Centre for Cultural Sociology

Publications

• Article

  Minina E., Pavlenko E.

  ‘Choosing the lesser of evils’: cultural narrative and career decision-making in post-Soviet Russia

  This paper employs the concepts of cultural narrative to examine career choice among post-Soviet Russian teenagers going into higher education. Drawing on insights from cultural sociology more broadly and the cultural autonomy thesis more specifically, we demonstrate how the cultural narrative of a university degree as a ‘must-have at all costs’ subjugates various career decision-making logics identified, while downplaying individual agency and reflexivity. We argue that, by misdirecting career choice from opportunities to constraints, the dominant narrative serves to limit, rather than diversify, young people’s career choice and social mobility potential. We go on to theorise the interplay between culture and social institutions. Drawing on the cultural interpretation of Unified State Exam – a neoliberal educational governance tool – we show how cultural narrative hijacks institutional interpretations and usages, re-grounding neoliberal sensibilities in Soviet-era ones.

  Journal of Youth Studies. 2023. Vol. 26. No. 9. P. 1109-1129.

• Book chapter

  Kucheryavaya M.

  Death, memory and power: public memorial culture of Moscow necropolises

  In bk.: The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Heritage, and Death. Routledge, 2023. Ch. 21. P. 306-317.

• Working paper

  Khavenson Tatiana, Koroleva Diana, Lukina Anastasia.

  The Four Motives of Educational Innovators

  Education systems across the world are experiencing significant transformations. Grassroots innovators play an important role in these changes. To stimulate the development of grassroots innovations it is important to understand the mechanisms that underlie their creation. This paper investigates the motivation of individuals who initialize innovative projects in education. The approach to measuring motivation was adopted from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) initially developed for social and commercial entrepreneurs. The Russian version of the methodology was elaborated and validated to study educational innovators. The sample consists of 437 participants of the Competition for Innovation in Education (KIVO). Four types of motivation are identified: social, self-realization, status, financial. They are explained within the self-determination theory (SDT) and grassroots innovations. The social and self-realization motives are inherent in all the actors, while the other two vary among innovators. This motivational structure allows the authors to differentiate between specific types of innovators – social entrepreneurs and ‘non-entrepreneurs’. The discussion, following the conclusion in this article, focuses on which environment would be favorable for developing innovations, considering the personal motives for innovative activity. The results can be valuable for education policy.

  Education. EDU. Высшая школа экономики, 2019. No. 52.