Over  the  past  few  years,  the  Service  Learning  approach  has  been  increasingly  introduced into the practice of Russian higher education institutions. Thereby researchers begin to take an active interest in this topic, and number of publications on service learning in the Russian context is growing. We are witnessing the emergence of a new area of educational research in our country. Under these circumstances, it is necessary to evaluate the successes in scientific knowledge, identify the existing gaps, and develop a programme for further research on service learning in our country. This circumstance determined the author’s interest in this topic and the choice of methodology in favour of a systematic review of the subject field. As a result, the author was able to identify an array of relevant publications, reconstruct the subject field, and identify seven main themes that have been covered  to  varying  degrees  in  the  literature:  1)  specificity  of  the  approach;  2)  civicism  formation; 3)  application  of  reflective  practices;  4)  use  of  an  evidence-based  approach;  5)  conceptualization; 6)  external  partners;  and  7)  the  role  of  the  teacher.  The  content  analysis  of  the  materials  made  it possible to identify the main characteristics of the publication array, identify lacunas and propose a programme of further research.

Modern computer and Internet technologies make it possible not only to transfer educational materials to digital media, but also to implement in a remote format various teaching methods,  diagnostics,  individualization  of  educational  interests  and  trajectories,  and  much  more. In addition, modern technologies in this area allow us to do what was simply impossible within the framework of the conventional education system. But the issue of a reasonable measure of the use of these technologies and the adequate setting and implementation of tasks in this direction requires special work. The article presents the results of this kind of work carried out on the basis of a program-project approach. Although the work was carried out within the framework of the assignment of  the  FEMU  to  classical  universities  for  mathematical  education,  the  specifics  of  universities  and mathematical education were not significant. The assignment was to determine the readiness of the mathematical faculties of universities for the systematic use of distance learning through an expert survey  of  FEMU  members.  The  relevance  of  the  question  of  the  timeliness  of  the  introducing  distance learning in a particular situation, on the one hand, and the problematic nature of this issue, due to the lack of proper systemic, logical grounds for its solution, prompted the author to apply his own method, which is conceptually different from the numerous surveys and “experiences” available in literature. The application of this method (“double inversion of position” or, in other words, “double negation”: intent   – objections  – withdrawal of objections), made it possible to formulate three principal lists. The first contains an explicitly formulated framework in which the introducing distance learning makes sense; the second and third represent the research and development program necessary for the implementation of distance learning. And already on the basis of the first list, related to the current situation, a survey of experts was conducted, which made it possible to formulate the main conclusions on the problem under discussion. The results obtained fix a logical necessity that does not depend on private opinions or specific features of the situation.

The characteristics of the university that issued the higher education diploma are an important signal for the employer, indicating the quality of the graduate’s training. However, it remains unknown to what extent top Russian universities really differ in the quality of the educational process from other universities, and do not simply use their ability to admit the most talented and motivated students. This paper attempts to answer this question using student engagement indicators, which are considered worldwide as a valid tool for assessing the quality of higher education. The article aims to examine the relationship between student engagement and two institutional characteristics of universities (a special status and the size of the university) by employing survey data on 16,143 students studying at 401 Russian universities. The results demonstrate that students studying at federal, national research and flagship universities have comparatively lower class engagement and social engagement compared to students from universities without special status. In addition, students at institutions with a size between 1,000 and 3,500 students were the most engaged in class activities and, at the same time, disengaged, while a size of less than 1,000 students  was  negatively  associated  with  disengagement.  The  results  obtained,  on  the  one  hand, require  further  research  into  the  relationship  between  institutional  characteristics  and  student engagement. On the other hand, they indicate the need to increase the weight of indicators of the quality  of  the  educational  process  in  universities  in  government  excellence  initiatives  aimed  at identifying leading universities and supporting them, as well as the importance of developing valid indicators of the quality of the educational process that can be used as a criterion in such government competitions.

The article analyzes the level of formation of pedagogical reflection among graduates studying the pedagogical specialties, and also generalizes the nature of the influence of pedagogical reflection on the educational and professional plans of future teachers after receiving a diploma. In the study, the author considers pedagogical reflection as a prestart state of a specialist, embodied in meta-competence, which allows one to assess one’s professional knowledge and skills as sufficient or insufficient to work in the acquired specialty.

