Subculture of the street children in contemprorary socio-cultural space

Abstract

The sociocultural space of homeless children are analyzed on the basis of empirical material resulting from the participant observation and the interviews. Particular attention is paid to the details of daily life of Odessa street children, that allow to see and understand the overall context of the subculture of street children, identify how street children represent their position in society and therefore how treated to it. Essential features of the subculture of street children, the main features are represented on the analysis of literature. It is found main problems of the research of this category of children. It is difficult to predict the development of this phenomenon in modern society. The unsanitary conditions, disorderly sexual life, bad habits, drug abuse, invisibility of this phenomenon from government institutions in most cases lead to the death of kids. In most cases those kids who had survived on the streets cannot raise their social status. Because of the objective and subjective reasons young people who were street kids in the past join into society like marginal members, strangers in some cases keeping this problem until the end of life. Today the complex world of street children continues to exist in modern society. The results of the analysis lead to the conclusion that at the present time in the Ukrainian society street kids formed their own special homeless subculture, which is manifested in specific manners, language, system of values, norms, rules. Subculture of street children is a product of the struggle for existence.