Structure of the social sphere. Social sphere of society and its structure

The social sphere is an original, complexly organized, ordered whole, unified in its essence, in its quality, purpose and multifunctional due to the complexity and ambiguity of the process of reproduction of social subjects with their abilities, needs, diversity of interests.

Its life processes are determined by objective laws and are based on certain principles of social management.

Knowledge and detailed consideration of its main components are of great theoretical and practical importance for the sociological analysis of the social sphere and for improving the management of the social life of society.

In the scientific literature there are different approaches to determine the structure of the social sphere. In one case, the division of the social sphere is carried out depending on the content, in another - according to the main functions, in the third - according to the categorical apparatus that characterizes the social sphere. Thus, it can be represented as a set of education and healthcare systems, the sphere of consumer and cultural services, transport services and the like, or as a historically achieved distribution and consolidation of the functions of the social sphere in the form of specific conditions, responsibilities and opportunities for society and its members to satisfy and enrich their needs. IN in this case the structure of the social sphere expresses the relationship and position of the organizationally formalized functions of the social sphere as its own elements.

S.A. Shavel presents the structure of the social sphere as the sum of four interconnected parts, which at the same time act as empirical indicators for its substantive identification:

1. The social structure of society, historically represented by certain classes and social groups (socio-demographic, ethnic, territorial, etc.) and the relations between them.

2. Social infrastructure as a set of sectors of the national economy and types of socially useful activities (cooperative and individual, public funds and social initiatives, etc.) aimed at providing services directly to people.

3. Social interests, needs, expectations and incentives, i.e. everything that ensures the connection of the individual (groups) with society, the inclusion of the individual in the social process.

4. Principles and requirements of social justice, conditions and guarantees for its implementation.

Other systems of classification of elements of this system can be cited.

A number of researchers believe that it makes sense to talk about common elements of the spheres public life, from which any of them is built. It is assumed that the elements of all social structures are interconnected, they seem to penetrate each other. But this relationship does not at all mean the elimination of the qualitative certainty of the spheres. For example, classes, others social communities permeate all spheres of public life with their activities and relationships. However, the laws of reproduction, on the basis of which the social sphere is formed, these communities function and develop, which connect complex social life into an integral system, do not dissolve in the laws of other spheres. Most scientists are inclined to highlight elements such as activities, relationships, and subjects in the spheres. Moreover, the factor of social activity comes to the forefront of analysis.

Each of these approaches has its own advantages, since it allows one to analyze the content and essential characteristics of the social sphere from a certain angle. At the same time, none of them reveals all the richness, complexity and diversity of the social sphere in its real and substantive embodiment. We propose a principle for structuring the social sphere, based on the characteristics of its sociological analysis. First, let us clarify which objects and processes, in our opinion, can be attributed to the social sphere, and which to the external environment.

The social sphere does not have strict spatial and temporal boundaries. It does not exist on its own, not in isolation, but in a certain relationship with other spheres of society: material-productive, political, cultural-spiritual and systems of natural order. The social sphere, expressing life activity in its entirety, resulting in a person and social groups, seems to permeate all the others, since in each of them there are people and social communities. On the other hand, the condition for the development of the social sphere is the functioning of other spheres, since they produce material, spiritual goods and values, and implement the functions of political management of society. Thus, the social sphere, as it were, “overlaps” other spheres, collecting, as if in focus, all the prerequisites for the reproduction and development of society. In this sense, all other spheres of society can be considered as an environment. In relation to them, the social sphere acts as a factor in strengthening and maintaining the stability of social relations and processes, their relative balance. This is an indispensable condition for maintaining the integrity of the entire social system.

It seems that as a criterion for distinguishing system elements from the environment, one should accept the function of each of them in creating the system-forming properties of the social sphere. In this case, the social sphere includes all objects and processes that take a direct, immediate part in the formation of the properties of the system associated with the reproduction and improvement of the individual (group), the satisfaction of its vital and higher needs. Their interaction creates the social sphere as a system with its qualitative differences. The material-productive, political and cultural-spiritual spheres, indirectly participating in the formation of integrative qualities, influencing the social sphere through individual components, generally remain external to the system and therefore relate to the environment. They are connected to it by a network of communications, each of which has different significance for the functioning of the social sphere. The environment should also include the natural and climatic conditions in which the social sphere functions.

Based on these considerations and taking into account that in the social sphere the needs for goods necessary for the self-realization of the creative potential of a person and a group are formed and satisfied, let us consider this sphere as a system that has the necessary set of components of a material, procedural, ideological and human nature. The interaction of these structural units should give rise to the qualitative features inherent in a given system. We will include as such the social infrastructure and the consumer products it produces, the processes of education, medical, social and consumer services, bodies and institutions for managing the social sphere, mechanisms and regulatory framework for regulating the consumer behavior of the population, individual, and group.

Let us note that each component of the social sphere cannot be understood on its own. Its function is realized through the activities of people, thereby satisfying their needs. The substantive basis of the social sphere is the joint activity of people to reproduce their real life and the social relations that arise between the subjects of this activity.

The components of the social sphere have varying degrees of complexity, are hierarchically dependent on each other and are derived from the social sphere as an integral system. Their specificity, emergence and existence are determined by the main function of the social sphere - the function of the social reproduction of people as subjects of life and the reconstruction of structures, social institutions, life support resources of social subjects.

Each component of the social sphere performs a specific function that is purposeful. Otherwise, the component drops out of the system and becomes unnecessary. Functions determine the elements of a holistic structure and are materialized within the inherent social sphere internal organization.

The limit of analysis of the social sphere, from our point of view, its primary element is the concept of “need of an individual, group” - the simplest, most elementary formation that retains its subordination to the general law of the social sphere, its main function. The primacy of this element is due to the fact that it is characterized by the basic contradiction characteristic of the social sphere between the growing needs of subjects and the possibilities of satisfying them. This contradiction, in our opinion, is fundamental in the process of self-development and self-realization of each social subject. Its character and direction determine the possibilities and the real level of development of the social sphere as a whole. It is precisely the need that is the concentration of contradictions inherent in the social sphere, which determine its specificity. Need serves as a source of self-propulsion and self-development of the system. Isolating and studying the main component of the system allows us to analyze the sources and driving forces of its development, to find out the main direction of movement, the trends that are inherent in it.

