Inequality in education. Only affordable education will make Russia a strong state.
In the modern world, the availability of quality education is becoming an increasingly important component of the overall socio-economic and cultural development of the state. The development of science and technology, informatization and computerization of society determine the demand for qualified specialists who have high-quality and, most importantly, meet modern realities, professional education. At the same time, in many countries, higher education continues to be almost completely elitist, inaccessible to the general population. Global trends in educational development, such as its commercialization, only exacerbate the existing inequality of people in terms of access to higher education. However, even if there is no fixed payment for higher education, the latter may remain unaffordable for many families, in particular, if we are talking about a quality and competitive labor market education. Needless to say that the inaccessibility of education causes great harm to the country, since it prevents people from low-income families from getting an education. How many potential engineers and doctors, managers and teachers did not receive Russia because of the inaccessibility of quality education? And how many will not receive them in the future, in process of further commercialization of higher educational institutions?
Education system and social inequality
According to a common view, education can be seen as a tool for establishing equality of people. After receiving a higher education, even a native of the lower social classes can significantly change their social status. This point of view would be fair in relation to the Soviet period storieswhen a child of collective farmers or workers from a village or a provincial town could make a career in any field of activity and climb the highest floors of the state or party hierarchy. However, in the current situation, not everything is so unequivocal; therefore, many philosophers and sociologists working within the framework of the Marxist trend in the social sciences see the institution of education as a tool for asserting social inequality. In their opinion, education only exacerbates existing inequality and reinforces the division of society into "elite" and basic strata. After all, the very opportunity to get an education in a capitalist society does not exist among all young people. Some cannot afford education because of the need for employment - parents are simply unable to financially support matured children, others lack the cultural level and social connections to go to university. As a result, social inequality is only consolidated - more likely to go to universities, especially those that provide quality education, are people who themselves grew up in families of parents with higher education.
- Students of elite English school. Photo: london-life.ru
Many prominent sociologists paid attention to the fact that education, in the form in which it exists in the modern world, contributes to the consolidation of social inequality. So, Anthony Giddens argues that the transition to the practice of universal school education in the twentieth century was caused exclusively by objective processes - the needs of the developing economy for skilled workers and engineering and technical specialists. The scientific and technological revolution and the computerization and automation of production that followed it demanded that enterprises pay increased attention to the level of training of workers, including on the “working grid”. Naturally, the state and the companies had no choice but to facilitate the accessibility of education for people from various backgrounds. But the increase in the accessibility of education practically did not affect social inequality in Western societies. Moreover, there was a division of the institution of higher education into elite and mass segments. What is elite higher education today? This is a hundred "top" world universities, and at the national level there are dozens of universities and institutes that enjoy particular fame and prestige within the country. Diplomas of these educational institutions a priori imply the availability of quality education for their graduates, but even they alone do not guarantee employment for a prestigious and well-paid job. Inequality in the field of education, according to Giddens, is already laid from the school bench - the separation of students according to social characteristics. It is no secret that in Russia there are private privileged schools, "good" municipal schools and "ordinary" schools. Before the creation of non-state educational institutions was allowed, the schools were divided into “good”, that is, “elite” and “almost elite” and “bad”. The main criteria for this separation were, firstly, the quality of the knowledge provided, and secondly, the social affiliation of the majority of students. Specialized linguistic, physical and mathematical, natural science schools have always been considered better quality than regular district schools. In them, for the better in terms of knowledge and skills, the teaching staff differed, the set of subjects studied was more impressive. As a rule, in the elementary school, the study of the first foreign language began, in middle school classes - the second foreign language. The education received in the “elite” school was actually considered as a guarantee of entering a higher educational institution, and moreover to prestigious faculties and specialties. In modern Russia, the situation with the division of school education has worsened. Someone can pay for a private school, in which not just subject teachers teach, but recognized professionals with Ph.D. and doctoral degrees and work experience in institutions of higher education. However, the majority of Russian families are forced to send their children to regular district schools, the quality of education in which not only leaves much to be desired, but also tends to deteriorate. After all, the old teaching staff leaves for retirement or life, and young graduates of pedagogical universities do not want to get a job for a meager teaching salary.
Cultural and social capital as educational resources
However, in fact, inequality in access to quality education is laid in childhood and is associated with the social origin of specific students. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said that capital can be of three types - economic, social and cultural. Social and cultural capital are derived from economic capital, but it is they who primarily determine social inequality in education. Social positions in modern society are inherited, primarily through cultural and social capital. This is due to the fact that the transfer of economic capital in modern conditions has become more complicated compared to previous eras. Therefore, the transfer of cultural capital through the education system, which distributes cultural capital in modern society. Social inequality is a product of the reproduction of cultural capital. It is the possession of cultural and social capital that has a decisive influence on the advancement through the channels of vertical mobility in the modern world. Russia is no exception. After the overlap of the Komsomol and party social elevators, with the help of which any native of a distant village or working village could reach the heights of Soviet power, society in Russia is becoming more hierarchical and polarized. People living in the same city, perhaps even in neighboring houses or apartments (a relic of the Soviet housing distribution), may belong to completely different social categories, not even in terms of income, but in terms of possessing social and cultural capital. In fact, these people live in “different dimensions,” albeit in the same space. Quality education contributes to the employment in prestigious areas of activity and the rapid advancement of the career ladder, including in leadership positions. But if before the possibility of obtaining a quality education was determined, above all, by family income (and even earlier - by estate), now social and cultural factors are coming to the forefront. High-quality education with more confidence get immigrants from wealthy families with higher education, living in the capital or major cities - regional centers. Social relations, professional activities and education of parents, place of residence - all of these factors have a direct impact on obtaining high-quality education. Pierre Bourdieu calls these factors the objective resources of individuals. In addition to objective resources, subjective factors play an important role in the process of obtaining education. These are the personal qualities of each individual person, including his individual abilities, ambitions, self-esteem, life goals and values that are formed.
