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How do a university leader's publication patterns change after appointment? Until now, few studies have examined whether administrative burden has a significant effect on a leader's publication patterns. This study seeks to evaluate changes in individual publication patterns in relation to academic productivity and increased administrative load. The main expectation is that rectors opt for collaboration instead of publishing single‐authored papers. The analysis of publication data on Russian rectors demonstrates that: (1) a rector's academic productivity is significantly positively related to the share of single‐authored papers and papers in inter‐organizational co‐authorship; (2) every additional year in office adds to the share of co‐authored papers and impedes a yearly increase in article numbers; and (3) previously high individual productivity has a mitigating effect on an increasing share of institutionally co‐authored papers. The results suggest that administrative burden induces changes in collaboration patterns of university leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This mixed-methods ethnographic case study examines the socio-historical origins and current lived experiences of students at one Russian university to understand the role of a university education as an environmental factor in the development of a civic consciousness. Findings suggest that the institution has attempted to introduce liberal civic education reforms while competing with a system-wide civic passivity developed during the Soviet era. At the same time, the institution is balancing political neutrality and social development to effectively execute its mission in spite of increasing state control. Student voices suggest that human capital development remains a top priority, whereas civic development has been limited. This case study serves as a cautionary tale in light of oppression and compromises that higher education institutions have to make with the state. Moreover, countries with a similar Soviet legacy of an atrophied civic society can look to modest reform efforts to engage individual students in a way that can promote civic participation so long as the state allows civic development to occur. This paper also addresses the implications of higher education's role within the context of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs the concepts of cultural narrative to examine career choice among post-Soviet Russian teenagers going into higher education. Drawing on insights from cultural sociology more broadly and the cultural autonomy thesis more specifically, we demonstrate how the cultural narrative of a university degree as a 'must-have at all costs' subjugates various career decision-making logics identified, while downplaying individual agency and reflexivity. We argue that, by misdirecting career choice from opportunities to constraints, the dominant narrative serves to limit, rather than diversify, young people's career choice and social mobility potential. We go on to theorise the interplay between culture and social institutions. Drawing on the cultural interpretation of Unified State Exam – a neoliberal educational governance tool – we show how cultural narrative hijacks institutional interpretations and usages, re-grounding neoliberal sensibilities in Soviet-era ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central aim of this study was to determine the potential of the GPS-based MCL system for English learning in terms of its relationship with learning achievements. For this, the research enrolled 51 students of Moscow Aviation Institute, National Research University (Moscow, Russian Federation) aged 20 to 22, 35% were males, and 65% were females. The paper defined the predictors of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and academic success. The main research tool was represented by 7-point Likert scale questionnaire surveys. The calculation of Cronbach's alphas allowed concluding that they were sufficiently reliable insofar as the values obtained for the questionnaires on respondents' self-regulation, self-efficacy, the use of GPS-based MCL system, and this system's perceived usefulness and simplicity equaled 0.78, 0.89, 0.84, and 0.84, respectively. Overall, the experiment outcomes uncovered that student self-regulation and self-efficacy do influence learning outcomes and can even predict future academic performance. There was a significant difference in the results of pre- and post-testing conducted before and after the implementation of the GPS-based MCL system with the upward trend observed. Alongside this, the mean scores for the perceived usefulness and ease of use of the proposed MCL system constituted 4.96 and 5.28 (on a 7-point scale). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global university rankings influence students' choices and higher education policies throughout the world. When rankers not only evaluate universities but also provide them with consulting, analytics, or advertising services, rankers are vulnerable to conflicts of interest that may potentially distort their rankings. The paper assesses the impact of contracting with rankers on university ranking outcomes using a difference-in-difference research design. The study matches data on the positions of 28 Russian universities in QS World University Rankings between 2016 and 2021 with information on contracts these universities had for services from QS—the company that produces these rankings. The study compares the fluctuations in QS rankings with data obtained from the Times Higher Education rankings and data recorded by national statistics. The results suggest that the universities with frequent QS-related contracts had an increase of 0.75 standard deviations (~ 140 positions) in QS World University Rankings and an increase of 0.9 standard deviations in reported QS faculty-student ratio scores over 5 years, regardless of changes in the institutional characteristics. The observed distortions could be explained by university rankers' self-serving bias that benefits both rankers and prestige-seeking universities and reinforces the persistence of rankings in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child-centred