Abstract:

Nowadays young people live in a world of civilization challenges: a reducing of traditional cultural patterns influence and of parental family, a need to choose and make decisions under conditions of expanding of possibilities of building their lives. In a situation of social uncertainty increasing, the important scientific and practical task is an organization of adequate psychological and pedagogical support for students in their planning of their own lives. Its implementation requires studying life models of young people. As part of our study we consider a life model as a set of life events and choices, and underlying beliefs and values in different spheres of life. The study (supported by RFBR, No.18-013-00599) was aimed to describe the life patterns of young people in a sphere of professional self-determination (criteria for choosing a specialty, values in education and professional activities, planned events) and a sphere of relations (creation of a family, preferred character of family relations, family living space) in context of comparing these parameters with students' ideas about their parents' life models.

The sample consists of 100 university students from St. Petersburg and other regions of Russia, average age 21.02±1.11; 80 % are women. Research methods: semi-structured interview, analysis of variance, factor and cluster analysis. Significant reference points in a future professional field for students have been identified: interest, involvement, material support, career prospects. A status parameter is less significant. There were found contradictions between cognitive (conviction in the necessity of putting efforts to achieve goals) and emotional attitudes of students, as well as their implementation in a real behavior. In a sphere of close relations, in a planning their life scenario, young people are oriented on creating a family and having children (two thirds of respondents consider this as a "necessarily" part of their own life scenario); also, they see their future family built on the basis of gender equality.

As a result of analysis of variance, the crucial factors determining the characteristics of life models of young people were revealed:
(1) acceptance of life values and emotional closeness with parents,
(2) living with parents or autonomous living due to relocation to St. Petersburg for education.

Both factors reflect autonomy of a young person in building their life scenario: the first one - on the level of attitudes, the second one – in the real behavior. The influence of “closeness to parents” is manifested in a wish to repeat the parents' family model (character of relationships (p = 0.026), having children (p = 0.013)), while the influence of it on a wish to repeat the professional path of parents is not significant. Data factorization revealed factors: active involvement of a person in life; focus on peer generation; the need for intimacy and family support; confidence in their own abilities, willingness to change (factor weight issues from 0.7984 to 0.4). The results of the cluster analysis of data revealed five variants of life models of young people and confirmed the principal importance of respondents' orientation towards the intimacy with their parental family and its support, or to the individual’s independence and activity in building life. The data obtained can be applied in programs to support personal and professional development of students.

Keywords:

Life models, parent family influence, students, values in educational and family sphere.