School System and Educational Policy in a Highly Stratified Post-Soviet Society : The Importance of Social Context

This article presents the results of a study on Russian education policy. It explores how compulsory and secondary education meet contemporary social challenges, and how they should be adjusted to account for acute social inequality. The authors present evidence of the growing social polarization in post-Soviet Russia. This is discussed against the current situation in compulsory and secondary education, which is characterized by strong differentiation between schools in terms of their performance, enrollment, and availability of resources. They further discuss the possible impact of major turns in Russia's education policy on the processes of social stratification, and whether it was effective enough to provide equal access to quality education for all social groups.The analysis concludes by making several suggestions about how education policy in Russia needs to be adjusted for it to become more targeted and relevant to the context in which its education institutions operate