The material and spiritual needs of an individual and a group are formed under the influence of economic conditions, sociocultural factors and are characterized, on the one hand, by their minimally acceptable and socially guaranteed level, and on the other, by the level of capabilities and aspirations of the social subjects themselves.

The economic crisis, which led to a decline in the standard of living of the majority of Russians, significantly adjusted the consumption structure of the population, and for the worse. However, the level of people's demands that was formed in society earlier, the structure of the needs of various groups of the population, by their nature, has generally been preserved. The resulting gap between needs and the possibility of satisfying them not only morally traumatizes the consciousness of people, but also leads to their physical and mental degradation. The demoralization of the population is fueled by means mass media, promoting inflated consumer standards, accessible only to “new Russians”. It seems that all social forces that have the opportunity to influence the formation of social standards of the population should be guided by a sense of social responsibility for the discrepancy between the average income of the population and the proposed consumption standards.

An important determinant of the social activity of an individual and a group is value orientations. They are embodied in the ideals, interests, aspirations of people and determine the behavior of subjects in the social sphere. Value orientations are formed during socialization and are reinforced by the totality of life experience. That is why they are one of their stable characteristics. The system of value orientations has a multi-level structure, which includes rational, emotional and behavioral components. Its peak consists of values close to the ideal.

In recent years, the rejection of pre-existing values, at the center of which was the official doctrine and the unofficial emphasis on the priority value of work, the introduction of Western moral principles, the spread of the socially attractive mythology of quick enrichment and " beautiful life"led to the destruction of many people's usual social and moral guidelines, resulting in inconsistency in behavior and consciousness, instability in society at the macro- and micro-level.

A blurred system of values and norms, often unsupported by appropriate sanctions, but serving as the real basis for the macrosocial process of changing models and regulators of social activity, is one of the factors of inconsistency in a modern transforming society. It is obvious that further social transformations, if we want the affirmation of the positive logic of the social, the development of society, and the expansion of the space of social activity, are associated with remoralization, the formation in society of a system of social values that are generally significant for the majority of the population.

We believe that one of the leading conditions for this may be reliance on a system of basic value orientations, which would include such values as a good education and high professional qualifications, self-realization and dedication in business life and, only on this basis, prosperous and comfortable life. The most important component of the social sphere is social infrastructure. By it we mean a stable set of material and material elements that create conditions for satisfying the entire complex of needs (vital and social-activity) for the purpose of reproduction of man and society. Social infrastructure is the reason for the interaction of the material environment and social subjects and provides conditions for the rational organization of their lives and activities. In terms of its internal organization, the infrastructure of the social sphere is a system of institutions, enterprises and government bodies that ensure the efficient functioning of all institutions of the social sphere. At the same time, the diverse needs of individuals, families and society as a whole are met by a wide and varied range of goods and services.

Social infrastructure is characterized by types and areas of activity of social subjects (labor, cultural, leisure, etc.) and by links in each type (preschool, out-of-school education, etc.). It can be considered both at the level of society, industry, and region, enterprise. Individual elements of social infrastructure are not interchangeable. Only with a holistic approach that ensures the rational functioning of people can we talk about the efficiency of population reproduction.

Social infrastructure can be characterized by the number of institutions, organizations providing education, medical, consumer and transport services, as well as the number of places in them, and the volume of services. In analyzing the functioning of social infrastructure, people’s subjective assessments of the sufficiency of the actually existing social infrastructure in a particular region or at a particular enterprise are important.

Based on the level of development of social infrastructure, which is determined using sociological analysis, one can judge the degree to which the needs of the population are met, quality and quantity in their correlation with the level of pre-reform (1991) Russia or developed countries, and the requirements of modern civilization.

The last decade has been marked by the rapid destruction of social infrastructure. In conditions of budget deficit, the state of the material base for the education of schoolchildren and students and the medical activities of doctors is deteriorating. The number of preschool and out-of-school institutions, physical education and sports institutions has decreased. Road and rail communications, especially suburban ones, are in a crisis situation. The most difficult situation was previously financed from budgets manufacturing enterprises(factory kindergartens, pioneer camps, canteens, clinics, rest homes and sanatoriums). In recent years, fewer and fewer new socio-cultural facilities have been commissioned.

The uncontrolled growth of tuition fees, medical, and consumer services for the population has led to a lack of demand for the capacity of educational and health institutions, which previously provided for the needs of the population. The decrease in the availability of various goods and services has deformed the existing way of life, increased the burden on household, reducing free time, first of all women.

As our research shows, only a small number of the population uses the services of household institutions. Thus, only every fifth of the surveyed families regularly uses the services of hairdressing salons, laundries, dry cleaners, and tailoring shops; about half use them occasionally, and about a third do not use them at all.

Radical changes have affected state system housing provision. In conditions of an acute shortage of income, on the one hand, the volume of housing construction is decreasing, on the other, the volume of sales is growing. In practice, there is a market redistribution of the housing stock built in previous years, and often this occurs by infringing on the interests of weakly protected sections of the population living in the municipal stock. The lack of social protection for those families who are in especially dire need of housing leads to increased income differentiation among the population.

Processes of education, medical, consumer, transport services, social protection, etc. represent a set of statistically stable acts social interaction people, determining their lifestyle, conditions of social reproduction. Like any process, this interaction is characterized by extension in space and time, sequence, and continuity. It is intended to serve two interrelated goals: preserving previously accumulated human potential, ensuring the availability of services and creating new institutional prerequisites for improving the qualitative characteristics of the social reproduction of future generations, ensuring the growth of the potential of the social sphere.

The services of social institutions shape the social ecology.

A system of indicators recording these processes can be represented by indicators characterizing:

Industry potential (supply of personnel in various sectors of the social sphere, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the results of educational activities, health status of citizens, housing, social protection, social services, etc.);

Subjective assessment of the degree of satisfaction of the needs of individuals and social groups in housing, medical and consumer services, education, cultural and spiritual communication, political participation;

The ratio of paid and free services, state and private ownership of the enterprises producing them, the degree of accessibility of paid services to various groups and segments of the population.

