«Economy of adoption»: street-level bureaucracy VS. Rural community

The case study of the “adoption economy” examines the social factors that determine the decision-making of street-level bureaucrats. Research deals with small villages, whose residents adopted children in the 2000th in order to increase the number of pupils in the underutilized local schools and thus resisted their shutdown. The authors studied cases from five different regions in Russia, where at the time of the field study underutilized local schools were closed in three rural settlements, but in the other five settlements they were “saved” with the help of the “adoption economy”. The authors relied on M. Lipsky’s concept of “street-level bureaucrats” and A. Portes’ theory of social capital. Qualitative data were collected from 88 individual semi-structured interviews, an observation diary, documents, and photographic materials. The institutional context of “bureaucratic” discretion in determining what rural schools are subject to shut down is analyzed. The results of the study showed that the social capital of rural “street-level bureaucrats” (usually teachers of rural schools), due to their (un)inclusion in close interaction with local residents, to whom they provide services, becomes an important factor in (un)making a decision to retain a underutilized school in small rural settlement. In Portes’ theory perspective street-level bureaucrats are regarded as donors for rural community as they are forced by the territorial community to share economic resources – to continue financing a small-size school despite the obvious economic inexpediency.