Social Sustainability and Professional Migration in the Educational Space of Russian Schools Based on the Results of a Sociological Study

Abstract

This research aims to substantiate the legitimacy of the simultaneous application of two competing sociological paradigms in studying professional (labor) migration of teachers and teacher education graduates, i.e., to use the “strategy of mixing methods”: the mobilities turn and the place attachment. This synthesis-based methodological approach includes micro and macro levels and neo-positivistic and individualistic phenomenology. It was substantiated during a sociological survey in 18 regions of the Russian Federation in August–September 2021. The survey respondents were 3065 teachers and 1132 teacher education graduates, and 255 respondents acted as experts, including six rectors of higher educational institutions of Russia, heads of regional and municipal education authorities (47 persons), and 202 directors of Russian schools. This study has highlighted the unique characteristics of labor migration in the educational space of the Russian school. As empirical research has shown, the reasons for professional migration, in general, and the migration of teachers and teacher education graduates, particularly, are largely similar and stem primarily from material factors. It has also shown that the reasons associated with personal and professional development opportunities should be considered. The identification of ideal factors was made possible by dividing respondents into five groups by criterion of integrating micro- and macro-problems.

1. Introduction

Numerous modern humanitarian studies devoted to analyzing the socio-cultural situation in Russia define the state of Russian society as transitional. Moreover, scientists, speaking about the specifics of the state of contemporary Russian society, define it as a socio-cultural transformation [1,2]. This characteristic presupposes the presence of systemic and qualitative changes affecting absolutely all spheres of society’s life. During transition periods, all social institutions, and the society as a whole, find themselves drawn into complex processes of searching for a new socio-cultural paradigm [3]. In this regard, the education system is no exception, which must adequately respond to changes in society due to its specificity.

The processes of professional (labor) migration of teaching staff (teachers and teacher education graduates) are one of the markers of the ongoing socio-cultural transformation in the Russian education system, which is pointed out by many researchers [4,5,6]. In particular, it is noted that the active phase of socio-cultural transformation creates conditions for intensifying labor migration processes [7,8,9]. The coronavirus pandemic distorts social practices and processes, thereby changing approaches to the study of mobility and labor migration [10]. This article attempts to verify this statement by identifying the reasons for professional migration in the educational space of the Russian school.

Current research of the reasons for teachers’ migration systematizes the factors influencing the migration. Thesefactors do not reveal micro- and macro-problems significant for this study and aspects of the involvement and forming of the direction of migration of teachers [11,12,13].

A. Amitai and M. Van Houtte [11] discuss factors affecting the individual, school, and work level. Second, we describe potential pull factors leading teachers to different jobs. Studies focusing on the individual background characteristics of teachers mainly revolve around gender, teacher qualifications, subject taught, and years of experience. The method of interviewing researchers does not allow one to see the intentions of university graduates, does not take into account macro-optics, and leaves questions about the representativeness of the analysis tools at the level of social institutions.

Research by J. Glazer [12] illustrates that teaching is no longer a career-long occupation for most teachers in the United States. He examines the narratives of a particular group of leavers, former teachers who made significant investments in their teacher training and taught for at least three years before deciding to exit. The accounts of these invested leavers are used to look at workplace change as a motivating factor for teacher exit, particularly changes in classroom authority that occurs after teachers have begun to feel competent. The work examines one of the factors at personal motivation, which is not enough for our research.

Sacco, C., Falzetti, P. [13] examine migration in geographic topology. The approach is interesting in mapping, but it does not answer individual and institutional factors, macro- and microsensical structures of migrating actors.

We overcome the one-sided neo-positivistic interpretation of the migration causes [13] and the individualistic phenomenology of research strategies [11,12]. The proposed toolkit synthesizes both the micro and macro levels and the strengths of the quantitative and qualitative methodology.

With the plurality of approaches to migration and mobility attempts to distinguish between migration and non-migration forms of mobility taken together, the discussion about the research object poses a challenge to sociological theorizing and empirical research. It mainly occurs around the well-known concept of “mobilities turn” by J. Urry and the lack of a clear understanding of mobile methods. In this regard, M. Weber’s classic statement about the “unfading youth of the social sciences” and the heuristic value of any methods and concepts, which is found only in comparison, assimilation, and blending in conducting empirical studies [14,15], can be reformulated to the problem of professional migration. The dynamics of social processes dictate the formation of new concepts and theories [3]. In our case, this refers to mobilities turn and place attachment; in addition, an abundance of quality strategies called mobile methods requires theoretical and empirical verification.

