SESL Participated in Inter-University Student Conference
On the 1st of April, Inter-university student conference was held in the HSE, St Petersburg. The conference was combined of 7 sections, one of them was organized and conducted by SESL. Our researchers have also made reports in other sections.
On the 1st of April, Inter-university student conference was held in the HSE, St Petersburg, and the researchers from the Laboratory participated in it. The conference was combined of seven sections, one of them was organized and conducted by the Laboratory. Our researchers have also made reports in other sections.
Daniel Alexandrov and Svetlana Savelieva held the section “Sociology of Education”. There were five reports submitted by the HSE students and students from Saint Petersburg State University in this section.
The first report was made by a fifth-year student of the Sociology Department of Saint Petersburg State University Nicholay Tikhodeevon “Education as a factor determining the level of income for some groups of rural population in Russia”. This study represents a secondary analysis of the three waves of data “Time budget and living conditions of rural population”, collected by the Institute of Economics and Industrial production organization of the Academy of Sciences (Siberian Branch) under academic advising of V. A. Artemov. 
Nicholay found a positive correlation between the level of education of rural women and their income. On the data of the year 1993, a connection between employment of rural women and prosperity was fixed: employment in health care sphere, education, culture and governance supposes higher salary then in any other. The achieved results are fairly interesting, especially when considered in conjunction with other studies of this kind. However, when analyzing the materials after 1985-1991we should take into account the existence of the informal sector, which plays an important and, at times, the most important role in the live of rural households.
Then the researcher of the Laboratory Tamara Petrova presented the results of cross-country comparison in the sphere of inequality of educational achievements of pupils. The analysis at the country level included examining the impact of economic factors and characteristics of the educational system of the country as a whole on the inequality of educational achievements. Tamara builds models of influence using the data of PISA, PIRLS and TIMMS. 
Preliminary analysis that was a part of her graduation project demonstrates the connection of social inequality with the inequality of educational achievements. The next step will be to test the hypothesis that in developed countries economic inequality doesn’t have such an impact on the access to education as in less developed regions. During the discussion of the report, students assumed that predominant religion of the country should be included in the analysis and may have significant influence on the model.
The first-year master student of the HSE Artem Davydovtold about the results of his observations of the student exchange program in the city of Konstanz (Germany). The purpose of his case study was to identify and describe adaptation abilities of the educational community. Throughout his study course Artem conducted participant observation, and completed it with questioning the students who have participated in the program. According to his observations, educational community contributes to the integration not only due to tuition, but also due to extra-curricular activities (common parties and adaptation programs organized by the university, etc.). Artem also described new practices, which students had to learn in groups and individually, and their perception of the specific environment of another culture. Participants of the section discussed whether this community is educational, and on what basis new practices can be classified.
The 4th-year student of the Department of Psychology of the HSE Asya Demyanova presented a report on “’Measurement’ of social choice: the diagnostic potential of project techniques”. The data was collected in senior classes of secondary schools in the town of Rasskazov and in St. Petersburg. Schoolchildren were asked to imagine 15 situations, and assume how they would behave. The results of the responses to the 15 “if”- questions differ greatly among the schoolchildren from these two localities. For example, children from Rasskazov in 60% cases would prefer to live in Russia, if they had the opportunity to live in any country. Schoolchildren from St. Petersburg are more likely to choose other countries (a diverse spectrum), and only in 40% cases they choose Russia. Not all the data has been processed yet (more than two hundred questionnaires were collected during the survey), all the questions were open, that complicates processing and analyzing the data. Asya’s research has much in common with the project of the Laboratory that analyses the educational choice of 9th – year schoolchildren. In the questionnaire developed by the Laboratory, we included several questions on the measurement of the so-called horizons, i.e. knowledge of the environment. The tool, which Asya develops with her colleagues, tends to measure similar characteristics. 
The section was finished by the report of Ksenia Tenisheva, the researcher of the Laboratory. Her report was about the educational choice of 9th -grade schoolchildren. This is a common project, a big team of scholars works on it; the data was collected in 2009 in one of the districts of the Leningrad oblast. The aim of this study is to reveal the structure of the factors determining the choice of schoolchildren after the 9th grade and to assess their impact. Ksenia’s report was devoted to the analysis of socio-economic status of a family and socio-psychological factors that influence the claim. Ksenia found statistically significant relationship between educational claims of students and significant others, as well as between socio-professional status of students' parents. These factors can be reasonably included in a more sophisticated model to identify the significance of their influence in a broader context.
The topics of reports, that are so different at the first sight, had much in common. The discussion of the issues raised was quite busy, and some participants of the section got certain useful comments and suggestions that may give new impetus to the development of their research. They decided to hold a common seminar in the Laboratory. 
At the same time with the section on education, a section of the Internet studies was held, where the working group of the Laboratory (Irina Khvan, Alexei Gorgadzeand Egine Sukiasyan) presented the results of the first part of the project “Ethnic communities in social networks”. The students told about ethnic student communities, the data for which was collected in the most popular Russian on-line social network “vkontakte.ru”. The data was processed by network analysis of ethnic groups, the results of which were represented on maps and charts that captivated the audience. Why are some ethnic communities in the network very dense, while others are very fragmented, this is the question that students have to clarify.
In the very beginning of the conference Kate Kuldina presented her report in the section “Demographic Policy in Russia”. She has shown some preliminary results of the analysis of value shifts of Russians, depending on generation. The basis of the recently launched research is the theory of modernization of R. Inglehart, according to which in the past century societies were making transitions from materialistic and conformist values to new, postmaterialitic values. It contributes to the growth of economic prosperity and social cohesion of the citizens of various countries. This process affected Russia as well, whose experience some researchers assume as unique in many aspects. The method chosen for the sociological description of the value shift in Russia, is cohort analysis (Age-Period-Cohort analysis), that allows to divide statistically the total variation for a given variable over a certain period of time on certain components, depending on the effects of the age, historical period, and cohort (the year of birth). Of particular interest to the listeners was the specific method and the meaning of the concept “cohort”.
Despite the fact that the interpretation of the effects of age, historical period and cohort was doubted, however, the participants agreed that the presented preliminary data has an obvious interpretation, and therefore, there is an explanatory potential of the method.
After the presentations, participants were sharing their impressions vividly. They said that participation in such events is extremely useful for academic dialogue with colleagues. It is also a great opportunity to get a good piece of advice. The participants regretted that the sections were held at the same time, and they didn’t have an opportunity to visit all the interesting presentations. Students of the HSE who participated in such an event not for the first time, expressed their surprise with growing importance of the conference: “All this turned from a get-together into a serious event. Now we do have a lot of participants from other universities, some even come from other cities. We wonder how it will look like the next year?”
Photos by Daniel Shishkin and Elena Scheglova