Editor's Introduction

Abstract

The main article this month is M. Rutkevich's "The Social Crisis and Commercialization of the Schools," in which he provides a wide-ranging and detailed condemnation of much that has happened to Russian education in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union. For more than twenty years, Rutkevich was one of the most "orthodox" voices in Soviet sociology, and he could be relied upon to reflect official views of the nature of Soviet society. Paradoxically, he was also responsible for some of the most path-breaking empirical research on youth and stratification and he made substantial and valuable contributions to our understanding of social dynamics. In the post-Soviet period, he has concentrated much if not most of his attention on the educational system, and on the changes in social values that have accompanied the move to a new system. An outspoken critic of the reforms that followed the collapse of the USSR, he is especially concerned about the move away from free education to a system of fees of all kinds at all levels of education. In this lengthy article, he provides an account of the types of payment that parents are now required to pay and of the barriers to access that they entail. Thus, enrollments in kindergartens are now at half of their previous level as a result of these institutions charging the full cost of accommodating a child (although part of the cost may be covered by employers). At the other end of the system, a third or so of students in higher education need to pay fees, the result of which is to reduce opportunities for those from poorer families, and from rural areas in particular. As he notes, this trend is likely to increase in the future if the Russian government follows fully the recommendations made in a report of the Center for Strategic Studies, a policy document whose implications Rutkevich looks at in detail.