The uncertainty in the definition of mobile methods is superimposed on the antinomy of the two theoretical approaches. It refers to the opposition of mobilities turn or the new mobilities paradigm [16] and the concept of place attachment [17]. According to J. Urry’s mobilities paradigm, the “new type of thinking” covers “all social entities, from a single household to large scale corporations, which presuppose many different forms of actual and potential movement” [9]. Following that, teachers as actors of social entities should, undoubtedly, be inclined toward labor migration since a “new type of thinking requires this,” or such semantic structures should be inherent in them [18]. According to the place attachment paradigm, on the contrary, teachers should be more inclined to stay in their native region. This decision implies a desire to stay close to an object of attachment [19], such as the educator’s place of residence [20]; therefore, it is not surprising that most of the quantitative indicators of place attachment reflect a person’s unwillingness to leave home [17].

J. Urry defines the turn of mobility as a “new type of thinking” about mobility [16], proceeding from the fact that “all social formations from a single household to huge corporations are predisposed to many and different forms of actual and potential movement”. The turn of mobility connects the analysis of various forms of travel, transport, and communication with complex ways of implementing and organizing economic and social life in time and different spaces. “New type of thinking” about social mobility is presented due to mobility with other sciences. J. Urry believes that in a complex society, the factor of mobility is decisive for determining the nature of social institutions. The fundamental positions in the concept of J. Urry are as follows: (1) the variety of mobile systems is increasing; (2) self-development and self-expansion of some mobility, in particular, the automobile system and the mobility of its risks; (3) there is a development of mobility outside national societies. Moreover, societies, cultures, institutions, places began to move. In this respect, Di Masso’s concept of attachment to place [17] has some significant differences, namely: (1) Attachment to a place includes attachment of people to all kinds of places at various scales; (2) Places often function as living places at various scales, but can also include visited, non-residential and even imaginary places; (3) Assumptions about attachment to place lead us to the definition of displacement not as a fact about the socio-political context, but as about the internal, pathological state of the displaced person; (4) Attachment to a place implies a desire to stay close to an object of attachment, such as a home or place of residence.

Russian researchers [21] have different definitions of mobile methodology with their strengths and weaknesses. Agreeing with E.A. Nikishin [22] regarding the limitations of the mainstream resource-oriented methodology (although the author uses a different description language), we do not agree with the definition of mobile methods as a “weak program”. That is, “the transposition of traditional qualitative approaches to the study of social inequality into the plane of mobile sociology, or rather, the transfer of the research focus to the problem of displacement in a physical space” [22]. Glazkov and Strelnikova [21] interpret mobile methodology relying on Büscher et al. [23]. They consider it as combining “traditional” methods for obtaining research information (mainly qualitative and including survey, visual, and experimental techniques) with a “mobile” method, when the researcher receives information sequentially, in the process of moving, in some way or another related to the object of interest. This interpretation also focuses on the qualitative “traditional” methods, ignoring the quantitative methodology and combination of the mobile methods themselves.

In general, a huge number of studies have been devoted to the problem of social mobility. These are a classic study by Sorokin [24] in the mainstream of structural functionalism, institutional studies of professional mobility by Lipset and Bendix [25]. They also sought to substantiate the actor’s capabilities to implement mobility within the exchange theory framework. Classical paradigms of conflict or a “critical theory” also devote much of their research to the possibilities of social mobility.

The cutting-edge sociological theories demonstrate a turn towards individualization [26,27]. Due to this, there is a change in the research optics toward the subject and the corresponding research methodology. The actor’s experiences and intentionality, changes in the individual space-time perception become the main focus in the study of social mobility. Biographical description, phenomenology, and physicality become the researcher’s starting points.

