foreign students in the soviet union and modern russia problems of adaptation and communication

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016) 295 – 300 International Conference on Communication in Multicultural Society, CMSC 2015, 6-8 December 2015, Moscow, Russian Federation Foreign students in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia: problems of adaptation and communication Inna Vershinina*, Artemiy Kurbanov, Nataliya Panich Lomonosov Moscow State University, GSP-1, Leninskie Gory, Moscow 119991, Russian Federation Abstract The article deals with the specifics of foreign students’ studying in the Soviet Union and modern Russia The purpose is to identify and describe the basic problems related to the education of foreigners in the Russian Federation The paper analyses the motives for educational migration as well as factors hindering the adaptation of foreign students to the educational situation in Russia on the basis of empirical data It reveals problems hindering the increase of the number of foreign students and improvement of the quality of their training, and explores ulterior motives that determine the choice of countries for higher education TheAuthors Authors.Published Published Elsevier © 2016 2016The © byby Elsevier Ltd.Ltd This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) Keywords: Global education; higher school; foreign students; academic mobility; cultural communication Introduction Attracting foreign students within the high education providers of the Russian Federation is one of the tasks, the solution of which will enhance the place of educational institutions in the international rankings In two most prestigious international rankings - ranking of universities of the world QS and the ranking of the best universities in the world by The Times - the proportion of foreign students enrolled in it is present as one of the educational provider estimation parameters This indicator allows us to estimate the global competitiveness of the educational * Corresponding author E-mail address: urbansociology@yandex.ru 1877-0428 © 2016 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.12.032 296 Inna Vershinina et al / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016) 295 – 300 provider and its involvement in the process of globalization Academic mobility has been for a long time an important factor in the competition between higher education institutions both at national and global educational space level In fact, international university rankings form models and set the standards of a modern university, which many universities around the world are trying to follow The aim of the article is to examine the current state of the phenomenon of foreign students in Russia, as well as identifying the key factors that determine the characteristics of their studying The main objectives of the research were: - study of the historical context of education of foreign students in the USSR and post-Soviet Russia; - reconstruction of the motivation of foreign students regarding choice of country - a place of education; - modelling of the main options of the educational trajectory of foreign students in modern Russia; - analysis of the foreign students’ phenomenon in terms of potential social risks for the hosting country and for the students themselves The novelty of this research lies in the fact that we managed to systematically consider foreign students as a component of educational space of modern Russia, to describe the complex of problems associated with their adaptation and communication in new for them cultural and language environment The value of foreign students for the development of the education system and its competitiveness in the global educational space have been estimated Materials and methods The theoretical part of the research is based on an analysis of the history of the development of educational institutions related to foreign students studying in the USSR and modern Russia The object of the analysis were the specialized studies of individual organizational structures, in different historical periods responsible for training of foreign students in the USSR, as well as separate regulations, which reflected the political decisions of the Soviet government The authors also carried out its own empirical study, which included expert interviews with representatives of higher education providers (with the teaching staff, as well as with officers involved into international cooperation) and employees of the Federal Migration Service of Russia, as well as a series of interviews with foreign students in Moscow universities Interviews allowed to reveal the main purposes for which foreign students arrive, the problems that are the most relevant in the process of adaptation and learning, and also to classify foreign students of Moscow universities In the Soviet Union the value of educational institutions as an international policy instruments, through which it was possible to solve a wide range of strategic tasks was quickly realized These tasks, in particular, included the training of professional personnel for the main spheres of social life, parenting of new generations, the formation of the national elite, ideological models’ transmission, creation of general value and communicative space in the of USSR influence zone In the early 1920s Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and Mongolia citizens were training in the RSFSR on the free of charge basis In 1921 a specialized institution - the Communist University of the Toilers of the East named after I.V Stalin (KUTV) was established, in which by the end of 1921 year foreign citizens of forty-four nationalities have been trained (Sheregi