Assessing the situation in sectors of the social sphere, we note that they are experiencing a serious decline. The result of the ongoing reforms was the deterioration of social indicators characterizing the above processes, depriving the main group of the population of the opportunity to receive a large part of services. The sharp differentiation in the provision of the population with socio-cultural services is associated with the polarization of incomes of the population, rising prices for goods and services and, as a result, with a narrowing of the effective demand of broad sections of the population, as well as the diversion of the highest quality resources to satisfy the demands of a small highly income group of society. It should also be noted the differentiation of regional socio-cultural living conditions, which affects the possibilities of social reproduction of the population and can give rise to conflicts between different territories.

The problem of social security for vulnerable segments and groups of the population remains one of the most pressing. In recent years, the almost doubling of the number of old-age pensioners, the homeless (according to various estimates, there are now between 1.5 and 2 million people), street children is required from the state in order to ensure the moral health of society, its dynamic development in the perspective of mobilizing human potential, organizing effective social support for these layers.

In the context of a catastrophically deteriorating socio-economic situation in the country, a growing budget deficit, a continuous rise in prices, apparently, this decline will continue in the future, since for those who plan the social development of the country it turns out to be unprofitable to invest in industries that do not give an effect immediately, but in the long term. The current crisis may worsen further due to rising prices for goods and services, energy resources, and tightening tax policy. Perhaps the most pressing problems will be the problems of public utilities and transport services.

However, it seems to us that a minimum of free services should be established by law to guarantee the social survival of the population and the future of our country. They should include educational, medical and transport services.

The most important component of the social sphere is people. They can be presented or described as a population - by the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the country's population, and their social differentiation - through the involvement of people in certain groups or strata of society. At the same time, the state of health of the population, its intellectual potential, cultural moral values and deviations will be an assessment of the functioning of the social sphere, and the place of a person, a group in social structure- an indicator of the potential capabilities of their social reproduction. Let us note that all social groups and strata, as well as the individual, act as subjects of the social sphere. Each of them is included in it in its own way.

In the first chapter we have already given a description of the population; let us turn to the characteristics of the social stratification of our society in the conditions of the transition to a market. It should be noted that Russian researchers, when building a social structure, use various criteria:

division of labor, property relations; power, prestige, income, level of education. Thus, according to N.M. Rimashevskaya and I.A. Diskin, the contours of the new social structure of society are determined by the degree of adaptation of people to new economic and social realities, the awareness of various groups and layers of their interests. From the point of view of these authors, the social structure "as a first approximation" looks like this:

1) “elite-oligarchic groups” with property in sizes comparable to the largest Western corporations and means of power influence at the all-Russian level;

2) “regional and corporate elites who have significant wealth and influence on a Russian scale at the level of regions and sectors of the economy;

3) the “Russian upper class”, which has property and income that ensures high Western standards of consumption, as well as claims to improve its social status and orientation towards established practices and ethical standards of economic relations;

4) “the Russian middle class, with incomes that ensure the satisfaction of average Russian and higher consumption standards; relatively high adaptability, significant social aspirations and motivation; social activity and orientation towards legal ways of its manifestation;

5) “outsiders”, characterized by low adaptation and social activity, low income and focus on legal ways of obtaining them;

6) “marginals”, characterized by low adaptation, asocial and antisocial attitudes in their socio-economic activities;

7) “criminals”, who have high social activity and adaptation, and act quite rationally contrary to the legal, established norms of economic and socio-economic activity. Academician G.V. Osipov believes that in Russia by 1994, “a qualitatively new, extremely polarized social-class structure had basically formed with poles in the form of the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and semi-declassed wage workers, on the other, with a very unstable middle class , which would be more accurately called the middle social stratum."

N.E. follows approximately the same approach. Tikhonov. In her speech at the International Theoretical Conference of Sociologists, she notes that “the social structure of the emerging society will gravitate more towards archaic forms of social structure of the early industrial type with fairly strict class differentiation than to the social structure of society of the late industrial type of the Western model.” The author also points to the possibility of reviving the idea of class struggle, “since the situation in Russia is unlikely to improve noticeably in the foreseeable future.”

From our point of view, the emergence of the market gives rise to fundamentally new social relations, including production, and new forms of ownership: private, joint-stock, public organizations, cooperative, concession, mixed, etc. This means the emergence in public life of new social groups of people, which are characterized by a more complex and not yet familiar combination of features that require comprehension. But it is quite obvious that the resuscitation of private property gives rise to a class of owners and aggravates its relationship with hired workers, and property differentiation revives layers of beggars, poor, rich, differing from each other in income and sources of its receipt, as well as quality of life.

Moreover, from the standpoint of our analysis, the most significant, when constructing a matrix of social stratification of society, is the criterion of social stratification, when the basis for its construction is the indicator of average per capita income. In market conditions, it is this feature that largely determines the effectiveness of the social reproduction of a person or group. Although it must be recognized that even a significant level of income, while determining potential opportunities for self-development and realization of creative potential, does not always and does not immediately change the behavioral reactions of specific people.

Most researchers of the social structure of society agree on the importance (in order to ensure political stability in society) of the speedy formation of the so-called “middle class” and at the same time the unrealism of quickly completing this task.

It should be noted that there is no clear, uniform definition of the category “middle class”. This is mainly due to the methodological difficulties of fixing the boundaries of a given social category. In world practice, belonging to the “middle class” is usually established on the basis of a person’s possession of average status and prestige. In this case, the main methodological criterion is the amount of an individual’s income, which allows him to have and maintain a certain average standard of consumption. If we take this criterion as the basis for the assessment, then we can argue that by the beginning of radical social transformations in Russia, the “middle class” was fully established. In the mid-80s, skilled workers, intellectuals, and management personnel occupied very significant positions in the social structure of the country. Worldviews and moral values associated with obtaining a stable high income based on highly qualified professional and labor activities distinguished these groups of the population from other categories.

Reforms, with their serious social costs, led to the erosion of this layer. The price of reforms turned out to be excessively high and it exceeded the safety margin of this segment of the Russian population. In recent years, the level of income per capita has decreased significantly. There is a process of impoverishment of large sections of the population. Almost half of Russians live in poverty. The state does not guarantee every member of society a living wage. Therefore, the number of families that are beginning to be threatened with “irreversible poverty” is growing. This category includes families whose per capita income for three years does not rise above the subsistence level. In addition, our research shows that the number of “potentially poor” is increasing relatively quickly: This risk zone falls mainly on people whose income exceeds the officially established subsistence level by no more than 25%. Their situation is characterized by an extreme degree of instability: any change in circumstances pushes these people above the poverty line.

