Ecological consciousness as a factor in consumer behavior of young people in the context of new industrialization: sociological research experience

摘要

The relevance of the research project is related to the study of an important social problem - the change in consumer markets in the new industrialization of the Russian economy. The article describes the experience of a sociological study conducted by the authors according to the original methodology in September 2018. The main purpose is to test the hypothesis about the influence of environmental awareness on the behavior of young consumers in choosing foods. The young consumers were represented by the students of two Ural universities - the Ural State Economic University and the Ural State Agrarian University. The selected study fields allowed to consider surveyed students as representatives of an expert group within the youth audience. To study this problem, we chose a comprehensive research strategy that includes quantitative and qualitative methods for collecting social information: focus groups and mass survey research. The analysis of the data obtained in the course of the study allowed us to conclude about the contradictory environmental patterns of behavior and the ambivalence of the environmental consciousness of students, which affects their attitudes regarding the purchase of organic food. In the course of the study, we identified gaps in the cognitive, axiological, and activity levels of the environmental behavior of the interviewed students, which actualizes the problem of environmental education. We see the development of the scientific foundations of environmental education primarily in the design of a new social ideal based on a conscious ethical attitude towards the social and natural habitat (towards ourselves, surrounding people and nature as part of culture), shaping the harmonious development of man as a biosocial being that recognizes the value of the world around us and human life.