SESL researchers presented the results of the largest research on migrant children in St.Petersburg

The director of the Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory Daniel Alexandrov, senior researchers Valeria Ivanuishina and Vlada Baranova have reported about the largest and most detailed study of migrant children in Saint-Petersburg in recent years.

The seminar began with a report made by Daniel Alexandrov. He thanked all researchers of the Laboratory who participated in the research of migrant children and the “Region” center of Ulyanovsk. A lot of researchers of the latter are now working at the Center of Youth Studies (CYS) at HSE.

Daniel Alexandrov presented the data which had been collected during 4 years of Laboratory’s work.

The work started in 2007. Initially, it included interviews and observations in a few schools. A pilot survey was conducted in 2009. 23 schools were surveyed in 2009 in Saint-Petersburg, 104 schools in 2010 (one seventh of all schools in the city). 7300 schoolchildren filled in questionnaires, 150 parents and teachers were interviewed.

The project is currently being developed, the first data on schools in Moscow oblast are being processed. The next survey will be launched in other 50 schools of Moscow oblast in autumn 2011. It will give us an opportunity to compare 2 regions of Russia not only by number of migrant children, but also by successfulness of their assimilation. We will be able to reveal some other features of the schools’ organization.  

Mixed method design was used in the project. It implies analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data in order to describe the real situation in schools most completely and reliably. When the statistical data didn’t let us come to clear conclusions, interviews with schoolchildren, teachers and parents were held. By turn, the answers given in the interviews contributed to improvement of the questionnaires and statement of new problems. Such integrated approach gave us an opportunity to see the situation from different points of view.

Then Daniel Alexandrov referred to the definition of the term “migrant”. There are various definitions. For example, Belgian sociologists consider as migrants those people, whose maternal grandmother wasn’t born in Belgium. The ones whose parents (at least one of them) were born in a foreign country are regarded as migrants in the USA. In this research, schoolchildren who belong to “visible minorities” are considered to be migrants.

This term implies not only the fact of moving to Russia, but also a particular appearance, clothes, etc., which all together mark a person as a “foreigner” in the eyes of the ethnic majority. The visible minorities in contemporary Russia include people coming from Central Asia, Transcaucasia (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia), the Republics of Northern Caucasus (Dagestan, Chechnya, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria) despite of the fact that they are Russian citizens. 

The following algorithm was used for defining a respondent’s nationality: a pupil was asked to which nationality he belongs to from his point of view, which language he speaks at home, what his and his parents’ native languages are (separately). As a result of this large study, it became obvious that there are quite few migrant children in Saint-Petersburg, significantly less than people are used to think there are. Only 7% of children approximately belong to the “visible minorities”.  Among them, Azerbaijanis account for one fifth, Armenians for one sixth. Representatives of other ethnic groups make up smaller parts.  

Daniel Alexandrov refuted a wide-spread myth that there are a few migrant children at high school and they comprise the majority of children in primary grades, which creates language difficulties for teachers and Russian speaking pupils.  This statement is false, because, according to the results of the research, migrant children account for 6,8% of pupils at primary school, 6,7% at secondary school and 5,2% at high school. This difference is statistically non-significant.

Sociologists discern the first and the second generations of migrants. The first generation includes the ones who moved from one country to another. People who were born in the receiving country or brought there in a very young age are called the second generation of migrants. 

The children of first migrant generation (who moved to Russia during their school years) make up 27%. This group of children faces the biggest problems. Sometimes they don’t go to school immediately and skip a year because of insufficient language skills and stress due to adaptation. Non-surprisingly, they study worse.  In contrast to them, migrant children of the second generation don’t differ from their classmates from the ethnical majority in school progress.

