14:34 April, 30 2011

In March, 2011 Daniel A. Alexandrov, deputy head of St. Petersburg branch of the National Research University-Higher School of Economics (NRU-HSE) in science and director of the Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory, visited the Universities of Frankfurt , Mannheim and Bamberg. During the meetings with the colleagues in these universities they discussed preliminary findings of the Laboratory and opportunities for common projects with sociologists from SESL,  LCSS ( Laboratory of Comparative Social Studies) and German researchers.

In March, 2011 Daniel A. Alexandrov presented the results of studies of the Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory on school segregation and integration of migrants at the conference in Frankfurt. During the visit there were meetings with researchers from German universities who have similar scientific interests as SESL scholars.

The first point of the trip was the University of Mannheim (Mannheim Universität) that resembles HSE in some sense: it focuses on socio-economic sciences. They also have big research centers on economics and sociology work at the university. In Mannheim Daniel Aleksandrov met Irena Kogan and Clemens Kroneberg.

The researchers of SESL met these German colleagues for the first time in 2008 in Berlin at the conference EQUALSOC, and also in Bamberg, where Irena Cogan used to work at that time. Irena Kogan is a bright scholar who studies sociology of migration in comparative perspective.

After several meetings in Germany in 2008, SESL has launched a project that studies integration of migrant children at school and social networks of pupils. In the framework of this project, more than 11 thousand pupils in 150 schools have been already surveyed. In the same year the German researchers organized a project in cooperation with the Dutch (Frank van Tubergen), British (Anthony Heath) and Swedesh (Jon Johnson) scholars and began a longitudinal study of migrant children in four countries (http://www.mzes. uni-mannheim.de/projekte/pro_zeig_e.php? Recno = 327) - the first wave was conducted in 2010. It turned out that our European colleagues have also launched a network survey of classes in their project, and thus the two projects are very similar in methodology and in the collected data.

Irena Kogan asked in detail about sampling of schools, methods of survey and the questionnaire. As a result, the research design withstood rigorous analysis. The colleagues were impressed by the scale of the carried work – it is enough to say that in order to encode the socio-professional status of the family according to ISCO and ISEI, 44 thousand open-ended questions about the employment of students' parents were processed. Of course, the main question that interested the German colleagues, was about the plans for further research. There were discussions about the possibility of organizing a long-term research and creating longitudinal databases. The obtained data about Russia and four countries in Western Europe can be compared now and during the meeting opportunities of common work on the comparative analysis were discussed. But the most interesting thing would be to turn the research of the SESL into a longitudinal research for the methodologies of the two projects to match even more.

Daniel Alexandrov discussed some other studies of SESL with Clemens Kroneberg, a young professor of sociology in Mannheim. He is known for his works in theoretical sociology as well as for studies of assimilation of migrants. Kroneberg is a student of Hartmut Esser, the prominent theorist and the creator of a large scientific school in Mannheim. Clemens Kroneberg implements the achievements of modern rational choice theory in its “Mannheim Edition” in different empirical areas. The model of frame selection in the studies of educational choice was discussed with him as this topic is being actively developed in SESL. The German scientist has confirmed that the collection and analysis of qualitative data is very important to the development of tools and collection of the correct data in the quantitative survey (which was not obvious to some of his colleagues).

The next university was Bamberg, where Daniel A. Alexandrov met four colleagues. At first, he met Volker Stocke, another student of H. Esser, who also applies the model of frame selection in his work. They discussed the research of SESL and made some comments. Stocke told about the German national education panel (National Educational Panel Survey, NEPS). This ambitious project covers four groups of respondents (children, parents, teachers/nurses and administrators), and several cohorts of children: newborn, nursery school, 10- year-olds (the period when the first educational choice is made), seniors and students. Annually, 60.000 interviews are taken (in all groups and cohorts together), psychological tests are conducted, etc.

The next meeting was with Cornelia Kristen, whom Daniel Alexandrov met three years ago when she worked in Leipzig. Now in Bamberg, she directs a research group that deals with migration issues in the panel research of education (NEPS). This national project in general, and the group of K. Kristen in particular, have many methodological findings, which can be adopted. For example, linguistic competence in this research is tested both in German and in their native language to clarify the usefulness of bilingualism. Researchers formulate hypotheses that are specific to different ethnic groups. For example, they suggest that selection of migrants in Germany from Turkey is negative, i.e. mainly uneducated population migrate.

In Bamberg a meeting with a Dutch sociologist Jaap Dronkers was held. He spoke at the seminar of sociology department of the University of Bamberg. Dronkers deals with comparative sociology, including the issue of migrants in European countries. In his report he talked about his analysis of the PISA-2006 data, in particular, the data on the educational success of migrant children and the impact of the ethnic composition of schools on different parameters, including various subtle effects at four levels: 1-country, 2-school, 3 - type of program at school, 4-individual level. Dronkers got very interested in the study of migrant children in the Sociology of Education and Science Laboratory and suggested a joint analysis of the collected data.

At the end of the visit to Bamberg, a meeting with Hans-Peter Blossfeld, a renowned scholar, supervisor of NEPS, was held. He said that he had just received a grant for the project EduLife, dedicated to educational paths in life, and offered HSE to organize a comparative study on educational paths. He also offered to help HSE to organize a panel study of education in Russia like American, British and German panels.

As a result of the tour to Mannheim and Bamberg, SESL and LCSS have received a number of proposals for cooperation. Irina Kogan agreed to organize a meeting in Dublin at the conference European Consortium for Social Research, where there will be an opportunity to discuss the possibility of common publications. Jaap Dronkers offered to write a common work to analyze our data. Finally, Hans-Peter Blossfeld proposed to hold a joint comparative study and even to organize in Russia an education panel as he is interesting to include Russia into the network of his projects. Such a reaction of foreign colleagues to the results of our work (even preliminary) clearly demonstrates its relevance on an international scale. Obviously, we have a lot of opportunities for organizing interesting comparative studies, and we won’t miss them!

By Ksenia Tenisheva and Svetlana Savelieva