et al, 2003) In 1925 year the Communist University of the Toilers of China (KUTC) was established, existing until 1938 The university made a significant contribution into the national liberation movement in China, produced a whole pleiad of the future well-known politicians of the country, contributed into the strengthening of cooperation between the USSR and China Among its graduates were four general secretaries of the CC CPC (Wan Min, Tsin Ban-sian, Zhan Vyntyan, Deng Xiaoping) and other political leaders of the PRC (Panin, 2011) In 1922-1936 in Moscow functioned the Communist University of the National Minorities of the West named after Marchlevsky, whose main task was the personnel training among the Soviet national minorities and among the representatives of the workers and the communist parties of foreign countries (Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, German, Italian, Greek and other sectors were formed) (Panin et al, 2012) The importance of educational institutions especially increased after the Second World War, when I the process of decolonization in Asia, Africa and Latin America had begun to unfold The Peoples’ Friendship University (PFU) was established by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated February 1960, from 1961 bearing the name of Patrice Lumumba - one of the symbols of the struggle of the African peoples for independence, Inna Vershinina et al / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016) 295 – 300 and in 1992 renamed the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (Resolution of the CC CPSU) By 1975, the University had already trained about 5600 experts, including 4250 graduates for 89 countries That same year, the University was awarded the People’s Friendship Order for its achievements in the training of specialists for Asian, African and Latin America countries (Official website of People's Friendship University of Russia) UDN has become one of the largest educational institutions in the training of foreign specialists in the world Within 40 years (from 1950 to 1990) the number of foreign students in the USSR increased by more than 20 times, reaching at the eve of the collapse of the USSR 126.5 thousand people, which is 10.8% of the global population of foreign students and allowed Soviet universities to formally take the 3rd place in the world after the US and French universities in the number of foreign students (Sheregi et al, 2003) Features of the Soviet society had a decisive impact on intercultural communications that took place in it Communication, as the German sociologist N Luhmann wrote, is not simply a process of information transfer, but "some historically specific proceeding, dependent on the context of the event» (Luhmann, 1997) The Soviet Union, as if not multicultural, but at least a polycultural society, was forced to solve the problem, which now acutely stands for many European countries: to establish peaceful coexistence of different nations’ representatives, religions and cultures Adaptation of foreign students, as a rule, held without any problems, as the inter-ethnic and inter-national conflicts harshly repressed by the Soviet state Foreign students felt quite comfortable in Soviet universities They quickly improved the level of knowledge of Russian language since they settled in the hostel apart from other representatives of their country, so that Russian was the main language of communication, which speeded up the adaptation of foreign students to the hosting society In a changing world environment, we are witnessing an increase of violence, aggression and intolerance in society (Platonova et al, 2015) Especially often this can be seen in the youth environment Not only foreigners, but also representatives of other regions of Russia quite often experience clear hostile attitude on the part of local residents Sociological studies data show that youth representatives, irrespective of ethnic, religious and territorial jurisdiction consider the use of violence in various situations as appropriate (Filatova et al, 2014) If inside of the university walls conflicts, especially with use of violence occur not so often, outside the university, unfortunately, they have become a common event The high level of aggression makes foreign students to stick together, forming small ethnic groups, within which communication is not in Russian, but in their native language This slows down the development of the Russian language, which is the language for receiving education and complicates their communication in the foreign cultural environment The quality of education, obtained by foreigners in Russia is declining due to their unwillingness to adapt to the hosting society Results and discussion The reasons why foreigners choose Russia for higher education have been changed If in Soviet times, engineering and technical qualifications were the most popular among foreign students, and economic qualifications were the least popular, now we are witnessing the opposite picture: most of students from foreign countries chose economics and management (16.3%) and the humanities (with the jurisprudence 13,4%) (Aref'ev et al, 2014) Such a change in the interests of foreign students can be directly linked to the transformation of the motives and aims of their training The results of interviews with foreign students suggest that the most often the qualification chosen is not the one which is in demand on the labor market, but the one which is easier to obtain They often seek so much not to obtain education, but rather a document of education, and, preferably, with minimal efforts Conventionally, foreign students can be divided into several categories The first one - the