The great variety of interests and opinions in present-day society carries a priori the potential for conflict and tension, and this imparts timely relevance to the value of "tolerance" in political interactions among social groups and individuals. As a component of the social group of young people, college students are characterized by…

Russian society can benefit from the kind of simplified, packaged education that has developed in many countries, since it is a quick way to bring a mass of students to a certain level of competency. But it is not a good basis for creating the kind of specialists and creative thinkers that Russia will need to succeed in the coming years. [This…

The formulation of a national educational policy in Russia has to be conducted taking account of the characteristics of its sociocultural and spiritual components and go hand in hand with the problem of Russia's acquisition of a sense of its identity. Russian education must also take account of world tendencies in the development of civilization,…

Research on the reproduction of cultural capital in Russia shows that it requires not only appropriate motivation on the part of parents, close association between parents and children, but also institutional and material support. Inadequate financial resources, breakdowns in the functioning of the system of education and culture, and conflicts in…

Changes in the kinds of technology used in modern society are changing the ways in which people think. Russian students, like those elsewhere, are increasingly thinking in terms of short, unconnected forms of knowledge and are losing the ability to see connections, to think holistically. This presents a special challenge to education in Russia.

Russians are less concerned about the poor material conditions of institutions or inadequate textbooks than about the commercialization of education and high tuition. Also of great concern is the gap between educational achievement and employment opportunities, especially for the more highly educated. The perception that a higher education is a…

The demographic situation in the Russian Federation is characterized by a steady process of natural population loss; it began in 1992 and coincided with the economic crisis. To a partial extent the loss was made up for by migration, and by early 2008 the number of inhabitants of Russia declined to 142 million compared to 148.6 million in early…

It has become common to hear that "young teachers are the hope and foundation of the schools. The future is in their hands." There is good reason for these expectations: young people have a long professional life ahead of them. However, the pedagogical professions are not that popular. Many graduates of higher pedagogical educational…

More and more often the scientific literature indicates that the effectiveness of the Russian system of higher professional education has declined. The arguments cite the increase in the number of college students and institutions of higher learning, the large number of graduates who are working in jobs that are not in their specialty, the large…

The Moscow University of Economics (MESI) was the first university in Russia to become involved in distance education. MESI proposed that an experiment be conducted in Russia in the field of distance education to evaluate its potential. This article discusses the answers that were obtained to a number of the questions that were posed. The…

Given the difficult social and economic situation in Russia, the lives and health of young people are getting increasingly worse, as can be seen from the data of state statistics. In this article, the author investigates the self-preservation aspect of the health of college students. The health of any social-demographic group has two…

In the recent past, there has been more and more talk about the fact that the system of professional education has to meet the constantly changing need for specialists in the labor market. In the author's opinion, this is where the problem lies: the labor market requires that education satisfy its social and economic needs with respect to a…