According to Basil Bernstein, “language codes” are forms of direct dependence on social origin, forms of verbal communication that differ from representatives of higher, middle and lower social groups. At the same time, the main differences are not in the vocabulary or speech skills, but in the methods of language use by children from different social strata. For children from lower social classes characterized by a limited language code. In the process of communication, they do not agree much, because they are sure that the interlocutor owns this information. This is due to the fact that many families of lower social strata are carriers of a certain subculture, which sets values and behaviors that are considered natural and understandable to everyone. Representatives of these social groups may not even suspect that other people are not necessarily aware of any phenomena, patterns, or behavioral norms. Limited language code allows you to effectively transfer practical experience, but it is very difficult to communicate on abstract topics. In the middle social stratum, the language code is more developed - here children less focus on the private context and are able to express their opinions, arguing about abstract processes or concepts. Accordingly, children with a more developed speech code show greater interest and ability to learn, adapt more easily in an educational institution and, subsequently, enter a higher educational institution without the problems faced by representatives of lower social classes.
Social polarization is fixed in school
American researchers Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis viewed the education system in the modern world solely as an institution serving the economic needs of a capitalist society. In the process of schooling, social and technical skills are formed, which then allow graduates to work in enterprises or continue further education. Another major component of school education is discipline. At school, students gain an insight into the discipline and hierarchy they will face throughout their lives. In fact, the school is a reflection of modern society and allows children to gradually assimilate those behaviors that they will have to conform to. At school, a gradual differentiation of the children's team occurs - more capable people stand out who, after completing their studies, can enter higher educational institutions, and less capable, for whom education ends after graduating from school or a secondary vocational school. There is also the category of “rebels”, who drop out of school and replenishes marginal layers (of course, there are exceptions in this category that achieve a higher position than people with education, but we are now talking about a mass phenomenon). According to the sociologist T. Parsons, modern schooling is based on "two whales" - motivational loyalty and cognitive abilities of the individual. Cognitive abilities of the individual are innate and they also contribute to the formation of a certain intellectual level. Motivational loyalty is determined by the upbringing of schoolchildren, their social environment, and it is she who sets the presence or absence of a focus on achieving high results in the process of getting an education, diligence, attitude to the educational process and educational institution, interaction with teachers and fellow students. In different social strata, the attitude towards higher education is also different. For representatives of the educated strata of the population who form the upper and middle classes, higher education is seen as a mandatory attribute of preparation for work and just living in modern society, while lower social classes that do not require higher education in their professional activities may relate to the idea getting it is very skeptical. German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, who, among other things, considered the issue of inequality in education in Germany, identified four potentially discriminating categories in the field of education - children from rural areas, children of working families, girls and children of families of Catholics. Thus, class and gender are, according to Dahrendorf, the main criteria for the availability / inaccessibility of high-quality school and, especially, higher education.
- High School in Kenya. photo: globuslife.ru
The social identity of students has a direct impact on two key points in the process of school education — on grades and on making a decision about continuing education or refusing to enter a higher education institution. “Both the decision to continue education, taken in the family, and the marks given by teachers at the school depend, with equal performance of children, on their belonging to one or another social stratum,” writes the German sociologist Rainer Gassler (Gassler R. on education: cause and effect // http://www.cisr.ru/). As it was established as a result of sociological surveys, the desire to continue studies, in general, does not depend on academic performance, but on the social status of schoolchildren’s families. So, almost all parents of “horoshist” from the higher social stratum and only 38% of parents of “horoshist” from the lower social stratum were going to send the child to continue education in the gymnasium. As for the students themselves, among the children from the upper stratum, about 75% of schoolchildren were going to enter the gymnasium, and among the children of the lower stratum - 11% of schoolchildren. Differences, as we see, are extremely significant. 43% excellent students from working families and at least 50% mediocre students from official families are aimed at getting higher education. Thus, the inequality of chances in obtaining a quality education in school is not only not smoothed out, but is also growing. Children from families with low social status are subject to exaggerated demands, they are expected to have much more knowledge in case they claim to continue their education. The inverse result of this approach is the revealed fact of poor academic performance in gymnasiums and higher educational institutions of students and students from families of higher and secondary social strata. After all, they find themselves in gymnasiums and universities, regardless of their own motivational attitudes, and from their real level of knowledge and sensitivity to learning. Rainer Gassler concludes that the equality of chances for education and academic performance does not contradict each other, and an increase in the availability of education would entail an improvement in student performance. Many talented guys, who, because of the social and material condition of their families, did not enter universities, could achieve a great deal and, perhaps, become “stars” of science, prominent statesmen, engineers and inventors. Inequality of chances of getting an education did not leave them such an opportunity.
