Review: The object of this research is the sport as a sociocultural phenomenon at the current stage of social development. In today’s world, the sport sphere is considered an autonomous part of social sphere, multifaceted sociocultural and political phenomenon. The object of this research is the specificity of modern sport, particularly the clarification of leading functions of sport activity in the Russian realities. Attention is focused on the differences between the concepts of “sport” and “non-sport”, “sport” and “physical culture”; understanding of sport in a narrow and broad sense; as well as legal framework of the physical and sport activity. The article applies the theoretical-methodological analysis, generalization of the scientific and educational materials, alongside system approach towards examination of interconditionality of sport and politics, positive and negative moments of their interaction. The scientific novelty consists in substantiation of studying sport as a historically established in form of special competitive activity and sport practice sociocultural phenomenon, which contributes to harmonious development of the natural and socially-transformative psychophysiological qualities of motion activity and ethical-moral characteristics of a person that define his sport activity.

Keywords: phenomenon, state regulation, policy, culture, society, competitive activity, physical culture, sport, social institute, functions

Review: This article provides the research results on suicidal tendencies among youth, based on the data of the Regional monitoring of destructive moods within youth environment carried out over the period from 2015 to 2018 in general and professional educational institutions of Kemerovo Region. The analysis conducted using 7 waves of monitoring in the territory of Kuzbass. About 8,000 respondents have been surveyed over the three-year period. Among them, for the more detailed analysis, the author determined the group of “potential suiciders” based on the following parameters: gender, nationality, confessional affiliation, main sources of receiving information by young people, popularity of social networks, cultural preferences, leisure activities (preferred genres of movies, music, books), and which subculture they associate themselves with, etc. For identification of the common and specific features of potential participants of the various “groups of death” as an instrument of empirical analysis, the author used the idea of creating a “personality profile of young individual”. The main conclusion is defined by the fact that the young people who indicated the book Stace Kramer “50 Days Before My Suicide” as one of the favorite, then selected the movies, music and other artworks dedicated to the theme of death. This allowed identifying the young people prone to suicidal behavior. Books, movies, and music have an unequivocal impact on young people; unfortunately, many of them cause the feeling of hopelessness and vainness of existence, and affect the fateful decision.

Keywords: subcultures, youth, the Internet, monitoring, social networks, young students, suicide, cinema, sociological research, death groups