A groundbreaking sociological study by researchers from the Higher School of Economics (HSE) Institute of Education sheds new light on this phenomenon by delving deeply into the world of four small, non-major Russian universities. These universities, characterized by below-average Unified State Exam (USE) admission scores ranging roughly between 60 and 67 out of 100, predominantly serve first-generation students in regions far removed from Russia’s metropolitan academic centers. Due to their roots as former teacher-training institutes and their ongoing importance in regional education, these institutions embody a unique educational culture largely unexplored in extant research.

Between 2022 and 2024, the researchers conducted 135 semi-structured interviews with a diverse cohort of students, faculty members, and administrative staff—including department heads, deans, and vice-rectors—across institutions situated in the Altai Republic, Altai Krai, Kamchatka Krai, and Ivanovo Oblast. This rich qualitative data was complemented by sustained ethnographic observation of campus life, enabling a comprehensive examination of the informal and formal modes of student care prevalent in these environments. Interestingly, queries about care and support were never posed directly; such themes emerged organically through participants’ descriptions of their everyday experiences and relational dynamics, often evoked through endearing terms like “children,” “second family,” and “like at home.”

At the core of the study’s findings lies a pronounced duality in the culture of care observed. Faculty members engage in what can be described as an affective labor of support, cultivating warm, personal connections with students. This includes knowing students by name, showing genuine interest in their academic and personal challenges, and providing assistance that transcends pedagogical boundaries. Concurrently, however, care is inextricably entangled with continuous oversight. The absence of dedicated student support services results in faculty assuming multifaceted roles resembling parental figures, wherein they do not merely nurture but also discipline and monitor.

This dual framework blurs traditional hierarchical boundaries between educators and learners. Students’ routines are subject to rigorous surveillance; attendance is monitored closely, dormitory behaviors scrutinized, and parental contacts routinely initiated through “parent–teacher conferences.” Even students legally recognized as adults often find themselves treated as dependent minors, trapped in a liminal state of extended adolescence. Such practices reinforce a deeply embedded model of student care that simultaneously supports and constrains, reminiscent of an overseer’s gaze rather than a liberatory embrace.

Moreover, this culturally ingrained continuity of supervision draws on gendered expectations prevalent within the Russian educational workforce. The majority of faculty members at these institutions are women, many of whom invest their emotional labor without any supplementary remuneration, underscoring complex intersections between gender roles and professional identities. The conflation of nurturing with monitoring evokes a maternal archetype that both comforts and controls, creating emotional bonds that complicate students’ developmental trajectories toward independence.

The implications of this dual care model are multifaceted. On one hand, the emotionally warm and trusting relationships foster a sense of belonging and community cohesion vital for student retention and success in geographically and economically marginalized regions. Such an environment counters alienation and detachment often reported in larger, more impersonal universities. On the other hand, these intensive supervisory practices risk perpetuating dependency, impeding students’ full emancipation into autonomous adulthood and higher education as a site of self-directed growth.

This system challenges predominant Western narratives of university student development, which emphasize a linear progression toward independence. The Russian small university context reveals how sociodemographic realities, institutional histories, and cultural traditions converge to produce a hybrid care model. This model sustains the university community but simultaneously extends a “school-like” atmosphere, blurring the boundary between secondary and tertiary education both institutionally and experientially.

Tatiana Akuneeva, Research Assistant at the HSE Institute of Education’s Laboratory for University Development, succinctly summarizes the study’s nuanced perspective: “In small, non-selective universities, caring for students involves both support and control. These forms are not contradictory but together create a stable system of relationships that largely holds the university community together.” This dynamic partnership between emotional warmth and regulatory oversight is fundamental to understanding the social fabric of these institutions.

Ksenia Romanenko, Expert at the same laboratory, further highlights the duality inherent in this care culture, emphasizing the juxtaposition of trust-building and supervision: “These universities combine trusting, emotionally warm relationships between students and faculty with elements of strict supervision, including behaviour monitoring and parental involvement. While this model can promote cohesion and stability within the university community, it also reinforces student dependence and extends a school-like experience.” Their observations invite a reevaluation of student care paradigms beyond Western-centric models, accounting for regional specificity and institutional particularities.

As higher education systems worldwide continue to evolve under pressures of accessibility, equality, and student well-being, the insights from this study offer critical reflections for policymakers, educators, and researchers. They underscore the need to balance affective support with fostering autonomy, and to recognize that cultural and systemic legacies shape enduring institutional practices. Particularly in non-selective universities serving vulnerable populations, understanding the dual nature of care is crucial to improving student experiences and outcomes while avoiding paternalistic or overly restrictive approaches.

This research, published in the British Journal of Sociology of Education, thus opens new avenues for comparative international scholarship and practical innovation in university student support systems. By foregrounding the complex interplay of empathy, control, and cultural expectation, it challenges simplistic dichotomies and deepens our understanding of educational care as simultaneously relational, regulatory, and deeply context-dependent.

Subject of Research: The dual nature of student care—combining genuine support with continuous supervision—in small, non-selective Russian universities.

Article Title: Switching between oversight and support mode: the duality of care culture in Russian non-selective universities

News Publication Date: 22-Jul-2025

Web References:

• https://ioe.hse.ru/en/
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01425692.2025.2534591

References:

• Akuneeva, T., Romanenko, K. (2025). Switching between oversight and support mode: the duality of care culture in Russian non-selective universities. British Journal of Sociology of Education. DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2025.2534591

Keywords: Education, Students, Education Policy, Education Administration

Numerals, often considered straightforward grammatical elements, reveal unexpected complexity in bilingual speech production. The researchers concentrated on numerals in spoken Russian from seven geographically and linguistically diverse regions of Russia, including Daghestan, Bashkortostan, and Karelia. The bilingual participants—originating from more than twenty different language backgrounds—provided a rich corpus of natural conversations, encompassing over 7,000 phrases containing numerals. From this extensive dataset, nearly 4,000 examples were carefully selected, focusing exclusively on cardinal forms and excluding ordinal and oblique case constructions to maintain analytical precision.

