The structure of the social sphere. The social sphere of society and its structure

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

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

In the scientific literature there are different approaches to the definition of the structure of the social sphere. In one case, the division of the social sphere is carried out depending on the content, in the other - 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 combination of education and healthcare systems, the sphere of domestic and cultural services, transport service and the like, or as a historically achieved distribution and consolidation of the functions of the social sphere in the form of specific conditions, duties and opportunities for society and its members to meet and enrich their needs. AT 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 interrelated parts, which at the same time act as empirical indicators in its subject identification:

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

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 classification systems for the elements of this system can also be given.

A number of researchers believe that it makes sense to talk about the common elements of 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 permeate each other. But this interconnection by no means means the elimination of the qualitative definiteness of spheres. For example, classes, others social communities permeate all spheres of public life with their activities and relations. However, the laws of reproduction, on the basis of which the social sphere is formed, the data of the community that link the complex social life into an integral system, function and develop, do not dissolve in the laws of other spheres. Most scientists tend to single out such elements as activities, relationships, subjects in the spheres. Moreover, the factor of social activity is brought to the forefront of the analysis.

Each of these approaches has its own merits, since it allows one to analyze the content and essential characteristics of the social sphere from a certain point of view. 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 the principle of 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 a rigid spatial and temporal framework. It exists not by itself, not in isolation, but in a certain relationship with other spheres of society: material-production, political, cultural-spiritual and systems of natural order. The social sphere, expressing life activity in a holistic implementation, resulting in a person, social groups, as it permeates all others, since people, social communities act in each of them. 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" with 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 the function of each of them in creating the system-forming properties of the social sphere should be taken as a criterion that makes it possible to delimit the system elements from the environment. In this case, the social sphere includes all objects and processes that are directly involved 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-production, 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 belong to the environment. They are connected with it by a network of communications, each of which is of different importance 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 the benefits necessary for the self-realization of the creative potential of a person, 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 this system. We refer to such social infrastructure and consumer products produced by it, 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, group.

Note that each component of the social sphere cannot be understood by itself. 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 in reproducing their real life and the resulting social relations between the subjects of this activity.

The components of the social sphere have varying degrees of complexity, are in relation to each other in a hierarchical relationship 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 social reproduction of people as subjects of life and recreation of structures, social institutions, life support resources of social subjects.

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

The limit of the analysis of the social sphere, from our point of view, its primary element is the concept of "the need of an individual, a group" - that is the most simple, elementary formation, which 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 main contradiction between the growing needs of subjects and the possibilities of satisfying them, which is characteristic of the social sphere. This contradiction, in our opinion, is the main one in the process of self-development, self-realization of each social subject. Its nature and direction determine the possibilities, the real level of development of the social sphere as a whole. It is 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, self-development of the system. Isolation and study of the main component of the system allows us to analyze the sources, the driving forces of its development, to find out the main direction of movement, the tendencies that are inherent in it.

The material and spiritual needs of an individual, groups are formed under the influence of economic conditions, socio-cultural factors and are characterized, on the one hand, by their minimum acceptable and guaranteed by society level, and on the other hand, by the level of opportunities and claims of the social actors themselves.

The economic crisis, which led to a decline in the standard of living of the majority of Russians, significantly adjusted the structure of consumption of the population, and for the worse. However, the level of people's requests, which was formed earlier in society, 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 their satisfaction not only morally injures people's consciousness, 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 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 incomes of the population and the proposed standards of consumption.

Value orientations are an important determinant of the social activity of an individual or a group. They are embodied in the ideals, interests, aspirations of people and determine the behavior of the subjects of the social sphere. Value orientations are formed in the course of socialization, are fixed 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 top is made up of values close to the ideal.

In recent years, the rejection of pre-existing values, which were centered on the official doctrine and the unofficial setting for the priority value of labor, the introduction of Western moral attitudes, the spread of the socially attractive mythology of getting rich quick and " beautiful life"led to the destruction of many people's habitual social and moral guidelines. As a result, inconsistency in behavior and consciousness, instability in society at the macro and micro levels.

