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Regular version of the site

Publications

2021


To measure the effects of peer influence and peer selection on drinking behavior in adolescence through a rigorous statistical approach designed to unravel these interrelated processes. We conducted systematic searches of electronic databases, thesis collections and conference proceedings to identify studies that used longitudinal network design and stochastic actor-oriented modeling to analyze drinking behavior in adolescents. Parameter estimates collected from individual studies were analyzed using multilevel random-effects models. We identified 26 articles eligible for meta-analysis. Meta-analyses for different specifications of the peer influence effect were conducted separately. The peer influence effect was positive for every specification: for average similarity (avSim) mean log odds ratio was 1.27 with 95% confidence interval [0.04; 2.49]; for total similarity (totSim) 0.46 (95% CI = [0.44; 0.48]), and for average alter (avAlt) 0.70 (95% CI = [-0.01; 1.41]). The peer selection effect (simX) was also positive: 0.46 (95% CI = [0.28; 0.63]). Conversion log odds ratio values to Cohen’s d gives estimates from 0.25 to 0.70, which is considered as medium to large effect. Advances in methodology for social network analysis have made it possible to accurately estimate peer influence effects free from peer selection effects. More research is necessary to clarify the roles of age, gender, and individual susceptibility on the changing behavior of adolescents under the influence of their peers. Understanding the effects of peer influence should inform practitioners and policy makers to design and deliver more effective prevention programs.

2019

Women Data Science Leaders in Russia

The project "Women Data Science Leaders in Russia" aims to increase gender diversity and women's participation in the Russian data science community by means of developing online courses and video materials that present female role models for female students, in order to change the stereotypes that affect the perception of the data science field.

Suvorova A., Ivaniushina V. A., Bakhitova A., Kuznetsova A. Women Data Science Leaders in Russia, in: ACM SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter Vol. 21. Issue 1. NY : ACM, 2019. Ch. 7. P. 45-48.

School segregation in St. Petersburg – the role of socioeconomic status

Working-class educational paths tend to be associated with elevated drinking. Little research has examined whether disproportionate alcohol use among vocationally oriented youth begins before or after the start of their vocational education. The present study analyzes a large sample of Russian middle-school students (N = 1269; mean age = 14.9), comparing the patterns of drinking among middle-schoolers oriented towards vocational educational, and their peers who do not plan a vocational education path. Results suggest that the orientation towards vocational education is associated with disproportionately high alcohol involvement among Russian middle-school students, even before they enter vocational schools. We studied if such difference could be partially explained by how youth orient towards extracurricular activities: discretionary peer time in risky contexts, reading for pleasure, working for pay, and religious activities. Reading demonstrated the strongest (negative) association with alcohol use, while religious activity unexpectedly revealed a positive (though weak) association with drinking. Research and policy implications are discussed.


Valeria Ivaniushina, Makles A., Schneider K., Daniil Alexandrov. School segregation in St. Petersburg – the role of socioeconomic status // Education Economics. 2019. Vol. 27. No. 2. P. 166-185.


Peer influence in adolescent drinking behaviour: a protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis of stochastic actor-based modeling studies

Introduction
Alcohol consumption is a considerable
public health problem that is especially harmful to young people. To develop effective prevention programmes targeted at adolescents, it is important to understand the social mechanisms triggering alcohol consumption. Among such mechanisms, peer influence plays an important role. The effects of peer influence are very difficult to evaluate because of the entanglement with social selection, that is, a tendency of people to befriend others with similar behaviour. The recently developed stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOM) approach is designed to disentangle social influence from social selection. The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies employing SAOM methodology to evaluate the effects of social influence on adolescent drinking behaviour


Ivaniushina V. A., Titkova V., Alexandrov D. A. Peer influence in adolescent drinking behaviour: a protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis of stochastic actor-based modeling studies // BMJ Open. 2019. Vol. 9. No. 7. P. 1-5.

2018

Anti-school attitudes, school culture and friendship networks 


This article explores the relationship between educational outcomes and anti-school attitudes at different levels of social organization in schools. Data were collected in St. Petersburg, Russia (104 schools, 7300 students) and analyzed using multi-level regression models that included three levels: individual, clique of friends and school. A clique is defined as a tight group of friends in a school class; we used social network analysis software Kliquefinder for clique identification. We demonstrate that friends’ attitudes are strongly related to the educational outcomes of a student (net of person’s individual attitudes and socio-demographic characteristics). In contrast, school-level effects disappear in the multi-level model when individual characteristics are included. The results of the study clearly demonstrate that the socio-economic and curricular differentiation of schools does not always lead to the polarization of ‘school academic cultures’. A school social environment is sufficiently heterogeneous, and different value systems in small peer groups may coexist.

