Anticipated Future of Latvia and Russia During a Global Economic Crisis : A Mixed Methods Perspective

This cross-cultural study explored subjective predictors of more positive evaluation of the future of the country during a global socioeconomic crisis. A sequential mixed-method design was chosen for an exploration of students’ expectations in Russia and Latvia as countries contrasting in macro-contextual conditions. In 2009, Study 1 was designed as a thematic analysis of essays on topic “The Future of Latvia/Russia”. The results demonstrated that the future of a country is anticipated by taking into account external influences, the present of the country, and its perceived power and stability. In 2011, Study 2 involved these themes as independent variables in a multiple regression model. The results demonstrated that positive evaluation of the present and higher perceived power of the country are individuallevel predictors of more positive evaluation of its future. Observed concordance of models indicates relatively high importance of subjective view of the country in the changing world.

In the world of globalization, growing interdependence of countries caused greater exposure of people to global problems.Studies on anticipated future demonstrated that a global negative change leads to a reconstruction of personal goals (Fung & Carstensen, 2006) and can induce fear of similar events in the future (Holman & Silver, 2005).Anticipated as adverse, consequences of the change can form a negative contextual frame for individual socialization (Nurmi, 2004).In turn, optimistic expectations reframe the future outlook and facilitate individual future orientation under negative environmental conditions (Seginer, 2000(Seginer, , 2008)).Empirical studies confirm that individual view of the future interacts with an unfavorable situation in a local community (Arcidiacono, Procentese, & Di Napoli, 2007) or in a region (Nurmi, Poole, & Kalakoski, 1994).Having started in 2008, the global economic crisis offered an opportunity to analyze in greater detail how individuals see the future of their country as a macro-system under negative global conditions.The aim of this cross-cultural study was to explore subjective predictors of more positive evaluation of the future of the country during a global change.
Two theoretical perspectives can be useful in understanding of a subjective view of the country future under a global change.First, Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory represents the context as a series of nested micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems changing in time (Bronfenbrenner, 1979(Bronfenbrenner, , 1986)).By analogy with models considering the impact of macro-contextual (countrylevel) changes on an individual as mediated by all subordinated ecological systems (Pinquart & Silbereisen, 2004;Trommsdorff, 2000), perceived impact of a global change can be buffered by macro-contextual settings.A crosscultural comparison (Zaleski, Chlewinski, & Lens, 1994) showed that perception of global problems and their consequences associates with both socioeconomic situation in a country (e.g., level of economic development) and its subjective interpretation (e.g., a change for the better).Different combinations of objective and subjective factors result in variability of representations of an ongoing change even for neighboring countries (Savadori, Nicotra, Rumiati, & Tamborini, 2001).Therefore, it is possible to expect that individuals' construction of the future context will reflect an interaction of perceived impact of a global change and a macro-situation in the country.
Second, a model of future orientation suggested by Nurmi (1994) includes perceived contextual opportunities (e.g., economic situation) and controllability of the context as elements of future orientation.Perceived opportunities and restrictions impact individuals' decisions and channel their future-oriented thinking and behavior (Nurmi, 2004).In the case of a global change, realizing of new restrictions or opportunities and attributions of control to the changing context or to themselves can result in a reconstruction of a view of the future.
Empirical studies confirm that subjective perception of the current macrocontext has an effect on the anticipated future.The high level of unemployment and restricted opportunities associated with negative consequences for Neapolitan youth's expectations concerning the future of the region (Arcidiacono et al., 2007).Relatively pessimistic predictions for the future of Venezuela were expressed simultaneously with perceived insecurity and economic concerns (Briceño-León, 2006).Pessimistic view of the political situation also associates with a more negative future outlook (Milyukova, 2002).At the same time, optimistic individual predictions for the future of the country can opposite the current negative situation (Milyukova, 2002).Studies also confirm some effects of control attributions on evaluation of the future.Less solvable or controllable world problems are evaluated as having more negative consequences for the future (Zaleski et al., 1994).In contrast, a higher sense of personal control is related to a more positive view of the future (Pulkkinen & Rönkä, 1994).
A relatively small number of studies on the anticipated macro-context under negative economic conditions (e.g., Briceño-León, 2006) facilitated the choice of a mixed research methodology.A sequential mixed-method design (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004) was implemented in order to start the exploration with a broader qualitative analysis of individual construction of the anticipated future of the country and to elaborate it with a quantitative analysis.Two countries -Russia and Latvia -were selected for this study as neighboring countries representing a visible contrast in the sense of territory and population.Latvia is a relatively small country of the Baltic Sea region.Its population numbers of about 2.3 million people.Russia is the world's largest country and has 143.3 million inhabitants.Taking into account age differences in individuals' future orientation (Nurmi, Pulliainen, & Salmela-Aro, 1992), emerging adults were considered to be an appropriate group for the study on expected contextual changes.This age group is sensitive to contextual changes because of active exploration of possible life directions (Arnett, 2000).