A vague system of values and norms, often unsupported by appropriate sanctions, but acting as a real basis for the macrosocial process of changing models and regulators of social activity, is one of the factors of the inconsistency of the modern transforming society. Obviously, further social transformations, if we want the affirmation of the positive logic of the social, the development of society, 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 can 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 the social infrastructure. By it we mean a stable set of material elements that create conditions for satisfying the whole complex of needs (vital and social-activity) for the 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 governments that ensure the effectiveness of the functioning of all institutions of the social sphere. At the same time, the diverse needs of individuals, families and society as a whole are satisfied by a wide and diverse range of goods and services.

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

Social infrastructure can be characterized by the number of institutions, organizations that provide educational processes, medical, consumer and transport services, as well as the number of places in them, the volume of services. In the analysis of the functioning of social infrastructure, people's subjective assessments of the sufficiency of a real-life social infrastructure in a particular region or at a particular enterprise are important.

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

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

The uncontrolled growth of tuition fees, medical and consumer services to the population has led to a lack of demand for the capacities of educational and recreational institutions that previously provided for the needs of the population. The decline in the availability of various goods and services has deformed the established way of life, increased the burden on household, reducing free time, especially women.

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

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

The processes of education, medical, household, transport services, social protection, etc. represent a set of statistically stable acts social interaction people, which determines their way of life, the conditions of social reproduction. Like any process, this interaction is characterized by extension in space and time, consistency, continuity. It is designed to serve two interrelated goals: preserving the 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, and ensuring the growth of the potential of the social sphere.

The services of social institutions shape the social ecology.

The system of indicators that record these processes can be represented by indicators characterizing:

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

Subjective assessment of the degree of satisfaction of the needs of individuals, 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 the 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 the services. A sharp differentiation in the provision of the population with socio-cultural services is associated with the polarization of incomes of the population, the rise in prices for goods and services and, as a result, with the narrowing of the effective demand of the general population, as well as the diversion of the highest quality resources to satisfy the needs of a small highly profitable group of society. It should also be noted the differentiation of regional socio-cultural conditions of life, which affects the possibilities of social reproduction of the population and can give rise to conflicts between different territories.

One of the most acute is the problem of social security for vulnerable strata and groups of the population. In recent years, the almost doubling of the number of old-age pensioners, the homeless (according to various estimates, there are now from 1.5 to 2 million people), street children demands 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 strata.

In the context of the catastrophically worsening socio-economic situation in the country, the growing budget deficit, and the continuous rise in prices, this decline will apparently continue in the future, since it turns out to be unprofitable for those who plan the country's social development to invest in industries that do not give an immediate effect, but in the distant future. The current crisis may further aggravate due to the rise in prices for goods and services, energy resources, and the tightening of tax policy. Perhaps the most acute will be the problems of communal 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 are people. They can be represented or described as a population - by 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, a group in social structure- an indicator of the potential opportunities for their social reproduction. 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 its own way.

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

division of labor, property relations; power, prestige, income, level of education. So, 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 "in the first approximation" is as follows:

1) "elite-oligarchic groups" that have property in size comparable to the largest Western corporations and the means of power influence at the all-Russian level;

2) "regional and corporate elites, which have significant (by Russian scale) fortune and influence at the level of regions and sectors of the economy;

3) the "Russian upper class", which has property and incomes that ensure high Western standards of consumption, as well as claims to improve its social status and orientations towards the established practice and ethical norms of economic relations;

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

5) "outsiders", characterized by low adaptation and social activity, low incomes and orientation towards legal ways of obtaining them;

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

7) "criminals" with high social activity and adaptation, and quite rationally acting 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.

Approximately the same approach is followed by N.E. Tikhonov. In her speech at the International Theoretical Conference of Sociologists, she notes that "the social structure of the emerging society for the time being will gravitate more towards archaic forms of the early industrial type social structure with fairly rigid class differentiation than towards the social structure of the late industrial type society of the Western type." The author also points to the possibility of reviving the idea of class struggle, "because the situation in Russia is unlikely to noticeably improve in the foreseeable future."