Ivaniushina V. A., Alexandrov D. A. Anti-school attitudes, school culture and friendship networks // British Journal of Sociology of Education. 2018. Vol. 39. No. 5. P. 698-716.


2017

Working-class educational paths tend to be associated with elevated drinking. Little research has examined whether disproportionate alcohol use among vocationally oriented youth begins before or after the start of their vocational education. The present study analyzes a large sample of Russian middle-school students (N = 1269; mean age = 14.9), comparing the patterns of drinking among middle-schoolers oriented towards vocational educational, and their peers who do not plan a vocational education path. Results suggest that the orientation towards vocational education is associated with disproportionately high alcohol involvement among Russian middle-school students, even before they enter vocational schools. We studied if such difference could be partially explained by how youth orient towards extracurricular activities: discretionary peer time in risky contexts, reading for pleasure, working for pay, and religious activities. Reading demonstrated the strongest (negative) association with alcohol use, while religious activity unexpectedly revealed a positive (though weak) association with drinking. 

 

 Lushin V., Jaccard J., Ivaniushina V. A.,  Alexandrov D. A. Vocational education paths, youth activities, and underage drinking in Russia: How early does the trouble start? // International Journal of Drug Policy . 2017. Vol. 45. P. 48-55.


Deconstructing Cosmetic Virtual Goods Experiences in Dota 2

Сosmetic items do not provide functional advantages in games,but, nevertheless, they play an important role in the overall player experience. Possessing predominantly sociallyconstructed dimensions of value, cosmetic items are chosen, discussed, assessed, and valuated in an ongoing iterative collaborative process by communities of players. In our study we explore the case of Dota 2 and apply Topic Modeling to community-discussions data gathered from Reddit.com. We describe social experiences related to the valuation of cosmetic items in interaction and collision of various logics, including artificial scarcity, decomposition of visual effects, and connectedness to the game lore. Our findings connect the collective experience of players in the game and on online community platforms, suggesting that non-utility-based social value construction becomes an important part of game experience.




 Musabirov I.Bulygin D.Paul Okopny et al. In bk.: CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. NY: ACM, 2017. P. 2054-2058.

 

2016
Family Background and School Choice in Cities of Russia and Estonia: Selective Agenda of the Soviet Past and Present

In this article, we demonstrate the size of family background eff ects in various regions of Russia and Estonia, concentrating on urban and rural diff erences, addressing the idea that the family background effect is moderated by school level admission policies. Having common path-dependent educational institutions from the communist period, the countries diff er in both the extensiveness of the welfare state and system level school choice policies. However, we see many commonalities in both systems, especially at the urban school level. The family background eff ect is defi ned as the dependence of student achievement on family background characteristics, such as parental education, income and social status. In operationalising family background, the number of books at home and parental education are used as proxies, and its eff ect is measured as a percentage of the individual level PISA 2012 score. We contribute to the literature by studying school choice, its key characteristics and moderating eff ects by school level admission policy in an urban environment.


Выходные данные: Poder K., Lauri T., Ivaniushina ValeriaAlexandrov Daniel. Family Background and School Choice in Cities of Russia and Estonia: Selective Agenda of the Soviet Past and Present // Studies of Transition States and Societies. 2016. Vol. 8. No. 3. P. 5-28.


Educational Migration from Russia to China: Social Network Data

This paper presents the results of our study of educational migration flows between Russian Federation and China. Using data from the most popular among Russian-speakers Social Networking Site VK, we explore "digital footprints" of migration, analyzing the factors influencing the size of migration flows from different Russian cities to China. We take into account different groups of parameters, in particular, geographic proximity of a city to China and to Russian educational centers, institutional presence of China, and Chinese web presence in the particular city. Resulting conditional inference tree with the relative number of educational migrants from each city as the outcome has R2 = .86



Daniel AlexandrovViktor KarepinIlya Musabirov. Educational Migration from Russia to China: Social Network Data, in: WebSci '16: Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Web Science. ACM, 2016. P. 309-311.

