The overall number of people at the age 15 - 29 years in Russia is more than 30 thousand or 1/5 of the country's population. This age category is regarded as the youth. Nowadays the term "youth" preserved only the demographic, age meaning. The diffusion of generations has occurred: a lot of people in young age become "the grown-ups" and a lot of adults remain "young" for a long time, i.e. they are unable to find a job, to marry, etc.

There is considered that the present status of inter-generation relations can not be described by the term "conflict" [1]. The dialogue of generations has almost been interrupted. There is no a cultural core which is to be transferred from fathers and grandfathers to their children and grandchildren by the laws of continuity. Hence, there is a gap between the generations rather than conflict. The English expression "generation gap" is the most descriptive if the contemporary situation in Russia is concerned. The present situation isn this country resembles the one existed after the revolution in 1917. The young generation faces the necessity to create a lot of things anew, if not everything. A broken mechanism of cultural socialization is being replaced spontaneously by one of its parts, namely, the mechanism of social adaptation of the youth to the existing reality.

The ways to restore the dialogue of generations come across the communication spheres, including the studies of public opinion of the youth by sociological questioning. Then, the problem of adequacy of sociological questioning as a mean of communication with the youth arises.

The age of a respondent makes a direct impact to his or her attitude to such communication mean as questioning.

The results of studies performed by the Institute of Public Opinion of Russia (RIOM, Voronezh) allow the generalization of the differences observed due to the increase of the respondents' age.

1. Growing fear of being questioned. The elders showed twice more respondents thinking that sincere answers with unknown consequences are dangerous, than the youngsters. 2. Growing sense of diffidence. The fear "to say something wrong" increases by each age group and reaches the maximum in the group of respondents of 60 years and older. In this group the number of people who are not sure in themselves is thrice more than among the youngsters. 3. Less interest to questionings. The greatest interest to polls is shown by the young people and the least - by the pensioners. 4. The number of people appreciating an interest to their opinion is growing. Hence, the older a respondent is, the more he or she appreciates the form of addressing by an interviewer. If the interviewer managers to address the pride of this person, there is a good probability that he or she will respond.

The young people is distinguished from other groups by their fearlessness, self-esteem, true interest to questionings. They believe that their opinion may influence something, may be useful. The youngsters are less inclined to answer the questions asked by an interviewer just to do a favour, and the liking of an interviewer practically does not affect their decision to participate in questioning. In addition, there is a number of factors requiring a special attention to the youth as a group with special communication interests. The first of them is the need in communication being a distinguishing feature not only of the young Russians but an immanent feature of the young. The data collected by the American sociologists demonstrates that the youngsters are ready to sacrifice a lot for the sake of communication, even their school results and the perspective of success in life. This is peculiar for the society where social progress is one of the main life values. [2, p.71].

The second is the marginality of the youth as a social group. For example, S. Eisenstadt describes the young age of personality formation as a marginal period when a person leaves an exclusive orientation to the parents' family and joins a broader context of social relations [3]. Hence, the young people are characterized by special social relations explained by their marginality.

The third is the fact that the youth is involved into the process of active socialization, in difference from the adults. The process of socialization is related to the change of social role, to the transfer from particular to universal relations, i.e. being regulated by common norms, and impersonal relations. The above distinguishing factors produce the motivation structures of participation in a questioning different from the grown-up people, if the sociological questioning is regarded as a mean of socialization and satisfaction of the need in communication.

The need in communication shown by the youngsters, according to the results of studies performed by V. Chuprov, decreases by age and depends upon the availability of job, family, profession and social status [2. p.77]. The mentioned differences in motivation structures are another evidence of the fact that the youth can not be presented as a uniform and faceless mass. The young people are strongly differentiated by social and consciousness features. The non-uniformity of the group of youngsters includes the division into the subgroups more or less uniform in content. Each subgroup requires a particular analysis. The Table 1 presents the reactions of the young people to the interviewer addressing. The questioning of 564 young people in the age from 15 to 29 years by the representative sampling method (personal interview) was performed in the city of Voronezh in 1996.

A wish to take part in the questioning can also be stipulated by the questioning situation and the information collection method rather than by the content of questioning. Various questioning methods are interpreted by respondents as different ways of communication. The selection of a questioning method adequate to the communication interests of respondent is very important if the quality of sociological information is concerned.

Table 2 illustrates the influence of questioning techniques to a wish to be polled. The Table contains the answers given by the young people to the question:

• When you would be more eager to take part in the questioning?
• When a person comes to your place for personal interview.
• When you are asked to give a telephone interview.
• When a questionnaire is posted.
• When you are asked to fill a questionnaire provided at the place of your work or study.
• When you see a questionnaire in a newspaper.
• When a person gives you a questionnaire in the street.
• I have no wish to be polled.
• I am not sure.

The selection of a particular questioning method does not mean the rejection of others. If an interviewer is persistent enough, or uses a promotion system, the respondent will take part in the questioning notwithstanding his or her previous opinion. However, the selection of a particular questioning type means the trend to a specific communication. Social, professional and demographic features being relevant to the psychological state of the respondent stipulate his or her adequacy to the way of obtaining the information by the interviewer. That is, the questioning techniques, adequate for a respondent, contain almost no objective or subjective communication barriers, and the respondent provides the information less distorted for external reasons.

The sentences in the second column are the answers to the question: "Did any of these ideas came to you when you were asked to take part in a questioning?"

The Table contains the percentage of each age group who agreed with a particular sentence.

Note: The sum in each column is not equal to 100 because respondents could have selected more than one questioning techniques.

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