From our point of view, the formation 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 yet unfamiliar combination of features that require reflection. But it is quite obvious that the resuscitation of private property gives rise to a class of owners and exacerbates its relationship with employees, and property differentiation revives the layers of the poor, the poor, the rich, who differ from each other in income and sources of its receipt, as well as in the quality of life.

At the same time, from the standpoint of our analysis, the most significant, when constructing a matrix of social stratification, society, is the criterion of social stratification, when the indicator of average per capita income is taken as the basis for its construction. In market conditions, it is this feature that largely determines the effectiveness of social reproduction of a person or group. Although it must be recognized that even a significant level of income, determining the potential for self-development, the 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 early formation of the so-called "middle class" and, at the same time, the unrealistic of the rapid completion of this task.

It should be noted that there is no clear, unified definition of the category "middle class". This is mainly due to methodological difficulties in fixing the boundaries of this social category. In world practice, belonging to the "middle class" is usually established on the basis of a person's having an average status and prestige. At the same time, 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 evaluation, then it can be argued that by the beginning of radical social transformations in Russia, the "middle class" was fully formed. In the mid-1980s, skilled workers, intellectuals, and managerial personnel occupied very significant positions in the social structure of the country. Worldview attitudes, moral values associated with obtaining a stable high income on the basis of highly qualified professional and labor activity, distinguished these groups of the population from its other categories.

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

The stratification of society has exceeded the allowable (according to world standards) norms. The 10% of the most highly profitable population concentrated 34% of money income, 20% - 46% of the country's money supply, and 20% of Russians 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 their social qualities. The solution of this strategic task lies on the way of withdrawing from the direct influence of the market of education, culture, management, raising the status of the intelligentsia, and ensuring a decent standard of living.

Management is an indispensable property inherent in the social sphere at any stage of its development. This property is universal in nature and follows from the recognition that a person is a social phenomenon, always belongs to a certain public system class, social group, which impose certain ethical, legal and other requirements on him, put his actions in 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, at whatever stage of development a society is, it is not able to completely free itself from the elemental force of chance, but the ratio of the conscious and the spontaneous in management is different.

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

Conscious control 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 a conscious impact on the social sphere in order to achieve certain results. At the federal level, these are ministries of a 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 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 responsible for education, public health, social security and social protection of the population, culture, leisure and sports, youth and family development, crime prevention, protection environment, employment and assistance to the unemployed, support and development of social activity of various social groups. Each of the directions of social development in any district of Moscow is directly provided by specialized departments and departments.

Social processes in society at all its levels are also influenced by political, social and religious organizations.

The degree of emancipation of each specific society from the spontaneous impact of the case, as well as the strength and effectiveness of its counteraction to natural factors, are of a concrete historical nature. The boundaries of a purposeful impact on the social environment, its content, goals and principles depend on the essence of society, the economic relations that prevail 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 exercise 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 transmitted from generation to generation, traditions, customs in primitive society to conscious management of social relations and processes. At the same time, it remains an urgent need to improve the management of social reproduction of real life, which, in turn, determines the requirements for social cognition of significant, stable relationships that express the invariant way of organizing the social sphere into a certain integrity, characterizing ways to preserve its stability and development, taking into account in the management of social realm of the unique and the random.

The social sphere contains a complex tangle of interweaving of causal relationships and interactions. For example, such a component as social infrastructure is causally related to 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 structure of the population, 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 life of the population, self-realization of the goals and interests of one or another group. However, the structural elements of the social sphere are not interchangeable. Therefore, the study of the social sphere involves not only the study structural characteristics, but also the disclosure of functional dynamics, prospects for the development of the social sphere. Hence, the sociologist often needs 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, purpose.

Socio-cultural sphere is a set of enterprises, institutions, organizations and governing bodies engaged in the production, distribution, preservation and organization of the consumption of goods and services of socio-cultural and information purposes, thereby ensuring the satisfaction of the cultural and information needs of the population.

