Russian Parents Research Articles

Parent Diaries and the Child Study Movement in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia

Parent diaries of child development and early upbringing–sometimes referred to as “mothers' diaries”–are an important source in the historiography of Russian childhood. The article situates the production of Russian parent diaries, as practice and discourse, in the history of the Russian child study movement between the 1880s and the 1930s. It traces the key socio‐cultural and professional contexts in which parent diaries were initially promoted in Russia between the Great Reforms and the First World War. It discusses in greater detail two diaries published in the mid‐1910s (those of A. F. Levonevskii and E. K. Krichevskaia) as examples of very different kinds of positioning of Russian parents on the boundaries of expertise in early child development, care and education (vospitanie). It then analyzes the way in which some Russian psychologists (especially N. A. Rybnikov) enrolled parental diary‐keeping as an “objective” methodology in psychology in the late 1910s‐early 1920s. In this context, it examines, as a counter‐example, the idiosyncratic framing of the diary written by V. A. Rybnikova‐Shilova (1923), in which, unusually, maternal subjectivity was explicitly built into the scientific legitimacy of a child development diary. The conclusion sketches out the fate of parent diaries, especially as a method and genre of psychology, up until and beyond the 1936 liquidation of Soviet pedology under Stalin.

Immigrant Fertility: A Comparative Study between Italy and Russia

AbstractIn this paper, we contribute to the analysis of fertility differentials between female migrants and the native‐born by examining the transition to first child using event history analysis. We use event history as a quantitative translation of the life‐course approach. The data examined are the Italian Families and Social Subjects (FSS) survey, conducted in 2003, and the Russian Parents and Children, Men and Women in Family and Society survey, conducted in 2004. We examine the data sets separately and contrast the results. The objective of the study is twofold. First, we seek to determine whether differences exist in the decision and timing of childbearing between native and immigrant women in Italy and in Russia. Second, we aim to compare the experiences of immigrants in the two countries, to determine whether there may be any commonalities inherent to the immigrant populations despite moving into widely different contexts. Our results suggest that the age profiles and marital status similarly affect the immigrant regardless of whether she is migrating to Russia or to Italy. In Italy, educational attainment is positively correlated with first‐birth intensities for immigrants – the opposite of what is observed for the native‐born. In Russia, education is not a significant determinant for immigrants. This leads us to the following conclusion: the similarity in the risk profiles of our immigrants into vastly different country contexts is more suggestive of immigrants following a distinct life course, with common risk profiles for bearing their first child, than assimilating or conforming to the native fertility patterns. Social capital in particular may play a different role in determining fertility patterns for immigrants, as it does for the native‐born.

Aleksandr Prokhorov—Lasers and Masers

The 1964 Nobel Prize in physics was shared by 3 physicists: Russians Aleksandr Mik hail ovich Prokhorov (1916-2002) and Nikolay G. Basov (1922-2001) and American Charles H. Townes (1915) for fundamental research in quantum electronics that led to the development of the maser and laser. Specifically, Basov and Prokhorov performed the basic research that led to the invention of laser and maser devices, which was accomplished independently by Townes and others. Maser stands for microwave amplication by stimulated emission of radiation; a laser is an optical maser. These devices collect energy waves, amplify them hundreds of times, and produce a beam of almost perfectly parallel waves with little or no interference or static. The principles of the laser and maser have been applied to many fields, including medicine. Prokhorov was born of Russian parents on July 11, 1916, in Atherton in northeastern Queensland, Australia. His father had fled Russia in 1911 after escaping from exile in Siberia. After the Russian Revolution (1917), the family returned to the Soviet Union in 1923. Prokhorov studied physics at Leningrad State University, graduating with the baccalaureate degree in 1939. He then became a graduate student at the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow. However, his studies were interrupted by World War II (1939-1945). He served in the Russian Army from 1941 to 1944. After the war, he returned to school and received his doctorate in 1946 from the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow. After receiving his doctorate, Prokhorov became a senior associate at the Institute. Here, he and Basov, who was Prokhorov’s student, jointly suggested the maser principle of amplifying and emitting parallel electromagnetic waves that are all in phase and all on the same wavelength. About the same time, Townes, at Columbia University in New York City, was independently working out the principle of the maser. Townes was the first to actually build such a device (1954). In 1954, Prokhorov became director of the Oscillation Laboratory at the P. N. Lebedev Institute, and later, he was appointed professor of physics at the M. V. Lomonosov State University in Moscow. Beginning in the mid-1950s, Prokhorov concentrated on the development of masers and lasers and on the search for crystals with suitable spectral and relaxation properties. His detailed studies of ruby (one of the most useful crystals for lasers) led to its widespread use at microwave and optical wavelengths. Prokhorov also created paramagnetic masers and proposed the concepts of open resonators and gas dynamic lasers, and he further investigated the resonance and nonresonance interactions of laser radiation with matter. Prokhorov wrote a number of fundamental articles on the construction of infrared and visible light lasers and on nonlinear optics. Prokhorov died of pneumonia in Moscow in 2002. Prokhorov was honored on a stamp (Scott No. 2218j) issued by the island of St Vincent in 1995.

