Student Family: Is a Legislative Defiition Necessary?

Abstract

The priorities of the modern state social policy of Russia are in the field of youth development, its implementation in various spheres of life, family protection, motherhood, fatherhood and childhood. The legislative and executive authorities pay close attention not only to the reform and development of education, but also to measures of social support for students. One of the directions is to support the student family. This phenomenon is being studied by sociologists, psychologists, educators, and economists. In the absence of regulatory regulation at the federal level, lawyers do not pay due attention to this phenomenon. At the beginning of this year, thanks to the initiative of the Committee on Science and Higher Education of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, a discussion began on the need to legislate the concept of "student family". Two variants of the definition of "student family" were presented. Their criticism forms one of the main parts of the material presented here. The imperfection of the definitions presented for discussion is both conceptual and legal and technical in nature. Both definitions have both general and specific disadvantages. In addition, attention is paid to the relationship between the concepts of "young family" and "student family". The authors also discuss the very need for a legislative definition of the concept in question and the likely consequences of its adoption. The issue of the possible influence of the legislative definition of the concept of "student family" on the regional practice of social support for student families is considered separately. The position on the need to solve the issues of legislative consolidation of definitions, determining their place in the system of legal regulation, focusing on the goals of legal regulation, is substantiated. In conclusion, the authors present conclusions on the issues considered.