Students' political trust, efficacy, tolerance and interest in politics and civic learning in Russia

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia entered a period of transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The coexistence of authoritarian, national-patriotic and democratic attitudes among and within individuals requires the concerted efforts of democratic minded forces to instill and sustain a democratic political culture. Civic education is argued to be an important component of such efforts.; For civic education reforms to be effective, it is important to understand how young people perceive of politics and democratic transformation, and what role formal schooling plays in their civic learning. Although the importance of civic learning is acknowledged by many educators and policy makers in Russia, very little is known about Russian students' political attitudes and civic learning. Students' political views are not normally covered by public opinion polls and very few studies that focus on school civic learning have been conducted.; The purpose of this research was to present a picture of students' political attitudes, defined as political trust, political efficacy and political tolerance, to investigate differences in political attitudes, and, if such differences are found, to determine which demographic or school-related factors they are based on and what can be done to help improve school civic learning.; A quantitative method was chosen to conduct the research. The instrument of the research was a 47-question survey. The questions were subdivided into six groups: (a) general data, (b) political trust, (c) political efficacy, (d) political tolerance, (e) interest in politics, (f) perception of social studies classes. The survey was distributed among 544 high school students in a medium-size Russian city.; An analysis of the data demonstrated a certain consistency in students' political attitudes. The strongest consistency was observed among students supporting democratic ideas and students supporting communist ideas. The study demonstrated that students had low political trust, efficacy, tolerance and interest in politics. The differences in political attitudes among students were based on such independent variables as gender, parents' education, mother's employment, students' achievement level, and two scores of students' perceptions of the classroom climate. The recommendations were divided into three broad areas: change of focus, teacher preparation, and classroom climate.