Gender and the academic profession in contemporary Tajikistan: challenges and opportunities expressed by women who remain

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to describe the deleterious impact of higher educational changes affecting female faculty members working in Tajik universities in the post-Soviet era. Over the past two decades, the social and economic position women gained during Soviet times has significantly eroded, bringing enormous challenges to education and higher education access, completion and staffing. The demographic and cultural marginalization of women here has negatively impacted university teaching opportunities and the status of women faculty members. Ethnographic interviews – along with relevant secondary data – reveal that despite various official gender-equity policies announced by the state, female participation issues remain prominent in the university. Our interviewees also report continued difficulty entering higher faculty ranks and leadership positions in university. However, significant numbers of women are still to be found there, and they report a workable compromise between being professional educators and trying to navigate a local culture that is becoming more ‘traditional’.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• gender
• academic profession
• women faculty
• Central Asia
• Tajikistan

Acknowledgements

The opinions expressed herein are the authors’ own and do not necessarily express the views of the Open Society Foundations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this paper was supported in part by the Doctoral Fellowship Program, which is administered by the Open Society Foundations.