The article presents a study of Saint Petersburg as a space of adolescents’ everyday life. Urbanists, architects, sociologists, educators, psychologists and other specialists currently focus on the feelings, moods and communications of city dwellers, including young ones. The article examines adolescents’ independent movements, interactions and choice of locations in the area of their residence and in the city as a whole. In order for adolescents to recognise a location as “their own”, it should be comfortable (so that they can get cosy, get warm and eat there), safe (both physically and emotionally) and interesting (there is something to see, there is something to do). The main thing that attracts adolescents to “their” place is the opportunity to communicate freely. Their “own” place is not always an area designed for that purpose; adolescents often adapt existing urban elements to their needs. However, it is still necessary to create diverse public and cultural spaces for young people. Comparing adolescent’s experience in Saint Petersburg to that of adolescents from other cities, it becomes clear that the lack of such spaces leads them to compete and conflict with other groups of citizens, reducing the opportunities for young people. In Saint Petersburg, as opposed to other Russian cities, there exists a rich environment that offers adolescents a choice of pastime locations both in the centre and in the suburbs. Nevertheless, in Saint Petersburg, the interests of other groups of citizens prevail over the interests of adolescents, and their “voice” is not heard when urban areas are created or improved. Involving adolescents in designing such places will make it possible to take their interests into account and create an environment that is more friendly to young people.

A large number of changes in the reading of children and adolescents impedes the passing on of literary culture from generation to generation, which makes the topic of family reading increasingly important. Today, the reading experience of a child and his future largely depend on reading in the family and the activity of parents who are the main mentors and the first teachers introducing children to reading. The article discusses the practice of family reading. The tradition of family reading dates back to the 18th century—it is also the same time when the first specialized children’s literature appeared. The structure of family reading includes the reading of both poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, the exchange of opinions about what has been read, and the formation and transmission of literary tradition and family (home) library. Quite common are families where serious attention is paid to the reading process: parents show interest in reading, reading practices are instilled from early childhood, new books are regularly bought, and what is read becomes the subject of discussion with children. In such families, children read a lot and know where to find information about books. However, there are also families where adults are not interested in reading and do not pass on the literary tradition to their children. In such families, children are more likely to surf the internet, do not visit libraries and do not like to read. A drawing technique and a survey of younger schoolchildren from Moscow and Krasnodar were used to study the opinions of children. The relevance of this article is primarily due to the fact that it shows a direct opinion of children on how they imagine the reading process. With the help of drawings, children were able to express their feelings and position regarding the research question posed.

Sleep plays one of the most important roles in our lives. During sleep the body restores energy spent during the day, puts thoughts and emotions in order, and rests. This article analyzes the influence of such factors as the duration of night sleep, its quality, keeping regular hours and the general state of a teenager during the day on the effectiveness of learning. The data were collected from an online survey conducted between February 27 and March 14 2022. The study involved 51 students of the 8th grade, school No 1502 “Energy”, Moscow. The study found that students sleep less than the required hours, go to bed after midnight, do not get enough sleep during the entire school week and try to make up for it on the weekends. On the weekends, they go to bed and wake up much later, so their sleep patterns are disrupted. Almost all students feel tired during the day and many of them feel like sleeping; this, however, has almost no effect on the effectiveness of learning. The most common reasons for going to bed late are doing homework and browsing the Internet. On average, those with better school performance go to bed earlier, sleep longer, and fall asleep faster than the others. The study showed that the number of A-students who feel tired and want to rest during the day slightly exceeds that of B-students, therefore, the general state during the day does not have a strong effect on academic performance.

The pandemic isolated the families and turned gadgets into working tools for parents and means of educating children. This has dramatically changed the role of gadgets in the family. Before the pandemic, many educators and parents alike were convinced that gadgets posed a threat to preschoolers. Now, however, gadgets have made their way even to the prams of under one year olds. The study aimed to describe current practices in the use of gadgets by children in families. To meet this aim we conducted an online survey of 866 parents with children aged zero to four. The survey was based on a specially developed online questionnaire Children and Gadgets. It included three blocks of questions. The data were analysed separately for three age groups: zero-two years, two-three years, and three-four years. It was shown that the number of children who access a gadget before the age of four has doubled in the last two years. More than half of the children (53.7%) in the study sample had an access to a gadget before the age of two, while 4.5% of children accessed a gadget before the age of six months. 64.4% of parents admit that they give their children a gadget to take a break from their child. Only 11.4% of parents use educational apps, while the rest of the parents simply show cartoons. 28.1% of children under four go online. The first access to a gadget is not anyhow related to self-care skills or the child’s tantrums. Only 12% of parents use gadgets as a unique tool for cognitive development of young children. The rest of the parents either reject these tools or use them to avoid communication with the child.

Современный мир стремительно входит в новую эпоху потребления. Россия, в частности, начинает развиваться как потребительское общество, характеризующееся различными видами, практиками, образами и стилями потребительского поведения различных социальных, а также возрастных групп. Актуальность выбранной темы связана с нехваткой методологической и эмпирической разработанности проблемы распространения и вариативности потребительских практик подростков на рынке развлекательных услуг. В современном мире развлекательные услуги становятся все более востребованными, в силу предоставления рассматриваемым сегментом рынка широкого многообразия видов деятельности в сфере услуг развлечения. Изучение мнения подростков относительно особенностей потребления этой возрастной группы представляется нам крайне важным, так как именно подростки выступают наиболее активной группой потребителей в сфере развлечения. По результатам исследования были выделены внешние и внутренние факторы влияния на выбор той или иной формы досуга. Внешние факторы включают в себя объективные условия, которые не поддаются влиянию. К внутренним факторам отнесем социально-демографические и статусные характеристики, определяющие выбор развлечений (пол, возраст и экономический статус семьи). Подростки могут влиять на принятие покупательских решений своих родителей относительно той или иной развлекательной услуги, что, безусловно, оказывает влияние на развитие всего потребительского рынка развлекательных услуг в России и требует его активного изучения. Современная действительность показывает изменения, произошедшие за последнее десятилетие в сфере подросткового потребления развлекательных услуг, что и порождает необходимость социологического осмысления данной проблематики.

