Publications

This paper investigates how explicit integration of employability skills into vocational education and training (VET) affects students’ perceived skills. Perceived or self-evaluated skills are often inaccurate perceptions of the real skills’ possession, but nonetheless they play a profound role in graduates’ career decisions. Confidence that resulted from positive self-evaluations supports the efforts and aspirations during school-to-work transitions. Thus, they are considered to be an important educational outcome supporting employability. The purpose of the study is to enrich understanding of relationship between students’ self-evaluations of employability skills and different teaching practices.

The analysis employs self-evaluations and entrepreneurial intentions of the Russian VET students collected with Monitoring of education markets and organizations in 2020 (n = 9 178). It focuses on social, self-learning and entrepreneurial skills, which are part of the VET national curriculum.  The findings show that explicit embedding and integration of employability skills in the curriculum is significantly related to more positive self-evaluations of social and self-learning skills. Moreover, students, who were explicitly taught entrepreneurial skills, are more likely to plan to establish their own enterprise after graduation. Despite being effective, the explicit integration approach is revealed to be not dominant. Further research on the reasons behind this is needed for development of properly informed policy.

Over the last two decades, increasing participation rates in post-secondary education in many countries have been accompanied by decreases in aggregate economic growth and raising social tensions. It is obvious now that education does not ‘automatically’ produce more well-being (at least, if conventionally measured through income or gross domestic product) either for the individual or for society. This puts the question about education’s ‘utility’ in a new light, especially in relation to funding, which is central to the policymaking process. We briefly review literature on various rationales for supporting education and analyze existing evidences concerning the effects or consequences for societies of such investments in education and its related expansion. We outline two alternative agendas for positioning education in the framework of broader socioeconomic development. These agendas stem from different answers to the core question: can education drive the change in other spheres of societal life, or does it only respond to and follow the logics of larger institutional transformations? We suggest greater recognition in policy and public debates of the possible contribution that education may have to shaping transformative agency, and outline related prospects and potential pitfalls.

The present paper aims to contribute to the discussion, initiated by A.L. Zhuravlev and I.A. Mironen- ko in their recent paper “The Biosocial Problem in the Context of Global Psychological Science: Concerning the “Universal” Human Psychology”. We acknowledge the importance of the mentioned article in terms of novel view on contemporary elaborations around the issues of biological and social in a human being in the context of on-going globalization. We also outline several directions for continuing research and discussions on the conceptual grounds of Russian academic tradition and with fuller account of a broad framework of transformations, essential for contemporary world. This paper theoretically grounds and empirically illustratesvectors for transformations of human nature in regards of both “biological” and “social” sides of biosocial problem. Our central thesis is that in both spheres there are significant changes that go beyond traditionally analyzed trends in international psychological mainstream and in Russian research. In the area of biology, of interest are processes, which expand functional capacities of individual, connected with technological advance- ments, including gadgets (for instance, smartphones). In the “social” side of human nature, we refer to the notion of “de-structuration” to claim the decrease in deterministic power of social environments upon individual. By fully recognizing high potential of Russian tradition in formulating and addressing the bioso- cial problem, we demonstrate the principally novel challenge that it has to respond. This challenge refers to the new situation, when not a “nature” or “society” but individual becomes the core driver of human development.

Introduction. This article presents an analysis of the global expert discourse in education prior to the Covid-2019 pandemic. Aim. The current research aims to analyse expert reports, regarding the theoretical foundations, articulated key trends, stakeholders and skills seen as educational outcomes. Methodology and research methods. The sample consists of 25 reports published in 2012–2020 by leading expert organisations (OECD, World Bank, etc.) devoted to the problems of education (school or higher education) and the relationship between education and the labour market. The main research method is critical discourse analysis. Results. Despite the dominance of the ideas of human capital in these reports, the relationship between “demand”, seen through the prism of global trends, and “supply” in the form of skills that education should provide, turns out to be problematic. Among the main stakeholders in education, managers and administration of educational institutions are emphasised in expert reports. Employers and learners are seen as rather passive players in the educational field. Physical health skills and agency skills are underestimated in global expert discourse despite their increasing relevance demonstrated by COVID-19 pandemic. These findings call for new approaches in global discussion about educational content and results in the context of global pandemic COVID-19. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the empirically grounded analysis of leading international expert discourse, about which there are many stereotypes, often without an evidence base. The practical significance of the study is in the identification of concrete problem areas of international expert discussion in education (at the time before the outbreak of the pandemic) that require strengthening, including on the basis of new research.

In a report prepared as part of a strategic project “Success and independence of a person in a changing world”, which is part of the Priority 2030 program, presents the key practical and theoretical foundations for the hypothesis that the main request for a person on the horizon of the next few years is a request for independence. The first part of the report provides answers to the questions: “What is independence? What does it mean to be independent in various spheres of public and private life? The second part deals with how the education system (on the example of higher education) is responding today and may respond in the future to the demand for autonomy in terms of organizational design, pedagogical practices and methodologies for assessing educational results. Particular attention is paid to the rapidly growing field of entrepreneurship education, which, both in Russia and abroad, constitutes one of the key frontiers in the development of universities.