However, does the mobilities mean a complete rejection of traditional methodological approaches? Is urban space a multiple and intersecting mobility system [3], with the following requirement of a fundamentally new methodology? Is it possible to completely abandon the place and attach to the place in favor of mobility as such? In our opinion, we will not find an unambiguous answer to these questions. Most likely, the point at issue should involve a comprehensive and consistent methodology regarding the specifics of social processes. We leave aside the retrospective nature of mobile methods when a researcher is forced to look “backward” and the current events “elude” him, same as a simplified “flat generalization” of traditional methods, when a general picture is formed from measurements of indicators of prestige and power [22]. Instead, we analyze mobile methods from the viewpoint of the heuristic value of the teacher migration study. It is part of the general logic of the mixing methods strategy when combining the strengths of some methods and minimizing the disadvantages of others. More holistic, rich results are achieved [28].

Each mobile method makes it possible to look “from below” at the mobility processes, immerse oneself in the actor’s individual experiences, and access the actor’s corporeity and reflexivity to his/her spatial practices [29]. When studying large social groups (to identify general patterns of the course of events, determine migration flows, and identify the reasons for mobility and migration), mobile methods can only support traditional quantitative and qualitative methods, unable to be applied separately.

Thus, mobile methods can be defined as a combination of traditional and modern methods. Immersion in the studied environment (inclusion and movement) allows us to obtain data about the movements themselves and the methods of communication, norms, conflicts, rituals, and roles relevant to teachers and graduates of pedagogical universities.

Suppose the mobile methodology removes and eliminates the disadvantages of the resource-oriented approach through the appeal to life experience, the actor’s reflection simplified “generalizations”. The traditional methodology contributes to the objectification of sociological information and the appeal to “attachment to the place”.

The article’s purpose is to develop a conceptual framework for the research on the migration of teachers and teacher education graduates through the reassembly and empirical verification of such concepts as mobilities turn and place attachment. It is based on the analysis of data obtained from a sociological survey held in 18 regions of the Russian Federation during August-September 2021.

We assume that the recently emerged mobilities turn and place attachment strategies require empirical verification to reveal their heuristic potential. Identifying the “working” provisions of both paradigms and their combination will reveal their possibilities.

2. Materials and Methods

During this sociological survey, the principle of mixing methods was used, combining traditional sociological research methods and those currently associated with the mobilities turn developed and conceptualized by J. Urry [16] and M. Bücher [23], and with the turn toward individualization applied in modern sociological theories.

Quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed in this sociological research. We applied questionnaire-based surveys (questioning) as quantitative methods, which are traditionally used to identify the opinion of a significant number of respondents. The expediency of using the questionnaire survey is conditioned by many respondents geographically at a significant distance.

Since labor migration is the event that has already happened to the interviewed, these methods must be combined with restoring memories and imaginary travel as an experience of “another place”. Many types of movement involve experiencing or anticipating a special “authentic” atmosphere in another place. As for modal analysis is an opportunity to mix a mobile diary with a formalized and focused interview.

This research used qualitative methods of expert interviews and mobile methodology (combining narrative interviews, go along, and recollection). Expert surveys or interviews are necessary for finding competent assessments and opinions on the problem under study. Narrative interviews are widespread in the mobile methodology as a “mixing methods strategy” and go-along and recollection to study the teachers’ social experience and collect information about their migration’s place, time, and situational circumstances.

First, a survey used a traditional quantitative methodology to identify general patterns in the teachers’ labor migration. Teachers and teacher education graduates were the research object; the reasons, practices, and consequences of teachers’ and teacher education graduates’ migration between the Russian Federation regions were the research subject. Questionnaire surveying on the reasons for the migration of teachers and teacher education graduates makes it possible to look at the reasons for migration from the bottom up, i.e., from the viewpoint of the actors’ intentionality.

Expert surveying (interviewing) of rectors, school principals, and administration officials enabled to determine macro-sociological optics of the reasons for migration at the stage of professional training and labor activity at the level of social institutions and educational process management.

The second research perspective is related to the actions of the participants in migration processes. Rectors and university graduates were surveyed to train future personnel for the school. Conversely, surveying also covered school principals, administration officers, and teachers directly involved in the educational process.

At the same time, it should be specified that in addition to the above sociological methods, the content analysis of the sociological survey data conducted by the research team of the Lipetsk State Pedagogical Semenov-Tyan-Shansky University in August-September 2021 was the primary research method.

