Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations purposes, policies, and practices in education

✍ Scribed by Chankseliani, Maia; Silova, Iveta

• Publisher: Symposium Books
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 210
• Series: Oxford Studies in Comparative Education
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This volume revisits the book edited by David Phillips and Michael Kaser in 1992, entitled Education and Economic Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (https://doi.org/10.15730/books.42). Two and a half decades later, this volume reflects on how post-socialist countries have engaged with what Phillips & Kaser called ‘the flush of educational freedom’. Spanning diverse geopolitical settings that range from Southeast and Central Europe to the Caucasus and Central Asia, the chapters in this volume offer analyses of education policies and practices that the countries in this region have pursued since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

This book explores three interrelated questions. First, it seeks to capture complex reconfigurations of education purposes during post-socialist transformations, noting the emergence of neoliberal education imaginaries in post-socialist spaces and their effects on policy discussions about education quality and equity across the region. Second, it examines the ongoing tensions inherent in post-socialist transformations, suggesting that beneath the surface of dominant neoliberal narratives there are always powerful countercurrents – ranging from the persisting socialist legacies to other alternative conceptualizations of education futures – highlighting the diverse trajectories of post-socialist education transformations. And finally, the book engages with the question of ‘comparison’, prompting both the contributing authors and readers to reflect on how research on post-socialist education transformations can contribute to rethinking comparative methods in education across space and time.

✦ Table of Contents

Maia Chankseliani, Iveta Silova Reconfiguring Education Purposes, Policies and Practices during Post-socialist Transformations: setting the stage, 7-25

Elena Minina, Nelli Piattoeva, Vera G. Centeno, Xingguo Zhou, Helena Hinke Dobrochinski Candido Transnational Policy Borrowing and National Interpretations of Educational Quality in Russia, China and Brazil, 27-44

Sanja Djerasimovic Constructing the European Citizen: the origins and the development of the Serbian post-2000 civic education discourse, 45-62

Simon Janashia Introduction of the Per Capita Funding Model of Finance in the Post-Soviet Countries: the cases of Latvia and Georgia, 63-83

Tatiana Khavenson Post-socialist Transformations, Everyday School Life and Country Performance in PISA: analysis of curriculum education reform in Latvia and Estonia, 85-103

Mihaylo Milovanovitch, Kate Lapham Good Intentions Cast Long Shadows: donors, governments and education reform in Armenia and Ukraine, 105-125

Merli Tamtik, Emma Sabzalieva Emerging Global Players? Building International Legitimacy in Universities in Estonia and Kazakhstan, 127-145

Bridget A. Goodman, Laura Karabassova Bottom Up and Top Down: comparing language-in-education policy in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 147-166

Garine Palandjian, Iveta Silova, Olga Mun, Rakhat Zholdoshalieva Nation and Gender in Post-socialist Education Transformations: comparing early literacy textbooks in Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Latvia, 167-192

Iveta Silova Comparing Post-socialist Transformations: dead ends, new pathways and unexpected openings, 193-206

Notes on Contributors, 201-206

Reconfiguring Education Purposes, Policies and Practices during Post-socialist Transformations: setting the stage
Maia Chankseliani, Iveta Silova