As  a  part  of  the  study,  a  vision  of  the  nature  and  structure  of  the  phenomenon  of  pedagogical reflection founded on a competency-based approach was formed. The algorithm was proposed for assessing the level of formation of pedagogical reflection among graduates based on the use of factor analysis.  The  algorithm  was  tested  on  data  from  a  questionnaire  survey  conducted  in  2023  by  the Voluntary Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) among graduates studying to become teachers in the Vologda region. As a result of testing, it was revealed that after receiving a diploma, graduates with critical reflection more often than others want to connect their lives with work at school and see the future of their children in the teaching profession. Graduates with moderate  and  weak  reflection  are  less  likely  to  design  appropriate  plans.  In  the  course  of  further generalization,  a  procedural  model  of  the  influence  of  pedagogical  reflection  on  the  professional development of a university graduate was developed.

The scientific novelty of the study lies in the new perspective of posing the question of pedagogical reflection as a factor in educational and professional choice; the author’s methodology for summarizing the  level  of  formation of  professional  reflection  within  the framework  of  factor analysis; a conceptual model that describes the influence of reflection on the professional development of a graduate, focusing on “soft” mechanisms that can be used to solve personnel problems in the education system. The article proposes a set of approaches to solving the problems of training reflective teachers, which can be introduced into management practice.

Motives  and  choices  related  to  obtaining  higher  education  represent  a  pressing  issue that occupies its own niche in the research agenda of the sociology of education and related scientific disciplines. The purpose of the article is to reveal the specifics of the formation of different types of educational trajectories from the perspective of the motives of primary and secondary educational choices of students from top-rated universities. The research question was formulated around differences in goal setting and motivational and value bases of choice when constructing different types of university trajectories  – linear and nonlinear.

The  collection  of  empirical  information  was  carried  out  through  interviews  with  40  students achieved the higher GPA from Moscow top-rated universities (MSU, MGIMO, HSE, MVTU, etc.).  Informants described their subjective educational experience as a sequence of choices they made in the space of higher education.

Analysis  of  students’  narratives  made  it  possible  to  qualitatively  differentiate  between  linear  and  nonlinear  trajectories,  as  well  as  their  subtypes,  differing  in  their  internal  motivation and educational settings. The analysis identified common motivational reasons for choosing a university and majors at the “entrance” to higher education, as well as motives for secondary educational choice specific to different types of university trajectories — motives for keeping and motives for changing a specialty and university. In the informants’ narratives, choosing a university is described as a complex, multimotivated action, in which the motives of prestige, self-development, as well as social and utilitarian motives are highlighted. Educational choices related to keeping or changing the educational trajectory are determined by the desire to avoid risks and having a high level of satisfaction with studies in the case of linear trajectories and the desire  to  gain  new  educational  experience,  obtaining  competencies  that  go  beyond  the  scope of the specialty being studied, as well as environmental factors of the university in the case of non-linear tracks.

It is shown that a qualitative research strategy allows the researchers to look at reflected educational choices from the perspective of their semantic content, which is especially in demand due to the growing trend towards individualization of the educational process. It is concluded that empirical knowledge about the motives and methods of shaping the educational trajectories of the current generation of students is necessary for the development of an effective social and educational environment of a modern university, focused on a student-centered approach to learning.

