PRACTICAL TRAININGS
Since 2003, CISR has actively cooperated with the Center for Sociological Education (Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) in organising "practical trainings" for students enrolled in the courses at the Center for Sociological Education. Each year CISR researchers hold studies for students arriving for 10-12šdays from Moscow to attend courses 'Ethnosociology', 'Gender Sociology', 'Sociology of Everyday Life' and 'ThešQualitative Methods in Sociological Research'. Thešpractical trainings aim to develop the students' practical skills. At their institute in Moscow the students are taught the basic theory necessary for a social researcher to study different social processes and problems. In St. Petersburg the students are given thešunique opportunity to apply this theoretical knowledge in practice. Within 10 days of their internship the students undertake field studies, analyse concrete texts and discuss all their new attainments and skills during the seminars held by CISR researchers with longstanding research practice.Over the last three years of the Center for Sociological Education courses, students have done research in a flea market and thešcity's farmers' markets, in malls and on playgrounds, in "ethnic cuisine" restaurants and underwear shops, in department stores for children and shops for new settlers, and in the subway and newly-erected buildings. They have also analysed history textbooks and Russian national newspapers, and interviews recorded by themselves and by other researchers. Moreover, they have had the chance to analyse other researchers' poll data and even to conduct their own polls to discover for themselves thisšmethod`s weaknesses; they were also asked to analyse movies such as "Shrek" and "Good bye, Lenin", and so on.
Qualitative methods have been the central concern both in the CISR training programs and other activities of the Centre. This is evident in the fact that CISR researchers have been conducting the practical trainings in conjunction with the Center for Sociological Education course for almost 4šyears now. In those years 10špractical trainings have been conducted.
Practical trainings and courses (2003-2006):
Training leader: Oleg Pachenkov (CISR).
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Within this training CISR researchers and outside lecturers have taught the following courses:
- Interviews in ethnicity research (Elena Chikadze)
- Ethnicity construction and the method of interviewing (Elena Chikadze)
- Language games in ethnicity (Oksana Karpenko)
- Public ideas and views on ethnicity (Sergej Damberg)
- How to study ethnicity without studying... ethnicity (Olga Brednikova, Oleg Pachenkov)
Training leader: Katerina Gerasimova (CISR).
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Within this training CISR researchers and outside lecturers have taught the following courses:
- Gender socialisation: forms, practices, spaces (Oleg Pachenkov)
- 'Practicing gender': consumption and leisure practices (Katerina Gerasimova)
- Gender aspect in the analysis of institutes: women and the church (Olga Chepurnaya)
- Male and female in the construction of biographies and family histories (Sofia Tchouikina)
- Gender representations in mass-media (Zhanna Chernova)
Training leader: Oleg Pachenkov (CISR).
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Within this training CISR researchers and outside lecturers have taught the following courses:
- Observation method 1: field research specifics (Olga Brednikova, Oleg Pachenkov)
- Observation method 2: choosing research focus and elaborating research design (Olga Brednikova, Oleg Pachenkov)
- Discursive analysis of texts (Oksana Karpenko)
- Analysis of qualitative interviews (Nadya Nartova)
- Conversational analysis method and its practical use (Ilia Utekhin)
- Interview as a method of qualitative research (Elena Chikadze, Olga Brednikova)
- Qualitative and quantitative methods: problems of choosing and combining (by the example of studying the sociology field in St. Petersburg) (Mikhail Sokolov)
- Video-observation and sociology of a city (Sergej Damberg)
Training leader: Oleg Pachenkov (CISR).
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Within this training CISR researchers and outside lecturers have taught the following courses:
- The practices of interaction in public spaces (the flea market and public transit) (Olga Brednikova, Oleg Pachenkov)
- The social construction of the body at the level of the everyday life (Olga Gurova, Nadya Nartova)
- Reconstructing everyday life through consumption practices (e.g. analysing film "Good bye, Lenin") (Olga Gurova, Oleg Pachenkov)
- Everyday life, family life and urbanism (Katerina Gerasimova)
- Everyday life and the way of life in communal flats (Ilia Utekhin)
- Analysing everyday relations: small talk and other genres (Ilia Utekhin, Sergej Damberg)
- Photo-observation in the field of neighbourly communication: analysing the everyday life of semi-public spaces (Sergej Damberg)
Making use of the experience gained in the collaboration with other educational institutions, CISR started to implement a similar programme in collaboration with their Swedish colleagues in 2004. In December 2004 a two-week internship for 15 Swedish students was organised by CISR together with Osterlens folkhogskola (Tomelilla, Sweden). This training concerned both methods of sociological studies and an investigation of transformation in post-Soviet Russian society. In December 2005 ašsecond such practical training session was held in the context of the partnership of CISR and Osterlens folkhogskola. It was decided that the collaboration of the two organisations will be continued and broadened.
In thešsummer 2006 ašcross-cultural and practical summer school on qualitative social science methodology (CBTšField Methods Course) was conducted in CISR for BA, MA and Ph.D. students from Scandinavia, thešBaltic countries and NIS. It was organised by thešCISR together with thešCircum Baltic Teaching Network and NECEN. Read more...