The indicated theoretical and methodological foundations made it possible to identify key trends characteristic of contemporary labor migration processes in the educational space of the Russian school under COVID-19. The identified trends can contribute to the transformation of the sustainable development strategy under the influence of the COVID-19 spread [2].

According to the Ministry of Education, the total number of teachers was 1,087,325 people at the beginning of the 2020/2021 academic year [30]. If a random sample were used, the number of respondents would be 384 people (confidence level (“accuracy”) 95% and confidence interval (“error”) 5%). The study used a multistage quota sample. As a micromodel of sociological research, the quota sample is formed, taking into account statistical data (parameters of quotas) on the number of sampling units in the selected subjects of the Russian Federation. The parameters of quotas were defined as a profession (teacher) and age (from 20 to 23 years old (graduates of pedagogical universities) and 24 years old and 60 years old (working teachers)). The quota for the survey of teachers was 3018 people. The study interviewed 3065 people, which exceeded the designated quota, indicating the study’s representativeness. With a general population of 1,087,325 people and a sample population of 3018 people, with a confidence level (“accuracy”) of 99%, the confidence interval (“error”) will be 0.47%. The selection of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation was carried out based on the availability of pedagogical universities, the number of teachers in each of the central federal districts.

Remarkably, the sociological survey used a multistage sample, i.e., a type of probability sampling or a selection method in which at each, but the last, sampling stage, objects are grouped into some structural units (clusters), among which the selection is made. The choice in each federal district (FD) was carried out considering the number of teachers according to the data of the Ministry of Education [30]. One territorial entity of the Russian Federation was selected in each Federal District based on the maximum number of teachers. The type and size of the sample allowed us to obtain representative data.

Thus, the synthesis of micro- and macro-analysis strategies and the differentiation into formative and acting actors determine the qualitative novelty of the proposed methodology of forming the sample and conducting the study. The heuristic value of such two-tier (macro- and micro-sociological levels) and two-stage (formative and actionist) surveying will also clarify the status and validity of two paradigms: mobility and place attachment.

Based on the above, we put forward the following hypotheses:

• The theoretical provisions of the two competing paradigms—the new mobilities paradigm and the concept of place attachment—can be confirmed only in their provisions. This hypothesis will be tested by measuring the intentions of graduates and teachers to migrate.
• The proposed mobile attachment strategy, which assumes the synthesis of mobile and traditional methodologies, will allow integration of macro- and micro-analysis of the teachers’ migration in the context of the ongoing socio-cultural transformation. The hypothesis can be supported by the comparable significance of the desire not to relocate.
• Integration of micro- and macro-levels will allow identifying both common and distinctive ideas about the migration reasons, both at the level of the objectified institutional concepts and at the level of the existing ones. The hypothesis can be validated by distinguishing between the reasons for the migration of teachers and graduates and school principals and rectors.
• Dividing respondents into five groups by integrating micro-and macro-problems and synthesizing two paradigms into the mobile attachment model will reveal the ideological factors of teachers’ labor migration. That will allow the overcoming of exclusively economized approaches to understanding reasons for migration.Ideological factors are just as important for moving as material ones. The data should show minor deviations.

3. Results

The development of technologies, characteristic of the modern transitional period of Russian society’s development (socio-cultural transformation), sets the task of redistributing labor resources and actualizes the idea of professional migration and mobility. Employers move from one sphere of activity to another in the same way as this process occurs within one sphere, for example, in the education system. For the latter, this process noticeably intensified in the spring of 2020 in connection with the introduced lockdown due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection, when an alternative to replacing the teacher’s role with digital technologies emerged for the first time.

The results of a sociological survey for the selected target groups are given below: 47 administration officials, 202 school principals, 6 university rectors, 3065 teachers, and 1132 university graduates were interviewed. The questionnaires in Google Forms were developed regarding the specifics of the target audience.

