Money Versus the Soul: Neoliberal Economics in the Education Modernisation Reform of Post-Soviet Russia

Elena Minina ()
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Elena Minina: National Research University Higher School of Economics

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: Through the examination of the concept of ‘commercial service’ the article explores the ideological underpinnings and cultural embeddings of the market economy in post-Soviet education modernisation reform vis-a-vis the makeup of indigenous Russian culture and pedagogy. While post-Soviet Russia’s educational sector has been extensively commercialised, the public attitude towards the new educational economics have remained largely antagonistic. By bringing together the economic and the ideological angles, I show how bottom-up resistance is maintained and normalised, triggering a policy backlash. The article probes the obstinate public resistance to the idea of education as a ‘commodity’ and exposes the cultural logic behind it. Drawing on discourse studies and policy borrowing frameworks, the analysis demonstrates how the market values of competitive individualism, material profit and entrepreneurship were left under-conceptualised in the official discourse and consequently rejected in the public discourse in favour of domestic values of egalitarianism, collegiality, moral education, and an orientation towards non-materialist values

Keywords: Russian education reform post-Soviet education; neoliberalism; education commercialisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-hpe and nep-tra
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Published in WP BRP Series: Education / EDU, December 2016, pages 1-31

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:39edu2016

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