Abstract:

As an integral part of the Russian social and educational policies, the mission is to ensure both the availability and the accessibility of high-quality and up-to-date social educational infrastructure for schoolers with as little limitation as possible in terms of their place of residence, their social status, and the type of their living conditions (i.e. regular or critical).

Thus, the relevant key research questions read as follows:
1. What is the actual quality of the social educational facilities in the neighbourhood availability for schoolers in Russian regions?
2. What is the level of the accessibility of the social educational facilities for schoolers in Russian regions mediated with school bus use under regular and critical conditions?

In the latter case, the research hypothesis was that school buses could be reasonably used to transport schoolers to the centrally located social educational facilities that would normally feature higher quality, and through that, the problem of the accessibility of those social educational facilities would be adequately solved.

Large-scale two-fold sociological research was conducted. In 2019, schoolers and their parents (N1=13,146) residing in different Russian regions were questionnaired for the establishment of the availability of the quality social educational infrastructure. Within the successive research in 2020, school principals and parents of children of preschool and school age (N2=690,689) from 85 Russian regions were questionnaired in order to reveal the transport accessibility of social educational facilities of the particular Russian territories.

For the research, the authors harnessed the methods of electronic questionnaire, data collection and analysis, and statistical analysis. Within the questionnaire, five-point scales were used as a form of both the evaluation of the availability of the quality school infrastructure, and the accessibility of social educational facilities through the use of school busses. For the statistics, the authors analyzed the relevant Russian federal databases, and employed SPSS and STATISTICA toolkits.

The key findings of the research include the region-particulated data on the satisfaction of schoolers and their parents with the quality of the available social educational facilities in their neighbourhoods. More than that, the levels of the accessibility of the social educational facilities for schoolers in different Russian regions are identified, and the research hypothesis dealing with the alternative use of school buses appears as a proved one.

The inferences of the research are discussed in terms of the possible improvements that would be made so that to advance the availability and/or accessibility of the social educational infrastructure to school students under regular and critical conditions.

Keywords:

Social educational facilities, barriers to learning, accessibility of infrastructure, Russian regions, school bus, education territorial conditions.