ABSTRACT
In the course of our four-year cross-cultural research project a number of theoretical, methodological and practical problems had to be confronted. In the present chapter some of these problems will come under discussion. The main theoretical problems arose from the culture-boundedness of the concepts used in the Western social sciences. Many of the concepts were not directly applicable to a unstable society which was undergoing conI stant, rapid changes and crises, and in which many of the social phenomI ena and problems differ from those which researchers tackle in Western countries. The concepts of family, socioeconomic background and educaI tional background, for instance, which are widely used without any speI cific problems in social research conducted in the West, proved to be highI ly problematic in a Russian context. In an unstable crisis-ridden society, people have to use several - from a Western perspective unconventional - survival strategies, including maintaining several jobs and multiple occupaI tions and sources of income, some of which may be connected with the grey economy or even the black market. Adults are unable to define their main source of income, occupations do not correspond to education and vice versa, and in consequence the socioeconomic status of respondents is almost impossible to define. Young people are not necessarily aware of their parents’ sources of income or occupations. If their parents work in areas that are more or less illegal, young people are reluctant to report about their real occupations (cf. Finckenauer, 1995, 110). The reluctance of children to tell about their parents’ occupations may sometimes also be put down to the fact that they simply do not know what their parents do, since patterns of socialization pattern in Russia seem to be based on the principle that children and younger family members remain uninvolved in their parents’ affairs. A third reason for concealing the nature of parents’ occupations may also be unemployment, which is regarded as stigmatizing for the family and hence persuades many people that it is better to provide no answers at all to such questions.