The issue of “transformative agency”, which proactively improves and transforms social structures, is relevant both for theoretical discussions and practical agenda. The field of education is of particular importance in terms of shaping the poten- tial for agency. However, the dominant areas of research in education, including the sociology of education, focus, on the contrary, on the mechanisms and factors of reproduction of social structures and related activities. The authors pro- pose to expand the research agenda by increasing attention to the conditions and mechanisms of the formation of “transformative agency” at different levels of education and in its various segments, with an account of the processes of de-structuration that weaken the forms of institutional coercion familiar to the 20th century. The article raises theoretical questions and suggests relevant em- pirical phenomena for further research.

This paper explores patterns of the nine-year educational and career trajectories of respondents in the cohort panel study “Trajectories in Education and Careers” who have received higher education by 2020. Patterns were distinguished with the sequence analysis method. Nine patterns of the trajectories are described by four differentiating features: master’s degree attainment, combination of study and work, work experience, precarious period. Furthermore, there is shown the position of graduates participating in patterns in the labor market as status in the market, field of employment, earnings. Moreover, the article examines the interrelation of patterns with a set of socio-demographic characteristics of participants (gender, cultural capital, marital status), educational success (mathematical literacy according to TIMSS), as well as regional contextual factors (tension of the labor market, saturation of the education market). The research was carried out with the support of the HSE Fundamental Research Program and uses data from the panel study «Trajectories in Education and Careers». Findings of this paper will be of interest to those who develop and implement policies in the field of higher education and youth employment, as well as to a wide range of readers in the university community — managers and specialists of educational organizations, researchers of higher education and the labor market, graduates and students of universities.

The issue is devoted to the study of the discussion in the Russian and international agenda, the object of which is pedagogical design (PD). The need for such a study is primarily due to the fact that pedagogical design today can be considered as one of the world's research frontiers in the field of education, while Russia lags far behind world trends, which is noticeable in the very limited number of studies and publications on this topic. In the presented material, the authors attempted to determine the guidelines for the research agenda in the field of pedagogical design in Russia. In order to identify gaps in the existing pool of knowledge about pedagogical design, the results of the most significant Russian and foreign works on PD were systematized. The material will be useful primarily to researchers - as a source of ideas, as well as to a wide range of readers interested in issues of pedagogical design.

The information bulletin is devoted to the study of the modern system of training and advanced training of vocational education teachers. A comprehensive analysis of the human capital of employees implementing professional educational programs has been carried out, and key challenges associated with its increase have been identified. The research is based on the results of VET teachers and masters of industrial training survey conducted in 2020 as part of the Monitoring the Economics of Education project, as well as data from federal statistical observations, Monitoring the quality of training and the WorldSkills Russia Academy.

Publication is devoted to the analysis of the transformation of additional vocational programs in the social distancing due to coronavirus infection in the Russian Federation. The data source was the integration platforms providing training programs such as Coursera, Timepad, Edumarket.

The demand for educational courses increased by 2.5 times in the first half of 2020 due to the spread of coronavirus infection in the Russian Federation. Despite this only 19% are ready to continue their learning after the quarantine measures are lifted. In the first half of 2020 programs on integration platforms are currently focused on soft skills. There was an increase programs for stress resistance, leadership, productivity, business, hobbies and art, parent-child relationships, learning foreign languages. The share of programs with a high role of social communications has significantly decreased. However, there was an increase courses in IT (blog / website development, machine learning), medicine (ensuring safety in case of coronavirus infection, prevention of COVID-19, etc.).

The material will be interest to the heads of regional educational departments, specialists of the continuing education in universities, professional educational organizations, non-governmental organizations of continuing education, labor exchange and people who are involved in continuing education and self-learning.

There is a growing need for valid tools for assessing skills and certifying qualifications in the context of increasing labour migration and mobility. Due to the growing internationalization of business activities, companies are interested in standardized skills assessments that ensure valid and comparable ratings of job applicants and employees. At the same time, assessment of professional or vocational skills, which are highly domain-specific and numerous, remains challenging, especially in terms of comparability. Therefore, objective skills assessment tops the list of challenges faced by national VET systems.

This paper presents an overview of practices and tools for assessing vocational skills and VET learning outcomes, and covers the following issues: a) current practices and challenges in measuring vocational skills and learning outcomes in VET; b) initiatives for internationally comparable assessment of vocational skills, including PISA-VET and WorldSkills competitions; c) national initiatives for assessment of VET learning outcomes in the cases of Germany and Russia; d) labor market-and industry-driven initiatives in skills assessment for job seekers and qualification assurance. This paper contributes to the literature on skills assessment by providing a more comprehensive picture of approaches to skills assessments, including well-established ones and emerging initiatives outside the field of measuring learning outcomes in education.

