Ulrich Teichler - Professor, International Centre for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel (Germany). Address: Universität Kassel, Mönchebergstraße, 19, 34109, Kassel. E-mail: teichler@incher.uni-kassel.de

Most current discussions of diversity within higher education systems focus on comparing and contrasting universities located at different positions in the vertical rankings hierarchy. This paper innovates by identifying trends and patterns in horizontal diversification—i. e., diversity of types of study programs, educational concepts, and specializations—and ultimately reaches the conclusion that the current frenzy over rankings is causing quality to be unevenly distributed throughout higher education systems and undermining the concept of “the wisdom of the many.” It  begins by distinguishing between the various types of diversity. It then describes various educational reforms and attempts to engineer horizontal diversity across Europe. A discussion follows about the origins of ranking systems and how they took root and gained currency in Europe, where informal differences between universities had previously been seen as trivial and secondary to formal differences, and the possible damaging implications such rankings might have for the quality of education throughout the entire world. Higher education policymakers, the paper concludes, must deliberately focus on bolstering the quality of all educational institutions, not just those with the highest rankings.

Steve O. Michael - PhD, Professor of Higher Education, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Arcadia University (2009–2014), Interim Executive Director, Association of Chief Academic Officers, USA. Address: 450 South Easton Road, Glenside, PA 19038–3295, USA. E-mail: stevemichael2014@gmail.com

With the increasing internationalization of higher education and the explosion in the number of students and faculty studying, researching, and teaching outside of their home countries, global standards for educational quality control have become an imperative. The most effective approach to quality control within institutions of higher education, the paper argues, is voluntary accreditation— periodic internal reviews that are externally validated. Accreditation is a uniquely American creation, but it is gaining currency in other countries as well. The paper discusses the potential benefits of international accreditation, which would facilitate collaboration between accredited universities located in different countries. The practice of accreditation is contrasted with the practice of ranking, which is presented as a commercial exercise that does a poor job of measuring the actual institutional quality and that is ultimately based on the personal opinions of the people doing the ranking. Finally, the potential challenges that international accreditation faces (including unwillingness of the creators of the current quality industry to yield power to a global  ccreditation agency, among other things) are presented as temporary obstacles.

Marek Kwiek - Director, Center for Public Policy Studies; Chairholder, UNESCO Chair in Institutional Research and Higher Education Policy; Professor, University of Poznan, Poland.Address: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, ul. H. Wieniawskiego 1, 61–712 Poznan, Poland. E-mail: kwiekm@amu.edu.pl

This paper explores various aspects of the internationalization of the academic profession in Europe, using a micro-level (individual) approach which relies on the primary data collected in a comparable format from 17,211 European academics from 11 countries. It focuses, in particular, on 1) the patterns of internationalization of teaching, research, and publishing in hard vs. soft clusters of academic fields and on 2) the role of international research cooperation in individual research productivity. Research productivity and international publication co-authorship of  “internationalists” and “locals” (or academics collaborating and not collaborating internationally) across Europe are compared. Finally, policy implications of the study for national research policies are briefly discussed.

Ilya Prakhov - Candidate of Sciences in Economics, Research Fellow, International Research Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Address: 20 Myasnitskaya str., 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation. E-mail: ipra@inbox.ru

Despite massification of higher education in Russia and standardized entry examinations, candidates may still encounter some obstacles while trying to enter a university. Access to higher education can be limited at different levels: personal (lack of competencies required to enter a specific university), family (social and cultural status of p arents), or institutional (the schooling system). Being affected by these factors, a candidate might only qualify for a non-selective university offering curricula of lower quality. This paper uses the data provided by the Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations and by the ranking assessing the quality of admission to higher education institutions to evaluate the factors affecting the choice of university based on the level of its selectivity. It appears that opting for a selective higher education institution not only depends on the USE (Unified State Exam) points obtained by the candidate (the major criterion of admission in the Russian Federation) but is also determined by the factors that are not directly associated with the candidate’s skills: father’s education, financial standing of the family, its cultural capital, school characteristics (type of school, specialization in the class), and the amount of financial investments in test preparation courses. All together, these factors challenge the equality of opportunities for candidates and the accessibility of quality higher education for students from low-income families.

Marina Terentyeva - Junior Researcher, Institute for Socio-Economic and Energy Problems of the North, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Address: 26 Kommunisticheskaya str., 167982, Syktyvkar, the Republic of Komi, Russian Federation. Email: iesp@mail.ru

The modern state of the education system in the Republic of Komi has been analyzed to identify the vocational and qualification structure of manpower in the Northern Economic Region. The evolution of the vocational education system was studied beginning from 1959. It is shown that the education system is developing in line with the catch-up pattern, which implies universal nature of higher vocational education. The non-diversified structure of production in the Republic of Komi makes the vocational education system solve two contradicting problems: performance of the 2020 Strategy focused mainly on translating the region to innovative development, on one hand, and overcoming the labor market imbalance on the other. Two educational clusters are evolving in the region today, associated with the forest and oil & gas industries. Ultimately, the personnel training system should be brought in line with the economic structure of the region in need of manpower.