students whose parents send them to study, and for whom the main objective is to obtain a degree Usually they are children of wealthy parents, often officials, who consider their education as a step in an already established career grow path, which does not deserve attention on their part All the time, which, for example, their parents, who were educated in the Soviet Union spent on educational programs study, these students spend on fun: travel, visiting cafes, shopping, rest, etc And even if they are expelled from a university for academic failure, another university with high probability will accept them for training on an individual trajectory 297 298 Inna Vershinina et al / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016) 295 – 300 The next category of foreign students are those who really would like to obtain education, but can not so at a high level, dedicating a lot of time to studying, as they are forced to work to be able to pay for tuition and living expenses in a megapolis such as Moscow They also rarely attend classes, not always know the Russian language well, as they work together with people from their country However, they are also very rarely to be expelled from the university due to their poor study progress The third category of foreign students are those who come to work only Obtaining a work permit in Russia poses a number of challenges, both for employers and for the foreigners themselves While studying at the university, foreigners get grounds for lawful residence in the country Sometimes foreign ‘pseudostudents’ undertake graduate and post-graduate studies for two or three times in different faculties and in different areas of training The advantages of this kind of education - work process are tangible: living in a hostel is significantly cheaper for "student" as well as for an employer, who does not pay these costs, student visa almost does not cause problems on the part of the Migration Service and law enforcement agencies, actually takes responsibility from the employer for the employee’s being on the territory of the Russian Federation, on the one hand, and does not attract additional costs for issue of documents required for a foreign student, on the other hand, and also allows the employer not to take into account this working unit within reports It is necessary to separately identify one more category – these are foreign students who come on target streams, respectively, the sending party pays for education, also pays students scholarship, which usually allows students to study without thinking about seeking additional funding These are students who have the most responsible attitude about study, because they realize that they will be accountable for the funds which were allocated by the state for their education As a rule, they know they will obtain employment according their qualification upon return home, so they try to get maximum amount of knowledge, although it is difficult for those whose proficiency in Russian language does not allow to understand fully what is being discussed in the classroom The undertaken research led to the following conclusions: Far not all foreign students come to study in order to gain knowledge Objectives of their arrival are various Among Chinese students the most popular response was a statement that the main purpose of their arrival is studying Russian language and culture of the hosting country, apparently in order to subsequently get a job, which is also indicated by them as the main goal more often than immigrants from other countries Those who came for knowledge or diploma, often say that they could not go to college in China, as in this country there is high competition not only for state-funded places, but also for paid places However, for the majority of foreigners, getting an education i.e knowledge is rated first place Some students (from different regions) said that one of the factors of choosing Russia for obtaining education was the presence of relatives living in the country or speaking Russian The main problems faced by foreigners, are related to the complexity of communication in the new cultural and language environment About a third of those surveyed declared about the insufficient level of proficiency in Russian In general, the absence of such difficulties and problems is common, as a rule, for people coming from the former Soviet countries, whose purpose of arrival most often is particularly obtaining education Immigrants from Asian, African and South America countries indicate "cold" as one of the main problems leading to the conclusion about difficulties, related to adaptation not only to the cultural environment, but to the climate in Russia Students from African countries point on the conflicts in the dormitory much more often than others After graduation most of the students plan to return to their home country, however some not hide that they would like to stay in Russia, if there is such an opportunity (Chinese students talk about it most often, however people from other countries have similar desire) An interesting fact is that many of foreign students from former Soviet countries would like to continue their education or just to get a job in the EU, also some of them would not mind to stay in Russia, considering that there are more opportunities than in their home countries Education and life trajectories of students of technical and humanitarian faculties have significant differences The first ones more often tend to obtain an education, and the second ones - to get used to Russia and find a way to stay in the country The expert community in the person of higher education institutions’ representatives advocates for the expansion of international