Crossing Digital Bridges for Global Understanding

Everyone who has ever been to Disney World's Epcot Center and visited the Small World ride leaves with the song It's a Small World (After All) ringing in their ears. Never has the central message of this song been truer than it is today. Was Walt Disney a prophet of global connectivity? The international fantasy world he developed, and others like it, are designed to create a global community experience for amusement park visitors. Disney's portrayal of many nations-their colorful dress, musical traditions, and unique native cuisine-is many students' only foreign travel, and the experience may leave them with lasting stereotypes. So what? Is this bad? Isn't this a good hook to generate interest in other cultures? Indeed, it's a great hook, but fantasy worlds promote an idealized portrait of the world: no real people, no trash, no problems, and no worries. It is our charge to see that students grow beyond the superficial and begin understanding real-world peoples, problems, and issues. How do we help our middle grades students, many of whom will never actually travel the world, achieve a deeper understanding of other cultures? Making virtual cultural connections offers the best alternative to experiencing travel firsthand. In this article, we discuss why young adolescents need to develop a global perspective and how we can help them do that. We examine the difference between surface and internal culture learning and offer digital bridges to one important country, I have taken a dozen Great Adventures to Russia and have worked with thousands of North Carolina students and their teachers, all of whom have traveled with me virtually. With each trip, I have found that teachers have welcomed the opportunity to move out of textbook Russia. A former sixth grade social studies teacher, Natalie Bates (Author 2), joins me to share with you what we have done and learned and to offer suggestions about how to infuse authentic voices-in this case, Russian-into your own curriculum. Two-way stereotypes Teachers know that students learn best if they can relate what they are learning to themselves and their own worlds. From the earliest grades on up, children examine themselves in the context of their families, their schools and communities, cities, countries, and, finally, the world. This article offers your students the chance to cross a digital bridge and hear the voices of children from We are especially mindful of the need to raise the level of learning beyond the stereotypes so that we may know what the Russian people are really like. Stereotypes go both ways. I once walked into a sixth grade classroom in Volgograd, Russia, just as the children were reading in their English textbooks about the Garrett family of Atlanta. I listened as they read about the typical American home and possessions. The Garrett's house had three stories, a long driveway filled with cars, a well-manicured lawn, and a swimming pool and deck in the backyard. For the next 30 minutes I fielded questions about rich Americans. I informed them that neither my school teacher friends nor I lived like the Garretts and that most people I knew were not wealthy enough to have large homes with swimming pools. These Russian school children had bought into the stereotype because it supported TV and videos about American sports and rock stars. Didn't all Americans live that kind of life? Interestingly, the shoe was on the other foot later in my trip when I was asked to speak to parents whose children had just entertained me with their considerable musical talents. Sheepishly, I noted that my evolving cultural understanding had started with a 1950 Russian stereotype built on Cold War misinformation. In my elementary school, bells alerted our second grade class to darken the room and hide under desks in case Soviet planes dropped bombs from the sky. Russian parents in the audience smiled and shared similar stories about the possibility of American air raids. …

Competitive Assimilation or Strategic Nonassimilation?

