Choose Narva! Crafting, and projecting, a place for secondary schooling in Estonia

• In Event: 3. Improving and maintaining the quality of teaching and learning in Eurasia: approaches and challenges before and during COVID-19 pandemic

Proposal

Thirty years after regaining independence, Estonia continues to maintain a school network that separates students based on their first/home language. The opportunity for Russian-medium schooling was cemented after WWII with the creation of a largely parallel Estonian- and Russian language school system that thrived as separate, monocultural institutions. In 2020, out of more than 160,000 students in general education, more than 21,500 thousand (13%) study through the Russian language of instruction; and eight thousand (5%) study in Estonian language immersion classes that are primarily located at Russian-medium schools. As schools are the backbone of ethnic infrastructure they facilitate the constant reproduction of socioeconomic inequality, a phenomenon also termed as the vicious cycle of segregation.
In Estonia, educational segregation has also historically developed along the lines of school types. More specifically, there has been a clear distinction of public schools between the so-called “elite (public) schools” vs. regular schools. The elite schools are a few municipally or state-owned selective schools mostly in the bigger towns where admission is based on student testing. The history of elite schools goes back to the 1960s Soviet era desire to increase students’ foreign language proficiency; for that purpose, specialized schools and classes were founded.
The Estonian national government funded and developed a State Upper Secondary School (in Estonian riigigümnaasium) network (“state gymnasia network”) to counter these multiple divisions and inequities. In this 2012 policy, municipal governments agreed to grant the state control over creating, funding, and managing a new upper secondary school so that students in each county have equal, local opportunities for high quality schooling. According to this plan, by 2023, every county will have at least one state upper secondary school. The state attempts to accomplish this by building (or renovating) a new school building, hiring a school director, and ensuring an innovative curriculum. This segregated educational system has survived into the 21st century extending from the pre-primary through the secondary levels serving a multi-ethnic, overwhelmingly Russian speaking population. This separate schooling arrangement has meant many Russian-school students in Estonia were historically, and continue to be, especially in cities like Narva, removed from quality, Estonian-medium education. Gulson and Symes (2007) draw attention to the spatial implications of this system: “The language of exclusion is, by and large, spatial: who’s in, who’s out, at the heart, on the margins” (p. 99). This extended exclusion - linguistic, but also based on geographic and financial differences – requires a resilience among students transitioning to gymnasium. In secondary school, these students might find themselves included or excluded based on the medium of instruction, linguistic repertoires (Busch, 2017), and emerging school cultures (Deal & Peterson, 2009).
This paper explores the attempt of the Estonian state, and the Narva-based state gymnasia, to encourage students to choose the Narva state gymnasia, opening in 2023, by “making the case” for this particular place as advantageous for studying and living. In part, these video and press appeals address the geographic margins and promise proximity to educational quality. Theories of space inform this presentation. I understand space as a lived experience serves as a foundational idea. I concur with theorists who see space as something socially constituted through cultural practices (Massey, 1995).
The temporal aspect of space is another key dimensions I take up in this presentation. The construction of space, and spatial notions of quality, over time has implications and consequences for advancing, or stalling, efforts to promote equity through schooling. Attention to shifts over time helps, as Vavrus (2016) argues, to reveal how equity/inequity gets “baked into” school space: “over time, the social production of space in both its material and symbolic dimensions contributes to the sedimentation of inequality through the uneven distribution of schools and other socioeconomic resources…” (p. 137). In this presentation, I focus on the ways the transformation of secondary-school space particularly through the foundation state network program countrywide, but particularly in Narva, intends to distribute quality opportunities more equitably and effectively.
The research for this presentation draws on a qualitative document analysis of collected video and media introductory presentations and appeals (2019-2022) for students to enroll the in the Narva state gymnasia. My analysis points to the distinct ways that Narva is crafted as a place of particular opportunity spanning Russian-Estonian and borderland space. I also address the ways that national and local presentations of school space as opportunity and quality play out in the Narva case.

References:

Busch, B. (2017). Expanding the notion of the linguistic repertoire: On the concept of Spracherleben – The lived experience of language. Applied Linguistics, 38(3): 340–358.

Deal, T., & Peterson, K. (2009). Shaping school culture: Pitfalls, paradoxes, and promises. Jossey-Bass.

Gulson, K. N., & Symes, C. (2007) Knowing one's place: space, theory, education. Critical Studies in Education, 48(1), 97-110.

Massey, D. (1995). Places and their pasts. History Workshop Journal, 39(1), 182-192.

Vavrus, F. (2016) Topographies of power: a critical historical geography of schooling in
Tanzania. Comparative Education, 52(2), 136-156.

Author

• Kara Diane Brown, University of South Carolina