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

SCS features:

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

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

3. SCS deals with servicing the population, therefore the territorial distribution of its institutions, organizations depends on demographic factors (number, density, composition of the population, etc.).

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

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

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

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

8. The main employees are specialists with secondary and higher education, most of of which are women.

9. Homogeneity 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 - it is a set of industries and activities designed to meet the spiritual and material needs of the population.

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

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

b) external - what the outside world gives to meet needs (reputation, business ties, patronage).

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

1. Industries that ensure the process of reproduction of tangible and intangible benefits:

Department of Housing and Utilities; the science.

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

Household service; 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 that ensure the security of the state;

Ensuring the protection of property.

There is another classification of SKSF:

1. Public administration, social services.

2. Financing, insurance, pension provision.

3. Housing of a private type.

4. Commercial, social, pension services.

5. Equipment repair.

6. Passenger transport.

7. Health and social. service.

8. Education.

9. Wholesale and retail trade.

10. Natural and economic activity.

11. Culture, art and media.

12. Physical education, sports, recreation, entertainment.

13. Hotel business.

14. Restaurant business and public catering.

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

Sectoral structure of SCS includes:

1. Branch of culture – the ideological and moral state of society, determined by the material conditions of society and expressed in its way of 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) familiarizing people with the creations of culture;

c) education of 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 industry – 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 industry:

Satisfaction of people's needs for knowledge;

implementation of training and retraining for work and work;

facilitating the acquisition of a specialty and the mastery of a profession;

the upbringing 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, ambulances, dispensaries, maternity hospitals, health centers, dispensaries, etc.).

Functions of the healthcare industry:

§ taking care of people's health;

§ prevention and treatment of diseases;

§ provision of medical care;

§ providing people with medicines;

§ restoration of lost health.

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

4. Industry of consumer services – for the provision of non-production and production services (baths, photo salons, laundries, dry cleaning, tire fitting, service stations, workshops, hairdressers, childcare services).

5. Housing and communal services – an industry that maintains the 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 in financial resources and sources of livelihood, especially those who do not have stable incomes (social insurance, the provision of material benefits).

7. Science – the sphere of human activity, the function of which is to develop and theoretically systematize 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.

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

defining feature social organization is the goal.

The choice of the concept of "organization" depends on the specific goal of social management. Most often, the concept means as an association 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;
relaxation;
physical Culture and sport;
science and innovation;
housing stock;
public utilities.

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

Tasks of social organizations

Organizations of the social sphere carry out managerial, socio-cultural and other functions of a non-commercial nature and financed from an appropriate basis on the basis of income and expenditure estimates.

Organizations of the social sphere created to achieve goals: social, charitable, cultural, educational, etc.

Organizations in the social sphere can carry out, but not to the detriment of the main activity, but to achieve the goals of the organization with the help of income from entrepreneurial activity.

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 of social organizations consists of three interrelated processes:

obtaining resources from the external environment;
use of resources to achieve the purpose of the organization;
transferring the result to the external environment.

Organizations in the social sphere cannot always count on funding from the budget.

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

In a number of sectors of the social sphere, more and more development is being received. This applies to education, sports, tourism.

The social sphere includes 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 amount 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, over 145 billion rubles will be spent on the National Healthcare Project in 2006-2007.

According to the recommendations, an acceptable share of social spending should be no less than 20% of the national budget. The USA and Japan spend 19-21% for social purposes, Germany, England and some other countries spend a little 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 life expectancy in a country, the higher the GDP. Russia in terms of GDP and life expectancy is now in middle group countries (in 2006 - 65th place).

The above dependence also takes place in the regions of Russia. Such a study was conducted in the regions of the Volga Federal District.

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

Topic number 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, improvement of social groups and individuals.

The social sphere is ideally designed to ensure a sufficient level of well-being, the availability of basic life benefits for the majority of the population. It is designed to create opportunities for social mobility, transition to a higher income, professional group, to guarantee the necessary level of social protection, the development of social, labor and entrepreneurial activity, to ensure the possibility of self-realization of a person. 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 the social reproduction of man.

