Abstract: This article presents a comparative analysis of the reports announced at the XVIII World Congress of Sociology held in Yokohama, Japan in July of 2014. All reports considered the questions of aging, subjective well-being of elderly people, economic aspects of population aging and other questions concerning this area. The aim of the paper is to define the main tendencies in studying aging questions that interest the world sociology under the growth of life expectancy, population aging, i.e. increasing cohort of elderly people in relation to youth and those in midlife in the structure of population, taking into account the current economic crisis and cutting budgets income basis.The results are grouped according to the following criteria with their detailed characteristics:1) the level of social and economic development of the societies which have become the objects of the research: welfare states, developing countries and undeveloped countries;2) the cultural peculiarities.3) the subject of research.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the perceptions of the students of the Russian and foreign higher educational facilities (primarily in the UK and the United States) of the modern world and their place in it, as well as their expectations with regards to the personal future, and the hierarchy of values. The data was acquired as a result of the original research conducted in the autumn of 2015 in the Tomsk Polytechnic University. Special attention is given to the comparative analysis of the system of life perception of the two groups of respondents, as well as to the analysis of the acquired results in light of the theory of generations. The theoretical positions are based on the theory of generations by W. Strauss and N. Howe, basic values of S. Schwartz, and post-materialistic values of R. Inglehart. There is no significant difference in the ideas, values, and life aspirations among the Russian and foreign students; all of them are determined to receive education in presence, and build a career in future. The Russian students are more focused on creating a family that their foreign peers; also, such notions as “prosperity” and “connections” are of great importance among the Russian students, which reflects rather the level of social wellness and the peculiarities of social relations within it. Students themselves are attracted to the post-materialistic values, such as interesting job, appreciations of their own efforts and talents.  

Abstract: The existing in historical sciences evolutionary models of historical processes cannot find space within themselves for historical chance, which manifests itself as the activity of a particular person or group, or as a singular fact seemingly uninfluenced by anything. This article substantiates the possibility of applying the methodology of synergetics to the study of events that at first appear accidental, but that had a decisive influence on the course of historical processes. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the heuristic possibilities provided by the use of synergetics in the study of separate historical events. Particular attention is given to the question of how the use of synergetics helps to find the causal place in the general historical scheme of separate, seemingly random events-fluctuations that have significant influence on the course of the historical process overall. The source base for this article consists of the works of Russian and foreign scholars on the subject. The research’s methodological base comprises the comparative historical method and the approach of synergetics. The author addresses the question of which heuristic capacities are provided by the synergetics of history. The author comes to the conclusion that it finds the place of the most difficult problem – that of chance. Thus, it is demonstrated how and under which circumstances seemingly insignificant events, new controversial ideas, and persons deviating from norms suddenly come to define the consequent course of history. Synergetics with the aid of its proper methodological instruments and categorical apparatus outlines the logic of events, showing how the growth of entropy, system deviation, disintegration, the rise of autonomous elements lead to a point of bifurcation where the smallest fluctuation that appears accidental can bring about its break-down. What the new system order will be depends on the structures-attractors that form in the environment of the development of the self-organisational processes.