In the course “Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communications": we will: 1) Build skills in the analysis of the intercultural communication process using Russian-Western communication as an example. 2) Apply the knowledge of interrelations between different contexts of communication (cultural, institutional, professional, social, interpersonal, etc.) to the cultural history and national psychology of Russians. The purpose of the course is to provide the students with a broad overview of the basic principles governing the past, the present and the future interactions between Russia and the West, with a focus on the culture and national psychology of Russians and Western Europeans. For example, we will look at the cases when basic cultural values of Russians show up through the linguistic choices shaping language production which is consequently misattributed by Western partners. No matter what the language of intercultural communication is – Russian, or English – the meaning of many linguistic expressions may be reconstructed wrongly by the representatives of another culture. Some of the basic questions we will tackle are: • What are the concepts of culture that have the strongest influence on communication? • What are Russian basic cultural values and how they shape modern Russian consciousness? • What are the specific communication patterns of modern Russians, including those of public and electronic discourse? • What is important to know about communication with Russians in organizational contexts? Importantly, this course is NOT just a list of practical instructions of dos and don’ts of dealing with Russians. The course contains a substantial academic component introducing the key notions and concepts of the Theory of Communication, which will be extensively introduced throughout the first few modules of the course. These theoretical grounds will be further on used as a tool for analyzing the intercultural communications with Russians.
7.6. Family Structure; Raising Children; Role of Education
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Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication
45 calificaciones
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
45 calificaciones
De la lección
Interpersonal Communication
This week we will talk about the specific Russian features of interpersonal communication, communication across genders, and the generational discourse systems.Specifically, we will have a look at such issues as: friendship, dating, role of women; family structure, having and raising children, education, demographic and generational issues, ideological orientations, cross-gender communication, and forms and modes of address across various discourse systems. The Weekly Reading (one of which is optional) will provide further lively examples and evidence about some of these topics.Our guest speakers Anna Skaya and Jennifer Eremeeva will will share their experience of cross-gender communication in Russia.
Conoce a los instructores
Mira BergelsonProfessor
Philological Faculty
[SOUND]
[MUSIC]
Speaking about Russian family, Russian family roles, relations and
communication within the family.
We need to look at some basic assumptions, what the family is.
So the family can be understood either as he or she, two people living together,
or on the next level, families,
marriages are people married to create families and have children.
Mother, father, and children.
Other configurations are not very popular here.
And if we remember this notorious so-called anti-gay legislation,
which was recently adopted by the Russian Parliament,
by Russian duma and signed by the President prohibiting
propaganda of gay lifestyle among the minors.
We should say that, well unfortunately, this legislation,
this attitude, not even legislation, but
this attitude is supported by 88% of Russians as the polls show.
Which again tells us that we deal with a culture at the moment,
when it is very insecure of how you define the relations between people.
It's rather new and it's rather macho because macho culture is usually
a culture where men don't feel secure about their position in the society,
in the life, in the family.
With all the changing patterns of family relations with women,
emancipation, not just social emancipation, in terms of taking jobs and
having professions, but in their relations between men and women in the family.
Men, when it happened so fast and so abrupt, and when it is backed
by the social insecurity, which is not very high in Russia.
This feeling of insecurity creates macho attitudes towards life,
towards females, toward families, and towards gay culture.
So that's probably one of the explanations we may have that lets
us understand why such a high percentage of Russian population is so much anti gay.
Also because, and I will talk about it in a moment about
the role of traditional religious institutions whose
role is raising is very important now in today's Russia.
Two other issues, so that was about the structure of the family.
Two other issues that needs to be covered because they're so
culturally specific will be raising children and
role of education in both in the family and for the society.
I watched recently an interesting movie, it was actually on YouTube I think,
about the babies, the first year of life of babies in different cultures.
There were no words, no text in this movie.
It was just showed how babies were treated by their caregivers, mothers, or fathers.
Basically mothers I think during their first year.
How mothers would communicate with their babies in different cultures.
And with you know all babies of course were absolutely adorable and
it's something that makes us all human, raising children.
But the ways, the patterns of communication, were very different.