cooperation, the spread of the practice of obtaining two degrees after graduation – from a Russian university and from a foreign one This is because foreign students contribute to lifting of the place of the institution in various rankings and allow to attract additional financial resources Inna Vershinina et al / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016) 295 – 300 Representatives of the Federal Migration Service are skeptical about the prospects of increasing the number of foreign students, believing that this can lead to an exacerbation of the illegal migration problem According to them, foreign students come to the country not so much for education, but for adapting the cultural and linguistic environment and job search in order to subsequently remain in the country However, the research results demonstrate that this trajectory is typical often for Chinese students, but not for all foreigners In the post-Soviet period the political component almost completely disappeared from the range of factors determining the foreign students’ education development in Russia, replaced by economic and image considerations Recently, however, the attraction of foreign students is ceasing to be a local task to be solved by educational institutions and regaining a clear political dimension, as the State descries in teaching foreigners a way to solve the long-term strategic objectives in a complex international environment Conclusion Modern science and education actively move from qualitative criteria of activity’ evaluation to the quantitative ones Formal indicators characterizing the education system functioning are becoming a priority, including during the determination of the state sector policy guidelines Under these conditions, the number of foreign students is more important factor than their training quality In this case the meaning of this factor is suddenly shifting from predominantly economic aspects related to the level of involvement of the national education system in the global education market, into the political sphere (education as an instrument of implementation of internal and external policy state goals) The state again begins to actively use the academic mobility as a tool for the realization of their interests, as it has been in the history of education in the USSR Currently, the attraction of foreign students coming to be treated largely as a political resource, allowing the Russian Federation to implement their long-term interests in the strategically important regions by means of the "soft power politics" - through the training of qualified personnel, and the future representatives of national political elites, formation of their attitudes on cooperation and loyalty in the course of educational communication Thus, in a sense, there is a renaissance of the original ideas underlying the foreign students attraction in the Soviet Union These ideas not imply any commercial component and were caused solely by political considerations – the Soviet state when was almost completely internationally isolated strived to use every opportunity to spread its influence outside and receiving foreign allies Educational communication is a very handy tool to achieve these goals References Aref'ev, A.L., and Sheregi, A.F (2014) Inostrannye studenty v rossijskih vuzah [Foreign students in Russian universities] Moscow Filatova, M.N, and Volkova, L.V (2014) Otnoshenie molodezhi k nasiliyu kak sredstvu razresheniya mezhlichnostnyh i social'nyh konfliktov [The attitude of young people to violence as a means of resolving interpersonal and social conflicts] Proceedings from Psihologiya razvitiya i stagnacii lichnosti v ramkah sovremennogo obshchestva Materialy II Mezhdunarodnoj nauchno-prakticheskoj Internet-konferencii Sistema virtual'nyh konferencij Pax Grid [Psychology of development and stagnation of the individual in modern society Materials of II International scientific-practical Internet-conference System virtual conferences Pax Grid.] Kazan' Kiseleva, E., and Chernyh, A (2015) Rossiya narashchivaet import studentov dlya prodvizheniya svoih interesov v mire [Russia increases imports of students to promote their interests in the world] Kommersant" [Kommersant], 73 (24.04.2015) URL: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2715149 (accessed on 15.01.2016) Luhmann, N (1997) Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft Frankfurt Panin, E.V (2011) Iz istorii sozdaniya i deyatel'nosti universiteta dlya kitajskih trudyashchihsya v Moskve (1925-1930 gody) [From the History of Creation and Activity of the University of the Chinese Workers in Moscow (1925–1930)] Izvestiya Saratovskogo universiteta Novaya seriya Seriya: Istoriya Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya [Proceedings of Saratov University New series Series History International Relations], 11 (2-2), 72-79 Panin, E.V., amd Harlamova, T.I (2012) Kommunisticheskie universitety dlya nacional'nyh men'shinstv v sovetskoj Rossii: 1920-1930- e gg [Kommunist universities for national minorities in Soviet Russia: the 1920-1930s] Istoricheskie, filosofskie, politicheskie i yuridicheskie nauki, kul'tura i iskusstvovedenie Voprosy teorii i praktiki [Historical, Philosophical, Political and Law Sciences, Culturology and Study of Art Issues of Theory and Practice], (21) Issue 3, 153-156 Platonova, A., and Kokarevich, M (2015) Formation of Collective Responsibility Principles in Higher Professional Education Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 206, 434 - 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analysis of the foreign students? ?? phenomenon in terms of potential social risks for the hosting country and for the students themselves The novelty of