and teacher-directed curricula have long been presented as mutually exclusive approaches to early education. Interestingly, recent research suggests a 'balance' of the two yields the best child outcomes, yet how this balance is struck varies considerably across contexts and even studies. In this paper, we use the writings of Russian cultural-historical scholars to examine the orientations of adult and child perspectives. We propose a unifying theoretical model to describe the hypothetical extremities of child-centred and teacher-directed activities as a way that educational leaders may chart children's activities across this spectrum. Given the moral imperative to provide balance, the model is proposed as a way to approximate it across the child's day. We also offer two central classroom techniques as pedagogical moves to redress the tension between child-centred and teacher-directed approaches and ensure the morally imperative inclusion of children's perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the ideal of a one‐size‐fits‐all university model—where universities are capable of successfully performing all competencies simultaneously—ever achievable? Has the balance between teaching and research activities grown even more fragile or is such a balance unfeasible? In this paper, we review studies of institutional diversity in higher education and bibliometric analyses. We prose a two‐dimensional typology based on diversity in teaching and research by scientific fields. We investigate the diversity in teaching and research, respectively, at the disciplinary level and address whether these primary activities mirror each other. As a measure of mismatch between the two activities, we assess the distribution of students and publications by scientific fields through a clustering analysis. Our study of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Russia reveals that private universities are less diverse both in research and teaching and have high teaching intensity compared to state universities. Expectedly, universities in the rankings have more diverse profiles and they have a higher research intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the view that internationalisation of higher education is a 'global public good' by examining the growing tension between centres and peripheries in higher education. We argue for the need to develop new conceptual frameworks of internationalisation that recognise the uneven landscape of higher education, and that take greater account of the local (socio-political and geographic) contexts in which institutions are situated. Drawing on a recent study of universities in the less explored Eastern regions of Russia, this paper shows how Klemenčič's integrated approach to higher education internationalisation provides a useful conceptual framework for exploring and potentially guiding the internationalisation process in higher education institutions in the periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) intersect and overlap in Central Asia at the heart of Eurasia. Whereas the literature has commonly focused on the economic aspects of these major regional policy initiatives, efforts to create a common Eurasian higher education space through these regionalisms have barely been studied. In response, this paper compares the development of Russian and Chinese led visions for Eurasian higher education regionalism in Central Asia and the extent to which these constructions overlap. The paper also sheds lights on the perspectives of Central Asian states by investigating how these countries are approaching these efforts to construct a Eurasian higher education region. The conceptual framework brings together higher education regionalism with overlapping regionalism and takes a policy-oriented methodological approach. The paper introduces the new term of "points of correspondence" based on language used in both Russian and Chinese policy discourse to explain how constructions of a Eurasian higher education region can overlap without duplicating or flowing into each other. "Points of correspondence" emphasizes neither competition nor collaboration but rather the ongoing pursuit to find ideas and policy tools that best fit one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the influences of globalisation on Russian higher education in accounting. Drawing on interviews with academic staff and secondary data sources, the paper discusses the tensions between local and global influences in higher education. The paper argues that globalisation has an ideological impact on accounting educators in Russia and shapes the accounting education discourse. Global discourse is seen as exclusionary, value-laden, capitalistic, imperialistic and marketing-focused. These changes result in the marketisation of Russian universities and may eventually lead to decreased educational quality and value of the academic profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernization reforms in Russian universities over the past 20 years have, among other things, led to the replacement of university leader elections with direct appointment. Although over half of the public universities in Russia still elect their academic leaders, the competitiveness of these elections is debatable. Using a sample of Russian universities, this paper shows that the remaining elections are not competitive and that the government engages in differential policy toward universities, being more likely to appoint rectors at leading institutions in order to increase its control over these institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demand for large-scale assessments in higher education, especially at an international scale, is growing. A major challenge of conducting these assessments, however, is that they require understanding and balancing the interests of multiple stakeholders (government officials, university administrators, and students) and also overcoming potential unwillingness of these stakeholders to participate. In this paper, we take the experience of the Study of Undergraduate Performance (SUPER) in conducting a large-scale international assessment as a case study. We discuss ways in which we mitigated perceived