 
Academic help seeking among Russian minority and non-minority adolescents: A social capital outlook

Academic help-seeking and help-providing in school setting streamlines learning process and advances social competencies among students. Little research has examined differential patterns of help-seeking among students of ethnic minority and non-minority status. The present study conceptualizes school help-providing as remedial exchange of social capital among students. To explore possible barriers to such exchange, we compare help-seeking networks among mid-adolescents (15–16 y.o.) of migrant ethnic minority opposite those of non-minority origins, in Russian high schools (N = 3496). The data were collected in 183 classrooms from 49 schools of Greater Moscow area; network information was elicited from students' nominations of their classmates whom they ask for help in Math. Statistical analysis relied on multilevel dyadic p2 model. The data strongly suggest that school performance, academic self-evaluation, and gender are factors affecting help-seeking and help-providing behavior in classroom. By contrast, socio-economic status and, importantly, ethnic minority status had no influence on peer help relations in Moscow schools, suggesting that (1) minority status does not universally introduce stigmatizing barriers in youth social capital exchanges; and (2) majority-minority dynamics may vary as a function of the macro-context in which adolescents are embedded. Implications for further research and policy are discussed in turn.

 Valeria IvaniushinaDaniel Alexandrov, Lushin V. Academic help seeking among Russian minority and non-minority adolescents: A social capital outlook // Learning and Individual Differences. 2016. Vol. 50. P. 283-290. 


Private and Public Online Groups in Apartment Buildings of St. Petersburg

This paper is concerned with online communication of apartment buildings' residents on general purpose social networking site (SNS) VKontakte (VK), focusing on how groups' participants use instruments of SNS to separate place-based discussions and participation in wider community initiatives. With the help of topic modeling algorithm LDA, we analyzed posts collected from online groups related to apartment complexes in Saint-Petersburg to reveal differences of communication in open groups and restricted access groups. We also looked at overlaps between local groups of apartment buildings and city-wide movements. Our study shows that inside SNS there is a functional differentiation between restricted access groups and open groups, which have different audiences and communicative strategies. Restricted access (private) groups play an important role in the formation of neighbors' communities of trust and, supposedly, can be useful substitutes of face-to-face interaction for people moving into new buildings. Open (public) groups function as public forums for fostering neighbors' cooperation and attracting attention of broader public to local issues and conflicts.

Vadim VoskresenskiyIlya MusabirovDaniel Alexandrov. Private and Public Online Groups in Apartment Buildings of St. Petersburg, in: WebSci '16: Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Web Science. ACM, 2016. P. 301-306.

Virtual Caucasus on VK Social Networking Site

This paper provides mapping of ethnic themes and topics associated with the Caucasus on social networking site VKontakte popular in Eurasia. We collected data on virtual communities associated with major ethnic (Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani) and supra-ethnic ("Pan-Caucasian") groups. We combine network analysis (based on group co-membership) with LDA topic modeling (based on posts) to identify the ideologies and cultural features which unite and divide virtual Caucasus. The gap between warring nations is bridged by Pan-Caucasian virtual groups with no political ideology.



Daniel Alexandrov
, Alexey Gorgadze, Ilya Musabirov. Virtual Caucasus on VK Social Networking Site, in: WebSci '16: Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Web Science. ACM, 2016. P. 215-217.

 

2015

Analyzing Chat Logs in Online Games for Tutorial Improvement

Our current work is dedicated to research and development of methods for tutorial improvement and newcomers adaptation in online games. This report is focused on investigation of help-seeking patterns in online games' chat logs. Using text mining techniques we detect game-related questions from users, explore their contents, and show the changes across the server lifecycle.



Musabirov I.
, Okopny P., Bulygin D. Analyzing Chat Logs in Online Games for Tutorial Improvement // Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI annual symposium on Computer-human interaction in play. NY : ACM, 2015. P. 661-666.



Informal In-Game Help Practices in Massive Multiplayer Online Game
s

In this paper we explore helping behavior of support agents and regular players in browser-based MMORTS/RPG Castlot. Using chat logs from 12 servers, we analyzed differences between support agents and regular players. We have found that the major in-game verbal help is being provided by players and not by support agents. We have also found that support agents’ helping behavior drops dramatically as a server ages, while regular players preserve helping practice, that is mostly transferred from public to guild chat channels.


