This article, drawing on materials from a boarding school for children with “mild intellectual disabilities,” investigates how recent reforms over the past decade in family welfare, disability, and education have impacted staff at a specialized boarding institution. It argues that, as “islands of socialism,” state-run boarding schools persisted long after the USSR’s dissolution, allowing staff to operate within an educational system rooted 25 in discipline, loyalty, and work ethic—but, above all, in the principles of exclusion and selection, sustained by entrenched patterns of institutional interaction. The article explores the causes and recent changes in the educational and pedagogical methods of these institutions, illustrating how staff have been forced to reevaluate their societal role, the purpose of their work, and the concept of care itself. The author argues that, from the staff’s viewpoint, the primary focus of care is not the orphans or their future but an imagined society needing cleansing of “external” and “useless” elements—such as children with problematic behaviors or conditions that, within the institutional context, may be categorized as psychiatric issues. By examining fantasies of an imminent social catastrophe and nostalgic visions of a former social order, the author reflects on how imagination functions as a mechanism for producing ideological beliefs.

The article proposes a radical reconceptualization of frailty—a condition traditionally viewed as a manifestation of weakness, decline, and loss of dignity. The authors criticize leading approaches in academic and public discourse that reduce frailty either to medical diagnoses or to moral deficiency, arguing instead for understanding frailty as a socially constructed, existential, and ethical phenomenon. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in 2025 across six regions of Russia—including over 200 interviews with participants in the long-term care system—the study shows that fear of frailty often exceeds fear of death and is closely tied to the perception of oneself as a “burden.” Yet the life narratives of individuals with severe physical limitations, including care recipients with disabilities, reveal an alternative perspective: frailty can serve as the foundation for reciprocal, mutually enriching relationships of care, rather than one-sided “service provision.” The authors identify three key dimensions: (1) interdependence and reciprocity as the basis of care; (2) the social construction of frailty through perception and institutional frameworks; and (3) the isomorphism between frailty and life itself—its fragility, vulnerability, and authenticity. In this light, frailty ceases to be a deficit and instead becomes a meaningful expression of the human condition, strengthening social bonds and affirming human dignity even under conditions of total dependency. This reframing invites not only a rethinking of care practices but also a reimagining of the ethics of engaging with vulnerable members of society, affirming the value of life in all its manifestations—even in profound dependency and fragility. The authors call for a shift from a paradigm of autonomy to a paradigm of encounter, where care is understood as shared presence within a space of mutual recognition.

What are the alternative notions of masculinity that would be compatible with the emerging trend towards an ethics of care? Such debates are being conducted in the field of masculinity studies in connection with the discussion of the limits of economic growth, the economic crisis, gender egalitarianism, and the transition to a care society. An important effect of this approach is the expansion of the task of social reproduction—previously prescribed to the female gender in the private and public spheres—to include men. The most debated concept is Carla Elliott’s ‘caring masculinity’ (as opposed to hegemonic masculinity), which includes an ethics of care where there is no place for dominant behavior and related qualities, where the focus shifts to positive emotions and interdependent social relations, from masculine identity itself to real practices of care. Analyzing theoretical studies in this field, the authors investigate the largely paradoxical combination of care and masculinity, suggesting that men engaged in care practices will themselves change, forming a new identity and new values. But the concept of caring masculinity, although it opens up promising prospects in the process of redistribution of power/authority, confronts the concept of hegemonic masculinity, which contains resources for hybrid adaptation strategies that intercept the discursive agenda. The appropriation of individual discursively attractive practices of alternative masculinities and the values of care ensures the internal diversification of hegemonic masculinity and hybridizes the hegemonic masculine alliance for the purpose of adaptation. As a result, caring masculinity remains an ethical and partly utopian concept that underestimates the adaptation of patriarchal power and the critical potential of the sociology of care.

