Experts at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow have recently published the findings of research undertaken at schools in areas where immigrants live. The research measured classroom activity, punctuality and tardiness, Russian language level and other important factors. Their results suggest that everyday stereotypes about “poor” schools overrun with the children of immigrants are often fantasies.
It’s not uncommon to overhear a group of mothers on a park bench say condemn a local school as “Azerbaijani” (or indeed Dagestani, Kyrgyz…). Such words can strike terror into the hearts of parents in search of a decent school for their children. But we have to ask ourselves the question of whether there is any evidence behind these assertions. Are there really many schools in Russia where the majority of children come from immigrant families? And what are class conditions like in those schools where immigrant children study?
Questions such as these, it would seem, are simple enough. And satisfactory answers are long overdue.
Nevertheless, the first serious research into this area was conducted only very recently. The results, unfortunately as of yet incomplete, have just been published. Experts from the Higher School of Economics have researched the situation in the schools of a few Russian regions; crucially, of those regions where they managed to secure the permission of local bureaucrats. They are: the Moscow Region, Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Pskov, Tomsk and the Tomsk Region. In Moscow itself, where the situation is, it is said, the most complicated of all, the researchers failed to secure the necessary permission.
Incomplete as they may be, the researchers’ findings suffice to dispel the vast majority of myths concerning immigrant children which have formed over recent years.
Myth 1: In some classes half the children are “foreigners”
“I have often heard teachers tell stories about conflict in the classroom arising from inter-ethnic misunderstandings, yet as much as I look for examples I’m yet to find any”, says Daniil Aleksandrov, director of the scientific and teaching laboratory “Sociology Education and Science” at the HSE and one of the authors of the research. “One of my favourite examples concerns as ‘Azerbaijani’ school in the Moscow Region where, apparently, hardly any of the students are Russian. We arrive at the school, and there are literally no Azerbaijani children! We ask the teacher, she only laughs; they graduated many years ago! It turned out that an Azerbaijani community had, many years ago, moved to the village, and many of the new immigrants had children of the same age. When they started going to school, some of the classes did genuinely have many Azerbaijani children, which somehow generated the impression that half the schoolchildren were immigrant children. But this was 11 years ago! While today the school is indistinguishable from any other Moscow Region school, the legend of its ‘Azerbaijani’ classes remains”.
The situation in other schools which had been described to the researchers as overrun by one or another ethnic group was pretty much the same. Academics are persistent people; in their research they travelled to numerous such addresses. Their conclusion: a school’s reputation almost never matches the real situation in its classrooms.
“Migration officers told us that the migrant children often start fights”, continues Aleksandrov. “We decided to check this assertion; together with migration officers and civil servants from the Ministry of Education we looked through all the relevant statistics and searched far and wide but no one could come up with anything to support such a notion!”
The same holds true even in those areas of the Moscow Region, such as Lyubertsy, Mytischy and Kotelniki, which have the largest immigrant populations. Fights between adults, of course, occur. In schools, however, inter-ethnic warfare between children is noticeably absent.
Myth 2: A cultural divide exists between local and immigrant children
According to researchers, those problems that do exist are more often caused by cultural rather than ethnic differences.
“It happens that a child falls behind a year or even more as a result of the parents’ move”, explains Danil Aleksandrov, “and then a 19-year-old young man may find himself in the 11th year (with children aged 15-16). Maybe the cultural norms of his society dictate that he should be working at this age, but instead he’s sitting listening to a teacher who may be hardly much older than he is!”
Often such children drop out of school. But rarely do they do this because they are stupid or can’t keep up with the class.
“The children of economic migrants may leave school to work, for example, in the same car repair shop that their relatives work in”, says the researcher. “In another case a girl may leave school because she has reached the age of 16 and is already expected to either get married or help with the chores at her parents’ house. She may be ashamed of sitting in school and reneging on her duties, and getting low marks can prove the final straw”.
Myth 3: The new students do not know Russian
Another reason why many parents are inclined against migrant children is their belief that these children do not know Russian. Research shows that for 10% of children in schools in the Moscow Region Russian is not their native language. But that by no means proves that they cannot use the language!
“The Russian-language level of the immigrant children is very high, particularly of those who come from the Caucasus and from Central Asia”, explains Daniil Aleksandrov. “99% of these children have come from the territory of the former Soviet Union. Their grandparents studied, worked and travelled throughout the USSR; they speak fluent Russian! Therefore significant language barriers simply do not exist. This is not Amsterdam, where, for example, the children of Moroccan immigrants live in families where the older generation know only their own Arab dialect!”
Moreover, the children quickly improve their Russian, and their parents encourage them to do so.
“I once asked an Azerbaijani mother whether or not it was important for her for her children to study in a school with other Azerbaijani children”, recalls the expert. “She answered: ‘better to be as few as possible!’ Although they will always try and preserve their national identity, at the same time immigrants strive to integrate into their newly chosen cultures. The children already stand out on the basis of their ethnic identity. But it’s not the case that Azerbaijani children play only with other Azerbaijanis, or Armenians with other Armenians. It’s far more likely that the children will mix and play together, despite the fact of the conflict between their nations unfolding over the Nagorno Karabakh Region. It is only when they get older do they suddenly find out, much to their surprise, that their friendships are somehow ‘forbidden’”.
Myth 4: They do not want to study
Another common fallacy busted by the researchers is that the children of immigrants are more workshy than their Russian classmates. The researchers suggest that, on the contrary, the motivations for immigrant offspring are greater than those for local children.
“The important thing here is not so much language as the status of the migrant”, argues Daniil Aleksandrov. “Russian children who have moved to Moscow from Siberia are also more motivated to study than children local to the Moscow Region, whose families have lived here for generations. Not because the local children are less intelligent, but because for those who have come from afar it is more important to overcome potential gaps in social capital by studying harder”.
The majority of these children go on to study at higher education establishments.
“They often end up in prestigious professions, as doctors, solicitors, prosecuting lawyers, interior ministry servicemen”, explains the professor. “From their earliest days these children find themselves in an unsure minority position. They therefore choose to pursue prestigious careers that will help them secure a more stable place in society”.
Conclusions
Extrapolating from one small field study to the situation in the rest of the country is, of course, unadvisable. Six regions cannot represent all of Russia. Nevertheless, not every region need be represented. After all, migration in, say, Kamchatka, is doubtless less of a problem than in Moscow. The most important thing that these sociologists have been able to demonstrate with their research is this: Russian fears regarding their new migrant neighbours are greatly exaggerated and rarely justified. Most surprising this is the case even with those who work on the front line as teachers or migration officers.
Expert opinion
Igor Remorenko, Dean of Moscow City Pedagogical University:
“Many teachers now undertake special training in order to work more effectively with immigrant children. This can take the form of certain master’s programmes, where the students study relevant theories in cultural studies and ethnography, and learn to teach Russian as a Foreign Language. The master’s course is not so popular, however, as these kinds of skills should be possessed anyway by every teacher.
There are also relevant professional training courses offered to teachers on a voluntary basis throughout their careers. School heads can choose whether or not to send their teachers on these courses depending on the situation with their classes; if one class suddenly receives a large influx of immigrant children, the school director may decide that the class’s teacher needs the extra training.
The new federal educational standards and the EGE standardised exam system do not take into account the differences between local children and immigrant children. Teenagers who wish to study at university must take the EGE exam. As university courses in Russia are taught in Russian, students must speak the language fluently. I consider this to be the correct approach, which corresponds to international standards such as the requirement for students wishing to study in American universities to sit the TOEFL exam.
