Article
Российская школа: альтернатива модернизации сверху
Russian school: an alternative to modernization from above. The current paper is concerned with an analysis of main challenge to contemporary school education and of examples of good responses to these challenges in different countries. The authors use results of international surveys of quality of education and comparative educational research to discuss competitive advantages of Russian educational system and its potential for development. Current school system in Russia can be attributed to the «fair» one according to the classification of McKinsey&Company. There are different strategies to reach the «good» or «great» level. Changing the whole system and elimination of a backlog were very popular in post-soviet Russia. These strategies use administration as a primary resource. They are very expensive, insensitive to local features of the system and contribute to the accumulation of «fatigue of changes». There is another possible strategy - development of strengths. This scenario implies successful initiative and interest of researchers, teachers and schools as the main sources of changes. This approach can be called «humanitarian modernization of education». The authors discuss possibilities of using this strategy and a set of measures which are necessary to consolidate and to use the competitive advantages of Russian educational system.
Dramatic political, socio-economic, and cultural transformation of Russia in recent decades are often compared to the reforms of Peter the Great. The ongoing reform of education, which is part of the changer, attracts international attention. There have been voices within the Czech: pedagogical public, growing in intensity in the past few years, pointing out the lack of information on the development of education in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, on the transformation of the educational system, and on the problems solved by politicians, experts, as well as school practice in the multi-ethnic and multi-national state. These problems may be of interest not only to the witnesses of the era of Soviet pedagogy and intensive work and personal contacts with its representatives, but also to the younger generation of teachers and researchers. The aim of the publication is to draw attention to education in the Russian Federation, providing the Czech educational community, professionals, and the general public with up-to-date information, as well as documenting, from a critical-analytical perspective, the development, current situation, and trends in Russian schooling.
The article is devoted to analysis of discursive practices of public representation and discussion of the political course of “modernization” announced by president Dmitry Medvedev. It is focused at interpretations of the idea of modernization by the leading Russian politicians as well as at the role of the notions about collective past, present and future in its ideological justification and contestation.
The chapter focuses on one of the ways to communicate with the sacred popular among contemporary Russian Orthodox believers – written appealing to the saints (letters and notes). Although not happy at all about this habit, the Church managers allow to publish these letters in the parish newspapers and web-sites and in other church mass-media. Analysis of publications of the letters addressed to Saint Xenia of Petersburg proves that the Church publishes them as a part of its advertising campaign targeted on those people who prefer irregular religiosity (pilgrimages, letters to the saint, etc) to traditional regular parish life. The chapter develops Peter Berger’s metaphor of religious market.
The article is concerned with results of content analysis of textbooks for high school in the area of social and human sciences. The author uses the typology of values introduced by S. Schwartz which consists of two value axes — “conservation — openness to change” and “selfassertion — caring about people and nature” — and describes values that underlie each subject area and then compares these values with results of mass surveys of the values of Russians.
Nature abhors a "vacuum" - the new power elite arrives at the time of major social and political transformations and endeavours to shore up its position within the country and obtain support from outside. New power groups, which are active at times of revolution and who replace, push aside or even depose the old elites and impose their own control over the state machine and position themselves as new power elite.There are themselves not immune to social transformation, especially in the first decades of coming to their new commanding role. Unless its claims are given legitimacy it is unable to implement its positive programme, which it immediately claims as the national programme. Every country "acquires" a new functioning elite - political, financial and intellectual - from revolution or a change of regime. The old elite may lose control and depart or upon luck may merge into a new combination of social strata of particular country. We also believe that the composition and the structure of elites is the country-specific and reflect one’s country history.
This book seeks to “re-think democracy.” Over the past years, there has been a tendency in the global policy community and, even more widely, in the world’s media, to focus on democracy as the “gold standard” by which all things political are measured. This book re-examines democracy in Russia and in the world more generally, as idea, desired ideal, and practice. A major issue for Russia is whether the modernization of Russia might not prosper better by Russia focusing directly on modernization and not worrying too much about democracy. This book explores a wide range of aspects of this important question. It discusses how the debate is conducted in Russia; outlines how Russians contrast their own experiences, unfavourably, with the experience of China, where reform and modernization have been pursued with great success, with no concern for democracy; and concludes by assessing how the debate in Russia is likely to be resolved.
Considering specifi city of modernization processes in Russia, caused both by internal problems and Russias place in global economy, the author brings an attention to the question of features of standard-values system of Russian reformers. Results of the analysis of 12 values-blocks forming a basis of the variety of the standard-valuable systems of Russians are given.
Smoking is a problem, bringing signifi cant social and economic costs to Russiansociety. However, ratifi cation of the World health organization Framework conventionon tobacco control makes it possible to improve Russian legislation accordingto the international standards. So, I describe some measures that should be taken bythe Russian authorities in the nearest future, and I examine their effi ciency. By studyingthe international evidence I analyze the impact of the smoke-free areas, advertisementand sponsorship bans, tax increases, etc. on the prevalence of smoking, cigaretteconsumption and some other indicators. I also investigate the obstacles confrontingthe Russian authorities when they introduce new policy measures and the public attitudetowards these measures. I conclude that there is a number of easy-to-implementanti-smoking activities that need no fi nancial resources but only a political will.
One of the most important indicators of company's success is the increase of its value. The article investigates traditional methods of company's value assessment and the evidence that the application of these methods is incorrect in the new stage of economy. So it is necessary to create a new method of valuation based on the new main sources of company's success that is its intellectual capital.