Evolution of Social Mentoring Practice in Russia

Mentoring has historically served as the primary mechanism for transmitting practical knowledge and professional norms in technical occupations, yet sociological scholarship lacks a longitudinal analysis tracing its transformation as a social practice in Russia. This study reconstructs four stages of mentoring evolution: the pre-revolutionary period with craft schools, the Soviet era of mass institutionalization and factory-based sociological research, the post-Soviet institutional collapse, and the contemporary revival through federal programs and new formats including reverse mentoring. Drawing on Giddens's structuration theory and Merton's functional analysis, the study identifies an invariant core – tacit knowledge transfer through joint activity – persisting across all stages, while revealing that structural dysfunctions such as formalism and insufficient mentor motivation recur regardless of the political regime. The findings demonstrate the non-linear character of mentoring evolution and offer a framework applicable to contemporary workforce development programs.