So of course this is a culturally specific issues.
And while I won't talk much about babies, but
generally about raising children, if you were to mention here is that,
and again, Russian culture doesn't have a very similar one and
the same pattern of how to dress, to discipline, to treat young children.
With the role of education, of course, also dealing with children.
This is a separate issue.
But one thing to mention is of course that Russians love their children.
If you want to make connections with people,
if you want to sort of build relationships and gain trust,
of course, discussing the children is a very good point.
If you deal with people who may have children.
With young people probably it won't be so interesting for them, say,
to discuss their younger siblings.
But talking about people who have families.
The children are a 100% good issue to start conversation and
building relationship with.
But when you look at how people discipline their children in various cultures,
you can say that Russians are rather chaotic in this.
So there isn't such a strict prohibition for instance,
not slapping your kid if really he or she behaves really bad.
I know how much protest that it will create among my
students who come from Western European countries.
They say that it's still their sort of attitude of a totalitarian state
when you treat child with all kind of prohibitions and you can even slap them.
Well, I prefer to leave evaluations and
discussions of how you assess that for instance, for forums.
My idea is to say that there isn't one in the same paradigm.
Russia is a very diverse country and for instance, the Muslim regions of the north
caucuses will take disciplining children in one way, in a more traditional way.
In places where people live according to certain other traditions,
again, these traditions will be quite visible in the way of disciplining and
the very idea that children have to be disciplined.
But when you deal with more global cultural patterns or scenarios,
we, all Russians, especially Russians with higher education level,
are very much involved in the discussion of how
to get your child better opportunities in life.
Which means education, of course, and
also developing extracurricular activities in school and so on and so forth.
Russian communication is rather emotional as viewed from the Western perspective.
We discussed it.
So in this way, communication between, say, mother and her baby can seem,
and actually often is, very emotional too.
And this emotional can mean both nice and bad.
Which is really characteristic of
behavior that you can see in the street among the general population.
You will see that mothers do say a lot of
criticism if their children are not behaving.
This is not like in other cultures, where children are not criticized,
are not restricted, are not in a way, punished in any way,
as in Japanese culture for instance.
This creates a lot of affectionate discourse when we
discuss how it looks from the point of view of an outsider.
A lot of attention is being given to raising children in the families
where can they afford it.
On a social level, it involves The issue of day care, for instance,
to allow parents to work because the Soviet Union was a social state and
Russian now positions itself as a social state again with all the,
there is a lot of discussion in the public and in the government about
providing more day care facilities because of some of them were abandoned in the 90s,
and creating conditions for both parents to be able to work.
In terms of, we're talking about interpersonal issues now.
So, I will just mention that the legislation in Russia for
mothers to give birth, maternity leaves, and money paid for
raising children, this legislation is very progressive and
very socially targeted because Russia's also interested
in having more children, our demography's pretty bad.
The amount of money being paid probably will not seem too big for
some developed countries, but
the ratio of what this money means as compared to other salaries and
also, the amount of time given to parents for maternity.
And now, even paternity leave is pretty long.
For instance, mothers can stay out of their jobs for
three years partly paid, then not paid but their job is kept for them.
So, that was about mentioning the social or
societal aspect to it, but I'm more interested in discussing the attitudes
of people in the families towards raising children and education.
Education is important.
Education is viewed as a means to an end.
It's very instrumental.
It's also viewed as a source of discipline in a way.
So, you go to school, you know how to learn a lot of things,
how to do good things, not to do bad things.
This is the projection of the ideas on what education is,
especially, it will allow you to attain skills and money status.
Education is viewed as something that affects family prestige very much.
And if we talk about more the pattern of traditional co-culture,
there, education has even greater spiritual value as one
true activity that a person has to be involved in.
Distortions and the legacy of the 90s led to the situation where many new
institutions, especially of higher learning, emerged also.
So, these new private institutions that emerged in the 90s were both blessing and
a problem.
Because, they were blessing, because there were more opportunities for people to,
where to go to study to get certain certificates.
