Teachers in private and public pre-school education: status and prospects

Abstract

. This study was conducted as part of a project aimed at analyzing the social status and future prospects of pre-school teachers in Russia. This professional group is analyzed within the framework of the Neo-Weberian concept. In the next few years Russian pre-school education will see the resignation of a large portion of experienced professionals who have reached retirement age. The main hypothesis was that this generational shift will affect some of the group’s significant parameters, and that the dynamics of the social and professional status of specialists working in private and public sectors will become varied.The study was carried out through March–September 2014 in 3 regions (Moscow, Samara province, Nizhny Novgorod province), taking into account a quota sample based on a certain statistically important criterion (namely — experience in the field of pre-school teaching). 347 questionnaires filled out by public kindergarten teachers were selected for analysis, as well as 93 more questionnaires filled out by private kindergarten teachers (due to a lack of official statistics on private sector staff, we had to use a total survey of pre-school teachers from 20 private kindergartens and educational centers). Additionally, we used the data from a survey we conducted from September 2011 to January 2012 (which covered 12 regions), utilizing a quota sample based on the criterion of experience in pre-school teaching. 597 questionnaires were selected for analysis.This article includes analysis of the following thematic questionnaire sets: evaluating the changes in certain working condition parameters that took place over the last 3 years at the work places where teachers where directly engaged; evaluating certain resources of the group such as their subjective sense of respect for their profession on behalf of the state and society, the level of their professional education, and resources such as elevated authority, as well as evaluating the group’s social security and income.It was established that this professional group is characterized by a rather extensive set of problems — such as weak symbolic capital, underdeveloped collegial solidarity and low income — and their solution requires the combined effort of the entire professional community, with measures including the development of institutions which would promote the representation of opinions and private-public cooperation.A lack of decent state funding and the absence of regulatory activity on behalf of professional associations may lead to the continued deterioration of profession status — a decline in quality of staff, and an increased amount of migrants occupied in this field.