Discursive practices of parenthood: political challenges and actual agenda

The article deals with the analysis of current social problems in the agenda of St. Petersburg parent's communities. The study of parents' social problems is placed in the context of Russian social policy. Parents' civic activism is considered as a result of politicization of the private sphere, childcare and education, as well as response to the challenges of the state social policy. Parents' activism is analyzed as a result of transformations of the private sphere meanings and values, which lead to the changes of meaning of marriage, partnerships, parenthood and parent-child relationships. The main possible approaches to the study of civic activism are presented, the heuristic potential and methodological limitations of the approaches in relation to the study of parent's communities are analysed, the characteristics of St Petersburg parent's communities are described, a general analysis of the socio-political context of the parent community development is proposed in the paper. Based on the analysis of interviews a number the problems that parent's activists consider as important were highlighted. The notion of social problem is understand from constructivist sociological perspective and implies a situation or a condition that is regarded by some individuals as unacceptable. The following actual problems in the discourse parents communities activist were found: the problem of responsible parenthood, the problem of social exclusion of mothers, the problem of violation of civil and human rights of mothers, the problem of orphaned children, the problem of family crisis. The activity of the parent communities aim to solving these problems. The discourse of parent's activists also includes the claims to the State policy to address the problematic issues. In conclusion of the article the analisys of discoursive gaps and overlaps between official discourse and the discourse of parenting communities is presented. The significant meaning match metween official discourse and parent's naratives was found. The State traditionalist and pronatalist discourses become the parent's communities activists language for the discussion of social problems. In particular, the issue of family crisis and the need for State policy to promote family values in order to increase national fertility rate is a common place of the official discourse and the discourse of parent's associations. The point of gap between the official discourse and the discourse of parent's communities is the rhetoric of parent's civil rights and gender equality in the private sphere.

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