Paul Okopny, Ilya Musabirov, Daniel Alexandrov. Informal In-Game Help Practices in Massive Multiplayer Online Games // Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 8852: SocInfo 2014 International Workshops, Barcelona, Spain, November 11, 2014, Revised Selected Papers. Springer International Publishing, 2015.P. 218-222

 

Online Communication in Apartment Buildings

In this paper we explore main patterns of communication and cooperation in online groups created by residents of apartment buildings in St.Petersburg on the VK social networking site (SNS). Using word-frequency analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), we discovered main discussion topics in online groups. We have also found that communication between neighbors in these groups is predominantly connected with material needs and directed at solving common problems, e.g. related to building improvement, houseowner associations (HOA) and in-fill constructions near their house. Based on online observations of city activists, we suggest that dynamic nature of SNS creates online communities that initially are dedicated to resolving particular problems, however the connections that get established between users during this process prevent such groups from falling apart even after the resolution of the original issues.

Vadim Voskresenskiy, Kirill Sukharev,  Ilya Musabirov, Daniel Alexandrov. Online Communication in Apartment Buildings // Lecture Notes in Computer Science Vol. 8852: SocInfo 2014 International Workshops, Barcelona, Spain, November 11, 2014, Revised Selected Papers. Springer International Publishing, 2015. P. 52-55.

 

Socialization Through Informal Education: The Extracurricular Activities of Russian Schoolchildren

The paper presents the results of a large-scale study on the scope of extracurricular education services and an assessment of the potential role of education outside the classroom and informal education in solving children’s socialization issues. The study was carried out by questioning students as consumers of education services. A new instrument was developed and tested to allow for a detailed description of various aspects of extracurricular activities and their correlation with studies and social and psychological characteristics of students. An extensive set of statistics (over 6,000 questionnaires filled out by schoolchildren from several regions of Russia) was used to analyze the degree of engagement of children of different ages in out-of-class

Ivaniushina V. A., Alexandrov D. A. Socialization Through Informal Education:The Extracurricular Activities of Russian Schoolchildren // Russian Education &Society, №57 

Digital Footprints of Educational Migrations: Opportunities Provided by the New Data

In this booklet, we present the first results of our new project: Digital Footprints of Educational Migrations. The project is aimed at research of the Internet and digital society and conducted within the framework of the Digital Social Sciences and Humanities initiative at the HSE in St. Petersburg. The project is conducted in SESL by students who get training in the modern methods of data processing. The data for this project were collected from thousands of user profiles from the Russian social network “VKontakte”, and the results were presented as infographics to reflect the geography of students and the flows between cities and countries.

Карепин В.В., Мусабиров И. Л.,
 Александров Д. А.  Цифровые следы образовательных миграций: возможности новых данных.// НИУ ВШЭ-Санкт-Петербург, 2015


Sociological Research Expeditions as a Form of Research Practice and a Teaching Format


The article describes the importance of sociological expeditions and field practice for the formation of sociologists, based on an example of the field work of the team from the Laboratory of Sociology of Education and Science.

Александров Д. А. Социологическая экспедиция как исследовательская практика и форма обучения социологической теории
» // Laboratorium. Журнал социальных исследований. 2015. Т. 7. № 2.


 

Poverty and Child Development

This collective monograph gives a comprehensive analysis of the impact of social disadvantage on different aspects of child development: cognitive performance, language competence, school performance, the child’s social status and success in adulthood. This book will acquaint the reader with confirmed results and yet unresolved problems in this area. A distinctive feature of the book is an integrated approach to the problem of child development, from a range of related disciplines: classical psychology, neuropsychology, sociology, and social economics. The book gives a detailed description of methods of analysis and measurement tools (tests, questionnaires and other quantifying methods) used in these studies, and describes in detail programs of early intervention and their impact.

This book is addressed equally to researchers, specialists in different fields of knowledge, from social sciences to neurobiology, and to practitioners who deal with the problems of children's cognitive and language development, pre-school and school education, as well as layman readers who are interested in a comprehensive modern view on the problems of poverty.

под редакцией: Александров Д.А.Иванюшина В.А., Маслинский К. А. Бедность и развитие ребенка. // М.: Рукописные памятники Древней Руси, 2015 - с. 392


On the problem and the book on the whole

The focus of this book is on poverty, and how poverty and early social disadvantage affect children and their development, from various aspects. The authors strived to take an interdisciplinary approach in their monograph: the problems of poverty influence on child development are discussed from the viewpoint of classical psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, pediatrics, sociology, and economics. The book also highlights results and models, which have been developed in a range of disciplines. The book is based mainly on the studies conducted in the US and in the countries of Western Europe, where the effects of poverty on child development have been systematically studied in large-scale research projects.  In many countries, this topic is perceived as having great social significance. Considerable funds are being invested, and large-scale intervention programs are being implemented for resolving the problems of child poverty. To the date, there has been accumulated a large amount of data and results, which show how the family characteristics and closely connected to them parameters of the environment, where children live, impact their future success, language skills, verbal behavior, emotional problems, general cognitive development, and individual mental functions. It is important to mention that these data and results have been obtained from large-scale national samples, and often from large longitudinal studies, which allowed researchers not just to study the impact of poverty on the child development, but also to evaluate the long-term effects of various early intervention programs. 