The stratification of society has exceeded acceptable (by world standards) norms. The top 10% of the population has 34% of their money income, 20% have 46% of the country's money supply, and 20% of Russians have only 4.6%.

Under these conditions, the idea of forced formation of a massive “middle class” looks extremely attractive, which, from the point of view of maintaining itself and reproducing future generations, would be characterized by high stability, greater opportunities for self-reproduction and attitudes towards achieving a higher level of development of its social qualities. The solution to this strategic task lies on the path of removing education, culture, management from the direct influence of the market, raising the status of the intelligentsia, and ensuring a decent standard of living.

Management is an indispensable inherent property of the social sphere at any stage of its development. This property is universal in nature and stems from the recognition that man is a social phenomenon and always belongs to a certain social system, class, social group, which impose certain ethical, legal and other requirements on him, placing his actions within a certain framework of the economic and social relations prevailing in him.

In the social sphere, there are two types of mechanisms of regulatory influences - spontaneous and conscious. Moreover, no matter what stage of development society is at, it is not able to completely free itself from the spontaneous force of chance, but the ratio of the conscious and the spontaneous in management can be different.

The spontaneous mechanism of managing the social sphere is manifested in the disordered influence of a complex and contradictory set of factors and conditions on the processes of population reproduction, their interweaving, and collision. These influences make their way as The general trend, which has a probabilistic, stochastic nature (for example, demographic processes of fertility, mortality, marriage, etc.).

Conscious management factors are associated with purposeful social activities people, which is carried out through specific public institutions (subjects of management) - a system of bodies and organizations that provide conscious influence on the social sphere in order to achieve certain results. At the federal level, these are ministries of social profile (health, education, social protection, labor, etc.), at the regional level - the relevant governing bodies, at the local level - city and district committees, divisions, departments, various institutions and services social assistance in places. So, for example, in the prefectures of the districts of the city of Moscow, the management of social processes is carried out by the Prefect and his deputy through the Office social development in charge of issues of education, public health, social security and social protection of the population, culture, leisure and sports, youth and family development, crime prevention, security environment, employment and assistance to the unemployed, support and development of social activity of various social groups. Each of the areas of social development in any district of Moscow is directly provided by specialized departments and departments.

Political, public and religious organizations also influence social processes in society at all levels.

The degree of emancipation of each specific society from the spontaneous influence of chance, as well as the strength and effectiveness of its resistance to spontaneous factors, are of a specific historical nature. The boundaries of targeted influence on the social environment, its content, goals and principles depend on the essence of society, the economic relations prevailing in it, and political institutions. Conscious management is carried out in the interests of the class or social group that dominates economically. In accordance with its interests, the dominant community creates a system of public institutions, bodies and organizations designed to carry out managerial and regulatory influences on society. The subjective factors of such influences in the process of social progress have undergone profound changes - from management through empirical, from direct experience received and passed on from generation to generation, traditions and customs in primitive society to the conscious management of social relations and processes. At the same time, there remains an urgent need to improve the management of social reproduction of real life, which, in turn, determines the requirements for social cognition of essential, stable connections that express an invariant way of organizing the social sphere into a certain integrity, characterizing ways of maintaining its stability and development, taking into account in the management of social the sphere of the unique and random.

The social sphere contains a complex tangle of intertwined causal relationships and interactions. For example, a component such as social infrastructure is causally connected with other components of the social sphere and is more or less directly “responsible” for certain characteristics of the system as a whole. Its functions are determined by the specific features of the population structure, its psychological and national-ethnic traditions, value orientations and attitudes. The components of the social sphere are unequal in terms of their place and role in the integral existence of the population, self-realization of the goals and interests of one or another group. At the same time, the structural elements of the social sphere are not interchangeable. Therefore, research in the social sphere involves not only studying structural characteristics, but also the disclosure of functional dynamics, prospects for the development of the social sphere. Hence, the sociologist often faces the need to go in his search not from the components to the social sphere, but from the social sphere to the components and, on this basis, to reveal their nature, functions, and purpose.

Socio-cultural sphere is a set of enterprises, institutions, organizations and management bodies that carry out the production, distribution, preservation and organization of consumption of goods and services for socio-cultural and information purposes, thereby ensuring the satisfaction of the cultural and information needs of the population.

The purpose of the SCS is to enrich the spiritual life of people and create conditions for socio-cultural activities.

Features of SCS:

1. The work of SCS employees is carried out in the form of services.

2. The work of workers is individualized. SKS deals with the individual needs of people with their varied tastes and moods. This determines special requirements to the personal qualities of SCS workers. The ability and ability to work with people is highly valued.

3. SCS deals with serving the population, therefore the territorial location of its institutions and organizations depends on demographic factors (numbers, density, population composition, etc.).

4. Labor in SCS is relatively less susceptible to mechanization and automation. Industries in this area are characterized by increased labor intensity.

5. Services are commodities of consumption, but services cannot be accumulated; a service can only be consumed at the time of production.

6. The natural factor does not play a huge role as in material production.

7. The work of SCS workers is unproductive, because this labor does not participate in the creation of material wealth.

8. Key workers are specialists with secondary and higher education, most of of which are women.

9. Uniformity of the structure of consumed costs. The share of material costs is very low: in the theater - 13%, in the circus - 17%, in parks - 20%, in concert organizations - 3.5% (in industry - 83%, in construction - 65%).

Services sector - This is a set of industries and activities designed to satisfy the spiritual and material needs of the population.

An intangible benefit is a benefit that affects the development of human abilities, created in the non-productive sphere. There are benefits:

a) internal - benefits given to man by nature (voice, ear for music, ability for science);

b) external - what the outside world provides to satisfy needs (reputation, business connections, patronage).

In accordance with the functions performed, all sectors of SCS and tourism are classified into 3 large groups:

1. Industries that ensure the process of reproduction of material and intangible goods:

Department of Housing and Utilities; the science.