This article tests the competitive assimilation and strategic nonassimilation models, using district-level data from Latvia. Unlike the coordination dynamic of the competitive assimilation game, the strategic nonassimilation game highlights the strategic interaction between Russian and Latvian players. Russian parents do not look to other Russian parents when deciding to send their children to Latvian schools; rather, they look to Latvian children. They anticipate whether their children will be accepted or excluded in the Latvian classroom. My chief empirical finding is a significant interactive relationship between the size of Russian population and the strength of Latvian nationalism. In regions with small Russian populations, Latvian nationalism fuels assimilation. In regions with large Russian populations, Latvian nationalism propels nonassimilation.

An exploratory study on attitudes toward inclusive education in Russia

This exploratory study examined the attitudes toward inclusive education among Russian teachers, administrators and parents of students with and without disabilities (n=176). The results indicated that while there were no significant differences among teachers, administrators and parents of students with and without disabilities on overall attitudes toward inclusive education, there were significant differences in perspectives about the possible time-frame for implementing inclusive education. Generally speaking, school administrators and teachers tended to express the belief that inclusive education could be a reality even today, though many of this group thought that it might be a question of the near future or undefined future. Both groups of parents tended to think that inclusive education could occur in an undefined future. There were significant differences among the three groups about perceptions of responsibility for implementing inclusive education. Administrators, teachers and parents of students with disabilities viewed it as a responsibility of the school, while parents of students without disabilities viewed it as the government's duty. Further, the majority of respondents reported the lack of necessary conditions in schools and the lack of government policies and finances as the main barriers to inclusive education. These findings suggest two areas of intervention to promote the implementation of inclusive education in Russia: physical accessibility of schools and government support.

Stature of Russian Children with Isolated Cleft Lip and Palate

To evaluate the stature of Russian children with cleft lip and palate (CLP).One hundred twelve Russian children predominantly with repaired unilateral CLP 4 through 10 years of age underwent studies including height measurement, physical examinations, and record review. Children with health concerns that could affect growth were excluded. U.S. growth data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and Russian parental heights were used in the absence of Russian growth norms.Based on U.S. norms, the distribution curve for heights for the Russian children was largely confined to the +1 to -1 standard deviation (SD) range. Sixty-two percent of the Russian children had heights below the 50th percentile for American female and male children of the same age. The proportion of children found outside the +1 to -1 SD range approximated the proportion expected statistically for the general population, with 14.4% < -1 SD (16th percentile) and 12% > +1 SD (84th percentile). A total of 3.6% of the children ranked below the third percentile, which is close to the expected 3%. Russian parents' (n = 209) mean heights were 0.5 SD below NCHS's 50th percentile values for adults.These results indicate that there is no increased risk of true short stature in 4- to 10-year-old Russian children with repaired CLP.

Pierre-André Taguieff and the Dilemmas of Antiracism

PIERRE-ANDRA‰ TAGUIEFF is one of France's leading writers on the subject of racism and on the ideology of the contemporary extreme right. He has also written extensively on the theoretical and practical dimensions of the struggle against racism in France. Born in 1946 to Russian and Franco-Polish parents, he was educated in Paris. Having trained in philosophy, with an early interest in philosophy of language, he is currently a senior researcher at the CNRS. He also teaches at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques. His own political develop- ment has passed via various forms of ultra-leftism in the radical 1960s to remain broadly on the left since that time. Though highly critical of the Socialist Party's ideological vacuity, he gave Lionel Jospin his support in the 1995 presidential election. From the late 1970s onwards he began to publish scholarly essays on the discourse and ideology of the New Right think tanks, GRECE and the Club de l'Horloge. In due course, as different elements of the New Right evolved and diverged from each other, Taguieff maintained a par- ticular interest in the work of Alain de Benoist, the most fertile and original of the theorists. The summation of his research in this area is contained in Sur la Nouvelle Droite.I» Meanwhile, he pursued an over- lapping investigation into past and present expressions of antisemitism, including work on the mythology of Jewish world conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.2 He also examined the deterministic theories of cultural difference, collective identity and separate develop- ment which have been developed by intellectuals of the extreme right as substitutes for the old doctrines of biological racism, Aryanism and white supremacy. The most important of his works on the subject was La Force du prA©jugA©.3 In addition, Taguieff has devoted attention to the Front national (FN), to which many former luminaries of the New Right have in any case migrated. Here too his work has maintained a particular emphasis on the ideological and discursive aspects of the phenomenon.4 Over the course of time Taguieff has made the transition from aca- demic specialist to Parisian intellectual. He has become one of the promi- nent group of political and cultural communicators who regularly con- 68

