Education as a Factor of Social Differentiation and Mobility (A Roundtable)

Overview & Synopsis

This article presents a roundtable held by the editorial board of "Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia"; the sector of the sociology of education of the Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences; and the committee for research on the sociology of education, Russian Society of Sociologists. The meeting was conducted by Doctor of Sociological Sciences D. L. Konstantinovskii, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Participating were scientists, instructors in higher education, schoolteachers, and personnel of bodies of administration of the sphere of education. The participants talk about how issues of equality, differentiation, and mobility are linked to education on account of the functions that education performs. The participants also address the problems concerning the current educational trends in Russia. These problems include: (1) Changes in the functions of education under the new realities of society, for example, its strengthened differentiation; (2) The modernization of education and the issue of people's opportunities to obtain one; and (3) The interaction between education and the market. The participants also talk about the benefits brought by market conditions to instructors in the general education and in higher education in the light of so many young people currently going to school.