Study 1
The qualitative study was based on the principles of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and explored common and country-specific themes in emerging adults' future expectations in Latvia and Russia.Aimed at identification of themes as recurring patterns across a data set, thematic analysis provides a flexible frame for the exploration of individual anticipation of the future.This kind of analysis allows to reduce qualitative data and to develop tentative hypotheses, which can be tested in a following quantitative analysis (Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2006).Thematic analysis also allows a combination of an existing coding frame (themes) and discovery of new codes within data (Braun & Clarke, 2006) that is in line with the aim of this study.
On the basis of the previous studies, three themes were expected to be presented in the anticipated future of the country: evaluation of the future, current situation, and perceived control over changes.Positive or negative evaluation of the future represents an affective dimension of attitude toward it (e.g., Nuttin & Lens, 1985;Worrell, Mello, & Buhl, 2011).The current situation (e.g., Arcidiacono et al., 2007;Briceño-León, 2006) and control over changes (e.g., Zaleski et al., 1994) are important for anticipation of consequences of a change, expected problems and their solutions.
A brief examination of the situation in Russia and Latvia showed relatively unfavorable socioeconomic conditions in the latter.The level of unemployment in Latvia had increased from 6.0 % in 2007 to 7.5 % in 2008 and then to the record level of 17.6% in 2009(European Commission, Eurostat, 2010).The level of unemployment in Russia had increased from 5.7 % in 2007 to 7. 0 % in 20080 % in and to 8.2 % in 20090 % in (Federalnaja služba gosudarstvennoj statistiki, 2010)).An increase in unemployment combined with concordant decrease in GDP per capita for both countries (World Bank, 2011).Thus, it was expected that individuals' constructions of the future of the country during the global economic crisis would reflect this change but might vary in its perceived impact on the future of Russia or Latvia.

Method
Participants.In sum, 90 undergraduate university students participated in the study in October 2009.Participation was voluntary and anonymous.The Russian sample consisted of 44 students from a university in Barnaul (a West-Siberian city with about 621,000 inhabitants) ranging in age from 18 to 21, M = 18.80,SD = 0.69, and 80 % were female.The Latvian sample consisted of 46 students from a university in Riga (the capital of Latvia with approximately 700,000 inhabitants) ranging in age from 19 to 22, M = 20.12,SD = 0.74, and 88 % were female.Both samples were in the second year of university.The age differences are related to differences in the school education systems of Latvia and Russia.They differ by one grade in secondary education and involve twelve grades in Latvia and eleven grades in Russia.
Procedure.In the Russian and Latvian samples, the following instruction was presented by male researchers: "I would like to ask you to write a short essay on topic 'The Future of Russia/Latvia'.You have about 10 minutes for writing".There were no additional questions or plan prescribed.The answer on a typical question "What should I write?" was "It is your own choice.I am interested in your opinion".The instruction was presented in the Latvian language for the Latvian sample and in the Russian language for the Russian sample.No information about the comparative nature of the study was delivered.The research was conducted in groups of 9 to 25 people.
The analysis of students' essays was performed in accordance with a procedure of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).The level of analysis addressed sentences and phrases at a semantic (explicit) level.A method of comparisons was chosen to find similarities and differences in Russian and Latvian students' essays.All data extracts in the further text have an identification code from L01 to L46 for the Latvian sample and from R01 to R44 for the Russian sample.

