The Social Meaning of Work: Aspects of the Teaching Profession in Post-Soviet Russia

Europe - Asia Studies

Volumn 50, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 699-712

  Lonkila, Markku ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI   (Finland)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0346551731     PISSN: 09668136     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09668139808412560     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. The types of relation were coded according to the growth of respondents' social networks. Thus, for instance, if a colleague has been introduced to our respondent through the respondent's (or her spouse's) kin, the colleague in question will be coded as kin-related.
2. In the diaries the respondents were asked to record 17 different details concerning the encounter itself (e.g. date and time, duration, place, content, number of participants) and the person(s) met (sex, age, occupation, place of birth and residence, duration of the relationship, place of first encounter, nature and perceived closeness of the relationship). Telephone calls were also recorded as 'encounters'. The total number of social relations reported by the respondents was 1907 in St Petersburg and 2025 in Helsinki.
3. Of the respondents, 31 were selected from one school in St Petersburg and 21 from one school in Helsinki. Despite our efforts to find more male respondents, only seven in Helsinki and 12 in St Petersburg were men. Most of our respondents in both cities were married and had children. The 1993 study was part of a larger comparative research project originated and coordinated by Dr Maurizio Gribaudi, Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. The Finnish research group was led by Dr Risto Alapuro.
4. Of these 20 teachers, six were selected among the teachers who participated in the 1993 study and 14 were additional teachers from another school. The total number of reported social relations by 25 respondents was 1285.
5. This denotes the differences noted in comparison with the Finnish data. I do not claim that these factors would be the only ones for Russian respondents, since the diary data also report the Russian respondents' care and responsibility for the education of their pupils.
6. All the names in this text as well as some minor facts on life histories have been changed in order to protect the respondents. The code numbers of respondents are shown in parenthesis (e.g. T23 = teacher No. 23) and the year of the interview (either 1993 or 1996) is indicated at the end of each quote.
7. True, Anatoly had chosen the teaching profession already prior to his moving to Leningrad. Later in this article, however, I will give some additional evidence testifying to the importance of the 'non-professional' motives when beginning studies at a teacher-training institute.
8. During the Soviet era larger universities included a military department (voennaya kafedra) where the graduates could avoid several year's army service by receiving a brief period of military training.
9. Obligatory job allocation (raspredelenie) in the Soviet era makes it somewhat misleading to write about 'looking for a job'. But even with a free choice of school (e.g. having worked at the assigned school for three years), motives and processes not related to the teacher's occupation itself were again at work for our Russian respondents.
10. The difficulties related to travelling long distances daily during rush hours on Soviet public transport should not be underestimated. My Moscow colleague took her one-year-old daughter daily from home to day care and back during the 1980s, spending one hour on the way in one direction. This turned out to be too much both for the mother and the child, who was then left at a crèche on Monday and picked up on Friday. See also Vladimir Shlapentokh, Public and Private Life of the Soviet People. Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia (Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 83. Shlapentokh sees 'the remarkable importance' attributed to the distance between work and home resulting directly from people's dissatisfaction with public transport.
11. Mark Granovetter, Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers (Harvard University Press, 1974).
12. Vasily Sukhomlinsky, Sydämeni lapsille annan (Progress, 1985), p. 7. In Finnish, the original is Serdtse otdayu detyam, 2nd edition (Progress, 1985).
13. Vasily Sukhomlinsky, Sydämeni lapsille annan (Progress, 1985), p. 7. In Finnish, the original is Serdtse otdayu detyam, 2nd edition (Progress, 1985).
14. Markku Lonkila, 'Informal Exchange Relations in Post-Soviet Russia: A Comparative Perspective', Sociological Research Online, 2, 2, 1997. 〈http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/2/2/9.html〉.
15. On blat practices, see Alena Ledeneva, Formal Institutions and Informal Networks in Russia: A Study of Blat (thesis submitted for the Degree of Ph.D., Newnham College, Cambridge, 1996) and 'Practices of Exchange and Networking in Russia', Soziale Welt, 48, 2, 1997, pp. 151-170.
16. On blat practices, see Alena Ledeneva, Formal Institutions and Informal Networks in Russia: A Study of Blat (thesis submitted for the Degree of Ph.D., Newnham College, Cambridge, 1996) and 'Practices of Exchange and Networking in Russia', Soziale Welt, 48, 2, 1997, pp. 151-170.
17. See Lonkila.
18. Unlike Helsinki, the city of St Petersburg also seems to mark the limits of their sociability: the vast majority of all Russian network members live inside the city limits.
19. Gorod Sankt-Peterburg (1993).
20. According to Jones, there were 1.28 million teachers in the USSR in 1992. The occupation was among the lowest paid and most feminised of Soviet professions. See Anthony Jones, 'The Educational Legacy of the Soviet Period', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (M. E. Sharpe, 1994), p. 5 and ' Teachers in the Soviet Union', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Professions and the State. Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Temple University Press, 1991), pp. 154-155. Though reasonably valued in the Soviet era, the status of the profession has been in sharp decline in the 1990s. See F. G. Ziyatdinova, 'Prestizh professii uchitelya', Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1991, 6, pp. 60-63, and Uchitel', shkola, obshchestvo. Sotsiologicheskii ocherk 90-kh gg (Komitet po obrazovaniyu merii Sankt-Peterburga, Sankt-Peterburgskii gosudarstvennyi universitet pedagogicheskogo masterstvo, Sankt-Peterburg, 1995), pp. 10, 19. Despite the relatively low pay and diminishing status, however, teaching both in Soviet and post-Soviet conditions provided reasonably secure employment.
