Opportunities for self-realisation? Young women’s experiences of higher education in Russia

A major aspect of Russia’s modernisation since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been the restructuring and reforming of higher education. During Soviet times, higher education was funded exclusively by the state; access to it was free and competitive. The reforms of 1991 created private and public programmes and led to a massification of higher education. Currently, more than seven million students attend higher education institutions in Russia. The proposed chapter aims to deliver a better understanding of the active ways in which female and male university students respond to the different sets of opportunities and challenges they face in making education and labour market transitions in Russia. Within this exploration, this chapter will focus on class and gender dimensions of both the labour market and educational disadvantages, and the ways these are reproduced both through objective opportunity structures and subjectivities rooted in aspects of social and cultural identity. The chapter is based 30 in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in Krasnodar, southern Russia.