As a result of the “massization” of education, in the twentieth century, it was possible to virtually eradicate illiteracy in developed countries, to provide a more or less tolerable level of basic knowledge in the main subjects of the majority of the population. However, the modern education system meets with ever more decisive criticism, especially in line with the trends that have become widespread in the past two decades. According to Bowles and Gintis, social inequality is preserved in schools and personal development is restricted. But it is not possible to change the essence of school and post-school education in the conditions of preservation of the capitalist paradigm, since education turns out to be only one of the institutions ensuring the smooth functioning of the established social system. It was not by chance that Pierre Bourdieu considered the establishment and preservation of the social hierarchy as the main function of the education system in the modern world.
Social factors of the Russian education system
The national tradition of higher education throughout the Soviet period considered equality of opportunities for admission to higher educational institutions as the main principle of the educational system. But market reforms have made their adjustments in the field of education. A large number of non-state higher educational institutions and commercial departments in state universities appeared, which provided an opportunity to get higher education for money. Naturally, the quality of education in the process of its commercialization has sharply declined, since it has become unprofitable for universities to exclude “commercial” students for the poor performance of students, on which a significant part of their financial income directly depended, including on faculty salaries. Therefore, any “commercial” student who has the opportunity to pay for his studies and does not drop out on his own initiative is guaranteed to get a higher education, regardless of real knowledge and abilities. As mentioned above, the possibility of obtaining higher education in modern Russia depends on both economic and social and geographic factors. In particular, living in remote regions or in rural areas, far from large university centers, automatically reduces the possibility of obtaining high-quality higher education. Not all families are able to pay for travel and living in another city for their child, especially since the financial burden of maintaining a student, in most cases, will have to be for five years. American and British sociologists, analyzing the situation in their countries in the field of education, also focused on ethnic and racial differences. African Americans, Indians and Hispanics in the United States have fewer opportunities to receive higher education than “white” Americans, immigrants from Europe and even from East Asia. This is primarily due to social factors - living conditions in “Negro ghettos” and Indian reservations do not at all favor good schooling, do not motivate a teenager to form a life strategy aimed at getting higher education. In Russia, it is hardly possible to consider the ethnic factor an obstacle to higher education. Representatives of various nationalities study at universities in the country, and often even language barriers do not become an obstacle to education. On the other hand, the last factor is dangerous in that it reduces the “cost” of a diploma in the international labor market. The possibility of obtaining education without any real effort acts corruptingly on the student body, and the employer, seeing that incompetent specialists who graduate from a commercial training or as a “target”, loses trust in this educational institution.
- a hostel vocational school in the city of Tara, Omsk region of the Russian Federation. Photo: http://nnm.me/blogs/girlfriendHudo/ptu_v_glubinke/
Negative consequences for modern Russian society have a tendency to shift the priorities of the domestic educational system towards higher education, which was formed in the 1990s, when industrial enterprises were rapidly closing, and more or less worthwhile work could be found only in the commercial sector of the economy. As a result, the mindset of compulsory higher education for children was laid in the minds of many Russian families. At the same time, the majority of applicants and parents did not hide the fact that admission to a higher educational institution is carried out solely for the purpose of “getting a crust”, without which they will not take a decent job. The result of such a “massization” of higher education was the colossal overproduction of graduates, who, however, did not have the necessary skills for employment in their specialty. "Trend" of Russia 1990-x - 2000-x. It was the emergence of a huge number of young lawyers, economists, managers, psychologists, who, of course, could not find a job in their specialty and occupied those vacancies for which, for good, no vocational education is required at all - neither higher nor secondary, since the functions performed can successfully cope with the presence of secondary school education.
In parallel with the emergence of new non-state and state educational institutions, in which specialists graduated in specialties demanded by applicants - jurisprudence, economics, finance, psychology, management, the system of secondary vocational education was degrading. One of the most powerful systems of secondary vocational education in the world, created in the Soviet Union, was focused on the production of skilled workers for all branches of domestic industry and agriculture. In the conditions of the collapse of industry and agriculture in the 1990-s, the majority of working professions were unclaimed. Vocational schools began to close, the quality of education in the remaining secondary vocational schools plummeted. Meanwhile, today, when the country's industry began to gradually recover from the twenty-year crisis, many enterprises are not able to staff their staff with working specialists. There are simply no skilled workers. Many companies today are ready to pay a good lathe or miller much more than most lawyers, economists or psychologists, but people with high qualifications in working specialties are sorely lacking. The overall decline in the prestige of working professions, which were skillfully discredited in the media and popular culture, also played a role here. The process of discrediting the working professions and the status of the “worker” itself began in the 1980-s. and reached its apogee in 1990-e - 2000-ies, when the working profession became synonymous with life failure. It’s good that in recent years these naive ideas are gradually disappearing, but this is no easier for employers or potential workers - the tradition of secondary vocational education is broken, many educational institutions have ceased to exist or have lost teaching staff able to transfer really useful skills. The restoration of a full-fledged system of secondary vocational education today should become one of the urgent tasks of Russia's state policy in the field of education. Moreover, the revival of secondary vocational education will make it possible for many reduced teachers of higher educational institutions to find work, without forcing them to change their profession and occupation, to retrain at middle age.