 Александров Д. А.Иванюшина В. А.«О проблеме и книге в целом» // В кн.: Бедность и развитие ребенка / Под общ. ред.: 
Д. А. АлександровВ. А. ИванюшинаК. А. Маслинский. М. : Рукописные памятники Древней Руси, 2015. Гл. 1. С. 8-28.



Poverty and Children Born Into Poverty

There has been accumulated a large amount of data that clearly show that a low weight at birth is one of the mechanisms in perpetuation of poverty, due to its long-term effects on children's development and health. Even though there’s a large amount of studies on this problem, the actual reasons behind the birth of children with low weight are not very clear. Both biological and social factors are at work here. This chapter describes how the low weight at birth affects the physical, mental and intellectual development of the children; what are the social conditions that increase the risk of low birth weight; and what measures might be undertaken to break up the vicious circle of perpetuation of poverty through low birth weight. The data for this chapter have been taken mostly from the American and European published papers, and, whenever possible, with the materials from the Russian studies.

Иванюшина В. А., Котова Т. Н. Глава книги «Бедность и ребенок до появления на свет» // В кн.: Бедность и развитие ребенка / Под общ. ред.: Д. А. АлександровВ. А. ИванюшинаК. А. Маслинский. М. : Рукописные памятники Древней Руси, 2015. Гл. 4. С. 88-114.


Children and the Socio-Economic Status of their Families

In this chapter, the authors give a definition for the concept of “socio-economic status” (SES), which is used throughout the book, and describe briefly the studies of the effect of the SES on child development. The resources, which are connected to various aspects of the SES, can help or hinder the healthy mental, social and cognitive development of the child, directly or indirectly. They can also mitigate or exacerbate the negative effects of adverse development situations. The authors paid a particular attention to a connection between the SES and parenting practices, to modern studies of the neighborhood effects, and to relationships between genetic factors, cognitive development, and the socio-economic status.


Иванюшина В. А.  Глава книги «Социально-экономический статус семьи и ребенок» // В кн.: Бедность и развитие ребенка / Под общ. ред.: Д. А. Александров, В. А. Иванюшина, К. А. Маслинский. М. : Рукописные памятники Древней Руси, 2015. Гл. 2. С. 29-45.


  No-Risk Mobility: Through College to University

The vocational college system is regarded as a social mobility channel providing the highest profit with minimal risk. We analyze the specific features and trends of the institutional context that has developed in Russia over the last 15 years, which promote development of such channel. We discriminate between three types of colleges that have emerged after reorganization of this education level in Russia. Colleges of the three types differ in their legal status and in the way they interact with universities. We describe a social group using the “through college to university” educational trajectory. Its members fall in between those reproducing the qualified worker status and those reproducing the highly qualified professional status. Such people usually perform averagely at school. Having surveyed nine-graders in Saint Petersburg and in one of the districts in Leningrad region, we analyze the motives for choosing the “through college to university” educational trajectory and the ideas students with their parents had about benefits, costs, and risks of this pathway. It appears that geographical location plays a key role in choosing this trajectory. Opting for an alternative educational pathway is less typical of rural students dealing with much more structural constrains than their urban counterparts. Unlike in large cities, only more informed and higher-status groups make this choice in the countryside. A comparison of college systems in several countries allows to conclude that colleges in Russia represent an upward social mobility channel, just like in USA and unlike in Germany, where colleges ensure social reproduction.

Александров Д. А., Тенишева К. А., Савельева С. С. Мобильность без рисков: образовательный путь «в университет через колледж»// Вопросы образования. 2015. № 3. 