risks, built trust, and provided incentives to ensure the successful engagement of stakeholders during the study's implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU-Russia higher education cooperation has continued despite global tensions including Crimea incorporation. One example of this cooperation is the development of Finnish-Russian double degree programmes. This paper focuses on institutional environments where double degrees develop and asks how and why they produce uncertainty from inside Finnish and Russian universities in the period of this unfavourable political situation. The matryoshka model is applied to understand the institutional environment of a university and the institutions around it. The institutional nature of a double degree is determined by comparative analysis of how internal university stakeholders in Finland and Russia perceive a programme’s benchmarks. The study is based on the analysis of interviews conducted in partner universities. This paper discusses how perceptions of double degrees influence uncertainty in programme provision within and between institutional environments in Finnish and Russian universities. In addition, the level of institutionalisation of the double degrees may be evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the governance is one of the priorities of the reforms in the area of higher education in Russia. Radical reforms and massive democratisation of the sector in the last 25 years resulted in accumulation of many development issues: the quality of public services, the efficiency of public spending and the modes of interaction between state, society and institutions. Supervisory boards are the latest addition to the landscape of the university governance. The paper discusses the legal framework of the supervisory boards in Russia, analyses how it relates to the best world practices in the sector and how it reflects in the actual composition of the boards and affects the roles they accomplish at the universities. The paper concludes with the discussion of the areas of concern in the current boards’ practices and suggests how they can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the consequences of academic inbreeding shows ambiguous results: some papers show that inbreeding positively influences research productivity measured by the quantity and quality of publications, while others demonstrate the opposite effect. There are contradictory results both in the studies of different countries and within countries. This variety of results makes it impossible to transfer the findings from one academic system to another, and in Russia this problem has been under-explored. This paper focuses on the relationship between inbreeding and publication activity among Russian faculty. The research was conducted using data from the ‘Monitoring of Educational Markets and Organizations’ survey. The results show that there is no significant effect of academic inbreeding on publication productivity: no substantial and robust differences in publication activity between inbreds and non-inbreds have been found. The paper finishes with a discussion of possible explanations inherent in the Russian academic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with questions concerning the particularities of learning in higher education institution students under the contemporary conditions that result from the Bologna agreement being implemented in the system of higher education in Russia. In particular, distance learning elements are discussed that can be applied not only for organizing the academic process as such but also for organizing the students' independent work. The authors present their own tested out experience based on remote interaction via social networks. In the paper, some specific techniques worked out during practical teaching at higher school are suggested that have shown their efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical thinking has been identified as a crucial general skill contributing to academic and career success in the twenty-first century. With the increasing demands of the modern workplace and a global trend of accountability in higher education, educators and employers pay great attention to the development of students' critical thinking skills throughout their training. Therefore, there is an urgent need worldwide for an updated and comprehensive assessment tool of college-level critical thinking. This paper reports on the preliminary validation for the Russian version of the HEIghten® Critical Thinking assessment developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS). Based on a large Russian college student sample (N = 1060), we evaluated the psychometric quality of the items, individual and institution-level reliability, external validity, and student perceptions. Overall, the results suggested good psychometric quality, except that a few items showed low discriminating power and should be further examined with a second wave of data collection. IRT analyses revealed testlet effects and supported the essentially unidimensional structure of the measure. Appropriate correlations with external criteria provided support for the measure's convergent validity. Implications of the preliminary validation study results and the future research agenda, especially the need to collect longitudinal data, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the paper is to discuss the most crucial problem, related to "winding down" of the Russian Liberal Arts education due to its economic inefficiency. The methodology includes the descriptive scientific-research method, which involves the analysis of scientific sources, official provisions, mass-media publications and the students' questionnaire. The authors came to the following conclusions: 1. The model of education, which is guided by the logic of economic growth, and not by the logic of human development, leads to a general dehumanization of education and society. 2. The process of education "dehumanizing" is manifested in the following destructive trends: pragmatic utility and convenience of gaining knowledge; the dominance of technical knowledge and the transfer of humanitarian disciplines into optional courses; the advance of online education; the imperfection of university lecturers' ratings and their transformation into a bureaucratic evaluation system; new types of inequality in education. 