Results
As expected, students from both countries formulated positive and negative expectations concerning the future.Positive expectations were expressed in optimistic sentences: "My vision of the future of Latvia is definitely optimistic" (L06, 19-year-old female); "Everything will be good" (R15, 20-year-old female); "Latvia will flourish" (L26, 20-year-old female); "Russia expects a bright future" (R01, 19-year-old male); "There will be a rise" (L01, 21-year-old male).Negative expectations represented a pessimistic view of the future: "Russia expects nothing good" (R35, 19-year-old female); "I imagine the future of Latvia as relatively pessimistic" (L46, 21-year-old female); "I do not think that in the future everything will be well with Russia" (R19, 18-year-old female); "I do not see anything positive in the future of Latvia" (L23, 20-year-old female).
Some of these expectations demonstrated a connection to the current negative tendency: "If things go on in the same way, our country will sink into a crisis worse than the Great Depression" (L13, 20-year-old female).Other references to the negative present were combined with positive future expectations: "The future is much brighter and hopeful compared with nowadays" (L25, 20-year-old female); "Let's hope that the future will be better than now" (R38, 19-year-old female).
In addition to general negative evaluation of the situation, the crisis emerged directly as a theme in students' essays.Latvian students reported a broad spectrum of possible impacts of the crisis.On the one hand, students were hopeful and expected that the economic crisis will be overcome in the future: "I think that we will be out of the pitfall called the economic crisis" (L38, 20-yearold female); "After getting out of the crisis..." (L39, 19-year-old female); "There is hope for a brighter future in the next years, and Latvia will be out of the crisis" (L19, 20-year-old female).However, some students placed the end of the crisis in the distant future: "It will take a very long time before Latvia 'recovers' from the crisis" (L30, 21-year-old female).On the other hand, possible consequences of the crisis were assessed negatively: "Taking into account the current crisis, Latvia, from my point of view, will soon lose its independence, power, and laws" (L18, 20-year-old female); "The future of Latvia does not seem positive because it is the time of a crisis" (L40, 20-year-old female).In addition to these negative views, the crisis was considered as a turning point in the development of Latvia: "In this crisis situation, people's future will be defined" (L22, 20-yearold female); "The future is critical because of the crisis, and it will last for a very long time" (L35, 22-year-old female).
Russian students included the crisis in their essays in a different way.In contrast to the high variability in Latvian students' essays, only improvement in the situation after the crisis was expected: "The economic crisis will end.Life will be better" (R33, 19-year-old female); "In Russia, the economic crisis will pass, life will normalize, and everything will be much better than today!" (R40, 19-year-old female).Variability in their narratives is related to a distance to the crisis end.The first way of viewing it was associated with the near future: "I think that the economic crisis will soon come to an end" (R18, 18-year-old female).The second one represented improvement in an undefined temporal interval: "In the future, Russia will flourish and overcome the crisis" (R25, 19-year-old female).
The further search for control attributions revealed that students from both countries emphasized the role of people in the present and future: "In many aspects the future depends on the people" (R41, 19-year-old female); "All together we will build a better Latvia!" (L26, 20-year-old female); "The country is constituted by the people living there" (L11, 19-year-old female); "Many things depend on people" (R27, 19-year-old female).
Another source of control over the future of a country was identified in international relations.Latvian students considered the possible impact of the European Union "the EU will help us" (L20, 20-year-old female), and of other countries "owing to big neighbors' investments" (L46, 21-year-old female); "some country will occupy us again" (L21, 20-year-old female).Other countries were also represented as a reference group: "It is necessary to follow the models of more successful countries" (L45, 21-year-old female).Russian students' essays revealed the limited impact of other countries.The United States appeared as a competitive power with a possible dominating role: "The USA is the main opponent of Russia" (R20, 20-year-old female); "I think that Russia will obey the USA in the future" (R31, 19-year-old female).Europe is represented in students' essays as some external reference point: "Russia... will strive to join Europe" (R17, 18-year-old female); "Russia will develop more and more in European style" (R29, 19-year-old female).
As a unique point, Latvian students' essays included emigration of people.This theme was broadly represented in their descriptions of the present and future expectations: "Many people (more than now) will go abroad" (L18, 20-year-old female); "In my opinion, the greater part of the people will leave the country" (L02, 19-year-old female); "Latvians will leave their home like rats from a sinking ship" (L27, 20-year-old female).This process seems developing under a conflict between young people's feelings concerning their home and perceived situation in the country and opportunities provided by the homeland: Young people do not see any special prospect of remaining here and wasting their time looking for a job with a more and more miserable salary.On the other hand, Latvia is 'home sweet home' (dzimtene) for many people, and, probably, this portion of the people will help Latvia to recover (L20, 20-year-old female).
A unique theme should be also noted in Russian students' essays.Russia was described as a great country: "Russia is a great power!" (R17, 18-year-old female); "Russia -the great power" (R26, 19-year-old female).An increase in the country power was also expected: "I think that Russia will become a new, more powerful country" (R39, 19-year-old female).In addition, perceived power of the country was associated with positive expectations: "Russia will prosper.It is a very powerful, multiethnic, super-duper COUNTRY!" (R9, 19-yearold male).At the same time, the future of Russia was not represented in an idealized way.Worsening in the situation and a negative future were mentioned as alternatives for progressive development.