 Ethnic Composition and Migration Status of Primary and Secondary School Students in Russia

Data on ethnic diversity and ethnicity/migration correlation among primary and secondary school students is presented in the article for the first time ever. The study is based on polls held among 21,320 school students in 365 schools of five regions of Russia (Moscow Oblast, Saint Petersburg, Leningrad Oblast, Tomsk, and Pskov). The most part of students speaking Russian as their second language attend schools of Moscow suburbs area (16%) with the least part attending schools of small towns and settlements of Leningrad Oblast (6.6%)and Pskov (8.5%). The sample covers 56 ethnic groups with some being rather small. In Saint Petersburg, Pskov and Tomsk there are 63–66% locals among children speaking Russian as their first language, whereas in Moscow suburbs area there are 44% only. Among ethnic minorities, the highest numbers of locals are in Tomsk and Pskov (38–39%). In Saint Petersburg there are more locals or second generation migrants among Ukrainians, Belarusians and Tatars, whereas “generation 1.5” migrants prevail in number among Tadzhiks and Uzbeks (46–49%). Generation 1.5 migrants prevail among all ethnic groups in Moscow suburbs area with Uzbeks and Tadzhiks being the most prevailing (62%). In Tomsk, most of the ethnic minorities’ representatives are either locals or second-generation migrants. Statistics on ethnic and migration status of school students allows for assessment not only of the scale of migration flows but also of a retrospective time dynamics for various ethnic groups. Families from Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia were actively moving to Russia 15–20 years ago. Now there is massive migration going on among Tadzhiks, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz who bring their children of various ages. We believe that education management authorities should initiate prudent integration of school students with Russian as their second language irrelevant of their citizenship but with consideration of their families’ migration background.

  
Александров Д.А.Иванюшина В.А., Казарцева Е. В. Этнический состав школ и миграционный статус школьников в России // «
Вопросы образования», № 2'2015. 



Socio-Economic Factors for Reading Performance in PIRLS: Income Inequality and Segregation by Achievements

This study examines the relationship between family and school characteristics, and student reading performance; and how these vary across countries with different levels of economic inequality and stratification. Economic inequality is measured with the Gini index and stratification by the distribution of students by reading achievements. Reading tests and questionnaire responses of 190,456 fourth-graders, their parents and 6,987 school administrators in 41 countries were analysed using multilevel analyses. Students with lack of early home literacy activities have better test scores in schools with higher average socioeconomic status (SES), and reading scores in countries with a high level of economic inequality. The higher the stratification level, the better student reading achievements, despite the stratification measure indicating the inequality of their distribution among schools.

Petrova T., Alexandrov D. A. 
Socio-Economic Factors for Reading Performance in PIRLS: Income Inequality and Segregation by Achievements  / Working papers by NRU Higher School of Economics. Series EDU "Education". 2015.





 2014

Disentangling Peer Influence On Multiple Levels

In this study we focus on the influence of peers on adolescents academic achievement. Specifically, how the learning motivation of peers is related to a student's school grades. We use multilevel regression to analyze the influence of peers on different levels of social circles: school, class, personal network, and compare the effects of "assigned friends" and "chosen friends". The methods of social network analysis are used to define the personal network of a student in different ways: cliques, complete ego networks, and mutual ego networks. We demonstrate that the model improves considerably when the level of personal networks is included between individual and class levels. The learning motivation of a student's friends (defined as a clique or ego network) has an important influence on the student’s school performance, net of student’s personal characteristics.
 
Ivaniushina V. A. ,  Alexandrov D. A.   Disentangling Peer Influence On Multiple Levels   / Working papers by NRU Higher School of Economics. Series SOC "Sociology". 2014. No. 43.


Socialization Through Informal Education: Extracurricular Activities of Russian School Students

The paper presents results of a large-scale research on the scope of services in extracurricular and extra-school education and on assessment of the potential role of education beyond the classroom and informal education in solving children socialization issues. The research was carried out through questioning students as consumers of education services. A new instrument was developed and tested to allow for a detailed description of various aspects of extracurricular activities and their correlation with studies and social and psychological characteristics of students. An extensive statistic material (over 6,000 questionnaires filled out by students from several regions of Russia) was used to analyze the degree of engagement in out-of-class activities among children of different age; the activities that are more popular for specific age groups; the age range when children are most engaged in such activities; the reasons for non-participation in extracurricular activities; the infrastructure of education beyond the classroom; the relative frequency of structured and non-structured classes; the correlation between out-of-class activities and development of self-esteem, feeling of community, and satisfaction. Age- and gender-related profiles of various classes are described. It appears that structured extracurricular activities, unlike unstructured ones, correlate with higher self-esteem (both overall and academic), stronger sense of belonging, and better satisfaction with school.

  Иванюшина В.А.,Александров Д.А. Социализация через неформальное образование: внеклассная деятельность российских школьников // «Вопросы образования», № 3'2014. 