2. Industries aimed at developing human abilities, maintaining his health, satisfying his cultural and spiritual needs:

Household services; passenger transport; public service communications;

Healthcare; social Security; tourism; Culture and art.

3. Industries that meet the needs of society as a whole:

Management and planning of the national economy;

Industries ensuring state security;

Ensuring property protection.

There is another classification of SCSF:

1. Public administration, social services.

2. Financing, insurance, pensions.

3. Private housing.

4. Commercial, social, pension services.

5. Equipment repair.

6. Passenger transport.

7. Health and social services service.

8. Education.

9. Wholesale and retail trade.

10. Natural and economic activities.

11. Culture, art and media.

12. Physical education, sports, recreation, entertainment.

13. Hotel business.

14. Restaurant business and catering.

All these areas ensure the development of human potential as the source and ultimate goal of social development.

SCS sectoral structure includes:

1. Branch of culture – the ideological and moral state of society, determined by the material conditions of life of society and expressed in its life, ideology, education, upbringing, in the achievements of science, art, literature (cinema, theater, museum, library, exhibitions, concert halls, clubs, etc. ).

Functions of the cultural sector:

a) preservation of historical and national cultural monuments;

b) introducing people to cultural creations;

c) raising a cultured person;

d) replenishment of the treasury of cultural achievements in the field of literature, art, artistic creativity, music, painting and sculpture;

e) conducting research in the field of culture;

f) spiritual enrichment of a person.

2. Education sector – engaged in all forms of education in a wide variety of educational institutions (schools, preschool institutions, gymnasiums, colleges, schools, technical schools, universities, research institutions in the field of pedagogy).

Functions of the education sector:

· meeting people's needs for knowledge;

· training and retraining for work and labor;

· promoting the acquisition of a specialty and mastery of a profession;

· education of a person.

3. Healthcare – a system of state and public measures for the protection of health, the prevention and treatment of diseases and the continuation of human life (polyclinics, hospitals, outpatient clinics, ambulance stations, dispensaries, maternity hospitals, health centers, dispensaries, etc.).

Functions of the healthcare industry:

§ concern for maintaining people's health;

§ prevention and treatment of diseases;

§ provision of medical care;

§ providing people with medicines;

§ restoration of lost health.

Physical education and sports are closely related to the healthcare sector in the part in which they solve the problem of strengthening health and promoting a healthy lifestyle for people.

4. Consumer services industry – for the provision of non-production and production services (baths, photo salons, laundries, dry cleaners, tire fitting, service stations, workshops, hairdressers, child care services).

5. Housing and communal services – an industry that maintains housing and communal services in working order: houses, elevators, water supply, sewerage, heat supply and other housing infrastructure.

6. Social security (social protection) – satisfies the needs of a number of categories of the population for financial resources and sources of livelihood, especially those without stable incomes (social insurance, provision of material goods).

7. Science – the sphere of human activity, the function of which is the development and theoretical systematization of objective knowledge and reality (applied, fundamental).

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Social system

A feature of social systems is their complexity, which is due to the fact that the main element of the system - a person - has its own subjectivity and a wide range of choice of behavior.

A social system is characterized by uncertainty of functioning and the existence of boundaries of controllability.

Defining characteristic social organization is the goal.

The choice of the concept of “organization” depends on the specific goal of social management. Most often, the concept implies the unification of people to achieve a common goal based on the division of labor.

Organizational structures of the social sphere distributed by industry:

education;
Culture and art;
healthcare;
tourism;
rest;
physical Culture and sport;
science and innovation;
housing stock;
public utilities.

Organizations in the social sphere can be created by government bodies of the Russian Federation, constituent entities of the Russian Federation, as well as local government bodies.

Objectives of social organizations

Social organizations carry out managerial, socio-cultural and other functions of a non-commercial nature and are financed from the appropriate budget based on income and expenditure.

Social organizations created to achieve goals: social, charitable, cultural, educational, etc.

Organizations in the social sphere can carry out activities, but not to the detriment of their core activities, but to achieve the goals of the organization with the help of income from business activities.

Despite all the differences, the structures of the social sphere are complex systems that have input and output and are connected with the external environment.

The life activity of social sector organizations consists of three interrelated processes:

obtaining resources from the external environment;
using resources to achieve the organization's goals;
transfer of the result to the external environment.

Social sector organizations cannot always count on funding from the budget.

The task of managers is to find additional or alternative sources financing.

A number of sectors of the social sphere are increasingly developing. This applies to education, sports, tourism.

The social sphere absorbs system and population established by the laws of the state and based on the traditions of the inhabitants of the country. The social sphere is characterized by its resource potential, which is understood as the size of material resources involved in its development, the state and possibilities for improving social infrastructure facilities, the number of employed workers, and the quality of their professional training.

Currently developed National projects designed to improve the situation in the social sphere. Thus, more than 145 billion rubles will be spent on the National Healthcare Project in 2006-2007.

In accordance with the recommendations, an acceptable share of spending on social needs should be no less than 20% of the national budget. The USA and Japan spend 19 - 21% on social purposes, Germany, England and some other countries - slightly more.

It should also be noted that the health of the population significantly depends on the volume of GDP. There is a pattern in the world: The higher the GDP, the higher the life expectancy in a country. In terms of GDP and life expectancy, Russia is now in middle group countries (in 2006 - 65th place).

The above dependence also occurs in the regions of Russia. Such a study was carried out in the regions of the Volga Federal District.

Like any other organization, a social sector organization deals with problems - this is the whole range of issues related to the selection, selection, placement of personnel, and their effective use. At the same time, social organizations are faced with problems of retaining personnel, which is due to the relatively low level of wages. Here other work incentives play a much larger role, for example, moral satisfaction with the results of work.

Topic No. 1. Management in the social sphere and its features

Social the sphere covers the entire space of a person’s life - from the conditions of his work and life, health and leisure to social, class and national relations. It ensures the reproduction, development, and improvement of social groups and individuals.

The social sphere is ideally designed to ensure a sufficient level of well-being and accessibility of basic life goods for the majority of the population. It is designed to create opportunities for social mobility, transition to a higher income, professional group, guarantee the necessary level of social protection, development of social, labor and entrepreneurial activity, and provide the opportunity for human self-realization. Optimal model social sphere is associated with ensuring the protection of the economic interests of each citizen, guarantees of social stability and is based on the principles of social justice and state responsibility for human social reproduction.

