«Migration paths of student youth: how to (not) be alone?»: presentation of the results of the Mirror Laboratories project at the SOC UP seminar

Irina Lisovskaya and Albina Garifzyanova spoke about the results of the analysis of 62 interviews with students taken as part of the project «Scenarios for the social inclusion of regional youth in the context of educational migration».

Photo by Aleksandr Popov on Unsplash

Why exactly non-resident youth?

While the integration of foreign students has been well studied and universities are actively developing their adaptation programs, nonresident students continue to remain out of focus, mixing with the bulk of students. The focus of this study is the inclusion of out-of-town youth and the experience of living alone in a big city. Sociologists have identified several scenarios or «tropes» based on the stories of nonresident students in St. Petersburg and Kazan.

Inclusion as an adventure

In this scenario inclusion turns into an adventure saga, the conquest of an important life peak. This scenario is typical for St. Petersburg, since the university environment plays a very important role here. Students quickly strive to become involved in university life, try to participate in various projects and acquire a huge number of social connections. Loneliness in such a scenario can be both a problem that needs to be overcome and a resource for accumulating «quick» experience. Narratives thus become heroic tales of overcoming adversity.

Adventures: finding life beyond the Moscow Automobile Ring Road

This scenario is typical for students from Moscow and St. Petersburg, who come to Kazan as a «fairy tale city» to gain life experience and grow up outside their comfort zone. Inclusion becomes a search for authenticity and extraordinary hobbies, taking place simultaneously with the exploration of the city. For such students, loneliness is more like a conscious choice; it is a resource for accumulating experience and changing the temporal regime.

Perceived Usefulness: The Caring Citizenship Scenario

This scenario is characterized by the struggle for the right to be in the city. Students try not only to integrate into city life but also to be useful to the city and feel like locals. Young people tend to resist anything dynamic and pretentious. The final scenario is the promotion of your own ideas or participation in large projects. Loneliness does not figure much in this scenario, or becomes an insignificant obstacle that «there is no time to worry about it.»

The drama of inclusion: a long search for your place in life (St. Petersburg)

Young people are looking for their place in a dynamic and busy city, while facing a lot of disappointments. Students spend a long time sorting through friends and companies in an attempt to find their place and the moment of «finding» becomes a bright event. Loneliness is experienced very intensely as isolation and exclusion.

Drama of misrecognition (Kazan)

This scenario is typical for master’s students who have experience in undergraduate studies at another university. Students are haunted by a feeling of undervaluation, which is why they try to integrate into the city in search of bright impressions. At the same time, relations with the city do not work out and young people find their place on the outskirts. Loneliness is not articulated, but it is present and is expressed in exclusion from the university space and the difficulties of finding one’s place in the city.

Strategic scenario: «no» to parties, «yes» to career

This scenario is characterized by a constant search for rational grain. Students try to strategically use the space of the city and the space of the university to monetize the experience, to make maximum use of all existing opportunities. Such young people are cool about parties and activities. At the same time, for them, loneliness, on the one hand, is a resource, and on the other hand, it is a brake that prevents them from receiving more benefits.

 

Scenarios for the social inclusion of youth, like a book or a film, consists of component parts. The plots of these scenarios are multi-layered and relate to the experience of isolation and loneliness, which is defined differently by young people. The university can act as a launching pad for inclusion and adaptation, but at the same time, a dynamic and competitive environment can push out students who need more time to integrate. The question of how students can better adapt to a new place for them is a question for a close study of different contexts of social inclusion, in particular, ways of building strategic decisions, the role of personal agency and ambitions. It often seems that students are the most researched group we know about. However, there are many subtleties that do not lie on the surface that can explain sudden expulsions from the university, poor performance, isolation, reluctance to participate in activities and other important aspects of studying at the university. In this regard, universities can create conditions that will help young people express themselves, open up better (not only at the university) and build communications with the city, as well as find and realize themselves in it.