Rybakova L.N.
Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

Subject: social functions of alcohol in youth population such as transformation of cultural patterns of social interactions, solidarity maintenance under normative ambivalence to alcohol consumption in society.

Topic: drinking rituals as forms of individual need in belonging to a social unit.

Aim: to show the significance of informal circumstances on alcohol consumption in different groups, to contribute to preventing alcoholism in other forms and mechanisms different to forbidding measures of state regulation in alcohol policy.

Methodology: analyzing social processes of different level: individual opinions, group attitudes, mass media perceptions in the area of alcohol consumption. Empirical data (questionnaires and interviews, focus group discussions and forum discussions in websites, on-line poll) collected by the author, the grant study RGNF 09-03-00116a “Alcohol consumption in the population as a factor of destabilization of Russian society: sociological aspects” (M.Pozdnyakova and collaborates – Department of deviant behavior of the Institute of Sociology Russian Academy of Sciences).

Results: there is no public opinion on the role of alcohol in social life. The evaluation of alcohol campaign in 1980^th is ambivalent. Some group opinions opposite existing law and represent different attitudes to effective state regulation in alcohol policy. Practical alcohol consumption denies medically approved no-risky consumption models. Actual drinking rituals in groups show destroying tendencies such as isolation in the group and attitudes to alcohol like any other food. Drinking behavior display no fears about developing alcohol dependence.

Application area: research, education, prevention, popular science.

Conclusions: research of group dynamics as a basement of adolescent binge drinking, studies of group and individual attitudes to drunkenness are needed, contribution to preventing risky drinking behavior is an actual theoretical and practical target. Restriction and moralization opposite the need of adolescents to try and develop specific mechanisms of socialization under isolation from traditions of older generations.

Key words: social norm, anomy, postmodernism, ritual, social unit, everyday culture, quasi-alcohol consumption, social behavior, entertainment.

References

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