The imbalance between higher and secondary education in favor of higher education, according to Giddens, is characteristic of the Third World countries - former colonies, in which industry and agriculture were at a low level of development and did not require a significant number of specialists, but a limited number of administrative workers and lawyers were required. , economists, which they graduated from universities and institutes, and in a quantity that exceeds the real needs of countries for specialists in these professions. In developed countries in the late XX - early XXI centuries. finally established a two-tier organization of the education system. The undergraduate and graduate programs became the two main stages of higher education, in effect legitimizing the “split” of educational space into the elite and the mass. The master is today the elite segment of higher education. Not all bachelor’s degree students can enroll in the magistracy in modern Russia, most of the places in the magistracy, especially in the required specialties, are paid. By and large, the magistracy was conceived as an institute for the training of managers and scientific-pedagogical workers, and a bachelor degree as an institute for the training of specialists in mass professions — teachers, engineering-technical workers, employees. In European countries, the need for a bachelor’s degree was motivated by socio-demographic features: as a result of the aging of the European population and mass migration flows from the Third World countries, it became necessary to accelerate the training of specialists with higher professional education among migrants. That is, the economic needs of European countries continue to determine their educational policies. In Russia, the need for bachelors was initially absent, because, firstly, not every employer is ready to take a bachelor, considered as “under-specialist”, “dropout”, and secondly, there is simply no need for accelerated training of specialists, especially to the detriment of the quality preparation.
Accessibility and quality of education - the key to success of the country
Many Russian scientists and teachers are very wary, and sometimes even sharply negative, about the reforms being carried out in the country in the field of education. In the past few years, a large number of articles have been published that critically analyze the Russian education system and the reforms being carried out in it. Among them are the studies of E.V. Balatsky, who believes that reforms in the field of education in modern Russia were accompanied by a large number of mistakes that now prevent the situation from being corrected ( Balatsky E.V. Arrhythmia syndrome of reforms in the higher education system // Journal of the New Economic Association - No. 4 (24) - 2015 ).
- photo: http://fedpress.ru/news/
In modern Russia, the number of students is growing, which seems to be evidence of the increasing availability of Russian education. But, on the other hand, the growth in the number of students is taking place against the background of the continuing commercialization of education. Already in 2001, the number of budget places in Russian universities was only 46%, after a decade and a half it was reduced to 40%. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Science is talking about whether it is possible to reduce the number of budget places to 30% and even 20% of the total number of places in universities. In this regard, the question arises, what kind of accessibility of higher education in this case can we talk about if the absolute majority of places in Russian universities and institutes become paid? It is clear that this innovation can and will improve the financing of universities, which the state is trying to “lose” from its balance sheet, but it is doubtful that Russia as a whole will benefit from it - both as a country and as a culture and civilization. A paid and low-quality education will cause tremendous harm to the Russian economy, and will further undermine the position of domestic universities in the international educational market. Foreign students will not go to receive poor-quality education, even if it is cheap from their point of view. Accordingly, the income of universities from teaching foreign students will decrease. It is possible and not to talk about attracting foreign teachers to domestic universities - in the overwhelming majority of Russian universities, faculty salaries are at such a level that they are incomparable even with the wages of unskilled workers in European countries.
Very alarming is the idea of identifying some "top" Russian universities, which should be focused on the entry into 100 of the best universities in the world, and the majority of universities, which are obtained, like as second-rate ones. This concept contributes to the further internal differentiation of Russian higher education, exacerbating existing social inequalities in admission to universities. After all, the "top" universities will receive the bulk of state funding in the form of grants, subsidies, allowances, scholarships. Accordingly, studying at “prestigious” universities will become more attractive than receiving education at regular universities and institutes. But attracting children of higher social strata to the “top” universities is unlikely to affect the quality of education in the latter, rather - for the worse, since the social status of parents or tuition fees will prevent the graduation of under-performing students and, accordingly, there will be a general decline in the level of graduates. Of course, Russia needs further reform of the education system, but the tasks of modernizing education should be based on the real needs of Russian society, given its specificity and carefully considering all the positive and negative consequences. Among the measures that can be proposed to increase the accessibility of higher education in modern Russia are, firstly, the general improvement in the quality of secondary education in the country, combined with the establishment of uniform standards that would equalize the chances of elite and regular school graduates. As we can see, the unified state exam still does not mean a true equality of chances of graduates of schools when enrolling in universities and, moreover, when studying in universities after admission. Secondly, talented and intellectually developed representatives of lower social groups of the population should receive a guaranteed opportunity to study in higher educational institutions - not only in the sense of providing free education, but also in terms of organizing material assistance during full-time studies at a university. The mechanisms for paying subsistence scholarships for such students, who are deprived of the opportunity to enjoy tangible financial support from parents, should be organized.
Thirdly, the state should pay for the education of gifted students from low-income families in commercial universities, provided that after graduation, students will work on their specialty for some time. Of course, conditions must be created for the normal remuneration of labor for the faculty, and the rates of professors, assistant professors, and teachers in higher educational institutions should be reduced to a similar denominator. The cardinal differences in wages between metropolitan and provincial universities, facilitating the outflow of teachers from the regions to the capital and, consequently, the deterioration of the quality of education in provincial universities, are unacceptable. The revival of secondary vocational education should also become the most important task in the general context of increasing access to education, and a system of retraining and advanced training should be worked out, including obtaining higher education on the basis of secondary vocational education on the job. By the way, continuing education should also be made as accessible as possible, since this step will allow fairly large categories of people - from housewives who leave from parental leave to former military and police officers, to retrain, get new professions or restore old professional skills. Considering the wide spread of information and communication technologies, the development of the system of lifelong education, as well as distance education, it is quite possible - of course, with the necessary level of financial, organizational, informational and ideological support from the state.
