Civics Education and Democracy Building in Azerbaijan: A Missed Opportunity?

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic data collected in Azerbaijan, this article examines the civics education program that existed in Azerbaijan in the 1990s and the early 2000s, prior to its incorporation into a newly created “life skills” (həyat bilgisi in Azerbaijani) course. It is argued that a disconnect between curriculum reform and classroom practice resulted in a missed opportunity for the “first cohort of post-Soviet Azerbaijanis” to benefit from a civics education program that could have had the capacity to impart a meaningful understanding of democracy and thereby useful democracy building skills.

Acknowledgments

The fieldwork upon which this article is based was supported by a Fulbright Fellowship (2006–2007) and an IREX IARO Fellowship (2007–2008). Additionally, the author would like to thank Dr. Elmina Kazimzade and Dr. Eric Lepisto for their kindness and their help during fieldwork and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments during the review process.

Disclosure statement

The author had the opportunity to return to Azerbaijan in April–May 2017 and November 2019 as a consultant to the World Bank for a project concerning Azerbaijan’s IDPs. The author’s work for the World Bank is not represented in this article, however, and the author’s views do not necessarily represent those of the World Bank. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I use the terms “former Soviet republic” and “post-Soviet republic” to refer to the fifteen “states” that were formally incorporated into the Soviet Union (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan). “Former socialist republic” and “post-socialist republic” refer to the neighboring states, such as Romania and Mongolia, that fell within the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. While “former socialist system” and “post-socialist system” refer to the social, political, and economic systems that existed in both groups of Soviet-dominated states.

2 During Soviet times, Russian-language schools in Azerbaijan were generally better than Azerbaijani-language schools, because Russian-language teachers in Azerbaijan were generally better educated and received better materials (e.g. textbooks) than their Azerbaijani-language counterparts. Since 1991, however, the number of Russian-language-only schools in Azerbaijan has decreased dramatically. Among other reasons, many of the country’s Russian speakers have left. Now, some schools, primarily in Baku, the capital, and other urban areas, offer two language tracks: Azerbaijani and Russian. However, most schools are Azerbaijani-language-only schools.

3 A comprehensive account of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh is beyond the scope of this article, especially since hostilities renewed in September 2020. Thomas de Waal’s 2003 book offers a good overview of the conflict. Other helpful resources are: anthropologist Nora Dudwick’s 1995 article for historical and cultural context; geographer Richard Rowland’s 2004 article for geographical context; and political scientist Laurence Broers’ 2016 paper for present-day geopolitical context.

4 For example, one of the two groups of rural school students to whom I administered the survey got into a lengthy discussion with their teacher about the question: “Do you want to get married?” Many of the survey’s questions were open-ended. This one, however, was not; it asked for a yes or no response. However, the students’ teacher, and subsequently the students, interpreted the question to mean: “Do you want to get married earlier or later?” In other words, would you like to get married after graduating from the ninth or eleventh grade, or would you like to pursue some kind of post-secondary education or training and then get married? When I tried to suggest to the teacher that some people, perhaps even some of these students, might not want to get married, the teacher assured me that everyone, and certainly all of these students, wanted to get married, it was just a matter of when they wanted to do so. (Field Notes, October 19, 2007)