Article
Parental involvement and the educational trajectories of youth in Russia
This paper studies the influence of parental involvement in the educational process on the educational achievements of Russian students and their educational strategies, such as studying in high school and successful admission to university. We argue that the patterns of parental involvement represent a link between the formal (school) and informal (family) educational institutions and can have a beneficial effect on academic performance and contribute to the choice of the educational pathway to higher education. Based on data from the longitudinal study ‘Trajectories in Education and Careers’, it was shown that the results of school state examinations are positively associated with the active participation of parents in school meetings, the employment of tutors (except for the Unified State Exam score in mathematics), and the provision of additional literature for the child. A negative relationship was found between homework control and student success. In general, the factor of ‘rational’ (not excessive) involvement is positively associated with educational achievement and educational choice, which may indicate the non-linear nature of the relationship. Parental involvement itself depends on the family characteristics, such as mother’s education, family income and the number of books at home. In addition, family has a positive impact on educational success and educational strategies, and high school characteristics are especially important for the results of the Unified State Exam and the university choice.
This paper examines the prevalence and the costs of pre-entry coaching programs before and after the introduction of the Unified State Examination in Russia. The efficiency of private tutoring under the new standardized university admission procedures is estimated. It is argued that the main types of pre-entry coaching are still in demand, however the popularity of pre-entry courses at particular universities has declined, and the prevalence of classes with tutors who are not related to university has risen. A few years after the introduction of the Unified State Examination, the level of investment in private tutoring in real terms has barely changed; the returns from such an investment are still positive but moderate.
This article examines the relationship between pre-entry coaching (both in terms of money and effort) and the achievement of Russian high school graduates as measured by the results of the Unified State Examination (USE). Using a data set of students from the 16 biggest Russian cities, which includes information on USE results, family background, school characteristics, and patterns on pre-entry coaching, I estimate the factors that determine the final USE results. Characteristics of pre-entry courses (the duration of the program as well as the total fee) are related to higher USE scores, but the size of this association is moderate. Attending individual classes has a significant (but still moderate) relationship with the USE score in Russian, but the duration of a program moderately and positively relates to the USE scores. Other factors, like parental education, family income, student abilities, and the type of school attended are significant predictors of USE results in Russian, Mathematics, and the average USE score.
This article examines how migrant background influences educational outcomes of schoolchildren in Moscow and its oblast (region). We use logit regressions for panel data, over the years 2010 to 2013, taken from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE). As dependent variable we use educational progress approached by school grades as reported by parents or adult relatives. In addition, our econometric specification includes control variables such as socioeconomic status, type of school, health issues, gender, and age, to test the impact of migration status on the probability of being classified as a successful or unsuccessful student. The findings suggest that there is no difference between migrant and native schoolchildren, that is, migration background does not influence the educational achievements of pupils. On the other hand, as we expected, socioeconomic status has a negative impact on the probability of being classified an unsuccessful student. Boys have lower probabilities than girls of being classified as excellent students. Attendance of public regular schools negatively affects the probability of being an excellent student, health issues do not significantly affect the academic performance, while older students are low-performing.
The Future of Education, edited by Pixel, is a collection of international peer-reviewed conference proceedings. The reviewers, members of the scientific committee, include experts in the field of higher education, university lecturers and researchers. The topical areas cover effective teaching and learning, constructivist and generative approaches in education, education in specific areas and for specific groups of learners, innovations and new technologies in educational fields? curriculum development and new approaches in evaluation of educational results.
The significance of the problem of parental involvement in children’s education has to do with the proven positive effects of parental involvement in school on children’s wellbeing. However, no universal comprehensive idea of family involvement types and strategies has been developed so far, and the jury is still out on the efficiency of various family-school interactions in use today. This study is designed to shed light on the forms of parental involvement, which may differ depending on family, student and school characteristics. The study seeks to operationalize the concept of parental involvement, describe parental involvement based on the findings of a large-scale survey, evaluate the dependence of parental involvement on family, student and school characteristics, suggest models to predict the level of parental involvement half way through elementary school, and develop recommendations for schools. Parents of 1,447 students from Krasnoyarsk and Kazan middle schools involved in the iPIPS project were surveyed twice using the same questionnaire, first as their children became first-graders and then at the beginning of the third grade. The survey contained questions on family demographic characteristics, parents’ at-home and at-school involvement, and parental satisfaction with school communication. It was established that parental perception of school communication climate is a much more important predictor of thirdgrade parent involvement in school than family sociodemographic characteristics or the level of child development assessed at baseline. On the whole, the results obtained do not confirm the benefit of using universal strategies to encourage parental involvement.
Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.