The present and future of Russia as a strong and economically developed state directly depends on ensuring access to education. It should be understood that the policy of commercialization of education will only lead to its subsequent decline, which will inevitably affect the economy, science and the culture of the Russian state. Therefore, the task of ensuring the availability of quality education can be considered one of the priorities within the framework of the overall strategy for ensuring Russia's national security.
Education system and social inequality
According to a common view, education can be seen as a tool for establishing equality of people. After receiving a higher education, even a native of the lower social classes can significantly change their social status. This point of view would be fair in relation to the Soviet period storieswhen a child of collective farmers or workers from a village or a provincial town could make a career in any field of activity and climb the highest floors of the state or party hierarchy. However, in the current situation, not everything is so unequivocal; therefore, many philosophers and sociologists working within the framework of the Marxist trend in the social sciences see the institution of education as a tool for asserting social inequality. In their opinion, education only exacerbates existing inequality and reinforces the division of society into "elite" and basic strata. After all, the very opportunity to get an education in a capitalist society does not exist among all young people. Some cannot afford education because of the need for employment - parents are simply unable to financially support matured children, others lack the cultural level and social connections to go to university. As a result, social inequality is only consolidated - more likely to go to universities, especially those that provide quality education, are people who themselves grew up in families of parents with higher education.
Many prominent sociologists paid attention to the fact that education, in the form in which it exists in the modern world, contributes to the consolidation of social inequality. So, Anthony Giddens argues that the transition to the practice of universal school education in the twentieth century was caused exclusively by objective processes - the needs of the developing economy for skilled workers and engineering and technical specialists. The scientific and technological revolution and the computerization and automation of production that followed it demanded that enterprises pay increased attention to the level of training of workers, including on the “working grid”. Naturally, the state and the companies had no choice but to facilitate the accessibility of education for people from various backgrounds. But the increase in the accessibility of education practically did not affect social inequality in Western societies. Moreover, there was a division of the institution of higher education into elite and mass segments. What is elite higher education today? This is a hundred "top" world universities, and at the national level there are dozens of universities and institutes that enjoy particular fame and prestige within the country. Diplomas of these educational institutions a priori imply the availability of quality education for their graduates, but even they alone do not guarantee employment for a prestigious and well-paid job. Inequality in the field of education, according to Giddens, is already laid from the school bench - the separation of students according to social characteristics. It is no secret that in Russia there are private privileged schools, "good" municipal schools and "ordinary" schools. Before the creation of non-state educational institutions was allowed, the schools were divided into “good”, that is, “elite” and “almost elite” and “bad”. The main criteria for this separation were, firstly, the quality of the knowledge provided, and secondly, the social affiliation of the majority of students. Specialized linguistic, physical and mathematical, natural science schools have always been considered better quality than regular district schools. In them, for the better in terms of knowledge and skills, the teaching staff differed, the set of subjects studied was more impressive. As a rule, in the elementary school, the study of the first foreign language began, in middle school classes - the second foreign language. The education received in the “elite” school was actually considered as a guarantee of entering a higher educational institution, and moreover to prestigious faculties and specialties. In modern Russia, the situation with the division of school education has worsened. Someone can pay for a private school, in which not just subject teachers teach, but recognized professionals with Ph.D. and doctoral degrees and work experience in institutions of higher education. However, the majority of Russian families are forced to send their children to regular district schools, the quality of education in which not only leaves much to be desired, but also tends to deteriorate. After all, the old teaching staff leaves for retirement or life, and young graduates of pedagogical universities do not want to get a job for a meager teaching salary.
Cultural and social capital as educational resources
However, in fact, inequality in access to quality education is laid in childhood and is associated with the social origin of specific students. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said that capital can be of three types - economic, social and cultural. Social and cultural capital are derived from economic capital, but it is they who primarily determine social inequality in education. Social positions in modern society are inherited, primarily through cultural and social capital. This is due to the fact that the transfer of economic capital in modern conditions has become more complicated compared to previous eras. Therefore, the transfer of cultural capital through the education system, which distributes cultural capital in modern society. Social inequality is a product of the reproduction of cultural capital. It is the possession of cultural and social capital that has a decisive influence on the advancement through the channels of vertical mobility in the modern world. Russia is no exception. After the overlap of the Komsomol and party social elevators, with the help of which any native of a distant village or working village could reach the heights of Soviet power, society in Russia is becoming more hierarchical and polarized. People living in the same city, perhaps even in neighboring houses or apartments (a relic of the Soviet housing distribution), may belong to completely different social categories, not even in terms of income, but in terms of possessing social and cultural capital. In fact, these people live in “different dimensions,” albeit in the same space. Quality education contributes to the employment in prestigious areas of activity and the rapid advancement of the career ladder, including in leadership positions. But if before the possibility of obtaining a quality education was determined, above all, by family income (and even earlier - by estate), now social and cultural factors are coming to the forefront. High-quality education with more confidence get immigrants from wealthy families with higher education, living in the capital or major cities - regional centers. Social relations, professional activities and education of parents, place of residence - all of these factors have a direct impact on obtaining high-quality education. Pierre Bourdieu calls these factors the objective resources of individuals. In addition to objective resources, subjective factors play an important role in the process of obtaining education. These are the personal qualities of each individual person, including his individual abilities, ambitions, self-esteem, life goals and values that are formed.