3. In Russia, the above-mentioned trends are aggravated by the abnormal establishment of market economy; the verticalization of power and the lack of professionalism in university management; social sphere underfunding; the aggressive implementation of the Bologna system. 4. The current crisis in education is accompanied by the large-scale emigration of gifted students and lecturers. The authors recommend to consider the University as a classical "home" of formation, preservation and transfer of culture; online courses should be seen as a new format of teaching aids, as well as a technological tool for retraining and for people with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an attempt to develop a practice-oriented philosophy course for students of bachelor programs in the Russian higher education institutions. A special emphasis is placed on the daily problems encountered by a human and the ways to overcome them with the help of philosophy. In the authors' opinion, such approach points to the rightful place of philosophy in the programs for students pursuing non-philosophical specialties in higher school, and allows to increase interest to studying philosophy as part of the bachelor program. In connection therewith, it has been proposed to structure the philosophy course as follows: philosophy as the search for meaning, philosophy of values, philosophy of activity, philosophy of life. The course sections presented in the sequence suggested above provide a possibility to approach philosophy as a practical, instrumental field of human knowledge helping an individual to change own self and own life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Victor von Richter (1841-1891) was one of the important chemists of the second half of the 19th century. The purpose of this paper is to familiarize readers with the important events in the life of Richter and his writing activities, in particular with his chemistry textbooks for higher education, well-known in different countries. In addition, his research activities is briefly described, and especially the chemical reactions named after him. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares the university education system in three countries: the Russian Federation, the Republic of Moldova and Romania. Even though they are part of different geo-political and cultural spaces, the three states have important similarities in higher education. In all three countries processes of university education reform have been carried out to modernize and adapt to the demands of globalization and the new communication society. Also, the relation to the trends and contents of European higher education has been and remains a constant of the managerial activity of education ministries and of other institutions with educational attributions. At the same time, there are differences between the higher education systems of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Moldova and Romania, which come from the specifics of their evolution so far, but also from the society in which they operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the determinants of national student mobility under the unified system of admission in Russia and evaluates the barriers which still limit educational mobility. It is argued that even with the Unified State Examination (USE) and the decreased transaction costs of applying to universities, student interregional national mobility is directed towards more developed regional educational markets and richer regions, but is still limited due to the financial constraints in the absence of the additional student support. Russia is an interesting case, because it consists of regions with highly variable socio-economic development and it represents local higher education markets with different levels of competition between universities, which may influence the decision to move. USE was intended to mitigate against these differences, and for political reasons under USE such differences are not considered the main barriers of access to higher education. However, this study takes into account the importance of the institutional characteristics of regions in student mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop new state standards of higher education for training digital personnel in the conditions of Industry 4.0 by the example of modern Russia. Design/methodology/approach: An overview and a critical analysis of the expert and analytical report of the research institute "Higher School of Economics" on the results of digital modernization of the modern Russian economy entitled "Indicators of the digital economy" in the part "Human resources of the digital economy" is performed. Findings: It is proved that formation of the personnel infrastructure for digital modernization of economy requires standardization of the process of training of digital personnel. The new state standards of higher education for training digital personnel in the conditions of Industry 4.0 by the example of modern Russia are created on the basis of the existing directions of the master's program. Originality/value: An authors' classification of digital personnel according to the criterion of performed functions for application of digital technologies is offered, and two categories of them are distinguished: technical specialists and narrow sectorial specialists – which allowed specifying the scientific and methodological provision of the process of training and statistical accounting of digital personnel in Russia. The authors determine the perspective directions of training of digital personnel within the directions of the master's program, which are implemented in modern Russia, and the corresponding categories of digital personnel. The authors also offer additional requirements to the results of mastering of the main educational programs of the master's program, the structure of the main educational programs of the master's program and the conditions of implementation of the main educational programs of training of masters within training of digital