Social Software as a special kind of organization of goal-oriented joint activity is considered in the present article in the context of cultural-historical epistemology, which is based on the understanding of knowledge as a sign-semiotic, historical phenomenon. This approach, according  to  the  authors,  makes  it  possible  to  reveal  in  a  new  way  the  educational  and  pedagogical  potential  of  social  software,  which  today  attracts  the  attention,  first  of  all,  of  sociologists,  political scientists, and economists, who only partially touch upon its cognitive parameters. Meanwhile, appeal to the epistemological dimension of social software allows us to emphasize characteristics that significantly expand the scope of its application, and in particular, the characteristics that open up an additional opportunity to quite effectively motivate students for self-education, for an inherently creative understanding of knowledge as a sociocultural value. The “motivational” potential of social software today is acquiring a particularly important role in the educational structures of “research education”. In such structures, step-by-step software opens up for the student, on the one hand, a sequence of operations that lead research to knowledge as the goal of education, and on the other hand, it dramatically changes in the eyes of students the process of assimilation of information determined by the curriculum, since it involves participation in its “creation”. At the same time, the presence of a social dimension in the software gives cultural and historical meaning to the sequence of students’ efforts, which opens up additional opportunities for motivating their activity through an appeal to the cultural and historical status of the scientific activity within which this knowledge was firstly created. The article demonstrates the experience of implementing one of these opportunities to additionally stimulate the attitude towards self-education through the introduction of philosophy faculties students to archival research of university science in Russia.

Latin America and Caribbean Region (LAC), with a student enrollment about 30 million, has its own space in the global inter-university exchange. And the article aims to observe current trends and specific features of the internationalization of LAC higher education systems. The author analyzes different models of interaction of the region, firstly, with the countries of the global “North”, secondly, in the “South-South” format, and in a trilateral model  – “North-South-South”. Also, the article studies some versions of intraregional cooperation in South America, as well as the Network university consortium (BRICS as example). The research exposes a new trend, the participation of LAC countries in the virtual student mobility, which has become a “new normal” during the  pandemic  period  and  has  retained  its  significance  at  the  present  time.  A  special  place  is  given to  Russian-Latin  American  cooperation  which  has  a  long  history.  Additionally,  the  opportunities and difficulties of this bi-regional partnership in the higher education sphere at the present time are analyzed.

Despite  the  fact  that  the  Latin  American  region  lies  somewhat  away  from  the  main  routes  of global interuniversity exchange, it is gradually increasing its share in the flow of mobile students by active participation in triangle formats. Simultaneously, the region develops new options for intra-regional cooperation to increase the competitiveness of Latin American universities in the international education market.

The article examines educational strategies for the preparation of the domestic ruling class. The authors rely on two semantic concepts: “elite education” (based on the principles of selectivity and academic excellence) and “elitist” (aimed at preparing the establishment, forming social ties and securing status). The goal is to answer a series of interrelated questions. Does elite education exist in Russia? What kind of education, elite and/or elitist, is received by the administrative elite, which the state attracts to the function of management? Is the meritocratic principle of coopting new personnel into the elite realized?

In the first stage of the study the authors worked with Russian and international rankings. Elite education  in  Russian  universities  was  defined  as  corresponding  to  three  criteria:  1)  qualitative  according to international experts’ assessments, 2) demanded by applicants with high final examinations  scores,  and  3)  ready  to  pay  for  it.  At  the  second  stage  the  research  was  carried  out  by  the biographical method. The data were based on the results of many years of monitoring the Russian political elite. Authors studied the biographies of 885 people who hold senior positions in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as of September 01, 2022.

The study showed that elite education and elitist education in Russia are not one and the same. A number of universities and separate educational programs which conduct training mainly in mathematical, natural-science directions and information technologies correspond to the international approaches to quality assessment. Representatives of the elite get education in other specialties, or even in universities, which are not present in ratings. This is explained by a number of reasons: the elite is increasingly choosing legal, economic, managerial, diplomatic and military education, which Russian variants are not in demand in the world. The difference in educational trajectories between elite and elitist education also means that the fact of having higher education is important for joining the  elite,  but  not  its  quality.  The  state  does  not  purposefully  attract  graduates  of  the  best  educational programs and universities to public service. Additional factors may be important for entering the elite: capital city accommodation, participation in patron-client relations, belonging to a large corporation.

Members of the elite are educated mainly in universities in the capital. The best high school graduates and the resources that families can spend on education move from the periphery to the center. But in the young generation of the elite the situation is beginning to change by increasing the number of universities they graduated from and the geography of its localization.

Elite and elitist education today do not coincide, which indicates the incompleteness of the period of formation of the Russian ruling class, as well as the system of social elevators in education.