Beyond Borders: The Reach of Authoritarianism in the Academic Lives of Russian Students Abroad

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:45 pm - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Borders: Learning, Equity, and Youth Agency in Transnational Contexts

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how Russian graduate students studying in the United Kingdom experience academic life under the shadow of authoritarianism. Drawing on interviews and a follow-up focus group with two participants, the study analyzes how internalized fear, self-censorship, and strategic silence shape classroom participation, research choices, and institutional trust. Using Foucault’s panopticism and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory through a cultural-historical lens, the paper illustrates how authoritarian repression is mediated across developmental and relational contexts. Findings reveal how histories of surveillance travel through students’ academic identities, constraining not only speech but imagination. This research contributes to the 2026 AERA theme by foregrounding memory, agency, and the conditions under which students can “imagine futures” in repressive and diasporic realities.

Author

• Anastasia Lavrenyuk, University of Maryland