Actual Research on the Values of the Youth of Europe and Russia in the Context of the Socio-Cultural Mentality’s Theory of Pitirim Sorokin The Popularity of K-Pop Culture in Russia: Good or Evil? The Case of BTS

Abstract

The historical perspective deals with the comparative study of social values and cultural dimensions as a direction of social sciences, and demonstrates the results of empirical research on the values of young people in Russia and Europe. In their study, the authors relied on the approach of the Russian-American sociologist P. A. Sorokin in defining the mentality of contemporary youth. In characterising the mentalities, Pitirim Sorokin highlighted the main parameters of mentality diagnosis, which were integrated and adapted by the authors into the research toolkit. The aim of the study was to identify the values of student youth on the basis of a comparativist approach. Based on the results of the study, the authors, continuing Pitirim Sorokin’s theory of the fluctuation of mentalities, characterize the modern mentality of young people according to the criteria highlighted by the classic sociologist. In organizing the study, the authors drew on the findings of past and ontemporary sociologists on the onset of the transition from the dominance of one mentality in Western culture to new models of perception and attitudes in society; this position formed the basis of one of the hypotheses of the study. Based on the results of the processing of the collected data, it was possible to identify the basic components of the values of contemporary European and Russian youth, which include equally material and “spiritual” priorities, whereas separately such values dominate in the vast minority.