Society news at HSE University

Many Russians, when asked  whether certain occupations, particularly those of a politician or an academic, are prestigious or desirable,will give a different answer depending on whether they are refering to their own attitudes, perceived societal attitudes, or preferred career choices for their children. So Konstantin Fursov and Valentina Polyakova, research fellows at the HSE's ISSEK, found in their study Monitoring Innovative Behaviour in the Russian Population.

The tension between migrants from the North Caucasus and local residents in Russia is due to cultural and value differences. Migrants share collectivist values, while the local population is more individualistic. Olga Verbilovich and Viktoria Galyapina, researchers at the HSE Laboratory for Socio-cultural Research, investigated the specifics of the mutual attitude between migrants and local residents in Moscow and Stavropol Krai through the use of focus groups.

Some 45% of residents in Russia’s small towns live with loans, and 23% have problems with repayments. A lack of financial literacy is the main cause of the problem. Formal credit has replaced informal borrowing and lending between community members and local retailers, Grigory Yudin and Ivan Pavlyutkin found in their study 'Debt and the Community: Two Debt-driven Economies of Small Towns'.

Nationalism in the post-Soviet republics did not arise solely as a result of the economic and political crisis in the Soviet Union. The longstanding policy of the Soviet elite aimed at forming a multinational state is what enabled it. Authorities sought to use ethnic diversity to strengthen the state structure, but the result was exactly the opposite. A study by Andrey Shcherbak, senior research fellow at the HSE’s Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR).

On March 13, 2014, the HSE Center for Institutional Studies held a seminar to discuss the role of the joint comparative studies being carried out by universities in various countries to measure national systems of higher education. Philip Altbach, Research Professor and Director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, USA, took part. Later, in an interview for the HSE News Service, he shared his experiences conducting joint research with Russian universities.

Results of a survey by the Levada Centre for social research show that price increases are the thing that Russians worry about most. The second thing on their worry list is poverty and the third, – unemployment. Only a tiny 4% of those asked said they worry about restrictions on civil rights and democratic freedoms. HSE professor and researcherNataliya Tikhonova explains why, if we look more closely, these results are not actually surprising at all.

Society views businesspeople negatively, and family is often unable to help. Alexander Tatarko, lead researcher at the HSE’s International Scientific-Educational Laboratory for Socio-Cultural Research, recently released a study entitled 'Individual Social Capital as a Success Factor in Starting a New Business'.

Martin Carnoy, Academic Supervisor of the HSE International Laboratory for Educational Policy Research and the Vida Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University, has been ranked fourteenth among North America’s most influential education scholars. He was recognized for his work analysing the results of an international education assessment.