Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Monotowns: Production of Mobility

This article looks into the relationship between education, industry and youth mobility in monotown settings. Information collected during a sociological survey in four Ural monotowns-Krasnoturyinsk, Pervouralsk, Revda (Sverdlovsk Oblast) and Dalmatovo (Kurgan Oblast)-was used as empirical data for the study. Education can sometimes work "against" the community, as cultural and symbolic capital that young people acquire at secondary or sometimes vocational schools allows them to migrate from their hometowns to larger cities for education purposes. Therefore, better-educated youths are more likely to leave monotowns. At the same time, availability of educational institutions in a monotown provides its citizens with opportunities for personal growth as well as improvement of urban environment. A way out of this seemingly insoluble dilemma could be the policy of civic engagement, which can be implemented provided there are diverse labor market opportunities and a conducive social infrastructure. Planning the cooperation among businesses, education and municipal authorities should be part of the town development strategy, not only the result of decisions handed down by some ministries. The article also offers an example of a cultural life script: a life story of a respondent whose desire to stay in a small town was only increased by the education she obtained.