Social sphere of society represents an integral, constantly changing subsystem of society, generated by the objective need of society for the continuous reproduction of subjects of the social process. It includes a set of social institutions and infrastructure elements that directly ensure human life and development. The social sphere is a stable area of human activity of people to reproduce their lives, a space of realization social function society. It is in it that the state’s social policy takes on meaning and social and civil human rights are realized.

The social sphere of society is characterized by a complex integral nature, which is the subject of interest of many social sciences and humanities. It is a very complex, open, dynamically functioning system. Structurally, the social sphere includes social communities (individuals, families, work collectives, various layers and groups of the population), social organizations (institutions, social infrastructure enterprises), social institutions (legal mechanisms for regulating social relations), hierarchically subordinate governing bodies – federal, regional and municipal (see Fig. 1).

Fig.1. Structure and functions of the social sphere

At the same time, it should be noted that the social sphere plays a special integrative role in this interaction of elements of the organization of society. The fact is that function social sphere is very specific: it is designed to provide reproduction of real life of all social subjects in its real, concrete manifestations (development, self-realization vitality, self-regulation of intersubjective interaction in all spheres of society, guarantees of safety and social protection, health and education, level and quality of life, labor self-realization, etc.).

The structure of the social sphere, as already noted, includes three main components: social actors (individuals, families, work collectives, layers and groups of the population), social organizations (institutions, social infrastructure enterprises), as well as social institutions (normatively - legal regulations, governing bodies).

Let us recall: being a relatively independent subsystem of society, the social sphere is in continuous functional interaction with three other spheres - economic (material and production), political and cultural-spiritual. The integral nature of the social sphere is manifested, first of all, in the fact that it appears as a kind of integral space, the habitat of people who form certain connections and relationships community - real aggregates of individuals, families, social classes and groups that act subjects social activities and relationships.

Thus, the social sphere, as it were, “overlaps” other spheres, collecting, as if in focus, all the prerequisites for the reproduction and development of society. In this sense, all other spheres of society can be considered as an environment. In relation to them, the social sphere acts as a factor in strengthening and maintaining the stability of social relations and processes, their relative balance. This is an indispensable condition for maintaining the integrity of the entire social system.

A significant component of the social sphere is social infrastructure . By it we mean a stable set of material elements that create conditions for satisfying the entire complex of needs for the purpose of reproduction of man and society. In terms of its internal organization, the infrastructure of the social sphere is a complex of institutions, enterprises, structures, technical means, governing bodies designed to meet the diverse needs of the individual and family.

Typically there are three components of social infrastructure:

I) system of institutions social services population (assistance to families, children, disabled people, and other deprived groups);

II) system of institutions and services direct life support all citizens (health care, education, housing and communal services, transport, etc.);

III) satisfaction of higher needs self-realization of the individual’s personal potential(labor and civil, political activity, informational and cultural-spiritual requests).

There are various sectors in the structure of the social sphere in which services of different types are produced:

1. state, where pure public goods and socially significant goods are produced that provide the GMSS system;

2. voluntary – public, where mixed public goods of limited access are produced (municipal level, sports clubs, federations, etc.);

3. mixed, where mixed public goods are produced, including socially significant services. It is represented by organizations of mixed forms of ownership;

4. private commercial, where private goods are produced on a commercial basis.

Individual elements of social infrastructure are not interchangeable. Only with a holistic approach that ensures the rational functioning of people can we talk about the efficiency of population reproduction.

Based on the level of development of social infrastructure, which is determined using sociological analysis, one can judge the degree to which the needs of the population are met.

Reproduction of the life activity of social subjects as the main function of the social sphere gives rise to a number of its derivative functions, regulating internal connections, interaction and mutual influence of all social actors included in the social structure of society. Let's name the most important of these functions:

 Social integrative function - regulates the processes of formation of an integral social structure of society through the mechanisms of distribution, exchange, and consumption of the total product produced.

 Social-organizational function - ensures the formation and interaction of social institutions and organizations that serve the satisfaction of the material and spiritual needs of the population.

 Social regulatory function - regulates the processes of normatively determined support minimally necessary needs social subjects, as well as their relationships in the course of joint social activities and communication.

 Socially-adaptive function - stimulates the formation and development of social qualities, creative potential of individuals and groups (education, upbringing, health care, family relationships, customs, traditions).

 Social protective function - implements and protects social security, rights and guarantees of subjects, provides assistance and support to disabled and deprived groups and groups, and provides social services to the population.

The social sphere in a broad sense consists of the following main components

The processes of functioning and development of the social sphere are determined by objective laws and are based on certain principles of social management.

The state of the social sphere in this aspect is an integral indicator of the effectiveness of the country’s economy, the humanity of jurisprudence and the political structure of society, its spirituality.

2. Mechanisms for managing the social sphere.

Each social formation is characterized by a certain combination of management and self-government.

Control is an influence coming into the system from the outside.

Self-government is internal influence generated by the system itself.

Any complex socio-economic system requires decentralization of management functions. Representatives of each management level have their own responsibilities, resources and powers to fulfill them, and bear a certain responsibility for the decisions made.

Under social management we understand the management of the social reproduction of social subjects by forming the external environment and internal conditions necessary for this, taking into account the entire set of impacts on the social sphere: external and internal, natural and random, as well as different conditions of development: sustainable and unstable.

Management of the social sphere is carried out at all three levels of public authority: federal, regional and municipal. The functions of each level are determined in accordance with the legally delimited powers.

Public administration social sphere is a mechanism for achieving goals social policy, based on legislatively established imperatives that determine the real standard of living, social well-being, employment of the population, and their social support.

The meaning of social management is coordination, harmonization fundamental interactions, improving the structure of this extremely complex systemic formation and requires the participation in its management of a large number of subjects at all levels of its organization: federal, regional, local.

The implementation of social sector management tasks is associated with the need to create sufficient complex system management, structurally and functionally corresponding to the managed system. In actual practice, the social sphere at the federal level is the object of management of all social ministries: labor and social development, education, health, etc. The relevant committees and departments of social profile are represented at the regional level, and departments and departments at the local level.