Russian parents pay bribes to visit their sick children

Russian parents pay bribes to visit their sick children

The writer's focus

Jerzy Kosinski is the author of several novels, The Painted Bird ( awarded France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger), Steps ( winner of the us National Book Award in Fiction), Being There, The Devil Tree, and the recently published Cockpit ( Houghton Mifflin Co.) . He recently retired after serving the maximum number of terms as the President of the American Center of thepen Club, 1973–5. Born of Russian parents in Poland, Jerzy Kosinski arrived in the United States in 1957. After finishing his graduate and post-graduate studies, he was a Ford and Guggenheim Fellow, and has been a recipient of the Award in Literature of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as of the Humanitarian Freedom Award of Brith Sholom. Prior to his PEN Presidency, he taught English prose at Wesleyan, Princeton and Yale Universities. The following interview, directed mainly towards Kosinski's work for the American PEN Center, was recently recorded in New York by Lorrin P. Rosenbaum.

Generalized Osteitis Fibrosa

In the following case of generalized osteitis fibrosa of the cyst-forming metaplastic malacia type, the patient was studied over a period of fifteen years. He was first observed in August, 1912, at the age of 15 years. H. W., male, born in United States, of Russian parents. His mother died of rheumatic carditis. One sister is 28 years old and has psoriasis. The patient has had three attacks of diphtheria, one of which was followed by a diphtheritic paralysis of the pharynx, from which there was complete recovery. He attended public school and was always able to keep up with his classmates in his studies. He was bright and wide awake, somewhat undersized and undeveloped and poorly nourished. There was no complaint whatsoever relating to his general health. At the age of 8 he first noticed a slight protuberance over the right parietal bone and another soon developed in the left cheek. Both of these protrusions increased in size very slowly, and, with the exception of the deformity to which they gave rise, c...

On correlation between age of parents and length and weight of the newborn infant.

It seems reasonable to assume that a number of factors influence the size of the human individual at various stages of development. Pearson and his co-workers have shown the great importance of hereditary factors. They have found that in general such environmental factors as they have been able to consider play a much smaller rôle in determining the characteristics of the individual. Nevertheless it seems important to investigate all such factors in as great detail as possible, with a view to disentangling those factors which are innate in the zygote from which the individual develops from those which are extrinsic to the individual, and to measuring quantitatively the relative importance of each. It seems especially desirable to consider certain morphogenetic factors. The purpose of this paper, which is one of a series dealing with the physical characteristics of the newborn infant of various races, is to consider the possible relationships between the age of the parents and the length and weight of the newborn child. The data represent measurements on infants of the white race taken at the Sloane Hospital for Women, New York City, and recorded in the archives of the Obstetric Divisions of that institution. For opportunity of using these records we are indebted to the late Dr. W. E. Studdiford, who was Superintendent at the time this phase of the investigation was undertaken. Since it is possible that the average age of parents and the average dimensions of the newborn infant differ from nationality to nationality, we have considered separately the charactceristics of infants born of Austrian, English, German, Irish, Italian and Russian parents. Both parents were born in the countries designated. By the examination of about 43,000 records assembled over a period of about 30 years (September, 1890, to September, 1921), it was possible to secure the following numbers of measurements of length and weight.