Educational performance of Moscow region districts reproduce their literacy level in the XIX century: mechanisms of the "cultural genetics"

Cultural patterns have a tendency to reproduce. However, the mechanisms of transmission of these patterns over generations are much less known than the ones of biological information. The present article discusses the reasons of changes and stability of cultural norms over the time. The main role in intergenerational transfer of cultural norms belongs to education and microsocium. Education is seen as an agent providing the knowledge transfusion between populations. At the same time education itself is not independent of the local culture influences. Using linear-structural modeling authors test a hypothesis about the maintenance of the “cultural genes” over generations. The model is based on the data on the literacy of the former Moscow province (governorate) peasant population in 1883 and on the results of the Unified State Examination (USE) and the Final State Certification\Assessment (FSC\A) on Russian language in 2012 and 2013 in the contemporary Moscow region (oblast). The model uses the data on twenty six districts of the Moscow region used that cover at least 75% of the corresponding governorates. The four manifest variables (USE results in 2012 and 2013, and FSC\A results in 2012 and 2013) were combined into the latent factor “Russian language” and three manifest variables (male literacy, female literacy and total literacy) were combined into the latent factor “Literacy”. The model has satisfactory parameters (CFI=0.980, RMSEA=0.10). The level of literacy in 1893 is positively related to Russian language performance in 2012 and 2013 (r=0.58). Additionally we tested the hypothesis about the relationship between regional literacy in the former Moscow governorate and educational achievements on Russian language of districts of contemporary Moscow oblast. We calculated indices of literacy and achievements on Russian language using factor loadings of manifest variables. The correlation between literacy and Russian language indices equals 0.56, supporting our hypothesis. The educational level pattern of the Moscow region districts in the beginning of XXI century turns out to be very similar to the one at the end of XIX century: more educated districts in the past show better performance nowadays and vice versa. Authors speculate about why educational patterns remained geographically stable over the century despite all the changes in society living conditions. Three hypothetical explanations of stability of cultural patterns during 130 years are proposed.

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