However, despite such a fairly comprehensive management structure, the effectiveness of social sector management leaves much to be desired. Apparently, this is due to the fact that the presence of several independent management entities does not ensure the integrity of the social development management system. There are also contradictions between federal, regional and local governments.

IN tasks of the federal level of government includes establishing the foundations of state social policy, legal regulation relations in the social sphere, development of federal programs for the social development of the country, development and approval of state minimum social standards at the federal level, provision of state guarantees for their implementation.

Subjects of the Russian Federation develop the foundations of regional social policy, taking into account historical and cultural traditions; establish regional social standards and norms that take into account state minimum social standards; take care of the preservation and strengthening of social infrastructure owned by the constituent entities of the Russian Federation; organize training, retraining and advanced training of workers in the field of education, culture, healthcare, social protection of the population; ensure compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation in all areas of social policy.

Municipal level is intended to specify methods, methods and mechanisms for achieving goals defined within the framework of federal and regional social policy, in accordance with the characteristics of specific territories. The task of local governments, as those closest to the population, is to directly provide a range of social services that provide conditions for human life and reproduction. Based on regional norms and standards, local government bodies can develop local social norms and standards that take into account the specifics of a particular municipality.

The actual volume of social services provided to the population by local governments is significantly wider than that provided for by the 2003 Federal Law.

Currently, for the management system of social sector institutions, it is relevant not only to optimize its structure, but also to change the principles and substantive aspects of functioning, which is due to new socio-economic realities. Today in Russia, a regulatory, legal, organizational foundation is being laid for multi-channel financing of these institutions, their financing based on performance results, and not on the number of beds or number of employees. The principle of competitiveness of the institution, its ability to offer and efficiently implement competitive and socially in demand services, comes to the fore. In this context, the manager must constantly strive to optimize not only the organization’s activities, but also management, organization and administration practices at work. In other words, professional skills in the field of management are becoming increasingly relevant and necessary in social organizations.

In the scientific literature there are various approaches to determining the structure of the social sphere. In one case, the division of the social sphere is carried out depending on the content, in another - according to the main functions, in the third - according to the categorical apparatus that characterizes the social sphere. Thus, it can be represented as a set of education and health care systems, the sphere of consumer and cultural services, transport services and the like, or as a historically achieved distribution and consolidation of the functions of the social sphere in the form of specific conditions, responsibilities and opportunities for society and its members to satisfy and enrich them needs. In this case, the structure of the social sphere expresses the relationship and position of the organizationally formalized functions of the social sphere as its own elements.

S.A. Shavel presents the structure of the social sphere as the sum of four interconnected parts, which at the same time act as empirical indicators for its substantive identification:

1. The social structure of society, historically represented by certain classes and social groups (socio-demographic, ethnic, territorial, etc.) and the relations between them.

3. Social interests, needs, expectations and incentives, i.e. everything that ensures the connection of the individual (groups) with society, the inclusion of the individual in the social process.

4. Principles and requirements of social justice, conditions and guarantees for its implementation.

Other systems of classification of elements of this system can be cited.

A number of researchers believe that it makes sense to talk about the common elements of the spheres of social life from which any of them is built. It is assumed that the elements of all social structures are interconnected, they seem to penetrate each other. But this relationship does not at all mean the elimination of the qualitative certainty of the spheres. For example, classes and other social communities permeate all spheres of public life with their activities and relationships. However, the laws of reproduction, on the basis of which the social sphere is formed, these communities function and develop, which connect complex social life into an integral system, do not dissolve in the laws of other spheres. Most scientists are inclined to highlight elements such as activities, relationships, and subjects in the spheres. Moreover, the factor of social activity comes to the forefront of analysis.

The limit of analysis of the social sphere, from our point of view, its primary element is the concept of “need of the individual, group” - the simplest, most elementary formation that retains its subordination to the general law of the social sphere, its main function. The primacy of this element is due to the fact that it is characterized by the basic contradiction characteristic of the social sphere between the growing needs of subjects and the possibilities of satisfying them. This contradiction, in our opinion, is fundamental in the process of self-development and self-realization of each social subject. Its character and direction determine the possibilities and the real level of development of the social sphere as a whole. It is precisely the need that is the concentration of contradictions inherent in the social sphere, which determine its specificity. Need serves as a source of self-propulsion and self-development of the system. Isolating and studying the main component of the system allows us to analyze the sources and driving forces of its development, to find out the main direction of movement, the trends that are inherent in it.

The economic crisis, which led to a decline in the standard of living of the majority of Russians, significantly adjusted the consumption structure of the population, and for the worse. However, the level of people's demands that was formed in society earlier, the structure of the needs of various groups of the population, by their nature, has generally been preserved. The resulting gap between needs and the possibility of satisfying them not only morally traumatizes the consciousness of people, but also leads to their physical and mental degradation. The demoralization of the population is fueled by the media, which propagate inflated consumer standards, accessible only to the “new Russians.” It seems that all social forces that have the opportunity to influence the formation of social standards of the population should be guided by a sense of social responsibility for the discrepancy between the average income of the population and the proposed consumption standards.

In recent years, the rejection of previously existing values, the center of which was the official doctrine and the unofficial focus on the priority value of work, the introduction of Western moral principles, the spread of the socially attractive mythology of quick enrichment and the “beautiful life” have led to the destruction of many people’s customary social and moral values. guidelines result in inconsistency in behavior and consciousness, instability in society at the macro and micro levels.

We believe that one of the leading conditions for this may be reliance on a system of basic value orientations, which would include such values as good education and high professional qualifications, self-realization and dedication in business life and, only on this basis, a prosperous and comfortable life . The most important component of the social sphere is social infrastructure. By it we mean a stable set of material and material elements that create conditions for satisfying the entire complex of needs (vital and social-activity) for the purpose of reproduction of man and society. Social infrastructure is the reason for the interaction of the material environment and social subjects and provides conditions for the rational organization of their lives and activities. In terms of its internal organization, the infrastructure of the social sphere is a system of institutions, enterprises and government bodies that ensure the efficient functioning of all institutions of the social sphere. At the same time, the diverse needs of individuals, families and society as a whole are met by a wide and varied range of goods and services.

