The world is rapidly and irreversibly changing and the Russian government recognizes that as much as other countries, Russia needs to make sure that its education system corresponds to the current challenges. The introduction of the new federal educational standards in 2010 is one of the major attempts of the government to approach these challenges and to keep the system up-to-date. However, it is important to question if these bureaucratic changes have had any significant impact on real teaching practices and brought about the desired improvements.

Though it is often argued across many countries that professional standards are vital for enforcing accountability in education, Darling-Hammond (1999) cautions that ‘teaching standards are not a magic bullet’ and instead of increasing quality they can sometimes limit the development of the field. Sachs (2003) stresses that in order to prevent this from happening teachers themselves need to play an important role in forming and developing their professional standards. In her view when standards are mainly government-developed and government-imposed they not only promote ‘one particular view of teaching and what it means to be a teacher’ but they are also likely to be met with resistance.

It has to be noted that resistance towards standards may currently be a global educational issue. Based on their review of international experience, Zabrodin and Gayazova (2013) report that the introduction of new standards more often than not elicits negative reactions from teachers. In our opinion it would not be reasonable simply to assume that teachers across the globe generally tend to be unenthusiastic about change. This international trend could be an indication that few countries invite teachers to participate in forming standards. In fact, there could be a variety of other context-specific factors at play in each particular country explaining this overall disagreement with standards.

Looking at the Russian situation specifically, Zabrodin and Gayazova (2013) note that a few spokespeople from the Russian teaching community have declared that they do not welcome the new standards, expressing some concerns and reservations. In our study we intend to take a closer look at the current situation in Russia and see if these spokespeople represent the general view of standards. The main goal of the present research project is to study how teachers are responding to the governmental initiative – how they are interpreting and using the new professional standards in their work and if they feel motivated and prepared enough to work under the new standards. Along with that we aim to explore different factors that might be directly or indirectly influencing teachers’ attitudes and see if and how these attitudes change over time.

Darling-Hammond, L. (1999). Reshaping Teaching Policy, Preparation, and Practice. Influences of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, AACTE Publications, 1307 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005-4701. Sachs, J. (2003). Teacher professional standards: controlling or developing teaching?. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 9(2), 175-186. Zabrodin Yu.M. & Gayazova L.A. (2013). The professional standard of a teacher: the problems of socio-professional discussion. Psychological Science and Education psyedu.ru, 2013(3).