Institutionalized Children in Russia: Grouping the Regions by the Scale of the Phenomenon

Abstract

This study provides an initial classification of information on the social and geographic distribution of children’s residential care institutions in Russia, and it characterizes the relationship between this information and the level of criminalization and victimization of minors. We provide data on the number of such residential care facilities and their child placement statistics in the various regions of the Russian Federation. We rank these regions according to these variables, and we classify them into three clusters: favorable, troubled, and unstable. We discovered material differences between the Russian regions across all variables. At the same time, Russia’s federal districts differ significantly from each other only in terms of rates of crime and the victimization of minors and not in terms of their number of residential care facilities, wards, and the “concentration” of such institutions. We discovered that the factor of “institutionalized children” contributed significantly to the regional level of juvenile delinquency on the basis of the results of a correlation and regression analysis. The region’s average number of wards per residential care facility and the predominance of Muslim population turned out to be insignificant variables. The first excluded variable (characterizing living conditions) is important for developing and optimizing children’s residential care plans. It is discussed in the Letter of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation dated 9/1/2014 no. VK-1850/07. The second excluded variable is used to analytically reconstruct the set of factors that cause significant interregional variances in the number of residential care facilities and their wards.

Notes

1. Devid Dzheri and Dzhuliya Dzheri [David Jary and Julia Jary], Bol’shoy tolkovyy sotsiologicheskyy slovar’ [Sociology (Collins Dictionary)], (2001), http://www.psyoffice.ru/6-567-institucionalizacija.htm.

2. A.G. Filipova, “Sotsial’noye prostranstvo detstva: printsipy markirovaniya territoriy,” Zhurnal issledovaniy sotsial’noy politiki, 2012, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 92.

3. A.V. Semenov, Deti-siroty i problemy ikh sotsializatsii: teoreticheskiy aspekt,http://professionali.ru/Blogs/Post/22863490/.

4. R.A. Shpits [Rene Spitz], “Povedeniye deprivirovannykh detey” [No and yes. On the genesis of human communication], in V.S. Mukhina (ed.), Lishennye roditel’skogo popechitel’stva: khrestomatiya, (Moscow, 1991), pp. 166–167.

5. S. Provans and R. Lipton [Sally Provence and Rose Lipton], “Mladentsy v priyute. Teddi i Larri” [“Infants in Institutions”], Lishennye roditel’skogo popechitel’stva: Khrestomatiya, (Moscow, 1991), pp. 154–161.

6. M. Ratter [Michael Rutter], Pomoshch’ trudnym detyam [Maternal Deprivation Reassessed], ed. A.S. Spivakovskaya (Moscow, 1987).

7. A.C. Dybvik, “Autism and the Inclusion Mandate,” Education Next, vol. 4, no. 1, http://educationnext.org/autismandtheinclusionmandate/.

8. S.B. Myakinina, “Sovremennoye pravovoye regulirovaniye inklyuzivnogo obrazovaniya,” Innovatsionnaya nauka, 2015, no. 11, p. 182.

9. Pis’mo ot 1 sentyabrya 2014 g. No VK-1850/07, “O restrukturizatsii i reformirovanii organizatsiy dlya detey-sirot i detey, ostavshikhsya bez popecheniya roditeley, i sovershenstvovaniyu seti sluzhb soprovozhdeniya zameshchayushchikh semey,” http://www.consultant.ru.

10. Yu.V., Vasilkova, Metodika i opyt raboty sotsial’nogo pedagoga, (Moscow, 2001), p. 76.

11. Ye.R. Yarskaya-Smirnova and Ye.P. Antonova (eds.), Sotsial’naya politika i mir detstva v sovremennoy Rossii. Kollektivnaya monografiya, (Moscow, 2009), pp. 95–96.

12. Ibid., p. 105.

13. Ibid., p. 105

14. V.N. Bankina and G.S. Barinova, “Osvoeniye osnov finansovoy gramotnosti kak sredstvo sotsial’noy adaptatsii detey-sirot,” http://www.vspc34.ru/index.php?option=com_ content&view=article&id=1362.

15. A. Kolesnichenko, “Ustroystvo sirot v sem’i vygodno dlya gosudarstva,” http://www.timetolive. ru/p/03_2012/ustroistvo_sirot_v_semyi/.

16. We assembled a database of orphanages in the Russian Federation on the basis of the following electronic resource: http://www.gdedetdom.ru/.

17. We obtained data about crime and minor victimization trends from the Unified Inter-Agency Statistical Information System: http://fedstat.ru/indicator/data.do?id=43836.

18. Cited in Ye.R. Yarskaya-Smirnova, “Sotsial’naya politika i mir detstva v sovremennoy Rossii,” in Ye.P. Antonova (eds.), Kollektivnaya monografiya, (Moscow, 2009), p. 33.

19. Cited in Ye.R. Yarskaya-Smirnova, “Sotsial’naya politika i mir detstva v sovremennoy Rossii,” in Ye.P. Antonova (eds.), Kollektivnaya monografiya, (Moscow, 2009), pp. 90–91.

20. V.N. Yarskaya, “Inklyuziya — novyy kod sotsial’nogo ravenstva.” In Obrazovaniye dlya vsekh: politika i praktika inklyuzii. Sbornik nauchnykh statey i nauchno-metodicheskikh materialov, (Saratov, 2008), p. 11.

21. O.A. Morcan and E. Ban, “Causes and effects regarding the juvenile delinquency. Intervention project ARAD. Delinquency service,” in V.N. Belov (ed.), Mirovozzrencheskiye i povedencheskiye strategii sotsializatsii molodezhi v global’nom mire: sb. trudov mezhdunar. nauch.-prakt. konf., (Saratov, 2010), p. 302.

22. The experience of Poland in this context is interesting due to its creation of the institution of “district educators,” who act as intermediaries between socially excluded deviant groups of minors and social rehabilitation centers on the ground. These efforts have reduced the need to conduct social and pedagogical outreach work in jails and prisons. See: A. Świderska, “Dzieci ulicy,” http://www.slideshare.net/agnieszkaswiderska56/dzieciulicy-praca-21856013?related=1/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

A.Yu. Kazakova

Anna Yurievna Kazakova, Candidate of Sociological Sciences, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Sociology, Kaluga State Pedagogical University, Kaluga, Russia; Email: [email protected].