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Regular version of the site


Discover

the role of culture in people's lives

Explain

the social and cultural nature of barriers to social mobility

Analyze

social and cultural factors that shape educational and career trajectories



Topics of Our Research

  • The cultural and symbolic dimension of social mobility

    The nature and functioning of cultural mechanisms that contribute to the reproduction of inequality and why it is not enough to attribute inequality to economic causes

  • The ecosystem of life choices

    Choice as a localised, stable, historically specific, cultural, and cognitive complex rooted in specific institutional and economic landscapes

  • Literature as cultural practice and social experience

    How reading and literary practices shape identities and structure life trajectories

  • New trends in the organisation of emotional life

    How emotional life shapes social order, and the risks and opportunities presented by new trends in its organisation

Research Projects

Trajectories in Education and Careers (TrEC)

Analysis of educational trajectories and labour market entry from different perspectives, including in the context of culture and inequality, across the country. The annual survey includes five thousand respondents from 2001, when they were in ninth grade, in a nationally representative quantitative sample. TrEC is a unique and one of the most comprehensive cohort longitudinal studies of its kind in the world, combining a nationally-representative sample and drawing on internationally-recognised data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Conducted since 2009 at the HSE University Institute of Education with the support of the HSE Centre for Fundamental Studies.

‘Literature as Cultural practice and Social Experience’

Analysis of the role of literature, considered as institutions and practices, in the ideas and values of the individual. Examining the reflection of political, social, and cultural processes in literature. Examining the extent of the involvement of different social groups in reading practices and the role of various literary patterns in constructing their identities and life trajectories. Uncovering literary meta-narratives that shape people's perceptions of the possible, the desirable, and the proper.

New Trends in the Organisation of Emotional Life as a Key Context for Human Enhancement Technologies

Studying the risks and opportunities of human enhancement through new emotional modes, modes of ‘working on oneself’. Studying the effects of human enhancement through the prism of the spread of new trends in the organisation of one’s emotional life. The main global trend of modernity is the spread of a new emotional mode of living that prioritises emotions and forms of control over them. This project is about studying new emotional sensitivity as one of the key conditions for incorporating human enhancement technologies into modern life.

Recognition, Distinction and Emotional Drivers of Action: The Cultural-Symbolic Dimension of Social Mobility

Analysing the mechanisms of reproduction of social inequality in the context of educational and career decisions. Studying the influence of three key cultural mechanisms—distinctiveness, emotional drivers of action, and recognition—on the attractiveness of certain life strategies for young people and, consequently, on the realisation of social mobility. Considering inequality not as an economic, but as a social and cultural problem.

Expertise and Consulting Areas

Consulting

government bodies, schools, and individual educational organisations on issues related to the assessment and design of educational and career trajectories, vocational guidance, and the provision of social mobility

Evaluating

the effects and effectiveness of implemented and designed career interventions and career guidance

Research Tools for Schools, Colleges and Universities

Questionnaires for Studying Educational and Professional Choices

Questionnaires from different years make it possible to track the choice of educational trajectory and profession depending on the background of a pupil or student, to record plans and aspirations at different stages of the educational trajectory and when entering the labour market. Heads of educational organisations and teachers will be able to get to know their students better and develop appropriate support or career guidance measures.

Our Applied Projects

Opportunities for research on cultural barriers to social mobility, educational choice, and career guidance. Projects include studies of the effectiveness of various forms of career interventions. Commissioned by the national project ‘Ticket to the Future’ and the Moscow Department of Education.

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Staff

Ekaterina Pavlenko

Head of the Centre, Research Fellow, Senior Lecturer
Interests: youth and adulthood, transition to adulthood, youth studies, anthropology of education, methodology of interpretive analysis, culture and inequality.

Dmitry Kurakin

Academic Supervisor
Interests: social theory, sociology of culture, inequality, cultural sociology and the ‘strong programme’, cognitive sociology, sociology of education, emotions, the sacred, narrative theory, emergentism, sociology of mystery, sociology of the body.

Akif Gajiyev

Research Assistant
Research interests: sociology of war, everyday theories, military theories, moral justification of wars, sociology of culture, quantitative methods of data analysis

Maksim Kotelnikov

Research Assistant
Research interests: cultural sociology, sociology of the body, sociology of literature, ethnomethodology, actor-network theory, sociology of everyday life.

Maria Kucheryavaya

Research Assistant
Research interests: cultural sociology, visual anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, the sacred, sociology of death, memory studies, recognition and dignity, qualitative methods in sociology, marketing semiotics.

Ilyas Latypov

Research Assistant
Research interests: Sociology of culture and inequality, rational choice theory, sociology of unintended consequences, sociology of education, social science methodology, urban studies.

Natalia Lebedeva

Analyst
Research interests: sociology of the body, enactivism, phenomenological philosophy and phenomenological sociology, sociology of psychiatry, epistemology of social sciences.

Anastasia Lukina

Research Fellow, Lecturer
Interests: sociology of culture, sociology of emotions, inequality, social change, school education, sociology of education, quantitative methods of data analysis, analysis of social media, quantitative analysis of texts, formal methods of studying culture.

Daria Tolstykh

Research Assistant
Research interests: sociology of culture, inequality in education, economic sociology, school education, sociology of education, theatre sociology, qualitative methods of data analysis.

Dominik Shevchik

Research Assistant
Interests: social theory, cultural sociology, social constructionism, structuralist constructivism, inequality.

Olesya Merkulova

Research Assistant

Nadezhda Alekseeva

Research Assistant

Yaroslav Bitsiokha

Research Assistant

Tatiana Dautova

Research Assistant

Maxim Zapolsky

Research Assistant

Ksenia Krasnova

Research Assistant

Educational programmes and projects with participation of the centre experts

Master’s Programme 'Evidence-based Education Development'

This programme is intended for those who wish to develop successful projects in education, and effectively manage them, or become a qualified analyst, expert, or researcher.

2 years, full-time master's programme

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.

All publications