But they were problem because most of them were very low-quality, and
in a way, it started as actually buying your diplomas and certificates.
And we still have to deal with this issue, trying to segregate,
to discriminate between private institutions who are really good,
who are private, meaning non-state,
not funded from the state who have to be licensed and accredited,
and whose diplomas and certificates are sort of, can be used nationwide.
The state admits them, and
those who are actually have to be somehow put in on a lower basis and
their diplomas will not be taken as seriously as they are.
So, that was one distortion of the 90s.
But the issue which is probably more important now for
the modern context of Russian public and Russian families, because,
of course, it's a family issue, is this discussions of quality of education.
There are two aspects of it, issues in primary and secondary education,
kids going to school to a primary school, and then secondary school, and
then issues in higher education.
So, lets look at it not from the state point of view but
from the family point of view, though, here, the interest of the state and
the family are very much the same.
In terms of primary education, it was usually the typical
complaint of families that little kids are overloaded with stuff, with information.
It's not to interact,
if it's not the qualification of the teachers in the primary school, not more.
Then, they only know how to stuff information in
the kids' heads instead of socially developing them.
I put this in this word of social discussions, but usually, people talk
about it that, where to find a nice school where they don't yell at the kids, or
on the other side, where to find a good school where they discipline kids,
where they really actually make them learn something.
So, these are two kinds of discussions that may go.
The Russian school traditionally was considered to be good in the Soviet times,
and now, there is a lot of discourse related to
how good our Soviet education was and we destroyed it now.
So, we now, let's look back to it.
Well, in a way, this reflects the dissatisfaction of the society,
of the public, with the quality of the education in the schools, but
this dissatisfaction takes the form of looking in the past and
saying how good it was before.
It was good in certain ways, but it's not, maybe it's not good anymore,
because the contemporary world actually makes different demands.
It's not about getting so much information.
It's probably about creating communication skills, team-building skills,
skills to do your independent research or independent activities,
being more interactive, being more practice-oriented, hands-on approach,
something that came to us from the ideology of US education,
which was taken here, probably adopted not in the best way.
And now, it creates a backlash of opposing to this approach and
saying, let's get back to our traditional classic education.
Well, traditionally, Russian students were very good in mathematics, and
math was always considered important for many professions.
And again, when thinking of how actually to revive this system of finding talent,
finding gifted kids, and so on and so forth.
But again, I'm sorry to say moving to more societal aspect of it.
For the families, what is important, that their children will go to school where
they will feel safe and where they will learn something.
Because education is a way to having good careers and
to having money which is very important in our consumer-oriented world of today.
Issues in higher educations are more related to how competitive it is
in terms of international education.
Best Russian universities are now trying to become more competitive and
to sort of enter the ranks of international universities,
because we all understand that in the modern economy,
the education that they get, and then, the professions that they
build on this education will allow them to compete internationally.
And there was a lot of reforms going on constantly.
Russian education system has been
under the process of reforming even in the last 15 years like continuously.
Which also creates dissatisfaction in the families where the changing rules for
being admitted, enrolled into universities with the national final exam that has been
introduced just five, seven years, and it creates a lot of controversy.
But here we see more and more movement towards the sort of international system
which allows for more mobility, for more independence, for
more individually oriented education.
Which, of course,
leads us from traditional system to a more Westernized culture.
[NOISE] Thank you for joining us in this course,
Understanding Russian's Context
of Intercultural Communication.
It will be very interesting to get your
perspective of what it is to study in Moscow.
I know that you did your first degree back home in China, and
then you came to study here at our school of economics.
>> Yes.
>> Is it faculty of business informatics, right?
>> Yes.
>> Okay, so could you please share, with us how you feel, how you see
the differences between studying in China, in Beijing, and in Moscow?
>> Yes, in Beijing.
I have my bachelor study in China,
in Beijing about ten years ago.
At that time, I'm very younger.
And in studying in China, I had all day work,
all day lessons and all day work to do.
But you must realize here,
I'm starting my master study.
Not all day work, not all day lessons,
only in the night, from 6 to 9.
>> Mm-hm, evening courses.
