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Research Programs / Projects

Social Differentiation of Higher Education

Coordinator: N. Kanatova

Results and discussion of the project "Accessibility of Higher Education for Socially Disadvantaged Groups" conducted by the IISP and eleven research groups in 2001-2004 revealed a considerable public interest to this subject and brought to the forth a number of questions that require a deeper analysis.

In the Russian higher education, subsystems with different social functions tend to develop. On the one hand, there is a clear-cut distinction between "mass" and "elite" higher education. There is a mass demand for higher education irrespective of its quality, whereas barriers in access to elite education that provides prestigious channels of socialization grow steadily. On the other hand, another distinction becomes increasingly more prominent - that between "general" and "professional" higher education. Certain higher educational institutions provide some general training of students in terms of culture called for primarily by the intensively developing service industries.

It is of utmost importance to give this process a thorough analysis. Problems of accessibility of higher education appear different for the developing subsystems of higher education and require a special investigation. It is also necessary to examine the role that various subsystems of higher education play in upward social mobility channels.

Another factor impelling to continue research of accessibility of higher education is the expansion in 2004 of the National Exam as a universal mechanism of entering higher educational institutions on a competition basis. The desirability of its universal introduction, as well as the ways to finance higher education generate heated debates. At the same time, there is an evident lack in the Russian society of knowledge about possible instruments of state and private financing of higher education and their influence on the education system and its accessibility.

As a continuation of the project "Analysis of Accessibility of Higher Education for Socially Disadvantaged Groups" the new research is implemented that is aimed at the following tasks:

1. Analysis of public demand for mass general education.
2. Quantification of functional differentiation of the Russian system of higher education along the "mass - elite" and "general - professional" lines.
3. Analysis of accessibility of higher education for different social groups in various subsystems of higher education: (1) mass general; (2) mass professional; (3) elite general; (4) elite professions; identification of differences in accessibility of these subsystems.
4. Analysis of relations between the character of accessibility of higher education and accessibility of upward social mobility channels.
5. Identification of the consequences of the large-scale introduction of the National Exam for the accessibility of higher education for different social and demographic groups.
6. Comparative analysis of the influence of different mechanisms of financing higher education on demand for it from different social groups and on supply of educational services and their accessibility.

To obtain the data necessary to implement tasks 1-4, a sociological survey on the basis of a sample representing Russia's population aged 15 to 35 (2500 respondents) would be conducted. For task 5, a survey would be conducted on the basis of a 560 people sample that would include family members of 2002-2004 school-leavers in one pilot region where the National Exam was held in these years. Questionnaires would be developed in cooperation with the Analytical Levada-Center (http://levada.ru) that would also construct the samples and conduct the interviews.

For task 6, the foreign experts in the area of higher education finances would be involved and, in cooperation with them, the analytical report would be prepared that would include structural schemes describing conditions of efficient use of different forms of financing higher education, interests of different actors related to their use, types of economic and social results achieved and costs associated.

In the course of the project, a series of workshops would be held to discuss the problem of social differentiation of higher education. The final report would be published and disseminated among officials and specialists in state bodies, education, and science.