Publications

"The text contains review of the main sociological approaches to the research of faith-based social work in congregational studies. Review refers mainly to American publications, British studies are covered less. The issue of congregational/faith-based social work became especially popular within congregational studies in USA due to certain political and institutional context, which stress the social role of congregations in America. The text consists of two parts and the appendix. The first part contains review of empirical congregational research, which regards congregational social work in some way. The second part covers the research, which studies congregations primarily as welfare providers. The appendix contains some approaches to the faith-based social work classification and typologization. Approaches to the research of congregational social work, classification of social programs and typology of faith-based organizations presented in the text can be regarded as a source for creating methodology for parish communities social work studies in Russia. "

"In the second part of the XX century in Germany increased interest in empirical research of Protestantism. In this field works sociologists and theologians. From 1972 till 2002 took place 4 survey on membership in German Evangelical Church (EKD). Surveys were organized by EKD and based on modern sociological theories. In this working paper we will discuss the history of surveys. We will separately consider research scheme of fourth survey and it’s questionnaire."

"The goal of the text is to provide a “big picture” of homeless people support in Russia. Based on survey held in organizations working with homeless people in Russia in 2011 the author describes main actors, compares state and non-state organizations, develops types of homeless people support. State organizations basically provide locally based hard-to-access complex support. Two other types of support – the one aimed at homeless people return to family, and another - minimum support for vulnerable people, are provided mostly by non-state actors. The text touches the question of religion influence on homeless people support both in direct way (significant share of organizations helping the homeless are religious in Russia) and indirectly (through interaction with religious organizations)."

"The review deals with the concept of social network and its components: the actor characterized by attributes and relations / connections between actors. Based on empirical examples the review addresses two main research directions in social networks analysis: social network theory construction and the usage of social network analysis concepts / tools to study the effects of some interest to the researcher, which may also be of two types: analysis of network effects and analysis of impact of certain phenomena on network characteristics."

"This working paper was made for the series of theoretical surveys «Problems of Church Communities Development. International Practice» for the St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University research project «Sociology of Religion». This work focuses on H. Lindner’s conception of the church community. We also try to estimate the influence of U. Beck’s «risk society», G. Schulze’s milieu theory and N. Luhmann’s organizational theory on H. Lindner."

"«Catholic Parish in the 2nd part of XX Century: Parish Community Factors» is second review in the series of theoretical surveys «Problems of Church Communities Development. International Practice» for the St. Tikhon Orthodox University research project «Sociology of Religion» . General focus of these theoretical surveys is Christian communities’ development factors in different cultures and countries. In the 2nd part of XX Century parish community becomes an issue of high importance both for Catholics and social researchers. This review focuses on community-like characteristics and how modern Catholic parishes meet them in their everyday parish life. How it’s possible to create a community in modern parish and what kind of a community it will be? What kind of role catholic parish may play in individual catholic life and society after the Second World War and Vatican-II?"

"Catholic Parish Applied Research in the USA on the Eve of The Second Vatican Council” is the third review in the series of theoretical surveys “Problems of Church Communities Development. International Practice” for the research project “Sociology of Religion” at St.Tikhons Orthodox University. General focus of these theoretical surveys is Christian communities’ development factors in different cultures and countries and methodological aspects of Christian communities research. Early sociological parish researches in USA were being made in the situation of Catholic hierarchs misunderstanding and even sometimes resistance to the social science penetration to the sphere of the sacred. This review considers the researches of J.Schuyler and J.Ficher, who is known to be a classic of American parish sociology. Both J.Fichter and J.Schuyler in their works discuss problems, which are topical for contemporary church communities / congregation researches, for example: what kind of groups of Catholics (in relation to their involvement into worship and social parish life) are represented in the city parish? what is the ratio of different categories of believers in the parish? to what extent communication, collaboration and mutual support of parishioners are developed? "

"«Small Christian Communities in the 2nd part of XX Century» is a first review in the series of theoretical surveys «Problems of Church Communities Development. International Practice» for the St. Tikhon Orthodox University research project «Sociology of Religion». General focus of these theoretical surveys is Christian communities’ development factors in different cultures and countries. The present review explores the noticeable Catholic movement of the 2nd part of the XX century, aimed at Church renewal, covered all the catholic world after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). This movement is small Catholic/church communities, emerged as inside Catholic parishes as outside the official church institutions."

"This review was prepared as a part of the St.Tikhons Orthodox University research project "Sociology of Religion". The purpose of the text is to generate guidelines for cataloguing quantative religion research projects, data of which is available via the Internet and free for use. In the review we develop a classification of Internet resources (portals, databases and data archives of quantative research) and introduce a basic set of fields for a quantative religion  research database."

"This review was prepared as a part of the St.Tikhons Orthodox University research project «Sociology of Religion». The purpose of the text is to identify the main ways to operationalize the concept of «religiosity» in quantitative research. In the first part of the text we look at the main stages in the development of quantitative approaches to the study of religiosity, then we compare the operationalization methods used within two international surveys – International Social Survey Program (2008) and European Social Survey (2008)."

"The paper deals with problems of Pentecostalism development. The impact of it’s economic ethic and social organization on the well-being of its following is analyzed. Text concerns main hypotheses about the scale, specificity, possible directions of the impact. Main attention is given to the works of British sociologist D. Martin. The problem of a weberian logic from “Protestant ethic…” application to the problems mentioned is also reviewed."

"This text discusses a range of problems which arise when attempts to develop the methodology of Orthodox Church social work are made. The paper is based on empirical data of the pilot study “Models of church social work organization at Moscow parishes (2010)”. This research is a part of St.Tikhons Orthodox University project “Sociology of religion”. Through the pilot study in 2010 32 in-depth interviews with priests and parishioners at Moscow parishes were made, 441 questionnaires were filled up by parish priests and parish social workers."