personnel. The authors' conclusions and recommendations ensure the information support for training of digital personnel of modern Russian universities, as well as monitoring and control of this process of state regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing the analytical framework of a discourse-driven social change, this paper unpacks the neoliberal concept of ‘educational quality’ in the course of Russian education modernisation reform from 1991 to 2013. Since the early 1990s, the global neoliberal discourse has served as the backbone for post-Soviet educational ideology. Alongside other major reform initiatives, the ‘quality revolution,’ proclaimed by the Russian Government in the early 1990s, signified a rhetoric shift away from the Soviet-era quality control towards a neoliberal quality assurance paradigm. Through fine-grained textual analysis of policy documents and political statements by key educational stakeholders, the analysis unpacks the discursive underbelly of the new quality paradigm, in an attempt to determine whether a paradigmatic transformation has taken place. The paper argues that despite the nominally proclaimed shift towards a quality assurance model of educational governance, the representation of educational stakeholders and responsibilities within the new quality paradigm continues to correspond to the Soviet-era command-and-control authoritarian model. The study challenges the popular claim of a neoliberal turn in Russian education and suggests that a neoconservative authoritarian approach to education governance has been smuggled in under the disguise of ‘quality assurance.’ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers new challenges for Russian universities and the state, including flourishing and widespread corruption, politicization and state pressure, and student activism, and hypothesizes on how these three may be linked. To do so, this paper uses systematic research of media accounts from 2007 to 2012 in order to investigate student activism and its possible links with corruption and university politicization. This paper develops a theoretical extension that explains the corruption and coercion mechanism as applied to student activism, and places emphasis on higher education corruption and state pressure applied to universities. This study concludes that students are more interested in fighting for their economic rights and fulfilment of contractual obligations by the universities, while remaining politically inactive. This is normal for modern Russian society, where market reforms in higher education gain momentum, while democratic changes in the country remain very slow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between the indicators of higher education quality and the salaries of university graduates in Russia. Based on the data from the longitudinal study 'Trajectories in Education and Careers', it is shown that graduates of highly selective universities, higher education institutions which participate in the excellence initiatives, or those awarded a special status (for example, participants of the '5–100′ project and National Research Universities) receive a higher wage premium for education compared to other graduates. This conclusion is consistent with the human capital theory and signaling theory. Differences in wages depending on the field of study were also found. Graduate salaries have a gender gap and are also positively associated with family income and school background. Thus, inequality in the labor market has roots both in the variation of the quality of higher education, and before university entry – in family and high school. The findings can substantiate the policy aimed at smoothing educational inequality and differences in wages. • Graduates of highly selective universities receive a higher wage premium for education compared to other graduates. • Graduates of HEIs participating in the excellence initiatives, or having a special status receive a positive wage premium. • Differences in wages depending on the field of study were found. • Graduate salaries have a gender gap and are also positively associated with family income and school background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance of the research is associated with the controversy existing between the social mandate for quality educational services in mathematics and natural sciences and the current system of further education. The leading approach to studying this problem is the systemic approach which allows viewing the particularities of organizing the school students' learning process within rendering further educational services in an integrated way, using the example of Mordovian State Pedagogical Institute named after M. E. Evseviev. Methodological aspects of the process of further education in mathematics are analyzed in the paper. The main principles for building a system of educational measures are identified and ways for fulfilling the principles suggested are described. The authors analyze the experience in implementing the mathematical sessions at the "Success academy" scientific educational center. The development opportunities and prospects for school students' further education are detailed and particularities of implementing it are highlighted within the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the problem of postgraduate support for graduates of Russian higher educational institutions using the example of psychologists. Comparison method is employed for describing the experience of organizing postgraduate support for higher educational institution graduates which is available in the Russian education. The result of such support is seen by the scientists as creation of conditions for professional support and adaptation of beginner specialists in their jobs in order for them to get established in the profession and become competitive. The content-related and organizational aspects of the subjects' activity in postgraduate support give an opportunity for the professional development of psychologists and supervisors, for natural differentiation of psychologists' work at educational organizations, and for actual accumulation of the staff of psychologist teachers to