Class Position As a Determinant of Learning Skill Acquisition in Russia's Secondary Schools

Russian educational system has been undergoing reform for the last 20 years. The reforms have been contributing to inequality in Russsian society. Traditionally,  the Russian sociology understood inequality in education as differences in access to edicational resources. It has been consistently revealed by sociological studies  that different social classes have different chances  to access higher education. Differential access to economic and cultural resources associated with a class position provide for a variance in outcomes of educational trajectories. We propose to add another type of inequality  that differentiates education – the inequality of learning quality. We assume that members from the different classes delve into  curriculum differently and receive the different educational skills. This can be substantiated by  the data of the international survey PISA. Russia participated in the PISA surveys 5 times (2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012). The PISA data include the results of school math and reading tests as well as  information on the pupils’ social background, their families’ economic and cultural resources. There is evidence  showing that  the inequality of the learning process has been increasing and the difference of tests results is related to families’ economic and cultural resources.