2013

Basking in the glory of schools: school characteristics and the self-concept of students in mathematics

Our study contributes to the debate on the interaction between academic context, individual achievement, and mathematics self-concept in schools. It is known that high-achieving peers positively influence the individual achievements of all group members. At the same time, it has been shown that the self-concept of students tends to decrease in the presence of high-achieving peers, as individuals make relative judgments of their abilities vis-à-vis their peer group. Students with mediocre performance feel more confident about their abilities in a group of poor achievers (the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect – BFLPE – introduced by H.Marsh). On the other hand, perceived prestige of a school enhances the self-confidence of students as people tend to “bask in the glory” of others (the “reflected glory” effect). We test the two effects mentioned above – BFLPE and the “reflected glory” effect. We hypothesize that both effects are stronger in highly stratified education systems where there is a stronger explicit difference between highand poor-achieving students, and schools are ranked by their prestige. We compare the interaction of academic context, achievement, and mathematics self-concept in stratified (Russia and Czech Republic) and non-stratified (Norway and Sweden) educational systems on the TIMSS’07 database using HLM7. Our study shows: 1) an absence of BFLPE for all four countries, i.e. the achievement of others is positively related to an individual’s math self-concept; 2) strong support for the “reflected glory” effect is found only in stratified educational systems; and 3) greater positive effect on self-concept for students with poor achievement who study in the best schools.

Ksenia TenishevaDaniel Alexandrov. Basking in the glory of schools: school characteristics and the self-concept of students in mathematics // SOC "Sociology", HSE, 01/2013. -28 p.

 

Different levels of social organization in the formation of anti-school attitudes among adolescents

This article analyzes student pro-school/anti-school attitudes on different levels and explores their relation to educational outcomes. We examine the individual level, school level, and clique level predictors (clique is defined as a tight social group within a class social network). Cliques were identified using special software called Kliquefinder. We use multi-level regression approach on a sample of 7300 students from 104 public schools from St.Petersburg. Our findingsshow that: 1.) Socio-economic differentiation of Russian schools does not lead to a polarization of pro-school/anti-school attitudes in different types of schools; 2.) The polarization of attitudes emerges and is maintained at the clique level; and, 3.) Clique attitudes have a significant impact on educational outcomes (net of a student’s socio-demographic characteristics and individual attitudes).

V.A. IvaniushinaD.A. Alexandrov. Different levels of social organization in the formation of anti-school attitudes among adolescents // EDU "Education", HSE, 01/2013. -23 p.

 

Sociometric popularity in a school context

This study investigates how the sociometric popularity of schoolchildren is related to individual academic achievements in a context of different levels of academic culture and educational aspirations in the classroom. The sample includes 5058 students in 270 classes from 98 schools in St. Petersburg. To examine class-level effects, we employ multi-level hierarchical models using HLM 7 software. Different effects for boys and girls were found, indicating that the relationship between academic performance and popularity is gender-specific. The results demonstrate that in classes with a low learning motivation individual academic achievements of boys are negatively related to their popularity, while in classes with a high academic culture the relationship is positive.

V.TitkovaV.A. IvaniushinaD.A. Alexandrov. Sociometric popularity in a school context // EDU "Education", HSE, 02/2013. -30 p.

2012 

Educational pathways and trajectories of rural students. I. Local educational systems

The paper presents first report on the study of rural schools and students in one educational district of Leningrad region. The district comprises 12 small rural municipalities and 2 townships with 18 schools. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods and focuses on sorting between schools and educational choice after the 9th grade when students can either stay in their schools or transfer to vocational schools and technical colleges in the urban area of St. Petersburg. In the paper the educational choices and resulting trajectories are viewed in local social context. Researchers introduce a notion of “local educational system”, defined a set of local social (and geographical) opportunities and existing educational pathways which determine educational choice of parents and students. Higher education is a preferred goal after the school for the majority of students, but the trajectories to this goal are different depending on both family resources and local circumstances, including school differentiation and student flows between schools. The paper makes a case for studying educational choice by surveying all schools in the context of local educational systems rather than in surveying schools randomly taken from different local contexts.

D.A. AlexandrovK.Tenisheva, S.Savelyeva, E. Kochkin. Educational pathways and trajectories of rural students. I. Local educational systems // WP 001 "Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory Working Papers SESL", Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory, 2012. -23 p.