Social sphere of society represents an integral, constantly changing subsystem of society, generated by the objective need of society for the continuous reproduction of the subjects of the social process. It includes a set of social institutions, infrastructure elements that directly ensure human life and development. The social sphere is a stable area of human activity for the reproduction of their lives, a space for realization social function society. It is in it that the social policy of the state acquires meaning, 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 the humanities. It is a very complex, open, dynamically functioning system. Structurally, the social sphere includes social communities (individuals, families, labor collectives, various strata 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 in this interaction of elements of the organization of society has a special integrative role. The fact is that function social sphere is very specific: it is designed to provide reproduction of real life all social subjects in its real, concrete manifestations (development, self-realization vitality, self-regulation of inter-subject interaction in all spheres of society, guarantees of security 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, labor collectives, layers and groups of the population), social organizations (institutions, social infrastructure enterprises), as well as social institutions (normative - legal regulations, governing bodies).

Recall that 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 and 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 community - real aggregates of individuals, families, social strata and groups that act subjects social activities and relationships.

Thus, the social sphere, as it were, "overlaps" with 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 - social infrastructure . By it we mean a stable set of material elements that create conditions for satisfying the whole complex of needs for the 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.

There are usually three components of social infrastructure:

I) system of institutions social service population (assistance to families, children, the disabled, other disadvantaged 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 personal potential of the individual(labor and civil, political activity, informational and cultural-spiritual requests).

different sectors are distinguished 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. voluntarily - 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.

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

According to the level of development of social infrastructure, which is determined with the help of sociological analysis, one can judge the degree of satisfaction of the needs of the population.

The reproduction of the life of social subjects as the main function of the social sphere gives rise to a number of its derivative functions, regulating internal communications, interaction and mutual influence of all social subjects 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, consumption of the total product produced.

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

 Socio-regulatory function - regulates the processes of statutory provision of minimum 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, the creative and creative potential of individuals and groups (education, upbringing, health protection, intra-family relations, customs, traditions).

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

Management is the influence that enters the system from the outside.

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

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

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

The 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 legislatively 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 to coordinate, harmonize 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 the tasks of managing the social sphere is associated with the need to create enough complex system control, structurally and functionally corresponding to the controlled system. In real practice, the social sphere at the federal level is the object of management of all social ministries: labor and social development, education, healthcare, etc. Relevant committees and departments of the social profile are represented at the regional level, and departments and departments are represented at the local level.

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

AT tasks of the federal level of power includes the establishment of the foundations of state social policy, legal regulation relations in the social sphere, the development of federal programs for the country's social development, the development and approval of state minimum social standards at the federal level, and the 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 the social infrastructure owned by the subjects of the Russian Federation; organize training, retraining and advanced training of employees in the field of education, culture, healthcare, social protection of the population; ensure compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation in all spheres of social policy.

Municipal level is intended to concretize the methods, methods and mechanisms for achieving the goals defined in the framework of federal and regional social policy, in accordance with the characteristics of specific territories. The task of local governments, as the closest to the population, is the direct provision of a range of social services that provide conditions for human life and reproduction. On the basis of regional norms and standards, local governments 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 much wider than that provided for by the 2003 Federal Law.

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

The social sphere is an original, complexly organized, ordered whole, united 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. The processes of its life activity are determined by objective laws and are based on certain principles of social management.

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 the other - according to the main functions, in the third - according to the categorical apparatus that characterizes the social sphere. So, it can be represented as a set of education and health care systems, the sphere of domestic and cultural services, transport services, etc., 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 interrelated parts, which at the same time act as empirical indicators in its subject identification:

1. The social structure of society, historically represented by certain classes and social groups (socio-demographic, ethnic, territorial, etc.) and the relationships 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 classification systems for the elements of this system can also be given.