21. According to Jones, there were 1.28 million teachers in the USSR in 1992. The occupation was among the lowest paid and most feminised of Soviet professions. See Anthony Jones, 'The Educational Legacy of the Soviet Period', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (M. E. Sharpe, 1994), p. 5 and ' Teachers in the Soviet Union', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Professions and the State. Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Temple University Press, 1991), pp. 154-155. Though reasonably valued in the Soviet era, the status of the profession has been in sharp decline in the 1990s. See F. G. Ziyatdinova, 'Prestizh professii uchitelya', Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1991, 6, pp. 60-63, and Uchitel', shkola, obshchestvo. Sotsiologicheskii ocherk 90-kh gg (Komitet po obrazovaniyu merii Sankt-Peterburga, Sankt-Peterburgskii gosudarstvennyi universitet pedagogicheskogo masterstvo, Sankt-Peterburg, 1995), pp. 10, 19. Despite the relatively low pay and diminishing status, however, teaching both in Soviet and post-Soviet conditions provided reasonably secure employment.
22. According to Jones, there were 1.28 million teachers in the USSR in 1992. The occupation was among the lowest paid and most feminised of Soviet professions. See Anthony Jones, 'The Educational Legacy of the Soviet Period', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (M. E. Sharpe, 1994), p. 5 and ' Teachers in the Soviet Union', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Professions and the State. Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Temple University Press, 1991), pp. 154-155. Though reasonably valued in the Soviet era, the status of the profession has been in sharp decline in the 1990s. See F. G. Ziyatdinova, 'Prestizh professii uchitelya', Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1991, 6, pp. 60-63, and Uchitel', shkola, obshchestvo. Sotsiologicheskii ocherk 90-kh gg (Komitet po obrazovaniyu merii Sankt-Peterburga, Sankt-Peterburgskii gosudarstvennyi universitet pedagogicheskogo masterstvo, Sankt-Peterburg, 1995), pp. 10, 19. Despite the relatively low pay and diminishing status, however, teaching both in Soviet and post-Soviet conditions provided reasonably secure employment.
23. According to Jones, there were 1.28 million teachers in the USSR in 1992. The occupation was among the lowest paid and most feminised of Soviet professions. See Anthony Jones, 'The Educational Legacy of the Soviet Period', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (M. E. Sharpe, 1994), p. 5 and ' Teachers in the Soviet Union', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Professions and the State. Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Temple University Press, 1991), pp. 154-155. Though reasonably valued in the Soviet era, the status of the profession has been in sharp decline in the 1990s. See F. G. Ziyatdinova, 'Prestizh professii uchitelya', Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1991, 6, pp. 60-63, and Uchitel', shkola, obshchestvo. Sotsiologicheskii ocherk 90-kh gg (Komitet po obrazovaniyu merii Sankt-Peterburga, Sankt-Peterburgskii gosudarstvennyi universitet pedagogicheskogo masterstvo, Sankt-Peterburg, 1995), pp. 10, 19. Despite the relatively low pay and diminishing status, however, teaching both in Soviet and post-Soviet conditions provided reasonably secure employment.
24. Jones, 'Teachers ...', pp. 156-157.
25. L. Z. Rubina, 'Professional'noe i sotsial'noe samochuvstvie uchitelei', Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1996, 6, pp. 63-75.
26. Stephen Webber & Tatyana Webber, 'Issues in Teacher Education', in Anthony Jones (ed.), Education and Society in the New Russia (M. E. Sharpe, 1994), p. 243.
27. Jones, 'Teachers ...', p. 158.
28. David Lane, Soviet Society under Perestroika, revised edition (Routledge, 1992).
29. Webber & Webber, p. 244.
30. Lyyli Virtanen & Lyyli Ronkonen, Maailman koulut (Gaudeamus, 1984, in Finnish).
31. Urie Bronfenbrenner, Two Worlds of Childhood (Russel Sage Foundation, 1970).
32. See Ilja Srubar, 'War der reale Sozialismus Modern?', Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 43, 3, 1991, pp. 415-432; Ledeneva; Shlapentokh, p. 176.
33. See Ilja Srubar, 'War der reale Sozialismus Modern?', Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 43, 3, 1991, pp. 415-432; Ledeneva; Shlapentokh, p. 176.
34. Lonkila.
35. This was first suggested to me by Maurizio Gribaudi.
36. Risto Alapuro, 'Preconditions for collective inaction: teachers' social networks in St Petersburg', manuscript, 1996.
37. Ibid.
38. To what extent can findings about teachers be generalised to other professions or social groups in post-Soviet Russia? Are the phenomena described in this article characteristic only of teaching, and not of other professions? Owing to the nature of our data, I do not claim they can be generalised in a statistical sense. The plausibility of my analysis lies in the detailed depiction of the nature of social processes and, most importantly, in a comparison with similar Finnish data.
39. Srubar.
40. Fredrik Barth, Process and Form in Social Life (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981); Maurizio Gribaudi, 'Echelle, pertinence, configuration', in Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d'échelles (Seuil/Gallimard, 1996). See also Jacques Revel, 'Micro-analyse et construction du social', in Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d'échelles (Seuil/Gallimard, 1996).
41. Fredrik Barth, Process and Form in Social Life (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981); Maurizio Gribaudi, 'Echelle, pertinence, configuration', in Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d'échelles (Seuil/Gallimard, 1996). See also Jacques Revel, 'Micro-analyse et construction du social', in Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d'échelles (Seuil/Gallimard, 1996).
42. Fredrik Barth, Process and Form in Social Life (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981); Maurizio Gribaudi, 'Echelle, pertinence, configuration', in Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d'échelles (Seuil/Gallimard, 1996). See also Jacques Revel, 'Micro-analyse et construction du social', in Jacques Revel (ed.), Jeux d'échelles (Seuil/Gallimard, 1996).
43. Barth.