LGBT community in the focus of sociological research

The LGBT community and the attitude towards it became one of the dividing factors between Russia and Europe long ago. This factor quite often creates political precedents and becomes a basis for various provocations. In the Russian mass conscience the topic, which has long been considered tabooed, today has a sensitive character; therefore classic survey methods are hardly suitable for its study; on the other hand, various projective techniques have proved to be more useful. This article presents the data of a number of Russian sociological surveys on the attitudes towards LGBT representatives and of the RUDN University Sociology Chair scientific team research on this subject. The article also presents the results of a number of focus groups aimed at identifying attitudes towards LGBT representatives and based on the application of the vignette method, which is a special type of projective techniques. The high efficiency of vignette method for the study of such a sensitive subject was proved. The method allows overcoming of some barriers in respondents' conscience determined by the 'radical' character of the issues under study, and also reduces the general social pressure upon respondents. The research with the application of vignette method resembled a kind of a narrative game, therefore adapting this method to the focus group research helps to obtain more detailed and interesting data due to the group dynamics. © Zh.V. Puzanova, T.I. Larina, S.D. Sharma, 2017