The Political Attitudes of Students in the Higher Educational Institutions of Russia

Abstract

Studies of the political attitudes and actions of students in the higher education institutions in Russia suggest that they are closely linked to the country's professional and social structure. It is the lack of opportunity for suitable employment and for meeting their expectations for a better future that helps shape attitudes and may lead to involvement in protest activities.

This article is the republished version of:

The Political Attitudes of Students in the Higher Educational Institutions of Russia

Notes

English translation © 2014, 2015 from the Russian text © 2013 by the author. “Politicheskie ustanovki studentov rossiiskikh vuzov,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, 2013, no. 1, pp. 63–78. A publication of the Russian Academy of Sciences; the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences; and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Frants Edmundovich Sheregi is the director of the Center for Social Forecasting. Translated by Kim Braithwaite. Translation reprinted from Russian Education and Society, vol. 56, no. 2. doi: 10.2753/RES1060-9393560202

^1. Obrazovanie v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: 2011. Minobrnauki Rossii, Rosstat, Moskovskii gosuniversitet priborostroeniia i informatiki. (Moscow, 2011) p. 505.

^2. Data from a nationwide representative survey by the Center for Social Forecasting in April 2012 in two megalopolises and sixty communities in twenty entities of the Russian Federation. The sample consisted of 1,750 respondents age eighteen and older, by means of a quota selection of the respondents and complying with quotas broken down by types of communities, age, sex, and social groups. The figures reflect the position of the population between the ages of eighteen and thirty.

^3. Most of the representatives of the older generation are also inclined toward this image.

^4. Calculated on the basis of this source: Rossiiskii statisticheskii ezhegodnik: 2011, p. 126.

^5. On the assumption that the nonworking portion of the population consists of family members of the employed population or who did constitute the same structure in the past (retired people), it is reasonable to extrapolate the class model that is adduced onto the whole population of the Russian Federation.

^6. Of primary, secondary, and higher professional education.

^7. Data from a survey that was carried out under the direction of this author in February 2011 in higher technical educational institutions of Moscow on a representative sample (for those institutions) broken down by years of study and profile professions. The size of the aggregate sample was 1,800 people.

^8. Nauka Rossii v tsifrakh. Statisticheskii sbornik. (Moscow: TsISN, Rosstat) 2011, pp. 39, 57.

^9. Data from a nationwide representative survey that was carried out by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in March 2012 in two megalopolises and sixty-four communities in twenty-two entities of the Russian Federation. The size of the aggregate sample was 2,000 respondents. It was a quota sample, and complied with quotas broken down by types of communities, age, sex, and social and professional groups.

^10. See “440 tysiach chelovek uekhali iz Rossii za poslednie piat’ let.” Novaia gazeta, 1 December 2008.

^11. This refers to a trial by law in connection with violent actions on the part of a number of participants in the demonstration on Bolotnaia Square in Moscow.

^12. A nationwide representative survey of students in higher educational institutions was carried out by the Center for Social Forecasting in May 2012. A total of 2,000 students were surveyed, in a quota sample proportional to the percentage of students in higher educational institutions of federal districts (see Figure 4), as well as the number of students in the first through sixth years of study, complying with these quotas: the first through third years of study include 60 percent, while the fourth through sixth years of study include 40 percent of the total number of students in regular full-time enrollment. The surveys were conducted in institutions in the following megalopolises and Russian Federation entities: Moscow; St. Petersburg; Central Federal District: Iaroslavl, Riazan, and Voronezh oblasts; Northwestern Federal District: Novgorod oblast, Republic of Komi; Southern Federal District: Rostov oblast and Krasnodar krai; Volga Federal District: Republic of Tatarstan and Nizhnii Novgorod and Saratov oblasts; Urals Federal District: Sverdlovsk and Cheliabinsk oblasts; Siberian Federal District: Krasnoiarsk krai and Kemerovo and Novosibirsk oblasts; Far Eastern Federal District: Khabarovsk krai; North Caucasus Federal District: Stavropol krai and the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. By years of study: 21.3 percent in the first year of study; 20.2 percent in the second year; 18.8 percent in the third year; 18.0 percent in the fourth year; 16.5 percent in the fifth year; and 5.2 percent in the sixth year. By sex: 45.0 percent male, 55.0 percent female; by place of origin: 39.5 percent came from some other oblast, krai, or republic, while 60.5 percent are living in the same city where the higher educational institution is located.

^13. Source: Obrazovanie v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: 2011. Minobrnauki Rossii, Rosstat, Moskovskii gosuniversitet priborostroeniia i informatiki. (Moscow, 2011), pp. 505–50.

^14. Factor load: 0.82–0.90.

^15. A total of 52.6 percent in 2010. Calculated according to this source: Rossiiskii statisticheskii ezhegodnik: 2011. (Moscow: Rosstat, 2011), p. 101.

^16. According to an experiment by the Center for Social Forecasting, studying the electoral behavior of the population in the 1990s and 2000s.

^17. This is carried out every year by the Center for Social Forecasting in collaboration with the Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences.

^18. The longitudinal survey was conducted every year from 1994 through 2000 by the Center for Social Forecasting. Each survey covered 2,000 students of higher educational institutions in eleven territorial and economic regions of the Russian Federation and two megalopolises. The selection quotas were formed for students in fourteen basic profiles of training and for the first through fifth years of study.

^19. The students listed simultaneously a number of forms of protest in which they might take part.