The article presents the results of a three-year study in restoring impaired verbal communication caused by stuttering in different age groups. The methodology included family speech therapy and remediation of learning and communication difficulties in children and adolescents after group social rehabilitation. The authors propose a new drawing test “My Speech and I” to reveal the dynamics of the “internal speech image” in different groups of individuals. Independent experts evaluated the severity of problems in speech and personal life associated with speech communication using a special methodology for stuttering. The test “My Speech and I” in combination with neuropsychological assessment of cognitive, verbal and neurodynamic functions using Luria’s methods with a quantitative (scores) assessment of disorder severity is a new approach to the study of verbal communication. The data of the study, even within a limited sample, suggests that for stutterers of any age, the speech problem is the most significant and painful in comparison with children and adolescents with learning and communication difficulties, and, especially, with people of any age without speech disorders. The results of the assessment of stutterers before and after the speech therapy course in comparison with the normative group and the participants of the remediation course confirmed the hypothesis that an inadequate psychological defence due to the disorders or immaturity of communication skills can be associated with a wrong image of verbal communication. An increase in communication opportunities and communication skills after group social rehabilitation has a beneficial effect on the characteristics of the image of verbal communication.

The article analyzes the level of trust to politicians of various age exhibited by respondents belonging to different generations. The study is based on the results of interviews conducted in three regions of Russia in 2020. The author points out that the age factor serves as one of the resources of power and influences political interests, political preferences and political participation. The study shows that the age of a politician is an important factor which has an impact on the level of trust to him/her. The respondents evaluate the advantages which are enjoyed by politicians who belong to various age groups. The respondents also consider politicians to possess, to a various degree, the qualities which constitute attributes of power. The mature age is mostly attributed such characteristics of power as objectivity, responsibility, rationality, ability to negotiate, goal-oriented approach, etc. The level of trust to the young politicians and, to an even greater degree, to the “elderly” ones is lower. The respondents refer to age when evaluating politicians belonging to various generations. The research demonstrates a lack of trust between young and elderly people. The most important factor which differentiates the attitudes of respondents is their age. Young people, including minors, mostly demonstrate a lack of trust to elderly politicians and believe that such politicians lose touch with reality.

The article presents the results of a study that explored communicative initiative in students with multiple severe developmental disorders using augmentative and alternative communication. The respondents were 11 students on adapted basic general education program for students with moderate, severe, and profound mental retardation as well as multiple severe developmental disorders aged 8.9 ± 1.2. The research was mainly done by observation. The first group of children is the auxiliary language group. It includes children who are still mastering or have already mastered speech; however, their speech is difficult to understand. The second group are the children with expressive language who have a big gap in understanding speech and the ability to independently produce speech. The third group of children includes those who, due to their psychophysiological characteristics, do not understand speech, and, accordingly, cannot speak. The third group is the alternative language group. It was found that in the groups that use alternative and expressive language, the communicative initiative, as a way to attract attention, manifests itself though abstract symbols and is at the stage of formation. To show communicative initiative, children use non-standard pre-symbolic communication. In the auxiliary language group, communicative initiative and attracting attention is also done at the level of abstract symbols and can be either in the process of formation or formed. Besides, in the auxiliary language group, standard pre-symbolic communication is also used. It corresponds to the regular development of communication since such manifestations are socially acceptable and will be used in future communication.

Despite long-term studies of children’s creative abilities, this area remains relevant due to changes in learning programs and socio-economic conditions of education, which influence the amount of knowledge the child needs and the flexibility of its use. The development of psychometric approaches to creativity enables us to consider the age-related dynamics of decision-making, which reflect the child’s ability to think critically and to alter their strategic approach to solving a problem, as the search for an original solution requires the use of knowledge from different subject areas. In this paper we discuss patterns of age-related changes in the flexibility of schoolchildren’s thinking observed while testing verbal and figurative creativity with a limited time set for performing tasks and different levels of stereotype pressure involving stimuli that are repetitive or ones that belong to different semantic categories. The study involved 155 11–13 year old secondary school children. Creativity indicators were determined by means of Torrens’ subtests “Circles” and “Incomplete figures”, Guilford’s “Unusual use of an ordinary subject” method, and a verbal test of sentence composition, which involved combining words from distant semantic categories. It was established that when testing creativity while applying a time limit and repetitive stimuli, originality and fluency indicators correlate positively regardless of the child’s age and verbal or figurative nature of the stimuli. The detected age-related decrease in fluency may indicate the development of inhibitory control functions and critical thinking, which, however, does not lead to an increase in originality, which may be explained by insufficiently developed flexibility. The highest creativity indicators during tests by repetitive stimuli were observed in eleven-year-olds, and for non-repeating ones, in twelve-year-olds. In addition, the effectiveness of creative task performance appears to be determined by gender. Girls demonstrated better results while performing verbal tasks, specifically, a higher degree of originality in composing sentences and names for completed figures. The authors conclude that the age-related dynamics of creativity in schoolchildren aged 11–13 years may be associated with the specifics of experimental tasks, i. e. with the nature of the task, and the testing conditions.