Social infrastructure is characterized by types and areas of activity social subjects(labor, cultural, leisure, etc.) and by level in each type (preschool, out-of-school education, etc.). It can be considered both at the level of society, industry, and region, enterprise. Individual elements of social infrastructure are not interchangeable. Only with a holistic approach that ensures the rational functioning of people can we talk about the efficiency of population reproduction.

The last decade has been marked by the rapid destruction of social infrastructure. In conditions of budget deficit, the state of the material base for the education of schoolchildren and students and the medical activities of doctors is deteriorating. The number of preschool and out-of-school institutions, physical education and sports institutions has decreased. Road and rail communications, especially suburban ones, are in a crisis situation. The most difficult situation was previously financed from the budgets of production enterprises (factory kindergartens, pioneer camps, canteens, clinics, rest homes and sanatoriums). In recent years, fewer and fewer new socio-cultural facilities have been commissioned.

The uncontrolled growth of tuition fees, medical, and consumer services for the population has led to a lack of demand for the capacity of educational and health institutions, which previously provided for the needs of the population. The decrease in the availability of various goods and services has deformed the existing way of life, increased the workload in the household, and reduced free time, especially for women.

Radical changes affected the state housing system. In conditions of an acute shortage of income, on the one hand, the volume of housing construction is decreasing, on the other, the volume of sales is growing. In practice, there is a market redistribution of the housing stock built in previous years, and often this occurs by infringing on the interests of weakly protected sections of the population living in the municipal stock. The lack of social protection for those families who are in especially dire need of housing leads to increased income differentiation among the population.

Processes of education, medical, consumer, transport services, social protection, etc. represent a set of statistically stable acts of social interaction between people, determining their lifestyle and conditions of social reproduction. Like any process, this interaction is characterized by extension in space and time, sequence, and continuity. It is intended to serve two interrelated goals: preserving previously accumulated human potential, ensuring the availability of services and creating new institutional prerequisites for improving the qualitative characteristics of the social reproduction of future generations, ensuring the growth of the potential of the social sphere. The services of social institutions shape the social ecology.

A system of indicators recording these processes can be represented by indicators characterizing:

The ratio of paid and free services, state and private ownership of the enterprises producing them, the degree of accessibility of paid services to various groups and segments of the population.

The most important component of the social sphere is people. They can be presented or described as a population - by the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the country's population, and their social differentiation - through the involvement of people in certain groups or strata of society. At the same time, the state of health of the population, its intellectual potential, cultural and moral values and deviations will be an assessment of the functioning of the social sphere, and the place of a person or group in the social structure will be an indicator of the potential capabilities of their social reproduction. Let us note that all social groups and strata, as well as the individual, act as subjects of the social sphere. Each of them is included in it in its own way.

1) “elite-oligarchic groups” with property in sizes comparable to the largest Western corporations and means of power influence at the all-Russian level;

2) “regional and corporate elites who have significant wealth and influence on a Russian scale at the level of regions and sectors of the economy;

5) “outsiders”, characterized by low adaptation and social activity, low income and focus on legal ways of obtaining them;

6) “marginals”, characterized by low adaptation, asocial and antisocial attitudes in their socio-economic activities;

Reforms, with their serious social costs, led to the erosion of this layer. The price of reforms turned out to be excessively high and it exceeded the safety margin of this segment of the Russian population. In recent years, the level of income per capita has decreased significantly. There is a process of impoverishment of large sections of the population. Almost half of Russians live in poverty. State Not guarantees a living wage to every member of society. Therefore, the number of families that are beginning to be threatened with “irreversible poverty” is growing. This category includes families whose per capita income for three years does not rise above the subsistence level. In addition, our research shows that the number of “potentially poor” is increasing relatively quickly: This risk zone falls mainly on people whose income exceeds the officially established subsistence level by no more than 25%. Their situation is characterized by an extreme degree of instability: any change in circumstances pushes these people above the poverty line.

Management is an indispensable inherent property of the social sphere at any stage of its development. This property is of a universal nature and stems from the recognition that a person is a social phenomenon, always belongs to a certain social system, class, social group, which impose certain ethical, legal and other requirements on him, place his actions within a certain framework of the prevailing economic ones. and public relations.

The spontaneous mechanism of managing the social sphere is manifested in the disordered influence of a complex and contradictory set of factors and conditions on the processes of population reproduction, their interweaving, and collision. These influences make their way as a general trend that has a probabilistic, stochastic nature (for example, demographic processes of fertility, mortality, marriage, etc.).

Conscious factors of management are associated with the purposeful social activity of people, which is carried out through specific public institutions (subjects of management) - a system of bodies and organizations that provide a conscious impact on the social sphere in order to achieve certain results. At the federal level, these are ministries of social profile (health, education, social protection, labor, etc.), at the regional level - the relevant government bodies, at the local level - city and district committees, divisions, departments, various institutions and local social assistance services. For example, in the prefectures of the districts of the city of Moscow, the management of social processes is carried out by the Prefect and his deputy through the Department of Social Development, which is in charge of issues of education, public health, social security and social protection of the population, culture, leisure and sports, youth and family development, prevention crime, environmental protection, employment and assistance to the unemployed, support and development of social activity of various social groups. Each of the areas of social development in any district of Moscow is directly provided by specialized departments and departments.

Political, public and religious organizations also influence social processes in society at all levels.

The social sphere contains a complex tangle of intertwined causal relationships and interactions. For example, a component such as social infrastructure is causally connected with other components of the social sphere and is more or less directly “responsible” for certain characteristics of the system as a whole. Its functions are determined by the specific features of the population structure, its psychological and national-ethnic traditions, value orientations and attitudes. The components of the social sphere are unequal in terms of their place and role in the integral existence of the population, self-realization of the goals and interests of one or another group. At the same time, the structural elements of the social sphere are not interchangeable. Therefore, the study of the social sphere involves not only the study of structural characteristics, but also the disclosure of functional dynamics and prospects for the development of the social sphere. Hence, the sociologist often faces the need to go in his search not from the components to the social sphere, but from the social sphere to the components and, on this basis, to reveal their nature, functions, and purpose.

This paragraph presents only the main components of the social sphere, since the number of its elements in the process of cognition of its various formations may vary depending on the purposes of the study.