Home – Home – Jornals – Scientific journal “Vestnik NSUEM” 2021 number 1

The article reveals methodological guidelines of the scientific study of family relations as a space for the formation and reproduction of social inequality in society. It is proved that the family, despite the nominal transparency of social mobility channels in societies with an open system of social stratification, continues to have a decisive influence on the distribution of status positions. The limitation of the modern concepts of family institute’ role in social differentiation is connected with the reduction of social inequality to objective factors, although it should rather be about the result of influence of the social situation or individual traits, social values, attitudes and cultural predispositions. It is shown that there is a methodological turn from quantitative sociological assessments of socio-economic and educational differences to qualitative interpretive practices in familistic studies that allow revealing the deep socio-cultural factors of inequality. The author comes to conclusion about the methodological pluralism in family sociology as a potential source of ambivalence of the state family policy on eliminate excessive social inequality.