Professional Dynasties and the State: Changes in the Relations

Profession-state relations vary across time and place. Project Professional Dynasties as a Social Mechanism of the Reproduction of Professional Groups is directed towards the studies of reasons and circumstances of the rise and fall of professional dynasties. Is also centers on the role of professional dynasty traditions in the multiple social field taking into consideration the influence of the state and the market. The phenomenon of ‘professional dynasty’ was brought to life by the Soviet state in the 1920-s. By the dynasty we understand a social group localised in the industrial and socio-economic sphere, characterised by blood-kinship relationships, where several generations do their professional work in the same sphere. We study dynasties from the point of view of the resources of family professional strategies and as informal methods and practices in the context of changing economic, science-technical, social and cultural realities. Dynasties also provide conditions for the effective professional adaptation and career realisation of young generations. Dynasty members have a different understanding of the trends of the development and perspectives of the transforming society. They differently adapt to the conditions of the accelerated science-technical progress.

The scientific novelty is based on the fact that there has been almost no research in the following spheres: (1) dynasties as state social constructs that reveal the social demand for producing elite professions; (2) how professional dynasties are formed in the various spheres of the professional landscape (parents’ expectations, passing down of educational trajectories, passing down of professional skills, etc.); (3) what professional and social standing of dynasties are; (4) how professional mobility is accomplished, what enhances professionalisation and what hinders it. The object of the research is the dynasties in engineering, teaching and medical profession. We are conducting qualitative interview research with the memebers of dynasties in Moscow and other Russian regions.