The rectors of higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation were the first category of respondents interviewed about the reasons for labor migration. They were asked the following question related to identifying the reasons for educators’ labor migration: “Evaluate the degree of significance of the listed reasons for labor migration/professional mobility of teachers and teacher education graduates (majoring in pedagogy) on a five-point scale, where 1—does not matter; 5—crucially affects”. The following results were obtained (Figure 1):

The same question about the reasons for migration was asked to representatives of regional and municipal education authorities; the results showed the same approach in the answers to the ranking of the reasons for professional migration (Figure 2):

School principals were the next group of respondents. Respondents of this category know the reasons for professional migration and the mobility of teaching staff “from the inside”. Each head of a general educational organization understands, using a specific example, why teachers decide to leave school or change their place of employment (transfer to another school). The survey results for this category of respondents are presented as follows (Figure 3):

The survey data conducted among schoolteachers who are direct participants in migration processes and mobility is of considerable interest in identifying the reasons for professional migration in the educational space of a modern Russian school.

The teachers were asked the following question: What could be the reason for your (possible) labor migration? The answer assumed a ranking with one point denoting the least significant reason for migration and five points denoting the most significant reason. The survey results conducted among teachers (Figure 4) show that material factors play a primary role for them. In addition, the teachers’ survey showed that other social and personal factors also play a significant role for them, along with the material reasons for migration.

The teacher education graduates formed the fifth group of respondents (Figure 5). This group is of no less interest since this category includes the future teaching staff of the general education system of the Russian Federation.

The ranking of the reasons for professional migration in this group, on the one hand, confirmed the idea of the material factor importance—again, the salary level was named as the main determinant of professional migration processes (

Table 1. Descriptive statistics (SE, M, D, SD, SD2) are presented by the example of the desire of university graduates (Salary level).

	What Are the Reasons for Your (Possible) Labor Migration? (from 1 to 5; Where 5 Is the Most Significant Reason?) (Salary Level)
	Salary level
5	49.8%
4	16.8%
3	13.1%
2	7.6%
1	12.6%
No answer	0%
SE	3.834625323
M	5
D	2.048489709
SD	2376.248062
SD2	1.431254593

Other variables of descriptive statistics are calculated similarly.

). However, these respondents ranked second in the personal development opportunities.

The second group of questions, also related to the elucidation of the reasons for labor migration in the system of modern Russian education, concerned the current sentiments of teachers and teacher education graduates regarding their desire to move to another region aiming to continue working at school. The data presented in the diagram (Figure 6) reflects the respondents’ intentions regarding moving to another territorial entity of the Russian Federation to live and work there. One-tenth of all respondents have already made such a move, and about a third sometimes think about it. At the same time, about a third of all respondents never intended to move and did not think about it. The next diagram (Figure 7) shows the respondents’ preferences in choosing a job as a teacher. A quarter of all respondents would like to move to the largest cities of the country—Moscow and its agglomeration and St. Petersburg. At the same time, less than a fifth of the respondents wanted to change a school in their settlement.

Thus, the main hypotheses of the study were fully or partially confirmed.

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

The theoreticalprovisions of the two competing paradigms, the new mobilities paradigm and the concept of place attachment, can be confirmed only in particular points. There is Urry’s statement about “the new mobilities paradigm”, according to which the “new type of thinking” should prevail in the teachers’ semantic structures, and they (most of them), undoubtedly, should show a desire to change jobs. This statement can be confirmed only partially. Only one-tenth of all respondents have already made such a move, and about a third sometimes think about it, which indicates a partial confirmation of the provisions of the place attachment paradigm. At the same time, about a third of all respondents never intended to move and did not think about it.

Hypothesis 2 (H2).

The proposed “mobile attachment” strategy based on the synthesis of mobile and traditional methodology will allow integrating two levels of analysis (macro and micro) of the reasons for teacher migration. A quarter of all respondents would like to move to the largest cities of the country—Moscow and its agglomeration and St. Petersburg. At the same time, less than a fifth of the respondents wanted to change a school in their settlement.

Hypothesis 3 (H3).

Integration of micro- and macro-levels allows us to identify common and distinctive ideas about the reasons for migration, at the level of objectified institutional concepts, and the level of acting ones. The rectors’ interviews indicate that material factors are the main reasons that can affect the professional migration of teachers and teacher education graduates. However, social factors also play a significant role for teachers, namely the personal development opportunities and the material reasons for migration. Comparison of these data with the results obtained in the interviews with the heads of higher educational institutions and the education system authorities differ somewhat since this social factor role was presented as secondary n the above indicators.

Hypothesis 4 (H4).

