Values: definition, main content and classification in the social sciences

Yashnova Margarita Andreevna

The article discusses the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of values, which allowed to generalize and systematize the scientific experience of studying value issues. The author analyzes the understanding and interpretation of value as the main row-forming category within the subject fields of a number of socio-humanitarian sciences, each of which studies values with the features inherent in these sciences - philosophy, cultural studies, psychology, and special attention is devoted to the study of the specifics of value issues in sociology. As a result, it was proved that the sociological analysis of values is carried out at all four levels: micro-, meso-, macro– and mega-levels, where the main units of analysis are, respectively, such carriers or subjects of values as personality, social group / community, society, humanity. Since modern sociology is a multi-paradigm science, in the final part of the article the author has chosen the main theoretical positions with certain meta-paradigms, paradigms, directions, theories and concepts. In the final part of the article, the main approaches to the analysis of globalization processes at the present stage of social progress are considered, the specifics of globalization trends in each of the branches of scientific knowledge proposed by us are revealed – the question of finding a "value consensus" based on the "value synthesis" of old and new value systems is raised.

Keywords:value, value approach, theories about human values, multiparadigmality of sociology, globalization.