Interview with Elena Viktorovna Kochkina

Abstract

Elena Viktorovna Kochkina, born in 1956, became involved in gender research in 1990. She received training in gender studies at York University in Great Britain in 1993 and at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1996. In 1996, she completed her graduate studies at the Institute of Social and Economic Studies of Population under the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the 1990s, she ran the Center of Expert Assistance for Social Initiatives and the gender studies program at the Moscow branch of the Open Society Institute (Soros Fund). She is one of the authors and co-editors of the collection Gender Reconstruction of Political Systems (Saint Petersburg: Aleteya, 2003). In 2004 she defended her dissertation entitled Gender Asymmetry in Power Structures of the Russian Federation: Issues of Political and Legal Regulation for which she received her Candidate's Degree in Political Science. She provides gender analysis of legal reform in Russia, structural adjustment programs and implementation of equal opportunity policies in Russia, as well as analysis of gender perspectives in the sphere of education in Russia.