Discussion
Students' descriptions of the future depicted positive or negative expectations related to improvement or worsening of the current situation and represented some characteristics of their countries.There are students from Russia and Latvia who included the economic crisis as a theme in their essays and considered possible consequences of this global change for the country.Also students attributed an impact on the future of their country to other countries.In addition to external impact, research participants believed in the power of people (as an actor at the macro-level) to change the future of the country.Identified in previous studies, the themes of the current situation (e.g., Arcidiacono et al., 2007) and control over changes (Zaleski et al., 1994) confirmed their topicality in anticipation of the future of the country.Two aspects -expected consequences of the crisis and perception of the country -should be discussed in more detail below.
Latvia was represented in students' essays as a country experiencing a turning point in its development.The most critical sentences envisaged the end of its political existence as a result of the crisis.This attribution of negative consequences to the crisis can be interpreted as perceived instability of Latvia in the face of this global change.Therefore, students' future outlook confirms expected interaction of a global change with possible trajectories of development of the country as a macro-system.This finding is in accordance with models emphasizing that nested ecological systems are included in perception of a higherlevel contextual change (Pinquart & Silbereisen, 2004;Trommsdorff, 2000).
Latvian students' essays included a contrast between negative socioeconomic tendencies and positive feelings concerning the homeland.In particular, this contrast is represented as feelings of a 'home sweet home' in opposition to limited opportunities provided by the homeland and the emigration of people.A similar situation was identified in a study on future planning and community belonging (Arcidiacono et al., 2007).Young Neapolitans' high community belonging was observed simultaneously with negative evaluation of opportunities opened up in the present, negative future outlook, and low investment in the future.As a result, some young people contemplated escape aimed at coping with this conflict.By analogy, emigration of Latvians can be considered a strategy of coping with limited opportunities and conflicting feelings.In turn, Russia appeared in Russian students' essays as a powerful country.All students, who included the crisis in their narratives, considered it as potentially finite and limited in time.Taking into account this view, it is possible to suppose that Russian students perceived lower impact of the crisis in comparison with Latvian students.Moreover, there is an evidence of an association between the power of Russia and positive expectations for its future.This finding also supports a view that perceived macro-level characteristics can buffer negative consequences of a global change as it was suggested for macrolevel changes (Pinquart & Silbereisen, 2004;Trommsdorff, 2000).
In summary, the study reveals common themes in students' construction of the anticipated future in both countries.Revealed differences can be analyzed from two viewpoints.On the one hand, the previous studies demonstrated that individual plans (Nurmi et al., 1994) or perception of global problems (Zaleski et al., 1994) are associated with objective macro-level conditions.On the other hand, this study demonstrates that students from both countries are not focused on objective economic indicators.Anticipation of the future of the country included evaluation of the current situation, perceived stability and power of a country, and beliefs concerning external influences on the country and controllablity of its future.How do these aspects of the anticipated future differ between Russia and Latvia?How important are they for a more positive view of the future of the country?The following quantitative study was designed in order to address these questions.

Study 2
The results of Study 1 supported importance of perception of the current situation and control attributions for future predictions.In addition, perceived power of the country seems to be related to its future modality.At the same time, qualitative data provided only fragmentary outlook of the anticipated future without a possibility to test differences between countries and suggested associations among variables quantitatively.To answer the first question posed in Study 1, this step analyzed differences between evaluation of the present in Latvia and Russia, evaluation of their future, perceived control over the future of Russia and Latvia, and perceived power and stability of two countries.To answer the second question, a regression model with evaluation of the future of the country as a dependent variable and evaluation of the present of the country, perceived control over its future, and perceived power and stability of the country as independent ones was suggested.Taking into account gender differences in optimism-pessimism associated with solving some global problems (Zaleski et al., 1994), gender was added to the model as an independent variable.
Two tentative hypotheses supplemented the regression model: 1.
Higher perceived power and stability of the country predicts a more positive view of its future.2.
Higher external control over the future of the country predicts a less positive view of its future.
Socioeconomic situation in Latvia and Russia in 2010 and 2011 indicated some recovery after the "bottom" of the crisis in 2009-2010(World Bank, 2011).A little decrease in the number of unemployed people was also observed in both countries in 2011.The level of unemployment in Latvia was 16.2 % (European Commission, Eurostat, 2012), and the level of unemployment in Russia was 6.6 % (Federalnaja služba gosudarstvennoj statistiki, 2012).Therefore, some perceived effects of the crisis could have lost their extreme topicality for young people.

