The characteristics of the position of "young people" as a subject of social partnership during the period of the transformation of Russian society can be characterized by the relationship of young people with work, politics, education, and the state. The authors surveys of young people during the 1990s in the Tiumen Region provide evidence of substantial changes in the structure of these relations. Especially prominent is that upbringing work with young people has been ignored. Up to the present time practices of this kind of work with the rising generation in the sphere of education have been devoid of logic or consistency, and in fact are totally absent. The ongoing process of social stratification, the lack of explicitly spelled-out value priorities and experience in social interaction among the new economic groups of entrepreneurs and hired employees, all make it difficult to map out the objectives of upbringing activity. Sociologists have pointed out the ambivalent nature of the public's consciousness, the dominance of social myths, and the prevailing paradoxes, as a specific feature of both the individual and the mass consciousness of Russians. It is obvious that neither "universal human values" nor the particulars of "the national idea" have served as constructive factors in the consolidation of today's Russia. The idea of "competitiveness" is more instrumental and pragmatic, and is hardly likely to be perceived by society as the principal idea of the new Russia. In this article, the authors believe that it is the "ideas of patriotism and civic-mindedness" that ought to serve today as the common foundation of a new ideology (and also, hence, the basis of upbringing).