A number of researchers believe that it makes sense to talk about the common elements of the spheres of public life from which any of them is built. It is assumed that the elements of all social structures are interconnected, they seem to permeate each other. But this interconnection by no means means the elimination of the qualitative definiteness of spheres. For example, classes and other social communities permeate all spheres of social life with their activities and relations. However, the laws of reproduction, on the basis of which the social sphere is formed, the data of the community that link the complex social life into an integral system, function and develop, do not dissolve in the laws of other spheres. Most scientists tend to single out such elements as activities, relationships, subjects in the spheres. Moreover, the factor of social activity is brought to the forefront of the analysis.

Each component of the social sphere performs a specific function, which is purposeful. Otherwise, the component drops out of the system, becomes unnecessary. Functions determine the elements of an integral structure and materialize within the framework of the internal organization inherent in the social sphere.

The economic crisis, which led to a decline in the standard of living of the majority of Russians, significantly adjusted the structure of consumption of the population, and for the worse. However, the level of people's requests, which was formed earlier in society, 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 their satisfaction not only morally injures people's consciousness, 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 "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 incomes of the population and the proposed standards of consumption.

In recent years, the rejection of pre-existing values, which were centered on official doctrine and an unofficial focus on the priority value of labor, the introduction of Western moral attitudes, the spread of the socially attractive mythology of getting rich quick and the "beautiful life" led to the destruction of many people's habitual social and moral ones. landmarks as a result - inconsistency in behavior and consciousness, instability in society at the macro and micro levels.

We believe that one of the leading conditions for this can 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, a prosperous and comfortable life. . The most important component of the social sphere is the social infrastructure. By it we mean a stable set of material elements that create conditions for satisfying the whole complex of needs (vital and social-activity) for the 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 governments that ensure the effectiveness of the functioning of all institutions of the social sphere. At the same time, the diverse needs of individuals, families and society as a whole are satisfied by a wide and diverse range of goods and services.

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

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

The uncontrolled growth of tuition fees, medical and consumer services to the population has led to a lack of demand for the capacities of educational and recreational institutions that previously provided for the needs of the population. The decrease in the availability of various goods and services has deformed the established way of life, increased the burden in the household, reducing free time, especially for women.

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

The processes of education, medical, household, transport services, social protection, etc. represent a set of statistically stable acts of social interaction between people that determine their way of life, the conditions of social reproduction. Like any process, this interaction is characterized by extension in space and time, consistency, continuity. It is designed to serve two interrelated goals: preserving the 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, and ensuring the growth of the potential of the social sphere. The services of social institutions shape the social ecology.

The system of indicators that record 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 are people. They can be represented or described as a population - by 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, a group in the social structure will be an indicator of the potential opportunities for their social reproduction. 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 its own way.

1) "elite-oligarchic groups" that have property in size comparable to the largest Western corporations and the means of power influence at the all-Russian level;

2) "regional and corporate elites, which have significant (by Russian scale) fortune and influence at the level of regions and sectors of the economy;

5) "outsiders", characterized by low adaptation and social activity, low incomes and orientation towards legal ways of obtaining them;

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

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

Management is an indispensable property inherent in the social sphere at any stage of its development. This property is of a universal nature and follows 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, put his actions within a certain framework of the economic ones that prevail in him. and public relations.

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

Conscious management factors 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 a 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. So, for example, in the prefectures of the districts of the city of Moscow, social processes are managed by the Prefect and his deputy through the Department of Social Development, which is in charge of education, public health, social security and social protection of the population, culture, leisure and sports, youth and family development, prevention offenses, environmental protection, employment and assistance to the unemployed, support and development of social activity of various social groups. Each of the directions of social development in any district of Moscow is directly provided by specialized departments and departments.

Social processes in society at all its levels are also influenced by political, social and religious organizations.

The social sphere contains a complex tangle of interweaving of causal relationships and interactions. For example, such a component as social infrastructure is causally related to 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 structure of the population, 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 life of the population, self-realization of the goals and interests of one or another group. However, 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, prospects for the development of the social sphere. Hence, the sociologist often needs 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, purpose.

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