Modern Russia

Mikk Titma is Professor of sociology at Tartu University in Estonia and a senior researcher and lecturer in sociology at Stanford University. He lived in the Soviet Union until 1991 and has travelled widely in various regions of Russia. He received his doctorate from the Soviet Academy of Science in Moscow in 1975. Author of over 20 books and over a hundred articles, he served as Vice President of the Soviet Sociological Assocation in 1988-1990. One of the leading empirical social scientists in the Soviet Union, he is known especially for his longitudinal studies of life careers of young adults in the Soviet Union and its successor states. In 1983 he founded the "Paths of a Generation" (PG) project, which began with a survey of secondary school graduates in 15 regions of the Soviet Union. He and his co-author are currently analyzing data from the fourth PG survey, which was conducted in 1997-1998 in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. Nancy Brandon Tuma is Professor of sociology at Stanford University and until recently was the Chair of her department. She received her doctorate from Michigan State University in 1972. She has had long-term research and teaching interests in social inequality and the life course. She began by studying low-income groups in the United States but then turned to comparative studies using survey data on people in China, Germany, and Poland, as well as the Soviet Union and its successor states. She is the author of numerous articles and several books. She and her co-author are currently analyzing data from the fourth survey of young adults in the "Paths of a Generation" project. This survey was conducted in 1997-1998 in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.