In care research, the notion of “home” often emerges as a key concern, with its conceptualization shaping social policy priorities. This article critically examines the idea of “possessing” a home, which is framed in two main ways: as a physical space that can be inhabited, modified, lost, or reclaimed, and as a site imbued with symbolic or emotional meaning, domesticated through human engagement. Both perspectives tend to fixate on the moment a person becomes the “owner” of their version of home, often bringing discussions to an early close. The article argues that home is not a stable physical space offering ontological security or affective attachment, but rather the outcome of ongoing infrastructural and social transformations. It introduces the concept of “beyond-homeness”, shifting attentionenactments from of  homethe home. This/homelessness framework accounts binary  towardfor material multiple conditions, dynamic as  well as memories, rituals, spatial practices, and forms of synchronization with others and with (non)material objects. By doing so, it exposes the limitations of interventions that reduce support for the homeless to housing provision alone and emphasizes the need to consider how home is continuously reassembled even after shelter is acquired.

The article examines the problem of the sensible object and research on sensitive topics in sociology, using a pilot study of the Korean diaspora in Almaty (Kazakhstan) conducted in 2025, which included interviews with diaspora representatives as well as an analysis of its institutional environment. From a theoretical perspective, studying sensitive topics and objects requires abandoning ‘strong’ narratives, both positivist and constructivist, that dominated sociology until the early 1990s. The turn toward ‘weak’ descriptions, which began to develop actively in the early 2000s, is examined in the article through two approaches: Andrew Abbott’s lyrical sociology and John Law’s ‘care-ful research’. Although there are no theoretical or methodological intersections between the two approaches, the article demonstrates that they work with the problem of subjectivity; moreover, their methods complement each other, making it possible to offer a full-fledged alternative to the strong sociological narrative. Using the empirical example of the public representation of the Korean diaspora in Kazakhstan and its elusive character, the article shows how strong narratives, lyrical descriptions, and elusive research can complement each other at different levels of approaching the object and discovering its sensibility. As a result, it is shown how the same research object can take on a stable, open-to-discussion form or a sensitive, sensible form in different situations, and how the object’s variable character, its inaccessibility to formalization and clear description, make it elusive and sensitive to external approaches.

This paper is devoted to the role of the phenomenon of care in the study of architectural space in the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. This work aims to interpret architecture in the context of Agamben’s biopolitics project and to critique his approach through the lens of the concept of care. The biopolitical dimension of architecture is revealed through Agamben’s central concepts: bare life, zoon/bios, homo sacer. The article raises the problem of the “uninhabitability” of urban and architectural spaces: from shopping malls to refugee camps. It examines Agamben’s interpretation of the concepts of care in Foucault and Heidegger and proposes an analysis of the concept of use as an alternative to them. Foucault’s care of the self and Heidegger’s care are presented in the context of seeking a critique of biopolitical governance. The concepts of chresis in Foucault and dealings with the ready-to-hand (Umgang, Zuhandenheit) in Heidegger form the conditions for understanding use. The concept of use presupposes a mode of dwelling that transcends management and possession. Agamben’s concept of dwelling as use is revealed through the work of urbanist Camillo Boano. In his research on refugee camps and other crisis zones, Camillo Boano demonstrates the relevance not only of dwelling as use, but also of the concept of care for the discussion around the critique of the biopolitics of architecture. Such a shift in emphasis is dictated by the expansion of the idea of dwelling as use and by an interest in the fragility and vulnerability of living spaces within marginal urban zones. Boano studies the care of people for one another in a community living in a space of constantly deteriorating materiality. From care as human essence and self-technique, we move toward care as a phenomenon that enables collective resistance to biopolitics within materially constrained communities.

