Rise of Ethnic Bullying in Russian Schools Reflects Broader Social Trends, Discussions of Russian Experts Suggest

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 24 – Russian schools have long been the sites of ethnic bullying in which pupils of one nationality attack others (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/07/increasing-social-inequality-leading-to.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/nearly-third-of-pupils-in-russian.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/08/anti-war-parents-seek-to-protect-their.html).

    But until this year, such attacks were treated as isolated incidents; and Russian officials at all levels denied that there was a problem. But now that has changed, the reflection less of a new openness by officialdom than by the growth of the problem to the point where it can no longer be ignored.

    The Russian government as announced the launch of a major effort to combat ethnic bullying (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/moscow-launches-major-effort-to-combat.html) although discussions by experts suggest that government programs have had much of an effect (nazaccent.ru/content/43854-kak-ostanovit-etnicheskuyu-travlyu-v-shkole/).

    Still worse, these expert discussions indicate that Russian specialists on education have no better handle on this problem than do those in other countries and that what the schools can do is overwhelmed by what is going on outside their walls and as a result of the messages of mass culture, including television and films.

    That means that the increase in ethnic bullying in Russian schools that lies behind the shift in Russian officialdom’s treatment of it is one of the best indications that ethnic tensions are growing and are spreading from schools to the military and other public institutions in the Russia of Vladimir Putin.