Method
Participants.A total of 247 undergraduate university students participated in the study in October and November 2011.The Russian sample consisted of 132 students ranging in age from 17 to 38, M = 19.38,SD = 2.17, and 73.5 % were female.The Latvian sample consisted of 115 students ranging in age from 18 to 39, M = 20.47,SD = 2.87, and 71.3 % were female.The samples represent the same universities as the samples in Study 1 and are sequential parallel to them (Collins, Onwuegbuzie, & Jiao, 2007).
Instruments.The future of Russia/Latvia was assessed by The Future of Country Questionnaire (see Appendix) developed on the basis of Study 1. Participants were asked to evaluate the present, the near future, and the distant future of the country on a 7-point scale from very negative (-3) to very positive (+3).In addition, participants evaluated their country on a 7-points semantic differential scale anchored by two pairs of adjectives: powerlesspowerful and unstable-stable.Students' control attributions to different sources (self, people, the European Union, the United States, other countries, and global crises) were also evaluated on a 7-point scale (1 = no impact and 7 = maximal impact).
Procedure.The questionnaire was filled out with no time limit in groups of students.Questionnaires were administered in the Latvian language for students in Latvia, and in the Russian language for those in Russia.

Results
In order to reduce a number of variables, some of suggested measures were joined into three indexes.An index of evaluation of the future included evaluation of the near and distant future as correlated significantly in the Russian sample, r (130) = .74,p <.001, and in the Latvian sample, r (113) = .73,p <.001.An index of global external control involved evaluation of an impact of the global crises, the United States, and other countries.Evaluation of impact of these external factors correlated from r (113) = .30,p = .001to r (113) = .68,p <.001 in the Latvian sample and from r (130) = .27,p = .002to r (130) = .67,p <.001 in the Russian sample.An impact of the European Union (EU) was not included into the index because Latvia is a member of the EU, but Russia is not.Perceived properties of a country (power and stability) formed an index of power of a country.These two items also correlated significantly in the Russian sample, r (130) = .50,p <.001, and in the Latvian sample, r (113) = .52,p <.001.Reliability of indexes was evaluated in both samples (Table 1).Evaluation of the present, control attributions to themselves, to people, and to the EU were compared at a single-item level.As Table 1 demonstrates, there were no significant differences between the Latvian and the Russian samples in evaluation of the present or of the future.Students from Russia evaluated their country as more powerful and stable than those from Latvia.Students from Latvia reported significantly higher impact of global external factors on the future of their country.In addition, Latvian students attributed higher impact on the future of Latvia to themselves, people of Latvia, and the EU.
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients indicated some trends common for both samples and some less significant correlations among variables for the Latvian sample only (Table 2).Regarding the second research question, the most important common tendencies were positive correlations of evaluation of the future with evaluation of the present and with perceived power and stability of the country.In a lower degree, perceived power and stability correlated also with evaluation of the present.In addition, sense of personal control correlated with perceived control of people; people's control correlated with global external control; and external control correlated with an impact of the EU.In the Latvian sample only, people's control correlated positively with evaluation of the future and with control of the EU, and personal control correlated positively with evaluation of the future and the present.In order to evaluate the model suggested for this study, a standard multiple regression was performed between evaluation of the future as a dependent variable and evaluation of the present, perceived power of the country, perceived personal control, people's control, global external control, control of the EU, and gender as independent variables.The model was tested for two countries separately.The variance inflation factor (VIF) values varied in both regression models from 1.06 to 2.12 that indicates acceptable level of multicollinearity among independent variables (O'Brien, 2007).Table 3 displays the regression coefficients and evaluations of the model in the Russian and Latvian samples.Note.Female and male students were coded as 1 and 2, respectively.*** p <.001.** p <.01.
As hypothesized, higher perceived power of the country contributed significantly to the positive evaluation of its future.More positive evaluation of the present also contributed to the positive evaluation of the future.Students' control beliefs and gender did not contribute significantly to the model in both samples.