When it comes to spatial distribution of migrant children in the districts of Saint-Petersburg, there wasn’t discovered any concentration of them in any districts. There are some schools in each district where there are more migrant children than in other schools (15-17%, rarely up to 30%). Usually these schools are incomplete, there aren’t enough children and the schools are threatened by closing of. No wonder that migrant children are welcomed to such schools: they help to solve the problem of filling. Consequently, there is a segregation of schools on the ethnic basis in Saint-Petersburg, but it is very weak and is more likely connected with class differentiation than with ethnical. 

There is a different situation in four districts of Moskovskaya oblast investigated by the Laboratory. Children from migrant families are equally represented in gymnasiums and regular schools including the incomplete ones.  

This study is extremely important, because such statistical data on Saint-Petersburg were collected for the first time. It wasn’t known earlier how many migrant children go to Saint-Petersburg schools. This led to different rumors and increased xenophobia.  

Valeria Ivaniushina's report was called “Migrant children as pupils”.

Three groups of migrant children were examined from the perspective of their performance at school: the ones who speak only Russian at home, only native language and both languages. The research showed that children who speak their native language at home have 20% lower marks in Literature, Russian language and Foreign language than the rest of the class. Their results in Algebra and other exact sciences don’t depend on the language they speak at home.

Apart from that, three types of schools were considered in the study: gymnasiums, small schools where there aren’t enough pupils, and regular schools of average and big size. The representatives of ethnical minorities learn slightly worse at gymnasiums, but this difference is so small, that it is statistically unreliable. Children perform equally in other types of schools.

The research group also examined the pupils’ attitude to the learning process. Migrant children, especially the ones belonging to the second generation, try to study well. The anti-school culture (disapproval of teachers, desire for missing lessons and not doing homework) is less peculiar to migrant children than their classmates, but the keenness on studies is higher among migrants.

In this case the following factor might be significant. A lot of migrant children go to schools in working districts, where many poor families live and also families which don’t make decisive account of studies. Migrant families stand out against this background, because they respect school, teachers and seek a good education for their children.

Concerning the ethnic majority’s and minority’s plans to receive a higher education, they don’t differ: 72% of schoolchildren are planning to enter higher educational institutions. Certainly, there is a question to what extent these plans will come true. At this point the difference between the ethnic majority and minority might reveal itself. However, longitudinal studies are needed for answering this question.

Speaking about migration, we shouldn’t forget that quite a lot of families come from other regions of Russia (so called internal migration). About 20% of schoolchildren in Saint-Petersburg belonging to the ethnical majority were born in other regions of Russia. It is interesting that their school progress is reliably higher than of those who were born in Saint-Petersburg.

In the second part of her speech Valeria Ivaniushina spoke about social networks, into which the migrant children are included at school. The research of children’s sympathies and antipathies in class revealed that outcast and popularity are not connected with ethnicity.

Classes where the number of children from “visible minorities” is 3 or more were picked out from 419 classes in order to study the factors which influence communication or its absence between children in a class. There are 80 such classes. The important conclusion driven from their analysis is that children belonging to the ethnic majority don’t pay attention to the ethnicity while choosing friends. They don’t care which nationality their friends have and where they come from.  Migrant children, in contrast, try to communicate with other migrants if there is such an opportunity. This happens so because they have similar experience and problems. At the same time they communicate with other children to the same extent.

In addition, children unite into groups on the basis of their attitude to studies (excellent pupils are friends with each other, the worst performing pupils are also friends with each other). The socio-economic status doesn’t affect the children’s friendship, which means that children from poor families are often friends with children from rich ones.

Vlada Baranova spoke about language adaptation of migrant children at school.

Mostly qualitative methods were applied in this part of the research. Parents (some of the mothers were interviewed in Azerbaijanian), teachers and children were interviewed. Observations at schools also took place. The data about 728 migrant children were collected which account or 10% of all surveyed pupils.

The parents’ level of Russian depends on several factors: sex, whether they came from a city or a rural area, the time of moving, level of education and the native country. Men with higher education coming from cities have the highest level of Russian. Women with secondary or incomplete secondary education know Russian much worse.