The article reinterprets the early works of Renée Fox—primarily her monograph Experiment Perilous (1959)—through the lens of the connectionand  thebetween production the key of  themesscientific of knowledge uncertainty. The and standard care in  clinicalreception practice of Fox as a researcher of professional socialisation and role expectations in medical work reduces this subject matter, overlooking the epistemic and affective issues inherent in the practical processes of clinical and research work. Reconstructing Merton’s influence, evident in her methodological framework of role conflicts, the article demonstrates that even in her early works, Fox shifts the focus from the reproduction of norms to the mechanisms of emotional regulation arising under conditions of multi-layered uncertainty: the opacity of individual and collective medical knowledge, the ontological instability of the research objects, and the complex affective interactions between doctors and patients. Drawing on Parsons’ concepts of double contingency and the sick role, Fox examines illness as a moral process, where various forms of care and the patient’s behavior affect not only their condition but also the generation of new knowledge through scientific experiments. The aspects of care described by Fox are considered as an integral part of both physicians’ emotional regulation and the construction of scientific facts. The article situates Fox’s early work within the tradition of functionalism, highlighting those moments where her attention to uncertainty, care, and knowledge production transcends Merton’s project, opening avenues for further exploration of both affective issues in medicine and the processes of constructing medical facts.

The current article is a result of the first stage in studying the ways that heterogeneous symbolic resources are configured under the name of “Space Dream of the Chinese Nation”, a rhetorical figure employed by Xi Jinping as a part of the new national ideology — “Chinese Dream”. The reconstruction of a network of meanings associated with the PRC`s Space Program is presented, and thus the author addresses the question about the circumstances that were favorable for integrating Chinese astronautics into the new ideological policy. Therefore, a hypothetical solution to the following problem is also found out: what made the introduction of the National Space Day of China in 2016 possible and necessary? The article starts by mentioning a lacuna in the scholarship concerning Chinese astronautics: despite the growing popularity of its media image in China, this phenomenon has been studied mainly from the theoretical standpoint of political utilitarianism; the “Space Dream” itself has not received any focused scientific consideration at all. The present study employs the theoretical optics developed in the field of Cultural sociology by Jeffrey Alexander which is contextually important for two reasons. First, hermeneutic methodology is well accorded with special characteristics of the analyzed object: the content of rhetorical figures put forth by the PRC`s political leaders are not determined in advance from ‘the top’, but vice versa — the meaning is infused by local actors in the process of their own interpretative work. A researcher`s goal in such a case is then to try doing the same work herself/himself. Second, Cultural sociology is an integrative theoretical frame which makes it possible to connect local meaning-constitutive practices, on the one hand, with the social and cultural resources, on the other. The present article demonstrates how the evolution of Chinese astronautics’ public image with its peculiarities might be explained with the idea of such a dialectic relationship. In the end the author arrives at the conclusion that “Space Dream” is a performative resource that has been able to allow individuals to feel solidarity as a people in relation to astronautics’ projects. 

This article examines the integration of large language model based chatbots into educational practices in Russian higher education through the lens of critical theory and curriculum ideologies. Drawing on Ivan Illich’s concept of convivial tools and Jürgen Habermas’s distinction between instrumental and communicative rationality, the authors conceptualize large language models as technologies capable of operating either within a manipulative logic, reinforcing hierarchies, technocratic rationality, and domination, or within a convivial logic, fostering autonomy, collective reasoning, and communicative action. The mode of implementation and functioning of these technologies largely depends on the underlying curriculum ideology, whether it is grounded in hierarchical principles of knowledge production and transmission (Scholar Academic ideology) or in pedagogical constructivism and individual self-actualization (Learner Centered ideology). The empirical component is based on the experience of the School of Advanced Studies at the University of Tyumen. The analysis draws on thematic examination of 20 semi structured interviews with second to fourth year students who participated in experimental courses featuring AI personas designed to substitute for certain instructor functions.

These courses involved a shift toward interactive learning formats and the introduction of a mediator role inspired by the notion of the ignorant schoolmaster. The findings indicate that compulsory and instrumentalist deployment of chatbots is perceived by students as manipulative. It elicits resistance, feelings of dehumanization, diminished motivation, and disappointment over the loss of direct human interaction. In contrast, voluntary and reflexive uses of large language models unlock their potential as convivial tools, enabling the co-production of knowledge and enhancing epistemic agency. In conclusion, the authors outline the conditions under which large language models can function as genuine tools of conviviality in university education: voluntary adoption, transparency in design and operation, rejection of total instrumentalization, and embedding within genuinely communicative practices that respect participants’ autonomy and foster negotiated, collective meaning-making.