Differentiating respondents into five groups from the viewpoint of integrating micro-macro problems and synthesizing two paradigms into the mobile attachment model reveals the ideological factors of teachers’ labor migration, which makes it possible to overcome exclusively economized approaches to the reasons for migration. The ranking of the reasons for professional migration, on the one hand, has confirmed the idea of the material factor importance—again, the salary level was named as the main determinant of professional migration processes. Conversely, respondents of this category indicated personal development opportunities as the second most important indicator.

Thus, the study identified the most significant reasons for the migration of teachers and teacher education graduates. The novelty of this study of the professional migration and mobility processes is that the migration actors’ opinion was compared with the opinion of experts involved in making decisions on the regulation of these processes.

In terms of social sustainability, it is quite natural for teachers and teacher education graduates to seek fair pay and better working conditions to make them healthier and more productive, more interested in the results of their work.

4. Discussion

The analysis of the scientific research base showed that there was no separate sociological study aimed at investigating the reasons for the professional (labor) migration of teachers and teacher education graduates in the educational space of the Russian school in the context of the ongoing socio-cultural transformation. The existing layer of publications is devoted only to studying general issues related to labor migration, which are concentrated mainly around economic factors. This case study tried to fill this gap.

In comparison with the latest modern research on the causes of teacher migration, the following issues are controversial: (1) There is a need to include macro-/micro-perspectives in the study’s narrative of the reasons for the migration of teachers. Thus, the study by A. Amitai and M. Van Houtte [11] deals exclusively with the micro-level sense of actors. The contexts of actions within the framework of the situation’s logic, determined by the leaders of institutions and organizations, are not taken into account. The work of J. Glazer [12], although it concentrates mainly on individual factors of motivation, is at the same time latently directed at considering the macro-level specifics of contexts at the non-institutional level. Conceptual and methodological differentiation at the macro and micro levels would enrich the research and broaden its focus. The topological framework [13] gives an idea of societal causes (individual or nominalistic) simultaneously eluding the authors, unintentionally. Thus, the proposed synthetic model of macro-/microanalysis of the causes of migration has a high heuretic potential for inclusion in recent studies. (2) Possibilities of synthesis of phenomenological, qualitative, and neopositivistic quantitative methodology. Studies by Bressler and Rotte [31], Buckle [19], Farrer and Baas [18] use the possibilities of synthesis. With maximizing either qualitative [11] or rigid positivistic methods [13], further studies of the reasons for the teachers’ migration should be based on an integrative methodology, the foundations of which were applied in this study. Thus, the assertions of Nikishin [22] and Polukhina [28] about the need to level the strengths and weaknesses of the quantitative and qualitative methodology require verification. Our research is one of the steps in this direction, which, however, needs a deeper qualitative study. (3) Neither of the two paradigms under consideration has proven to be fully empirical. Some of the provisions of Urry [16] and the opposing concept of DiMasso [17] were partially confirmed. The contours outlined in the study of the new concept of “mobile attachment” also require further theorizing and verification.

The interpretation of the research results shows the asynchronous opinion of the migration process actors in the professional sphere “teacher” (teachers and teacher education graduates) and experts (rectors of higher educational institutions, school principals, and representatives of regional and municipal education authorities).

The opinion of the interviewed rectors is important since universities train personnel for the education sector, and it is here that the preferences of future university graduates are formed regarding the application of their knowledge in professional activities, affecting the processes of labor migration in the educational environment. The rectors of higher educational institutions (Figure 1) ranked material factors as the primary reason affecting the professional migration of teachers and teacher education graduates. These include housing conditions, the level of wages, and the standard of living in each specific region.

The opinions of the representatives of regional and municipal education authorities are similar to the rectors’ opinions. The ranking of the reasons for professional migration is similar, including housing conditions as ranked first in terms of importance (Figure 2), which testifies to the understanding of monetary and housing problems among teachers by this category of respondents.

The survey data from school principals about the reasons for professional migration and the mobility of teaching staff also indicate that material factors are major reasons for the professional migration of teachers from modern Russian schools. Figure 3 presents the principal’s opinion about a particular schoolteacher who decides to leave school or change jobs without leaving the profession. This data again testifies the importance of salaries and housing conditions for teachers to stay in the workplace.

Thus, the experts’ assessments are consolidated concerning the most significant material reasons for the migration of teachers and teacher education graduates.