According to Basil Bernstein, “language codes” are forms of direct dependence on social origin, forms of verbal communication that differ from representatives of higher, middle and lower social groups. At the same time, the main differences are not in the vocabulary or speech skills, but in the methods of language use by children from different social strata. For children from lower social classes characterized by a limited language code. In the process of communication, they do not agree much, because they are sure that the interlocutor owns this information. This is due to the fact that many families of lower social strata are carriers of a certain subculture, which sets values and behaviors that are considered natural and understandable to everyone. Representatives of these social groups may not even suspect that other people are not necessarily aware of any phenomena, patterns, or behavioral norms. Limited language code allows you to effectively transfer practical experience, but it is very difficult to communicate on abstract topics. In the middle social stratum, the language code is more developed - here children less focus on the private context and are able to express their opinions, arguing about abstract processes or concepts. Accordingly, children with a more developed speech code show greater interest and ability to learn, adapt more easily in an educational institution and, subsequently, enter a higher educational institution without the problems faced by representatives of lower social classes.
Social polarization is fixed in school
American researchers Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis viewed the education system in the modern world solely as an institution serving the economic needs of a capitalist society. In the process of schooling, social and technical skills are formed, which then allow graduates to work in enterprises or continue further education. Another major component of school education is discipline. At school, students gain an insight into the discipline and hierarchy they will face throughout their lives. In fact, the school is a reflection of modern society and allows children to gradually assimilate those behaviors that they will have to conform to. At school, a gradual differentiation of the children's team occurs - more capable people stand out who, after completing their studies, can enter higher educational institutions, and less capable, for whom education ends after graduating from school or a secondary vocational school. There is also the category of “rebels”, who drop out of school and replenishes marginal layers (of course, there are exceptions in this category that achieve a higher position than people with education, but we are now talking about a mass phenomenon). According to the sociologist T. Parsons, modern schooling is based on "two whales" - motivational loyalty and cognitive abilities of the individual. Cognitive abilities of the individual are innate and they also contribute to the formation of a certain intellectual level. Motivational loyalty is determined by the upbringing of schoolchildren, their social environment, and it is she who sets the presence or absence of a focus on achieving high results in the process of getting an education, diligence, attitude to the educational process and educational institution, interaction with teachers and fellow students. In different social strata, the attitude towards higher education is also different. For representatives of the educated strata of the population who form the upper and middle classes, higher education is seen as a mandatory attribute of preparation for work and just living in modern society, while lower social classes that do not require higher education in their professional activities may relate to the idea getting it is very skeptical. German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, who, among other things, considered the issue of inequality in education in Germany, identified four potentially discriminating categories in the field of education - children from rural areas, children of working families, girls and children of families of Catholics. Thus, class and gender are, according to Dahrendorf, the main criteria for the availability / inaccessibility of high-quality school and, especially, higher education.
The social identity of students has a direct impact on two key points in the process of school education — on grades and on making a decision about continuing education or refusing to enter a higher education institution. “Both the decision to continue education, taken in the family, and the marks given by teachers at the school depend, with equal performance of children, on their belonging to one or another social stratum,” writes the German sociologist Rainer Gassler (Gassler R. on education: cause and effect // http://www.cisr.ru/). As it was established as a result of sociological surveys, the desire to continue studies, in general, does not depend on academic performance, but on the social status of schoolchildren’s families. So, almost all parents of “horoshist” from the higher social stratum and only 38% of parents of “horoshist” from the lower social stratum were going to send the child to continue education in the gymnasium. As for the students themselves, among the children from the upper stratum, about 75% of schoolchildren were going to enter the gymnasium, and among the children of the lower stratum - 11% of schoolchildren. Differences, as we see, are extremely significant. 43% excellent students from working families and at least 50% mediocre students from official families are aimed at getting higher education. Thus, the inequality of chances in obtaining a quality education in school is not only not smoothed out, but is also growing. Children from families with low social status are subject to exaggerated demands, they are expected to have much more knowledge in case they claim to continue their education. The inverse result of this approach is the revealed fact of poor academic performance in gymnasiums and higher educational institutions of students and students from families of higher and secondary social strata. After all, they find themselves in gymnasiums and universities, regardless of their own motivational attitudes, and from their real level of knowledge and sensitivity to learning. Rainer Gassler concludes that the equality of chances for education and academic performance does not contradict each other, and an increase in the availability of education would entail an improvement in student performance. Many talented guys, who, because of the social and material condition of their families, did not enter universities, could achieve a great deal and, perhaps, become “stars” of science, prominent statesmen, engineers and inventors. Inequality of chances of getting an education did not leave them such an opportunity.
As a result of the “massization” of education, in the twentieth century, it was possible to virtually eradicate illiteracy in developed countries, to provide a more or less tolerable level of basic knowledge in the main subjects of the majority of the population. However, the modern education system meets with ever more decisive criticism, especially in line with the trends that have become widespread in the past two decades. According to Bowles and Gintis, social inequality is preserved in schools and personal development is restricted. But it is not possible to change the essence of school and post-school education in the conditions of preservation of the capitalist paradigm, since education turns out to be only one of the institutions ensuring the smooth functioning of the established social system. It was not by chance that Pierre Bourdieu considered the establishment and preservation of the social hierarchy as the main function of the education system in the modern world.
