Survey of Pre-College Enrollments in Russian Language Classes, 2024
Table of Contents
I. Background
This survey was first conducted by CCPCR, The Committee on College and Pre-College Russian. The committee was created in 1984 as a result of the Report of the National Committee for Russian Language Study (1983), which itself followed a report of the Carter administration’s Presidential Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies (1979). Noting (in 1983) that “enrollments in the Russian language have dropped more precipitously than those in any other major modern language,” the Committee for Russian Language Study, composed of representatives of AAASS, AATSEEL, and ACTR, made 12 recommendations in the Report, among which was an initiative to strengthen pre-college Russian programs and establish a survey of pre-college Russian teaching.
In 2002, CCPCR added an annual fall survey of college/university-level Russian enrollments. CCPCR also gathered data for pre-college enrollments from 1996-2013. SRAS was not able to use this previous data, however, as we discovered extensive data corruption that had occurred in previous server migrations. Thus, our reporting begins with 2018.
CCPCR surveys were coordinated by John Schillinger, now Emeritus Professor of Russian from American University in Washington, D.C. In 2018, Professor Schillinger retired from heading the survey and SRAS, an organization specialized in study abroad to Eurasia and promoting and supporting the study of Eurasia in North America, took over. Find out more about SRAS and our varied projects.
Since 2018 SRAS has, in conference with several Russian teachers, sought to make the survey even richer and more informative. The survey was moved to a larger, electronic questionnaire to allow for extended analysis and the creation of graphics. Additional questions were added based on interests teachers expressed in focus groups conducted by SRAS.
If you are interested in supporting Russian language study at the pre-college or college level or wish to connect with SRAS, either to add information about your program, ask questions, or make recommendations for our projects, please contact us.
II. Notes
Our survey was distributed via the listserv SEELANGS, the SRAS newsletter, and mailings coordinated with the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) to their members. The ACTFL and ACTR have been an invaluable help to this survey effort. SRAS has also conducted extensive individual outreach efforts this year to locate programs and verify contacts.
Working with ACTR to compare, combine, and test our databases, we were able to identify 124 likely active programs. This process involved checking to make sure that current contact information was still valid and, if not, if new contact information could be found or the existence of a program at the same institution could be otherwise verified.
From these 124 programs, we received a total of 77 responses for a response rate of 62%. Of these 77, seven responded to say that their programs had been suspended or recently cancelled and that they had no students to report for this academic year.
All of these numbers, 124 potentially active programs, 77 responses, and 70 responses reporting students, are the highest this survey has ever achieved. For comparison, the mailing list for the ACTFL identifies 101 different institutions. A larger survey, conducted in 2017 by the American Councils for International Education in conjunction with numerous professional organizations and support from the US government, identified 147 individual high school programs (several of which we have verified as now closed).
A particular challenge of the survey is the fluidity of the field. Many programs – even long-standing ones – are being closed when the teacher retires or moves on. If the program continues under a new teacher, this change of contact information can pose a challenge to maintain contact with the program. As there is no national listing for K-12 Russian programs, new programs can be very difficult to locate and contact. Most websites for public schools do not contain specific information on individual language programs.
We have found in our outreach efforts that at least several teachers have left primary and secondary education to teach online, for higher education, or to pursue other professional opportunities. We have also found a few cases where language instruction has moved online to programs taught by off-site teachers. As our survey generally relies on teachers submitting their own enrollment data, such arrangements can make gathering information harder.
Although our dataset is rather small, we believe that our current contact list is probably one of the most complete for K-12 Russian programs. The institutional diversity and geographic range of these programs is great and we believe our results can still be considered representative of the field. We hope as well that respondent numbers will grow as the survey becomes a regular and, hopefully, more widely known event each year.
III. Overall Enrollment and Program Growth
With extensive outreach efforts, we received a total of 70 responses from schools that currently have students studying Russian, this represents a new record in the response rate for this survey. A total of 8339 students were reported, mostly at the high school level.
To track trends in enrollment, we can calculate year-on-year growth for any program reporting for two consecutive years. For 2024, a total of 28 institutions reporting also reported students in 2023. Another challenge this survey faces is getting consistent year-on-year data as most programs report only sporadically. About half of these programs that did report year-on-year data reported positive growth with more programs reporting strongly positive growth (of over 20%) than any other growth category, positive or negative.
This year saw the number of reporting programs with 100 or more students reach an all-time high. Correspondingly, programs with less than 30 students were less likely to report than at any other time in the survey.
IV. State-by-State Breakdown
For 2024, survey respondents came from 34 US states, representing 68% of all states. Note that for the purposes of this section, we have included programs that are currently suspended as their programs still technically exist.
New York, Maryland, and New Jersey account for about a quarter of all reported programs.
Note that not all segments below are labeled. For the programs top left, hover over the segments to reveal the state that segment represents.
V. Heritage Speakers
Although states with larger Russian speaking populations are generally over-represented here, most programs report that most of their students are, in fact, not heritage speakers.
That said, programs began reporting higher concentrations of heritage speakers in 2022, a trend that has held to this day, indicating that these programs may be serving greater numbers of those who have fled the war in Ukraine.
VI. Grade Breakdowns
For 2024, most reporting programs (63) reported having a high school program. Fewer (30) reported middle school programs and fewer still (20) reported grade school programs.
VII. Requirements and Levels
Most pre-college programs that offer Russian also feature language requirements that can be fulfilled by taking Russian. Having Russian fulfill a requirement is one of the best way to ensure a Russian program has healthy enrollment.
Most programs also offer advanced instruction – with the greatest number of programs offering more than four levels.
VIII. Types of Instruction
While many programs reported offering online and hybrid instruction in response to COVID-related restrictions in 2020, these are now being phased out as face-to-face and immersion teaching styles become more prevalent again.
Respondents could select multiple options to reflect all styles used across their programs. Thus, the total below is larger than the overall number of programs reporting.
IX. Partnerships and Curriculums
In terms of delivering curriculums, the single most popular resource used are self-created materials. After that, textbooks used are largely the same as those used in college-level courses, although no single book can really be said to be dominating the field in precollege instruction.
X. Other Languages Offered
Only two respondents indicated that Russian the only foreign language offered. Another seven left the question blank. In all other programs, Russian is most commonly offered with three or four other foreign languages. Numbers of foreign languages offered ranged from one to up to 13. Below are all languages that were historically reported as offered by two or more programs. Note that most have seen dips over the last years – except for Korean, which has grown.
X. Faculty
The 70 schools reporting Russian language enrollments currently employ a total of 84 full-time and 56 part-time Russian teachers.