>> Yes, I think, it's very fit for
me, it's very fit for me.
Because, in the day, I can do something with others,
and in the night, I can study my master lessons.
>> You mean you go to the classes from 6 to 9 in the evening.
>> Yes.
>> But probably you have to do a lot of assignments and work and
research in the rest of the day, right?
>> Yes, yes, and I think this time is very fit for
me, because my Russian language is not very good.
So I can prepare, I can study Russian language in a day and
study master lessons in the night.
>> Mm-hm, I see.
And what can you say about Russian students that take the classes with you?
Are they very different, their attitudes towards classes,
is it different from what you know about Chinese students?
>> In China, in my bachelor study,
we need to study more lessons.
Some lessons, they don't like.
Some lessons they like.
But the lessons you don't like, you need to study.
>> Anyway.
>> Yes, so in the China from day to night
all the day, we study hard and hard.
>> Well, it produces good results probably.
>> But I don't think our method is useful to me.
I left a major business informatic, but
in China not all the lessons about this major.
>> Is it more focused here in Europe?
>> Yes, it's more focused here.
All the lessons here I study is about business informatic.
So my major is business,
is a part of business informatic.
I like major, because I think it's very popular today.
>> Mm-hm, but of course,
it's more specialized because it's already a master's degree.
>> Yes.
>> Is there any difference in terms of tests, how tests are given,
are there more tests, is it more complicated, what about this stuff?
>> In China, we don't need to do some,
the lesson the teacher do to teach us.
Every lesson we listen, and we do the homework.
In the master study here,
I think it's very useful to me,
because almost all the lessons
need us to do the presentation.
It's very useful, I think.
>> You are supposed to make presentations, all the lectures are provided with
PowerPoint presentations- >> In the beginning,
the teachers give us presentations that the teacher has the same knowledge.
Then they do ourself presentation to show it to the teachers and the other student.
I think it's very helpful to us.
>> I see, well, I also know that you have family in Moscow now,
your husband and your baby.
>> Yes.
>> How old is your baby?
>> My baby is one year and a half.
One and a half years.
>> 18 months.
>> Yes.
>> It's a difficult period for parents, for a young mom,
and how do you manage to combine studying and raising a baby?
Is raising baby in Moscow hard or easier for you?
>> I think it's very easy to raise a baby here.
>> Why?
>> I have been here about three years.
The first years I started Russian language at another school.
At that time, I have a baby.
At that time only six
months in that school.
And I went four months [INAUDIBLE] in
HSC school [INAUDIBLE] in under four
months is very difficult to me.
It's hurting because the baby is bigger and bigger.
>> You mean that the last month of your pregnancy you are already student at
the HSC.
>> Yes, yes, so at that time, it's very difficult to me.
But all the teachers, other students, is very kind to me.
>> They were supporting.
>> Yes.
I let him I always used the first grade,
first grade in master.
>> First year?
>> Yes. First year in master
and now to other day have a lessons is useful for
me because I can study, listen to music, and have a rest in the day.
And have lessons in the night.
Other teacher at that time this is a little difficult to me, I think.
Because there are mathematics
after my Bachelor's study,
I have work about 30 years.
It's a long time to not study much.
So I picked up my first two years in Master's study.
But the teacher is very accommodating.
>> So you're capable to combining this thing.
>> They help me under leading me how to pass the exam.
So I think it is good Master's program.
>> Okay.
And do you have friends among Russian students?
>> Yes. >> Is it easy to make friends with
Russian students?
>> In my class, a girl named Aria and
a girl named Julia coming up to me and they've helped me a lot.
About that I have something I don't know how to do.
And I don't know how to write.
They won't tell me how to do the homework, how to prepare for the exam.
Also in my life they help me a lot.
So I'm very.
>> Very very.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
And I appreciate that you did it in English, because I know that your first
foreign language is Russian and you speak Russian very well.
And you study in Russian.
[INAUDIBLE] But because our audience is international audience, and
this course is in English.
Thank you that you took time and made this effort to speak to us in English.
>> [FOREIGN] Thank you, too.
>> Thank you.
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