The survey data for the schoolteachers, who are direct participants in migration processes and mobility, show that material factors also play a primary role (Figure 4); the salary level is ranked the first among these factors. Housing conditions and living standards in each region were ranked next in importance (with approximately equal indicators). These results show that the problem of material support for teaching staff is still acute, despite all the attempts to increase it, and multiple attempts to resolve it have not yet had the desired effect in achieving social sustainability.

Teachers consider social and personal factors, namely the personal development opportunities, to be significant and the material reasons for migration. Comparison of these data with the results obtained in a survey of heads of higher educational institutions and the education system authorities differ somewhat because the role of this social factor is presented as a secondary in the above indicators (Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3). That instills certain optimism since it indicates that, along with the importance of the material factor, the personal and professional development opportunities are still no less significant for the teachers themselves.

Surveys of teacher education graduates (Figure 5) showed that monetary issues of teacher remuneration are the main reasons for migration. However, respondents also note the importance of the “personal development opportunities” indicator. This result allows us to conclude that at the stage of formation (in the first and second years of work), the significance of the material factor is not significant for a young specialist in the education system than for employees with long-term pedagogical employment.

This research showed that for the macro- and micro-analysis, the material factors are most important for actors, with the salary level, housing conditions, and the standard of living being the undisputed leaders. In this regard, the reasons for labor migration in the educational space of the Russian school can be considered in line with the general tendencies of professional mobility, going on in the conditions of the transitional state of Russian society.

At the same time, we recorded discrepancies in understanding the reasons at the micro and macro levels. At the micro-level of teachers’ collective perceptions, individualized values are indicated as the main reasons: “personal development opportunities” were noted by 43.68% of graduates as a possible reason. In comparison, only 20.41% of teachers chose this indicator. At the macro level of collective perceptions among the heads of universities, schools, and educational departments, these factors were insignificant.

The data verification makes it possible to conclude that for a young teacher in the education system, the significance of the material factor is high, but not significant than for experienced employers. The survey of teachers also revealed the significance of the social factors for them, along with the material reasons for migration, namely, the personal development opportunities.

This research enabled us to compare the opinions of two groups of respondents—the migration process actors and experts.

From a methodological point of view, none of the competing paradigms has found complete empirical confirmation. Most respondents have mused on the future move or are going to move; however, only a third of the respondents are taking steps to move. The retrospective nature of the mobile methodology, and certain subjectivities of the obtained experience, were removed by the traditional methodology—questionnaire surveys and expert interviews. Whereas the mobile methodology removes and eliminates the shortcomings of the resource-oriented approach through the appeal to life experience, the actor’s reflections, simplified “generalizations”, the traditional methodology contributes to the objectification of sociological information and the appeal to place attachment. Consequently, their complex use will make it possible to combine the subjectivation of the reasons for migration and objective migration processes.

Further research prospects are associated with qualitative research methods and quantitative methods—“mobile methods”—for empirical verification and development of teachers’ opinions about their reasons for moving and leaving an educational institution. Including the problem of relocation and irrational migration of teaching staff in the research, issues will enable to resolve the issues of regulating the migration flows of teachers and teacher education graduates. In addition, the data obtained can form the basis for developing proposals for the social sustainability of the education system and the Russian school.

It also seems promising to study the problem of intensifying the processes of professional migration in the educational space of the school in the context of the COVID-19 spread since the principles of the sustainable development strategy are violated. Social sustainability must be addressed to attain the most sustainable outcome possible.

5. Conclusions

Thus, the socio-cultural transformation characteristic of modern Russian society turns out to be a factor determining the processes of professional migration of teachers and teacher education graduates in the aspect of their intensification.

In the context of the ongoing processes of socio-cultural transformation, material factors—the salary levels, housing provision, and the standard of living in a particular region of the Russian Federation—are the main reason for labor migration and the mobility of teaching staff. This sociological survey showed that along with material factors, social factors, such as the possibility of personal and professional development opportunities at the place of employment, are relevant reasons for labor migration, which is most typical for teachers (classified as “young specialists”) and for teacher education graduates.

Methodologically, this research showed that the optimal strategy for identifying the reasons for labor migration in the educational space of the Russian school is the mixing methods strategy and two competing paradigms: “mobilities turn” and “place attachment”.