Television helps to shape public opinion by providing news and analysis, its entertainment programming addresses important contemporary issues that are in the political arena. The growth of the Internet is especially significant. Political news aggregators and online bloggers present a broad range of political opinion, information, and analysis. The importance of an adequate assessment of the role of the traditional and innovative media in the political socialization of young people, in shaping the political subjectivity of young Russian citizens is obvious.

The article presents the evolution of language origin’ sociological reflection. The transformation of language phenomena interpretation in the context of objective, semiotic, structural and discourse theories is displayed. The correlation between discourse practices and post-industrial information society development is shown. Special attention is paid to language sociological interpretation of P. Bourdieu. The concepts introduced by him, namely: habitus, linguistic capital, linguistic field market, practical sense characterize language development, conditioned by educational, and social status communicators’ characteristics. Under globalization polilinguism phenomenon as policultural contemporary society characteristics, actualizing socio-cultural specifics of global society members acquires special significance. Constructionism and primordialism demonstrate different points of view on polilinguism phenomenon and are used in the context of comfort and benefits of their followers. Nevertheless, these approaches coincide in recognition of this concept significance to better peoples’ lives quality. Polilinguistic habitus of a contemporary individual acquires new dispositions, adequate to global context. Polilinguistic capital functions of polilinguistic market/fields providing the access to world-wide knowledge and possibilities of getting, percepting, and producing information. Polilinguistic discourse practices most fully correspond to cyberspace social reality as information polilinguistic market at the global scale. Uneven presentation of information content in various languages eliminate democratic essence of cyberspace and becomes the obstacle for users for getting the full access to information. It is especially important for minor languages speakers. The absence or lack of polilinguistic capital leads to polilinguistic injustice and information inequality, depriving people of social lifts possibilities and provoking social conflicts. The problem resolution is seen, particularly, in introducing the thee language education model and creating information content in wider variety of languages.