Russian schools to offer ‘family studies’ classes for teenagers from September

Russian schools are to offer a course in “family studies” to teenage students from the new academic year starting in September, the country’s Institute for Education Development Strategy announced in a document shared by independent media outlet Verstka on Thursday.

The optional extracurricular course aims to “introduce young people to our motherland’s traditional system of family values” and encourage “pro-family values and attitudes” including marriage, having multiple children, and abstinence among students aged 11-15, the document says.

Across 34 classes over the course of the school year, students will discuss topics including “masculinity and femininity”, “having multiple children as an important component of a healthy family environment”, and the “reproductive function of the family and its significance in resolving the demographic problems faced by modern Russia”.

The course also seeks to change teenagers’ perceptions of the “value of family”, which the document says is “often diminished under the negative influence of elements of destructive ideology”.

A course emphasising the importance of family was originally proposed by lawmaker Nina Ostanina, who chairs the Committee of the State Duma on Family Protection, Issues of Fatherhood, Motherhood and Childhood, in 2023. Her committee colleague Yelena Vtorygina has argued that teaching pupils about the institution of family would “protect Russia from falling into a demographic abyss”.

In 2022, Russia’s Education Ministry Important Conversations, a series of compulsory classes ostensibly focused on “life in modern Russia”, but which the government has in fact used to indoctrinate school children with its view of Russian history and its version of how the war in Ukraine started.

On Friday, Vladimir Putin signed a decree streamlining the immigration process for foreigners who support “traditional family values” to move to Russia, waiving usually mandatory language and history tests for individuals who oppose the “neoliberal ideology” of their home countries.