The Transformation of Higher Education Systems in Six Post-Soviet Countries: Causes and Consequences of Organizational Change

Abstract

The paper examines how and to what extent the Soviet higher education system transformed after the collapse of theussr. It offers a research-based analysis of the external and internal factors of transformation in six post-Soviet countries: three “Slavic” states (Belarus, Russia, Ukraine), and three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). The paper characterizes a bounded number of types of organizations of higher education in each country. Using the set-theoretic multi-value qualitative comparative analysis (mvQCA), the authors identify several causal chains that led to the transformation of the Soviet comprehensive university into a ‘post-Soviet research university’ or ‘general education organization’. This paper compares the drivers of organizational diversity in Soviet and post-Soviet education, and traces country-specific features of the organizational transformation of universities in six post-Soviet countries.

Governing Universities in Post-Soviet Countries

“…The system was intentionally structured to remove competition between HEIs. They were immune from market and economic forces (Rezaev & Starikov, 2017) but not political or ideological ones (Kuraev, 2016). Soviet higher education institutions had a sociopolitical role that was different from Western and Asian universities in that they were "specialized parts of a state-controlled machine for manpower production .…”

“…It is through patterns of comparison across the set that interesting insights emerge that could be missed with a more traditional regional focus, such as on the Baltic countries or Central Asia. Because higher education's evolution across a diverse set of countries has varied over time (Rezaev & Starikov, 2017;Smolentseva et al, 2018), the comparisons reflect important developments and choices worthy of exploring. This approach, however, does have its limitations as discussed below.…”

Qualitative Comparative Analysis in Education Research: Its Current Status and Future Potential

“…Alternatively, in the absence of learning resources, institutions can still achieve high reputations by offering certain combinations of other resources. A sociology article on the change of the Soviet comprehensive university into a "post-Soviet research university" or "general education organization" in post-Soviet countries could stimulate comparative research on educational institutions (Rezaev & Starikov, 2017), for example, for studying the links between institutional changes and universities' research productivity.…”

“… 2 Multivalue sets, a less commonly used third type of sets, are an extension of crisp set QCA and allow capturing of multicategorical, nominal-scale conditions. For an introduction to mvQCA [multivalue set QCA], see Cronqvist and Berg-Schlosser (2009) and Vink and van Vliet (2009), and for an example relevant to higher education, see Rezaev and Starikov (2017). …”

Academic Capitalism and “Diploma Mills”. A book review on ‘Diploma Mills: How for­profit colleges stiffed students, taxpayers, and the American dream’ by A. J. Angulo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press

“…При этом из поля зрения коллективного Автора исчезает куда более обширный пласт других типов организаций, в том числе и тех, в кото рых высшее образование на практике вообще не реализуется. Подобные вузы представляют собой, возможно, наиболее недооцененный в исследовательском смысле и вместе с тем важнейший для формирования образовательной политики объект [Rezaev, Starikov, 2017]. В отечественной научной литературе не существу ет даже термина, который мог бы охарактеризовать такого рода организации (понятие «неэффективный вуз» кажется политически точным, но социологически некорректным), хотя в общественном мнении сложился определенный консенсус относительно содержательных характеристик данного феномена.…”