Research & Expertise news at HSE University

Christopher S. Swader is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Sociology and a Senior Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Comparative Social Research at the HSE in Moscow. He also serves as Program Director for the new International Master’s Program in Comparative Social Research. Professor Swader sat down with HSE News Portal Editor Marina Selina to discuss his recently published book — The Capitalist Personality: Face-to-Face Sociality and Economic Change in the Post-Communist World.

On February 17-18, 2014, the HSE will host the Fifth Annual Saburov Readings Conference. Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, internationally renowned and the most widely cited authority in educational science for the past two decades, will present a seminar at the HSE Institute of Education.

An aggressive low-achiever can be the most popular kid even in a class that’s highly motivated simply because teenagers admire his rugged machismo, while top-of-the-class pupils tend to be popular when their classmates study hard too. Daniil Alexandrov, Head of the Research Laboratory for Sociology in Education and Science at HSE St Petersburg and his colleagues, Chief Research Fellow Valeriya Ivanyushina and Junior Research Fellow Vera Titkova found this and more in their research.

David W. Dunham, the famous American astronomer and NASA expert on asteroids is Academic Supervisor at the HSE International Laboratory of Space Research, Technologies, Systems and Processes. The HSE News Service asked him to tell us about working at the laboratory, what they do and what they hope to achieve.

Informal connections between a supervisor and direct reports increase an employee’s commitment to a company. The higher employees’ attachment to their leader, the more likely it is that they will work devotedly for the good of the company, noted Lusine Grigoryan, a junior researcher in HSE’s Faculty of Psychology, in a study entitled “Informal Connections and Organizational Loyalty: A Cross-cultural Analysis”.

Russian students may be materially and physically dependent on their parents, but unlike their american peers, it doesn’t stop them feeling they are socially independent beings. HSE student  Ekaterina Novikova  presented her research, 'Social Independence as a Consequence of Economic Independence; a Comparison between Russian and American Students'.

The informal nature of employment does not affect an employee's social status, because the differences between formal and informal employment are insignificant in Russia, says Anna Zudina, Junior Researcher at the HSE's Centre for Labour Market Studies.

Family and school are losing their influence over children’s upbringing, and the gap is being filled by mass media. Researchers Katerina Polivanova, Elena Sazonova, and Marta Shakarova have examined how contemporary culture is influencing children.