Social factors of the Russian education system
The national tradition of higher education throughout the Soviet period considered equality of opportunities for admission to higher educational institutions as the main principle of the educational system. But market reforms have made their adjustments in the field of education. A large number of non-state higher educational institutions and commercial departments in state universities appeared, which provided an opportunity to get higher education for money. Naturally, the quality of education in the process of its commercialization has sharply declined, since it has become unprofitable for universities to exclude “commercial” students for the poor performance of students, on which a significant part of their financial income directly depended, including on faculty salaries. Therefore, any “commercial” student who has the opportunity to pay for his studies and does not drop out on his own initiative is guaranteed to get a higher education, regardless of real knowledge and abilities. As mentioned above, the possibility of obtaining higher education in modern Russia depends on both economic and social and geographic factors. In particular, living in remote regions or in rural areas, far from large university centers, automatically reduces the possibility of obtaining high-quality higher education. Not all families are able to pay for travel and living in another city for their child, especially since the financial burden of maintaining a student, in most cases, will have to be for five years. American and British sociologists, analyzing the situation in their countries in the field of education, also focused on ethnic and racial differences. African Americans, Indians and Hispanics in the United States have fewer opportunities to receive higher education than “white” Americans, immigrants from Europe and even from East Asia. This is primarily due to social factors - living conditions in “Negro ghettos” and Indian reservations do not at all favor good schooling, do not motivate a teenager to form a life strategy aimed at getting higher education. In Russia, it is hardly possible to consider the ethnic factor an obstacle to higher education. Representatives of various nationalities study at universities in the country, and often even language barriers do not become an obstacle to education. On the other hand, the last factor is dangerous in that it reduces the “cost” of a diploma in the international labor market. The possibility of obtaining education without any real effort acts corruptingly on the student body, and the employer, seeing that incompetent specialists who graduate from a commercial training or as a “target”, loses trust in this educational institution.
Negative consequences for modern Russian society have a tendency to shift the priorities of the domestic educational system towards higher education, which was formed in the 1990s, when industrial enterprises were rapidly closing, and more or less worthwhile work could be found only in the commercial sector of the economy. As a result, the mindset of compulsory higher education for children was laid in the minds of many Russian families. At the same time, the majority of applicants and parents did not hide the fact that admission to a higher educational institution is carried out solely for the purpose of “getting a crust”, without which they will not take a decent job. The result of such a “massization” of higher education was the colossal overproduction of graduates, who, however, did not have the necessary skills for employment in their specialty. "Trend" of Russia 1990-x - 2000-x. It was the emergence of a huge number of young lawyers, economists, managers, psychologists, who, of course, could not find a job in their specialty and occupied those vacancies for which, for good, no vocational education is required at all - neither higher nor secondary, since the functions performed can successfully cope with the presence of secondary school education.
In parallel with the emergence of new non-state and state educational institutions, in which specialists graduated in specialties demanded by applicants - jurisprudence, economics, finance, psychology, management, the system of secondary vocational education was degrading. One of the most powerful systems of secondary vocational education in the world, created in the Soviet Union, was focused on the production of skilled workers for all branches of domestic industry and agriculture. In the conditions of the collapse of industry and agriculture in the 1990-s, the majority of working professions were unclaimed. Vocational schools began to close, the quality of education in the remaining secondary vocational schools plummeted. Meanwhile, today, when the country's industry began to gradually recover from the twenty-year crisis, many enterprises are not able to staff their staff with working specialists. There are simply no skilled workers. Many companies today are ready to pay a good lathe or miller much more than most lawyers, economists or psychologists, but people with high qualifications in working specialties are sorely lacking. The overall decline in the prestige of working professions, which were skillfully discredited in the media and popular culture, also played a role here. The process of discrediting the working professions and the status of the “worker” itself began in the 1980-s. and reached its apogee in 1990-e - 2000-ies, when the working profession became synonymous with life failure. It’s good that in recent years these naive ideas are gradually disappearing, but this is no easier for employers or potential workers - the tradition of secondary vocational education is broken, many educational institutions have ceased to exist or have lost teaching staff able to transfer really useful skills. The restoration of a full-fledged system of secondary vocational education today should become one of the urgent tasks of Russia's state policy in the field of education. Moreover, the revival of secondary vocational education will make it possible for many reduced teachers of higher educational institutions to find work, without forcing them to change their profession and occupation, to retrain at middle age.
The imbalance between higher and secondary education in favor of higher education, according to Giddens, is characteristic of the Third World countries - former colonies, in which industry and agriculture were at a low level of development and did not require a significant number of specialists, but a limited number of administrative workers and lawyers were required. , economists, which they graduated from universities and institutes, and in a quantity that exceeds the real needs of countries for specialists in these professions. In developed countries in the late XX - early XXI centuries. finally established a two-tier organization of the education system. The undergraduate and graduate programs became the two main stages of higher education, in effect legitimizing the “split” of educational space into the elite and the mass. The master is today the elite segment of higher education. Not all bachelor’s degree students can enroll in the magistracy in modern Russia, most of the places in the magistracy, especially in the required specialties, are paid. By and large, the magistracy was conceived as an institute for the training of managers and scientific-pedagogical workers, and a bachelor degree as an institute for the training of specialists in mass professions — teachers, engineering-technical workers, employees. In European countries, the need for a bachelor’s degree was motivated by socio-demographic features: as a result of the aging of the European population and mass migration flows from the Third World countries, it became necessary to accelerate the training of specialists with higher professional education among migrants. That is, the economic needs of European countries continue to determine their educational policies. In Russia, the need for bachelors was initially absent, because, firstly, not every employer is ready to take a bachelor, considered as “under-specialist”, “dropout”, and secondly, there is simply no need for accelerated training of specialists, especially to the detriment of the quality preparation.