Sergey Roshchin - Candidate of Sciences in Economics, Vice Rector, Head of the Department of Labor and Population Economics, Head of the Laboratory for Labor Market Studies, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Email: sroshchin@hse.ru

Victor Rudakov - Analyst, Laboratory for Labor Market Studies, Ph.D. student at the Department of Labor and Population Economics, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Email: victor.n.rudakov@gmail.com

Address: 20 Myasnitskaya str., 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation.

This paper is a review of oeuvres studying the factors that determine starting salaries of university graduates. The focus is laid upon the works addressing the question: To what extent can   starting salaries for graduates be indicative of the quality of education received? We discuss the theoretical conceptions shedding light on the reasons for differences in salaries of fresh graduates: the theory of human capital, the signaling theory of education, the theory of equalizing differences, and empirical studies aimed at measuring the influence various factors have on the size of starting salaries. An analysis of the oeuvres has shown that, despite the important role played by the quality of education, there are many other factors that can have an impact on the salary size. Such factors include diversity of graduates, diversity of jobs, market imperfections, individual preferences of graduates and their strategies of entering the labor market. The provided review and critical analysis of foreign studies designed to assess the correlations between the quality of higher education and the level of starting salaries for graduates allows us to define the general requirements to data quality in case Russia adopts the system of university graduate monitoring.

Diana Koroleva - Director, The Contest of Innovations in Education, Institute of Education, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Email: dkoroleva@hse.ru

Tatiana Khavenson - Research Fellow, The International Laboratory for Education Policy Analysis, Institute of Education, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Email: tkhavenson@hse.ru

Address: 20 Myasnitskaya str., 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation.

This is an analysis of social and professional characteristics, as well as value orientations of a modern educational innovator. The survey included participants of the 2014 Contest of Innovations in Education, with the sample of 304 respondents. Value orientations were revealed with the help of a questionnaire based on the Schwartz’s value theory. The results were compared to those of the European Social Survey of the Russian population conducted in 2012. Answers of the Contest participants differed dramatically from those of an average Russian, both in subjective importance of specific value orientations and in the structure of value orientation hierarchy. Innovators appreciated more often the values of self-sufficiency, kindness and universalism, as well as willingness to take risks in their professional life. They were less guided in their actions by the desire to take and to hold power which was not associated with their personal achievements. The survey demonstrated that innovations in education could be offered and implemented not only by experts, i. e. people working in educational institutions of different levels, but also by  employees of companies that are not directly related to education, as well as by school and university students. Innovators have a better educational background and participate actively in supplementary education events.

Sofia Dokuka - Candidate of Sciences in Sociology, Junior Researcher, Center for Institutional Studies, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Email: sdokuka@hse.ru

Diliara Valeeva - Junior Researcher, Center for Institutional Studies, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. E-mail: dvaleeva@hse.ru

Address: 24 Myasnitskaya str., 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation.

Research on co-evolution of networks and behavior became possible with the emergence of student performance and behavior dynamic data collection and storage tools, as well as with the development of new social network analysis methods. Dynamic network analysis answers the question, how specific forms of student behavior, like bad habits, develop and propagate. It is also helpful in following how school or university students enter into friendship or antagonism with each other, as well as in assessing the impact social relations have on academic performance. The paper gives a review of the two key methods used for empirical analysis of social network dynamics. Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOM) represent one of the most elaborated  techniques of social network dynamics investigation. This approach regards the present state of a network as dependable on its preceding state uniquely. Network evolution appears to be continuous, not discrete, so that a structural macro change is, in fact, a multitude of micro changes. Instead of dealing with structure of the network and prerequisites for its development, the SAOM model studies the processes underlying any changes recorded. Separable Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (STERGM) are an alternative approach towards research on social network dynamics. In this case, the social network observed is a materialization of one of possible networks with predetermined characteristics. Any network develops in the result of a stochastic process, and the research should be aimed at discovering what forces this process is driven by. Comparison of an empirically discovered network with networks of similar size reveals structural features of the network and characteristics of actors who influenced the process of its establishment. In this paper, we also give an example of how both models can be used with the same set of data.

Maxim Bruhanov - Candidate of Sciences in Economics, Junior Researcher, International Research Laboratory for Institutional Analysis, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Email: mbryukhanov@gmail.com

Sergiy Polyachenko - M. Sc. in Economics, Junior Researcher, International Research Laboratory for Institutional Analysis, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Email: sergiy.polyachenko@gmail.com

Address: 20 Myasnitskaya str., 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation.