There were often such cases when an Azerbaijanian woman who had been living in Russia for a few years could hardly speak Russian. Consequently, a problem occurs: the migrant children’s mothers aren’t able to help them at school and talk to the teachers. The teachers told us, that children are asked to be interpreters for their parents sometimes.

Vlada Baranova also mentioned in her report that the majority of migrant children speak Russian better than their parents. At the same time they usually speak their native language less fluently. Such phenomenon is called “balanced bilingualism”. Vlada again referred to the fact that the ways of learning a native language and successfulness of adaptation directly depend on the time of moving to Russia.

Insufficient language knowledge might become a noticeable obstacle at the moment of entering a school and is an important reason why many children come back to studying not immediately after moving. A child can stay at home in such situations, help parents with housework or some other work so that  he would get used to new environment and improve his language skills. On average, language adaptation takes about half a year.

The teachers mentioned insufficient language knowledge as the main problem of the migrant children. Regarding the accepting of migrant children to schools, both teachers and administration don’t tell about the facts of direct rejection due to ethnicity. Although indirect rejections occur quite often. It should be noted that migrant children are treated well at incomplete schools, where they usually go to. The problem is often that administration doesn’t want to spoil the school statistics on the Uniform State Exam. Therefore, a child is enrolled conditionally and passes exams in his native country.

Concerning the use of Russian or native language at home, Vlada thinks that the use of only one language in migrant families is a marginal case. Only 4% of all migrant children speak only their native language at home and 30% use only Russian. As a rule, the use of only Russian language means an urge towards breaking off with the national identity, rejecting one’s ethnicity and symbolic capital related to it. The use of only native language implies a latent (or explicit) unwillingness to assimilate with the new society, a desire to return to the homeland. The majority of families speak both languages.

Daniel Alexandrov draw some conclusions at the end of the seminar.

Professor Alexandrov noted that low differentiation of schools is good. Children belonging to ethnic minorities would feel themselves worse in prestigious schools. All children are very welcomed to schools with lack of pupils. Moreover, incomplete schools in working districts are used to newly arrived children (they were guest workers in the Soviet times). A friendly attitude of teachers to them is a rule. Since migrant children aim at studying and respect teachers and school rules, they are often a contrast to Russian children, whose anti-school culture is high in senior grades.

Also Daniel Alexandrov drew the audience’s attention to the fact that moving is more important than ethnicity. To his point of view, the state shouldn’t spend money and effort on the adaptation of those who moved to Russia early. It is more important to create a program concentrating on psychological support of children who moved to Russia at the age between 8 and 15 not depending on the place of arrival and ethnicity.

Speaking about the project’s objectives, Daniel defined scientific and applied tasks. The long-term scientific goal is to conduct a large sociological research of integration of schoolchildren from different generations into Russian society on the basis of representative data. This study is important from the applied point of view, because these children will become a significant social factor in the Russian society in 20 years.

Daniel Alexandrov addressed the question of interaction between school and family at the end of his speech. School is the most important public and official space for the migrant families, especially for women. School is the only social institution for migrants which possesses an enormous confidence resource. Because of that, the adaptation of grown-ups might begin with the help of school, especially the adaptation of mothers of children who we spoke during this seminar about.

The public seminar was held with a great success. About 50 people from different HSE units (CYS, LCSS, etc.), Center for Independent Social Research, European University, Saint-Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts, journalists of 7 newspapers attended it. V.D. Ilchenko, the assistant of the Federal Migration Service Administration in Saint-Petersburg and Leningradskaya oblast head, was the guest of the seminar. Thanks to him, the seminar’s participants could look at the situation from the state authorities’ perspective.

This seminar was the most public and significant for our laboratory in recent time. Victor Kaploun, the organizer of HSE public seminars, noted that the event was very interesting for all participants, gave rise to more than 1 hour discussion and gave everybody an opportunity to look at the migrant children’s situation in Russian schools from an absolutely new point of view.

By Veronica Kostenko