Charting the development of knowledge on Soviet and post-Soviet education through the pages of comparative and international education journals

ABSTRACT

This paper examines 126 research articles from three comparative education journals to chart the development of knowledge within comparative education on the Soviet Union and post-Soviet countries. Thematic, theoretical, discursive, and methodological aspects of scholarship are linked with changing geopolitical realities in a systematic analysis of scholarship published since the late 1950s. A new framework of multi-layered colonialism is introduced to explore different features of the double disadvantage that comparative education knowledge production on post-Soviet countries has faced – Russian imperialism and Western academic colonialism. The paper contributes to comparative education knowledge creation by historicising our understanding of Western academic output and outlining a potential future direction in the development of knowledge on post-Soviet systems, policies, and practices of education.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative and international education
• multi-layered colonialism
• Soviet Union
• post-Soviet countries
• ethnocentrism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Maia Chankseliani is an Associate Professor of Comparative and International Education at the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests focus on education and training policies and practices, and how these influence individual opportunities.

Notes

1 CER – 59 years (1957–2015)/59 articles; CE – 52 years (1964–2015)/40 articles; Compare – 41 years (1975–2015)/27 articles.

2 Only two studies looked at borrowing in the post-Soviet context – Lisovskaya and Karpov (1999) and Elliott and Tudge (2007).

3 See, for example, Carey and Raciborski (2004), Ferro (1997), Kappeler (2001), Khalid (2007), Lazarus (2012), and Moore (2006)

4 Not everyone, however, shares the view that comparative study of Soviet education did not have any impact on the development of the field. For example, Steiner-Khamsi (2006b) argues that the Cold War influenced several characteristics of American and German comparative and international education; she mentions the dominance of area studies and international development in American CIE and the absence of development studies in German comparative education (Steiner-Khamsi 2006b, 22–23).

5 I grouped authors into three categories: USA, Western Europe/Canada/Israel/Australia, Eastern Europe, and post-Soviet countries. Those who originally come from Eastern Europe but worked in the first category countries were coded as Eastern European. For example, George Bereday and Joseph Zajda were coded as Eastern European because of their Polish origin. All those who come from post-Soviet countries and work in the first category countries were coded as post-Soviet. For example, Nicholas Hans was coded as post-Soviet because of his Russian origin and Iveta Silova was coded as post-Soviet because of her Latvian origin.

6 The proportions differed by journal. Compare had the highest concentration (74% of all articles analysed) of authors from institutions located in the USA, Western Europe, Canada, Israel, Australia or HK, who did not have biographical links with the region. CER, on the other hand, had the highest concentration (20% of all articles analysed) of authors from post-Soviet countries per se.

7 See, for example, Bigelow (1961), Dobson and Swafford (1980), and Yanowitch and Dodge (1968).

8 In fact, Grozny University was located in Grozny, the capital of Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

9 For example, Glanzer (2009), Grant (1975), Hogan-Brun (2007), Jahn (1975), and McLean (1992).

10 This is argued by Ben-Ari and van Bremen (2005, 17), Connell (2007, 44), Kuwayama (2004, 55), and Takayama (2011, 456)

11 According to the coding system I have used, these are the authors from the USA, Western Europe, Canada, Israel or Australia.

12 For example, Dobson and Swafford (1980), Grant (1992), Heyneman (1997), Higgins (1976), Janmaat (2007), Kravetz (1980), Mercer and Pogosian (2013), and Vogel (1959).

13 For example, Bigelow (1961), Groth (1987), Judge (1975), Mitter (1987), Raggatt (1977), Roucek (1960), and Zajda (1988).

14 For example, Bray and Borevskaya (2001); Bulajeva and Hogan-Brun (2010); Carnoy, Khavenson, and Ivanova (2015); Gershunsky and Pullin (1990); and McLean and Voskresenskaya (1992).