In the article, we focus on such a way of presenting the sociological research results as social portraiture. Portraiture is more and more actively used and becomes an increasingly demanded mediator between specialists and various consumers of the research activity products. This method is used in many branches of science, including sociology. Portraiture in creating an image of a social group allows solving a whole range of research tasks. The feature of the method is that the creators of the portrait can add their vision, clarifying the subject field of research, specifying opportunities, and limitations. However, this creates certain difficulties in its application. The process of institutionalization of this method of processing and presenting research results in sociology is far from complete: the question of the essence of social portrait is open, its definitions and indicators are variable, its key characteristics are not systematized. Due to its weak formalization, the procedure of building a portrait provides each portraitist with an opportunity to choose their own strategy of painting, the angle of the final image, the depth of drawing, etc. The better the image is obtained and the better it combines the requirements of universality and recognition, the more opportunities for practical application it creates. The higher the quality of the image and the better it combines the requirements of universality and recognition, the more opportunities for practical application it creates. Nevertheless, the use of portraiture as a research method requires compliance with certain principles and procedures. The aim of this paper is to try to clarify and refine the methodology of social portrait construction on the basis of generalizing analysis of the experience of using the method in various studies. The research highlights the main principles of social portrait construction are and presents its possibilities. We show the experience of building a social portrait based on the refined methodology. We chose women-activists with a high level of social capital as an object
Keywords
social portrait, indicators, social group, groups of bearers of social capital, social capital, woman-activist