Money versus the soul: neoliberal economics in the education modernisation reform in post-soviet Russia

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the case of Russia’s post-Soviet education reform, the paper explores the interaction between borrowed reformatory solutions and culture codes in the process of neoliberal educational modernisation. Through the examination of the concept of ‘commercial service’ the article shows how bottom-up societal resistance is maintained and normalised in the real-life language of the reform debate among policy-makers, teachers, parents and the general public. Building on policy-as-discourse studies, the analysis unpacks specific conceptual frames behind societal interpretation of educational commercialisation. The article finds that the public debate is stalled by an extreme polarisation and a seeming intractability of such conceptual categories as ‘money’, ‘commerce’, ‘moral upbringing’, and ‘the soul.’ It further argues that instead of mediating borrowed and domestic social meanings, the official reform narrative serves to strengthen the polarisation of opinions, while leaving under-conceptualised a number of important links between market values of competitive individualism, material profit and entrepreneurship and domestic values of egalitarianism, collegiality, moral education and non-materialist values. The article concludes with a discussion of the role of the state in transmitting borrowed policy ideas to the public and the interplay between grassroots resistance and national education policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational commercialisation
• neoliberalism
• post-soviet Russia
• policy borrowing

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Ben Eklof for his insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 https://ria.ru/society/20160830/1475622923.html

2 The work ‘service’ (usluga) is polysemantic and can signify an act of servicing, a one-off paid-for service, technical delivery of sectoral services (such as education and healthcare) and a market service. For the purpose of analysis I focus on the public interpretation of education as a paid-for service and a market service, leaving out the nuances of meaning associated with sectoral provision of education.

3 An individual teacher’s salary includes a pre-determined ‘basic’ component and an additional ‘incentive compensation.’ The latter is determined by the school council and administration and includes financial rewards for high quality teaching as manifest in pupils’ achievements, such as participation in the Olympiads and high scores on the national unified exams.

4 www.levada.ru.

5 Ibid.

6 ‘I am a conservative when it comes to schooling. I am for returning to the best traditions of Soviet school,’ – is another popular quote by Minister Vasilyeva, as cited by Novaya Gazeta, http://www.ng.ru/ideas/2017-01-20/8_6908_ministr.html

7 The official statements and transcripts are publicly available on Russian government websites, such as mon.gov.ru, standart.edu.ru, archive.kremlin.ru and zakonoproekt2011.ru. Sociological and polling data includes research produced by such agencies as Russia’s Independent Polling and Sociological Research Agency -Center (levada.ru), Public Opinion Foundation (fom.ru), Electronic Monitor for the Development of Education (kpmo.ru) and others. Professional pedagogical publications included such popular national outlets as Uchitel’skaya Gazeta (The Teachers’ Gazette), Pedsovet (Pedagogical Council), Pervoie Sentiabria (September the First) Zavuch Info (Headmaster’s Information Bulletin) and Uchitelskii Portal (Teachers’ Portal). National media was represented by such outlets as Echo Moskvy (Moscow Echo radio broadcaster), Pust’ Govoriat! (Let Them talk!, national talk-show on Russian’s Channel 1), as well as dozens of national newspapers, including Argumenti i Fakti, Moscow News, Izvestia, and Nezavisimaia Gazeta. Online public discussions are available on various platforms, including Net Reforme Obrazovania! (national movement ‘No to Education Reform!’ netreforme.org), state-initiated open public discussions of the 2010 Law on Education (zakonoproekt2011.ru), various parent’s portals (kid.ru, ya-roditel.ru, and ped-kopilka.ru) as well as official government websites (kremlin.ru, mon.gov.ru, ege.ru, council.gov.ru, and blog.da-medvedev.ru). All translations from Russian are made by the author.

8 Halstead (1994, 424), for example, defines it as ‘a systematic attempt to mould the attitudes and comprehensive world view of children and to inculcate in them certain predetermined values and behaviour patterns (…).’ Long (1984, 470) defines the goals of vospitanie as raising ‘honest, truthful human beings who are helpful to others and who must work hard in school to develop intellectual, aesthetic, and physical abilities – that is, to develop a comprehensive, harmonious personality.’

9 Despite negative cultural attitude towards entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial activities have of course been a part of Russia’s and Soviet everyday life. Yurchak (2013, 8) describes this cultural paradox in terms of ‘binary accounts,’ where everyday practices ‘routinely transgressed, reinterpreted, or refused certain norms.’

10 Levada.ru, 2008–2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow [TZ-31 ‘Cultural barriers to modernising Russian education among professional teacher and parental communities.’].