take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies transformations in the role of higher education in Russia as represented in official Soviet and post-Soviet policy documents between the 1950s and 2013. The focus is on the categories defining the purposes and tasks of higher education in the larger context of society and economy. There is a basic dichotomy in relation to the purposes and role of higher education, between vocational training (which is seen as a determining factor in the economic development) and personal development/education (seen as a condition of social development). The balance of these two poles, economic instrumentalism and social instrumentalism, changes throughout the history. The Soviet documents emphasized the importance of both, with the predominance of the social instrumentalism. The transitional period of the late 1980s and early 1990s is characterized by increasing humanistic discourse in regard to higher education. Later post-Soviet documents, reflecting neoliberal policies, largely abandon social instrumentalism and more exclusively promote the economic role of higher education. Economic instrumentalism is the meeting point of two historical eras, with their respective ideologies and political agendas. Connecting Soviet and neoliberal discourses highlights the importance of historical legacies in regard to the economic, applied nature of higher education, and underlines the crucial role of the state, which facilitated acceptance of neoliberal agendas in Russian society. The analysis also contributes to further understanding of the nature of the neoliberal reforms globally and in post-socialist countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is aimed at identifying the conditions for future production managers' effective professional training. The authors determined the specificity of future technical specialists' modern economic training content. The necessity of future production managers' complex practical activity is shown, which contributes to the formation of their readiness to solve business problems, to manage the work process, and to organize productive interaction among the working collective members. The structure and composition of students' complex practical activities in the framework of teaching practice and independent work, the technique and conditions for its implementation (initiating conditions, external conditions, and internal conditions) are determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of higher education leads to a number of consequences. The case of Russia has both specific features and features common to processes taking place in other countries. This paper offers a retrospective description of educational system manipulation and changes that have occurred due to general transformations in Russia. The new labor market required qualified specialists. At the same time, employers needed a significant number of more or less socialized young people, and these skills are considered to be acquired as a result of studying in a higher education institution (HEI). Both demands from the labor market were transmitted to families, who, in turn, translated demands to the educational system. The educational scope responded adequately to demand from families. HEIs underwent differentiation: some provided knowledge, along with socialization, confirmed by degrees; others just gave degrees plus socialization. Enrollment in HEIs grew continuously and very rapidly. Two types of consequence of the resulting situation are considered here. Using the findings of 50 years' research, it is shown that increased HEI enrollment has led to greater uniformity in aspirations for education among young people and to their broader participation in higher education. However, this has not proved conducive to lessening social inequality in higher education. In addition, studies of HEI graduates in the labor market testify that the growth of HEI differentiation has raised inequality in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is on Lithuania, where government policies continue to limit the use of Russian in education, the public space and the media, while the local economy has recognized proficiency in Russian as a commodity. This is particularly salient in the healthcare industry that grew significantly in the past years with patients from post-Soviet countries seeking treatment at local hospitals and private clinics. Marketed for their ‘European’ standards and competitive prices, promotional discourses refer to proficiency in Russian and familiarity with Russian culture and customs among medical staff. This commodification of Russian challenges perceptions on the value of language in the formation of political and cultural identities, pointing towards a paradigmatic shift and renegotiation of language attitudes in countries of the former USSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Russian became a commodity in the global service industry in the decade between 2004 and 2014 and, in some places, much earlier. I will begin with a discussion of sociolinguistic theory of ‘commodification of language’, focusing on aspects critical for this case study. Then, I will trace the process of commodification of Russian, starting withwhy(reasons) andwhen(timeline), proceeding towhere(locations) andhow(forms), and ending with theso what. I will also talk aboutwhat next, identifying the opportunities for research on global Russian and the many gaps that are waiting to be filled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the Head of Department (HoD) role at an elite State university in Russia. It draws upon documentary analysis of government texts and focus groups with both HoDs and lecturers. It concludes that most HoDs are invited to apply for the role by more senior university colleagues. Once in post, they are offered a range of helpful courses, but also learn from experience and by observing others. The primary purpose of the role is seen as clarifying and interpreting central university expectations, though there is scope for influencing the departmental vision. Whilst the role is very time-consuming, it does not seem to generate the kind of managerialist ‘values' conflict reported elsewhere. The paper ends with a tentative