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The Reproduction of Social Inequality within the Russian Educational System
Although previous studies addressed the role of school types for educational inequalities in Russia (Konstantinovskiy 2008; Roschina 2012; Prakhov 2014), they did not distinguish between the Boudon’s ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ effects of social background in securing educational advantage. Therefore it is likely that existing research has overstated the role of social background on educational success and educational pathways of Russian students. In our study, we attempt to bridge this gap by disentangling primary and secondary effects using recent longitudinal data on educational trajectories of Russian students and their prior achievements. We focus on (1) how institutional differentiation in secondary education interacts with social inequality and (2) whether it reinforces inequality of educational opportunities, including access to (quality) higher education.