The paper presents results of factor and regression analysis of determinants affecting cognitive skills assessed with PIAAC tests. Comparative analysis of competencies by occupation categories and by specializations shows that results of the Russian sample fall remarkably behind the average OECD scores in literacy and numeracy. The difference is especially perceptible between lawmakers, high-level public officials, top- and middle-level managers, most highly skilled professionals, and respondents from humanities, social sciences, business, law, mathematics, or computer sciences. However, respondents with low education levels (8 years of school or less) and unqualified workers scored better than their average European counterparts. OECD graduates from “natural sciences, mathematics and computer sciences” had higher points in numeracy in the PIAAC sample. Russia demonstrated almost no difference between the numeracy points obtained by people who majored in “humanities, languages and art”, “natural sciences, mathematics and computer sciences”, “engineering sciences, production and construction”, “health  are”, or “services”. We believe that graduates from “natural sciences, mathematics and computer sciences” cannot enjoy a competitive advantage in numeracy due to no rigid selection of school students, to the low-level requirements to university graduates, and to no efficient labor markets available.

Aleksandr Chashchukhin - Candidate of Sciences in History, Associate Professor, The Humanities Department of the National Research University—Higher School of Economics, Perm. Address: 38 Studencheskaya str., 614070, Perm, Russian Federation. Email: alexandr-pstu@mail.ru

This paper analyzes the specific features of habitus and speech practices of education authority employees of the late Stalinist era. These people are often “invisible” for researchers who traditionally focus on teachers and students. Meanwhile, it’s inspectors and administrators of local education authorities, developers of teaching methods, professors of advanced training institutes, and party functionaries supervising educational policy issues who mastered and produced discourses that were not just a basis for statutory records: their speech practices were translated to the school, constructing the professional worldview of teachers. The study uses materials of the audit carried out in 1949–1950 by Molotov (Perm) regional education authority at the initiative of the regional committee. The auditors were interested in how two ideology-forming school subjects, History and Constitution of the Soviet Union, were taught. We also investigate into the ways of using political language in professional teaching environments and reconstruct the mechanisms of school teacher performance assessment and the practices that molded the habitus of a teaching expert in the education system.

Aleksey Lyubzhin - Doctor of Sciences in Philology, Research Fellow, The Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Moscow State University Research Library. Address: 9, Mokhovaya str., 103073, Moscow, Russian Federation. Email: vulture@mail.ru

Collision of M. Katkov’s and A. Shchapov’s ideas is seen as a fundamental conflictthat sheds light on what preceded destruction of the traditional Russian school. The contemporary Russian school embodies the almost sesquicentennial ideas of A. Shchapov and vigorous denial of the teaching principles of M. Katkov, the ideologue of the Russian gymnasium of the last years of its existence.

Yana Rudneva - Candidate of Sciences in History, Prorector for Research and Development, The State Autonomous Educational Institution of Further Vocational Education “Institute for Educational Development of the Republic of Tatarstan”. Address: 9 Kremlyovskaya str., 420111, Kazan, Russian Federation. Email: ya.rudneva@rambler.ru

A lot of potential is held by classifying university research as an individual discipline. Its evolvement is now progressing through conceptualizing the subject field and testing various disciplinary approaches towards describing the university as a heterogeneous object. The reviewed multi-authored monograph serves an example of how efforts of experts in different fields can be efficiently integrated to study the range of problems associated with university existence and transformation. The monograph includes a number of original authors’ theories that may help define the unique features of the new disciplinary field. The articles contained in the monograph refer to the critical oeuvres and ideas that provided for the tools required for present-day  einterpretation of the notion of university; the authors unveil the paradoxes of “the great historical narrative” that come to surface when traditions of the past are revised for the sake of the present; the monograph also investigates into the issue of discursive nature of historical sources and narratives created on their basis.

Galina Tsukerman - Doctor of Sciences in Psychology, Leading Researcher, The Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Sciences. Address: 9 Mokhovaya str., 119019, Moscow, Russian Federation. E-mail: galina.zuckerman@gmail.com

Galina Kovalyova - Candidate of Sciences in Pedagogy, Head, The Center for Assessment of Education Quality, Institute for Content and Methods of Education, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Address: 5/16, Makarenko str., 105062, Moscow, Russian Federation. E-mail: centeroko@mail.ru

Marina Kuznetsova - Candidate of Sciences in Pedadogy, Leading Researcher, The Institute for Content and Methods of Education, Russian Academy of Sciences; Research Fellow, The Institute of Education, National Research University—Higher School of Economics. Address: 5/16, Makarenko str., 105062, Moscow, Russian Federation. E-mail: bernin@mail.ru

The Push–Pull tool is a combination of the PIRLS and PISA tests designed to assess literacy among school students of 4–9 grades and based around informational texts. The method allows to assess the dynamics of reading literacy among individuals and groups of school students. The paper presents data from three samples of school students who answered the Push–Pull questions twice in one or two years. All the samples reveal the same regular patterns: considerable progress in literacy among those who scored low the first time, and regress among those who initially performed the best. Besides, great differences were found between the best performers of the test in Russia and their counterparts in the OECD countries, which means regress among the best reading students has nothing to do with the processes of age-related development. Instead, it is explained through the culture-specific development tools and the lack of teaching methods required to ensure further expansion of the reading elite.