framework for explaining how certain contextual factors (motivation, mode of appointment, perceived level of surveillance and previous experience of higher and/or lower levels of centralized control) might increase or decrease ‘values' conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the factors of combining study and work and the factors explaining intensity of work during study in Russia, based on cross-sectional survey data. The issue of how Russian students combine work and study is analysed through the set of financial, academic, social and demographic predictors, quality of university and quality of students. These factors may have an effect on student employment and student labour supply, and help shed light on what motivates students to enter the labour market. We discovered that 64.7% of Russian students combined study and work and most of them begin working during their third year of study. Our results indicate that factors associated with the quality of students, such as studying in a top university and participating in research activities, positively affect the probability of student employment, but negatively affect the intensity of employment. Financial motivations for student employment are also significant. We found that students receiving financial support from their families are less likely to be employed during their study and work less hours. However, we found no evidence that combining study and work affects students’ academic achievements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The great expansion of participation in higher education in Russia in the post-Soviet period was the layered and contradictory result of both conditions established in the Soviet period, and the structuring of reforms after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992. The Soviet government was strongly committed to the expansion of education across the country, and gender equality was achieved at that time. In the 1990s and 2000s enrolments more than doubled, though the growth of numbers has been reversed since 2008 because of demographic decline of the relevant age cohorts. Employing Trow's analysis of the growth of higher education systems and Hirsch's concept of positional goods, among other conceptual approaches, as well as statistical, national, and comparative survey data, this paper analyses social dynamics of the process of increasing participation and equalization of opportunity in Russia. The dramatic higher education expansion in Russia was largely associated with the positional value of higher education credentials, in a society in which the Soviet system of social status had been discontinued, and a new system of status was being built on the basis of post-Soviet rules (which are still evolving). Driven by family aspirations and resources, massification has largely rested on the part-privatisation of the costs of higher education, part of a neoliberal reform package common to the post-Soviet countries. However, higher education expansion has not brought about greater social equity. Expansion, fee-based financing and policy measures such as university excellence initiatives have tended to strengthen the institutional and social stratification of the higher education system, weakening social mobility and social equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the approach to complex training of managers and faculty staff for system modernisation of Russian engineering education. As a methodological basis of design and implementation of the faculty development programme, the CDIO (Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate) Approach was chosen due to compliance of its concept to the purposes and tasks of engineering education development in Russia. The authors describe the structure, the content and implementation technology of the programme designed by Tomsk Polytechnic University and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology with the assistance of Chalmers University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology and other members of the CDIO Initiative. The programme evaluation based on the questionnaire results showed that the programme content is relevant, has high practical value and high level of novelty for all categories of participants. Therefore, the CDIO approach was recommended for implementation to improve various elements of the engineering programme such as learning outcomes, content and structure, teaching, learning and assessment methods. Besides, the feedback results obtained through programme participants' survey contribute to identification of problems preventing development of engineering education in Russia and thus serve as milestones for further development of the programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the central claim of Natalia Forrat’s article that university support programs under Putin targeted the suppression of anti-regime student mobilization. Empirical evidence, both on the national-policy level and on the level of higher education institutions, suggests that the government introduced support programs in order to establish a research capacity at Russian flagship universities and to develop a more competitive national science system. The low level of students’ political engagement can rather be attributed to the outdated structures of student representation, inherited from the Soviet period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of “dissertations for sale” in Russia. The tasks of this anthropological study include establishing the problem of corruption in doctoral education, identification of the dissertations suppliers, study of the specific services they offer, analysis of their prices on different services, and generalizations of findings in the context of the educational system. All of these tasks address the supply side of the dissertations market. This paper identifies a total of 169 firms that offer dissertations for sale in Russia. It concludes that the cost of the dissertations market extends far beyond its monetary expression. Fake doctorates undermine the credibility of real, earned doctorates, and erode the gold standard of quality in research and scholarship. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]