Context: International comparative research on Vocational Education and Training (VET) is gaining importance, as global cooperation and mutual learning in VET grows.  However, it is characterized by a high degree of complexity, due on one hand, to the heterogeneity of the VET sector, and on the other hand to the unique challenges of international comparisons.  In addition, comparative research projects are increasingly conducted in the form of cross-border collaborations, which have their own particular organizational and methodological considerations, opportunities, and challenges. This paper presents an example of a cooperative research process, aimed at investigating the complex phenomenon of the competence-based approach in Russian and Chinese VET. In providing an example of developing an instrument for curriculum analysis and comparison, we discuss and reflect on the methodological and organizational peculiarities and challenges of the research process conducted collaboratively by an international team. 

Method: The instrument for analysis and comparison of curricular documents, was developed in an iterative multi-stage process, combining deductive and inductive steps. The embeddedness of the elements of a competence-based approach in curricular documents is investigated, using qualitative content analysis. To develop a coding frame, we started with a comprehensive partially systematic literature review of international, Russian and Chinese discourses on competence-based curricula. The frame was built on the selected model of competence-based education, and on accumulated results of the literature analysis of national discourses. Furthermore, during the first coding process, an iterative adaptation of the developed instrument took place.

Results: The result of this process was the development of an analysis instrument which, on the one hand, is well-adapted to each national context and, on the other hand, allows a comparison of results along the same dimensions of analysis, in our case, elements of the competence-based approach in curriculum. 

Conclusion: Developing an analysis framework for a cross-cultural comparative investigation of such a diffuse and heterogeneous construct as the competence-based approach, can pose a methodological challenge for an international team of researchers. However, an effective application of own team resources such as proficiency in different languages, insider and outsider perspectives, along with continuous intensive communication and a flexible, iterative research process, allows development of a well-adapted analysis instrument for international comparison.

The book “Sociologies in Dialogue” is a unique project that takes the international discussion on sociology and its role in socio-economic changes at the local and global scale to a fundamentally new level. Discussions about "global sociology" have been going on for a long time. However, it is a first time when an integrated intellectual product appears that combines the efforts of sociologists from 20 countries.

The main problem in the discussion on “global sociology” remains its fragmentary character. Different visions of sociology, created in various local and national contexts, have not been comprehended on a single conceptual framework. The task is not only to “pay attention” to local specifics, but also to systematically and consistently overview particular cases, locating them on a single conceptual space.

Since the mid‑2010s, Russia has been witnessing a redistribution of student flows between higher education and TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training), more and more school leavers applying to TVET institutions. Postsecondary educational choices are closely associated with socioeconomic status of the family, so changes in the patterns of educational transitions may indicate both changes in the education system and shifts in the national socioeconomic system. In available literature, the growing enrollment in TVET is mostly explained by “push” factors repulsing students out of secondary and higher education systems and by the so-called “bypass maneuver” of accessing college via TVET that is popular among Russian school leavers. This article attempts to find out whether the demand for TVET is actually increasing, what may stand behind it apart from the factors within the education system, and whether there is a socioeconomic dimension to this change. Research results allow debunking the myth of the TVET sector growing by virtue of using TVET programs as a springboard to college. Demand for vocational educational trajectoriesis growing beyond the “bypass maneuver” — not only among middle school graduates, who are at the main fork in educational trajectories, but also among highschool leavers. Changes in the demand for TVET programs has exposed rigidity of the TVET system, which manifests itself in enrollment capacity being unable to satisfy the demand for particular specialization, excessive growth in tuition-based enrollment, and the “invisible” demand from high school leavers. The increasing popularity of the vocational track results from the mutually reinforcing factors in the education system, negative economic growth, and labor market situation. The most important trigger behind the growing demand for TVET is the shrinkage of household disposable income: coupled with reduced access to higher education, it “pushes” school leavers with low socioeconomic status out of the academic track.

Knowledge and skills concentrated in human capital are increasingly important factors of economic development. However, there is a lack of a methodology for determining, which skills are necessary for the efficient industrial development. To this end, we examine skill requirements of regional employers potentially leading to an increase in economic indicators. Skills in demand were compared with predicted indicators based on a semantic content analysis of vacancy databases in various regions of the Russian Federation. It was revealed that the list of demanded competencies depends not on a geographical aspect but on a specific profession. An analysis of the obtained data demonstrated that the growth in demand for highly qualified employees in the Russian Federation is correlated with an increase in gross value added of relevant industries. A linear correlation between gross value added per employee and the need for skilled specialists was demonstrated on the example of the transport sector. The proposed methodology can be used by educational organisations for targeted training of specialists, as well as by employers and experts for forecasting medium- and long-term socio-economic development of Russian regions.