school of the dark times
Education supports civil society, overcomes inequality, and gives people support and control over their own lives — if it meets the needs of the students.
To what extent will the Russian educational system meet these goals in 2022, and what life trajectories are possible for today's high school students?
Education research often links the effectiveness of resource investment in education for different social groups with the level of inequality in society.
It considers both primary effects of inequality, such as the geographical accessibility of higher education, and secondary, more intricate ones. For example, in a family where at least one parent has higher education, a child's poor academic performance would be interpreted as a signal to invest in additional training, while in families without higher education, on the contrary, as a signal to forego enrolling in higher education.
However, in addition to inequality, other aspects of the educational system — political, cultural and civic — are also vital.
School is one of the first bureaucratic systems young people encounter and it is here that their communication strategies are formed: on the interpersonal, communal and state levels. The condition of educational communities, their relations with the state, and their practices in and around the school can influence and shape these strategies.
How does the situational context in 2022 determine young people's educational and career choices – and with them the economic, social and political future of Russia?
How do war and crisis affect the life chances, educational needs and strategies of young people in Russia? What about their subjectively perceived risks, uncertainties and uncertainty about the future?
Our study updates, deepens and clarifies the known answers to the above questions. We are interested in the structural and contextual conditions of making career and educational decisions — in socioeconomic, cultural, political and psychological contexts.
research questions
In 2022, how are the representations of one’s self, one's choices, and the environment constructed in the society surrounding school graduates?
What is the role of the state, organisations and communities (parents, educators, volunteers, etc.) in making those choices?
What factors make up the uncertainty in their decision-making?
For whom and at what cost has uncertainty increased or decreased?
to answer these questions, we plan to
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Understand how teenagers and their parents think about their career and education choices and their future and determine what role economic strategies play in education and careers.
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Study the current condition of mental health in adolescents, the influence of the need for career and educational choices, and their coping strategies.
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Analyse modes of communication in online educational communities and identify the language means used by different actors.
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Find out what risks and uncertainties families and educational communities perceive when making choices and how they frame them.
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Reconstruct the socio-economic context in which career and educational decisions are made.
how will we do this
We use a mixed methodology to consider all the factors influencing career and educational choices and capture them in their different manifestations.
To understand the overall context, we will analyse how general socio-economic indicators of consumption, employment, unemployment and others are linked.
Then we will study how young people themselves justify and evaluate their educational choices, what logic underlies their choice, from which options they choose, and what events and experiences they think influence their academic and career decisions.
In addition to the perceptions of high school students themselves, we also want to study the perceptions of those around them who influence them.