Discussion
The results of the quantitative study demonstrate statistical significance of the model suggested for a quantitative investigation.More positive evaluation of the present of the country is the most significant predictor of more positive evaluation of its future.Higher perceived power of the country also predicts positive view of its future that confirms the first research hypothesis.This tendency was observed in both samples despite significant differences in perceived power between Latvia and Russia.The hypothesized relationship between negative evaluation of the future and higher perceived impact of global external factors was not confirmed.
It should be noted that the quantitative investigation clarifies the relationship between perceived power of a country and evaluation of its future.In the qualitative study, perceived power appeared as a country-level contrast between representations of Russia as a "big power" and some representations of Latvia as unstable and powerless in the face of the global crisis.When perceived power was evaluated quantitatively, the results demonstrate that relatively higher power of the country predicts a more positive view of the future of Latvia as well as the future of Russia.Therefore, perceived power of the country can be considered as a significant individual-level dimension in individuals' anticipation of the future of the country.
This finding evokes an analogy with the results of Arcidiacono et al. (2007) demonstrating that young people's sense of their own powerlessness is a source of negative view of the future.In the present study, perception of a greater or lesser power of the country has a similar effect for more positive or negative predictions for its future.As models of development under social changes emphasized (Pinquart & Silbereisen , 2004;Trommsdorff, 2000), distant changes affect individual through more proximal systems, which can provide resources for dealing with these changes.
Individual perception of the present of the country is another characteristic of the perceived macro-context that significantly adds to individual view of the future.As demonstrated studies on future predictions, people are sensitive to negative contextual conditions (Briceño-León, 2006;Milyukova, 2002).Young people can be pessimistic and inactive in future planning and social involvement when current situation is evaluated as negative (Arcidiacono et al., 2007).Predicted as positive, macro-contextual conditions provide more optimistic frame for individual goals and plans (Nurmi, 1994(Nurmi, , 2004;;Seginer, 2008).Thus, the results of this study provide one more evidence for a close relationship between evaluation of the present and the future.
Absence of perceived impact of external factors on evaluation of the future in the quantitative study can be interpreted taking into account changes occurred during the world economic recession and possible students' interpretation of external impacts.As it was mentioned, certain stabilization and recovery have been observed in Russia and Latvia (World Bank, 2011).In 2011, quantitative evaluations of the present and future of Latvia do not differ from those of Russia as it would be possible to expect on the basis of the qualitative study in 2009.Negative consequences of the crisis can be perceived as having no more impact on the future of the country.

Limitations, future directions, and conclusions
Exploratory nature of the study leads to various limitations.The study was not aimed at predicting the future of any country and university students are not representative samples of the Russian or Latvian population.At the same time, the common trends in prediction of the future of the country are observed in both samples.Also, no gender differences were detected in the suggested regression model, but male students' voices were underrepresented at the stage of qualitative analysis.One more issue concerning research participants is a sequential-parallel sampling design which limits consolidation and correlation of data from two research stages (Collins et al., 2007).
It should be noted that anticipated future was explored without focusing on particular macro-contextual domains (e.g., economic, education, or demography).These themes were not involved in both the qualitative and the quantitative analysis.A more detailed overview of the anticipated future can include evaluation of concrete domains and their interrelations.For this purpose, the Future of Country Questionnaire can be improved.Therefore, the relationship between general and domain-specific aspects of perceived macro-context remains a question for the further research.In addition, understanding of anticipation of the future of the country can be expanded by taking into account ecological systems buffering possible impacts of global and macro-contextual changes.
Another limitation of the study is related to a historical context, because Latvia and Russia experienced post-Soviet transformations.Generalization of findings to other countries and exploration of observed tendencies at a country level are questions for a broader cross-cultural study.Moreover, only negative global change occurred during this study.Perception of positive changes and cooperative efforts in solving of global problems are issues for further investigation.
In general, two sequential studies reveal interaction among evaluation of the future of the country, evaluation of the present situation, and perceived characteristics of the country.A cross-cultural comparison of the anticipated future of Russia and Latvia demonstrates that a more positive view of the present and higher perceived power of the country are individual-level predictors of a more positive view of the future of the country.Observed concordance of models provides an evidence of relatively high importance of young people's subjective view of the country as a macro-system in the world of global changes.

Table 1
Indicators of Students' Future Expectations in Russia and Latvia *** p <.001.

Table 2
Correlations Among Evaluation of the Future, the Present, Control Beliefs, and Perceived Power of the Country in the Latvian (n = 115) and the Russian (n = 132) samples Correlations in the Latvian sample and in the Russian sample are presented below and above the main diagonal, respectively.*** p <.001.** p <.01.* p <.05.