Upcoming seminar: What Is University For? How Students Reimagine Higher Education in Russian Universities
Date: 8th December, 2025
Time: 4:00 -5:15 pm
Mode: RMS204, Runme Shaw Building, HKU & Zoom
Speaker: Kseniia Vilkova, Associate Professor, HSE University
Chair: Jisun Jung, Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong
Registration link: https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6WG5NpeaQqj66A6
Abstract:
Higher education (HE) is widely recognized as a driver of both private and public benefits, yet students vary in how they understand, experience, and utilize these opportunities. In Russia, the ongoing massification of higher education, coupled with substantial institutional differentiation and ambitious state initiatives, has created a dynamic and heterogeneous university landscape. These transformations reshape how students perceive the value of HE and negotiate their place within it. This presentation situates students’ perspectives within the contemporary Russian context, where selective universities combine relatively high academic standards with growing pressures related to labor-market signaling, socioeconomic disparities, and shifting expectations regarding what a university should provide.
Drawing on a longitudinal study conducted in six selective Russian universities, the presentation examines how students’ mental models of higher education – conceptual ideas that define what a university is for, what opportunities it offers, and how they should be used — develop and change over three years. We follow the ideas of Fishman and Gardner (2022) who identify four ways of thinking about the experience: inertial, transactional, exploratory, and transformational. The majority of students undergo transitions between these models during their studies, and these shifts are not explained by socio-demographic background or institutional characteristics. Instead, they emerge from students’ everyday educational practices: academic diligence, engagement with learning materials, patterns of social interaction, and participation in internships. The presentation further demonstrates how these evolving mental models correspond to observable educational behaviors and future aspirations.
About the speaker:
Kseniia Vilkova is an Associate Professor, Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director at the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, Institute of Education, HSE University (Moscow, Russia). She holds a PhD in Education from HSE University. Her research focuses on student experience, gender stereotypes in STEM, first-generation students, sense of belonging, well-being, student engagement, and self-regulated learning. She specializes in quantitative and mixed-methods research, longitudinal designs, and evidence-based educational interventions.