Abstract:

Building on the findings from two Sociology of Education courses offered in Tajikistan in the summers of 2010 and 2013, this paper argues that a key issue in the work of the international agencies and experts has been lack of serious attention to the development of local theory development capacities. Whether at graduate courses of the universities (abroad or local), or though on the ground “research” activities, such as monitoring, survey, and evaluation, the attention ( time, space and intellectual input) to how a theory is developed, concepts and frameworks are produced has been an ignored area. Without due attention to this, all efforts of international agencies and experts with good intentions may lead to further education dependence and irrelevance.

The data for our paper comes from the notes from the two sociology course sessions, interviews with the members of the course, course evaluations, and the two reports on the course (Niyozov, 2010, 2013). Insights from post-socialism and globalization (Silova, 2010; Niyozov & Dastambuev, 2012) are used as framework to explain the findings and discussions. The presentation will highlight the changes and continuities in the rationale, objectives, participants, topics and content of discussions, as well as the implications of the two courses for understanding the issues of post-socialist transition and globalization (e.g., the status and development of local education scholarship; sociological understanding of education, local engagement with global ideas, and the implications of these transformation for quality and equity in education and society). The paper/presentation provides rich local comparative insights on a selected number of themes such as borrowing and lending; quality and (in) equality in the soviet vs. post-soviet education; the status of teacher; standardization; religious education. The paper argues for creating venues and spaces where local and global scholars critically engage and reconstruct the local-global nexus so as to serve the creation of equitable and prosperous post-soviet societies in Central Asia.

Keywords:

Globalization, sociology of education, local practices.