Accessibility and quality of education - the key to success of the country
Many Russian scientists and teachers are very wary, and sometimes even sharply negative, about the reforms being carried out in the country in the field of education. In the past few years, a large number of articles have been published that critically analyze the Russian education system and the reforms being carried out in it. Among them are the studies of E.V. Balatsky, who believes that reforms in the field of education in modern Russia were accompanied by a large number of mistakes that now prevent the situation from being corrected ( Balatsky E.V. Arrhythmia syndrome of reforms in the higher education system // Journal of the New Economic Association - No. 4 (24) - 2015 ).
In modern Russia, the number of students is growing, which seems to be evidence of the increasing availability of Russian education. But, on the other hand, the growth in the number of students is taking place against the background of the continuing commercialization of education. Already in 2001, the number of budget places in Russian universities was only 46%, after a decade and a half it was reduced to 40%. Meanwhile, the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Science is talking about whether it is possible to reduce the number of budget places to 30% and even 20% of the total number of places in universities. In this regard, the question arises, what kind of accessibility of higher education in this case can we talk about if the absolute majority of places in Russian universities and institutes become paid? It is clear that this innovation can and will improve the financing of universities, which the state is trying to “lose” from its balance sheet, but it is doubtful that Russia as a whole will benefit from it - both as a country and as a culture and civilization. A paid and low-quality education will cause tremendous harm to the Russian economy, and will further undermine the position of domestic universities in the international educational market. Foreign students will not go to receive poor-quality education, even if it is cheap from their point of view. Accordingly, the income of universities from teaching foreign students will decrease. It is possible and not to talk about attracting foreign teachers to domestic universities - in the overwhelming majority of Russian universities, faculty salaries are at such a level that they are incomparable even with the wages of unskilled workers in European countries.
Very alarming is the idea of identifying some "top" Russian universities, which should be focused on the entry into 100 of the best universities in the world, and the majority of universities, which are obtained, like as second-rate ones. This concept contributes to the further internal differentiation of Russian higher education, exacerbating existing social inequalities in admission to universities. After all, the "top" universities will receive the bulk of state funding in the form of grants, subsidies, allowances, scholarships. Accordingly, studying at “prestigious” universities will become more attractive than receiving education at regular universities and institutes. But attracting children of higher social strata to the “top” universities is unlikely to affect the quality of education in the latter, rather - for the worse, since the social status of parents or tuition fees will prevent the graduation of under-performing students and, accordingly, there will be a general decline in the level of graduates. Of course, Russia needs further reform of the education system, but the tasks of modernizing education should be based on the real needs of Russian society, given its specificity and carefully considering all the positive and negative consequences. Among the measures that can be proposed to increase the accessibility of higher education in modern Russia are, firstly, the general improvement in the quality of secondary education in the country, combined with the establishment of uniform standards that would equalize the chances of elite and regular school graduates. As we can see, the unified state exam still does not mean a true equality of chances of graduates of schools when enrolling in universities and, moreover, when studying in universities after admission. Secondly, talented and intellectually developed representatives of lower social groups of the population should receive a guaranteed opportunity to study in higher educational institutions - not only in the sense of providing free education, but also in terms of organizing material assistance during full-time studies at a university. The mechanisms for paying subsistence scholarships for such students, who are deprived of the opportunity to enjoy tangible financial support from parents, should be organized.
Thirdly, the state should pay for the education of gifted students from low-income families in commercial universities, provided that after graduation, students will work on their specialty for some time. Of course, conditions must be created for the normal remuneration of labor for the faculty, and the rates of professors, assistant professors, and teachers in higher educational institutions should be reduced to a similar denominator. The cardinal differences in wages between metropolitan and provincial universities, facilitating the outflow of teachers from the regions to the capital and, consequently, the deterioration of the quality of education in provincial universities, are unacceptable. The revival of secondary vocational education should also become the most important task in the general context of increasing access to education, and a system of retraining and advanced training should be worked out, including obtaining higher education on the basis of secondary vocational education on the job. By the way, continuing education should also be made as accessible as possible, since this step will allow fairly large categories of people - from housewives who leave from parental leave to former military and police officers, to retrain, get new professions or restore old professional skills. Considering the wide spread of information and communication technologies, the development of the system of lifelong education, as well as distance education, it is quite possible - of course, with the necessary level of financial, organizational, informational and ideological support from the state.
The present and future of Russia as a strong and economically developed state directly depends on ensuring access to education. It should be understood that the policy of commercialization of education will only lead to its subsequent decline, which will inevitably affect the economy, science and the culture of the Russian state. Therefore, the task of ensuring the availability of quality education can be considered one of the priorities within the framework of the overall strategy for ensuring Russia's national security.
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