 

Migrant children in Russia. I. Migration, ethnicity and segregation in St. Petersburg

The paper presents first findings of large-scale study of children from migrant families (104 schools, 419 classes, 7380 students) carried out in St. Petersburg. Researchers discuss the issues of ethnic and social differentiation among schools, parents’ interaction with schools, teachers’ attitudes to migrant minority students, ethnic effects in communication among students. A multi-level regression modeling demonstrates the effects of migration status and ethnic status on academic performance. The study shows that migrant children from ethnic minority groups have higher levels of learning motivation than their local-born classmates, perform at school on the same level, and have educational plans similar to those of ethnic majority students. Social network analysis (p2 modeling) of multiple class networks shows the absence of discrimination on the part of the ethnic majority in relation to the ethnic minorities.

D.A. AlexandrovV.V. BaranovaV.A. Ivaniushina. Migrant children in Russia. I. Migration, ethnicity and segregation in St. Petersburg // WP 001 "Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory Working Papers SESL", Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory, 2012. -29 p.

 

The Caucasus and Central Asia. Course of lectures for social workers. It is aimed at assistance with practical work with migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus (Russian)

This brochure is part of the tutorial for social workers, who face with migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus during their practical work. The second part of this manual consists of a course of lectures. It describes geographical location of the regions, history of their relationship with Russia, religious and cultural traditions, moreover, the reasons of mass migration from Central Asia and the Caucasus after collapse of the Soviet Union including the armed conflicts. Special attention is paid to the status of women and traditions of upbringing children, because social workers communicate exactly with these groups mostly. 

The Caucasus and Central Asia. Course for social workers. Part 2. Aimed at assistance with practical work with migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. / Ed. D.A. Alexandrov, V.V. KostenkoE.D. Ponarin / Group of technical support for the issues of adequate labor and office of ILO for the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Saint-Petersburg branch of National Research University - Higher School of Economics. – Moscow: ILO, 2012. - ISBN 978-92-2-426371-2 

The Caucasus and Central Asia. Tutorial for social workers. General information about geography, culture and religion of migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus (Russian) 

This manual is designed for social workers who face with migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus during their practical work. It includes brief and accessible descriptions of cultural and religious specificity of those ethnic groups, which comprise the major part of migration flow to Russia. Moreover, there are modern theoretical concepts of migration and historical background of the link between regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia with Russia. Attached to this annual is information which can help a social worker in a specific situation, for instance, important contacts and juridical information about migrants’ legal status on the territory of the Russian Federation.

 The Caucasus and Central Asia. Tutorial for social workers. Part 1.  General information about geography, culture and religion of migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus. /  Ed. D.A. Alexandrov, V.V. KostenkoE.D. Ponarin / Group of technical support for the issues of adequate labor and office of ILO for the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Saint-Petersburg branch of National Research University - Higher School of Economics. – Moscow: ILO, 2012. – ISBN 978-92-2-426369-9

 

Monitoring of the Situation of Migrant Children in St. Petersburg (Russian)

The research project washeld by SESL and commissioned by UNICEF and the Red Cross. The main result of the study is the finding that schools in St. Petersburg are very tolerant. None of the surveyed schoolchildren (study involved more than 600 respondents) ever faced xenophobia towards themselves, although many have heard about it. Children who are representatives of the majority are 'ethnically blind'. National identity of their friends is not important for them. Migrant children show tendency to make friends with other migrants, but they do not form mono-ethnic coalitions. The cause of such friendly relations is that children have a similar experience of migration.

D.A. Alexandrov, V.A. IvaniushinaV.V. Kostenko, S.S.Savelyeva, K.A.Tenisheva. Monitoring of the Situation of Migrant Children in St. Petersburg / Moscow:  2012. 168 p. - ISBN 978-5-9903016-5-8

2011 

Children from Migrant Families at Schools of St. Petersburg (Russian)

The main topic of the brochure is adaptation of children from migrant families at school. The first results of a longitude research project “Migrant children at Russian schools” that collected data from 22 schools of St. Petersburg are represented in this brochure.This work covers several issues: ethnic composition of schoolchildren in St. Petersburg, school-parents relations, school – migrant children relations, strategies of adaptation in relation to the age when they immigrated into the country and various aspects of language adaptation. The method was based on network analysis of children interpersonal communication for evaluation of social exclusion and inclusion. The broshure is in Russian.

D.A. Alexandrov Children from Migrant Families at Schools of St. Petersburg: SESL's working papers / D.A. AlexandrovV.A. IvaniushinaV.V. Baranova.- St. Petersburg: 2011. - 100 p. - ISBN 978-5-7422-2901-8 


 

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