I will study the orphanages in these two cities in relation to their catchment populations. Although the institutional framework is similar to the rest of Russia, the population structure is different since the populations of cities in the RFE are composed largely of immigrants from other regions of the former Soviet Union. This is likely to be reflected in diverse family structures and different reasons for children being abandoned. The changing nature of Russian society urgently calls for alternative models of child welfare institutions and policies, and I shall seek to show how such models could be developed to meet the evolving needs of abandoned children. Current efforts to reform child protection systems have had little impact on the high and rising rates of children without parental care.
Further improvement requires changes in relationships between families, the public, and the state.
This in turn requires an understanding of changes in underlying concepts and dynamics of family and childhood. My research will contribute both to social policy and to theories of social change in post-Soviet Russia, and may have implications for other countries undergoing rapid social upheaval.