One of the pivotal insights of the study is the differentiation between frequently used numeral expressions and those less commonly encountered. Common combinations such as "two hours" or "five kilometers" showed a remarkable adherence to standard Russian grammatical norms, demonstrating that high-frequency usage fosters conformity to established forms. This finding aligns with frequency-based models of language acquisition, which propose that repeated exposure and usage solidify grammatical structures in the second language learner’s repertoire, overriding potential native language interference.

Conversely, numerals involving the values two, three, and four, along with collective numeral forms like dvoe and troe—used to reference groups of people—emerged as the most prone to non-standard realization. These forms are inherently grammatically complex in Russian, exhibiting morphosyntactic variations that challenge even native speakers. For bilingual speakers, whose native languages may possess divergent numerical classification systems or entirely lack collective numeral forms, the acquisition and consistent use of these structures become particularly fraught.

The study’s rigorous corpus-based methodology—grounded in extensive naturalistic data—permits a robust analysis of how bilingual speakers negotiate these linguistic challenges. The observed non-standard constructions do not uniformly reflect direct transfer from the speaker’s native grammar but appear more dynamically influenced by factors such as individual education levels, age, and importantly, the empirical frequency of the expressions in everyday interaction. This multidimensional influence underscores the notion that language acquisition in bilingual contexts is not merely transferive or deficit-driven but adaptive and usage-based.

Chiara Naccarato, co-author of the study and a Research Fellow at the HSE Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, clarifies a common misconception: "It cannot be said that bilinguals simply project the grammar of their native language onto Russian when they use it. Even if a native speaker grew up in an environment where numerals function differently than in Russian, it doesn’t mean they will consistently copy the structures of their native language when speaking Russian." This perspective refines our understanding of bilingual grammar, positioning it as a fluid system shaped by interaction rather than static substrate influence.

Moreover, the research highlights the prominence of regular usage frequency in solidifying second language structures, supporting emergentist views that language forms become entrenched through repetition and communicative necessity rather than abstract grammatical rule learning. This insight has profound implications not only for theoretical linguistics but also for pedagogical approaches to teaching Russian as a second language, suggesting that exposure to high-frequency numerals and their standard grammatical usage can significantly aid language acquisition.

The regional diversity represented in the study’s participant pool, reflecting a mosaic of linguistic ecologies, adds further depth. The influence of local languages like Nanai and Ulchi exemplifies the complexity of bilingual interaction zones, where diverse grammatical frameworks interface. However, the study refutes deterministic models equating native language grammar with second language output, emphasizing instead a probabilistic and interaction-based understanding of bilingual numeral usage.

Such probabilistic models better account for observed variability and the co-existence of standard and non-standard forms within speech communities. The researchers suggest that bilingual speakers modulate their use of numeral constructions based on communicative context, interlocutor expectations, and cognitive accessibility of forms, thereby enriching the expressive capabilities of Russian within multilingual milieus. This approach reflects broader sociolinguistic realities where language forms are negotiated and fluid rather than fixed.

Furthermore, the implications of the findings extend beyond linguistics into applied fields such as language education and policy planning. Understanding which numeral forms pose the greatest acquisition challenges enables educators to tailor instruction to the needs of bilingual learners, focusing pedagogical resources on the most salient areas of grammatical difficulty. Additionally, this knowledge informs the development of diagnostic tools and language assessment protocols that more accurately reflect bilingual speakers’ proficiency and challenges.

This study also paves the way for future inquiries into other grammatical domains where native language influence may interplay with usage-based acquisition, such as verb tense aspects, case marking, and syntactic structuring. The researchers emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and advanced corpus linguistic techniques to unravel these complex patterns further. By continuously expanding cross-linguistic and cross-regional datasets, linguists can deepen their understanding of bilingual language dynamics in Russia’s multifaceted sociolinguistic environment.

Supported by HSE University’s Basic Research Programme as part of the Centres of Excellence project, this research exemplifies how corpus-based methodologies can illuminate the nuanced realities of language contact and acquisition. Its findings challenge traditional assumptions about bilingual interference and demonstrate the central role of usage frequency and social-linguistic context in shaping second language grammars. As Russian continues to function as a lingua franca across diverse ethnic and linguistic landscapes, such insights are not only academically significant but socially vital.

In conclusion, the investigation into non-standard numeral constructions in L2 Russian by HSE researchers elucidates the intricate mechanisms underpinning bilingual language use. It reveals that while native language grammar exerts some influence, the frequency of use and sociolinguistic factors are equally, if not more, determinative in shaping how bilingual speakers employ numerals. This comprehensive approach shines a light on the adaptive strategies bilingual speakers deploy and holds promising implications for linguistic theory, language teaching, and policy development in multilingual societies.

Subject of Research: Non-standard numeral constructions in Russian as a second language among bilingual speakers from diverse native language backgrounds.

Article Title: Non-standard numeral constructions in L2 Russian: A corpus-based study

News Publication Date: 27-Mar-2025

Web References:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13670069251323203

References:
HSE Linguistic Convergence Laboratory

Keywords:
Linguistics, Bilingualism, Grammar, Speech, Multilingualism