Sticking and tipping points: a case study of preschool education policy and practice in Astana, Kazakhstan

This article presents a case study exploring how national guidance for kindergartens in Kazakhstan was interpreted in practice. Document analysis of the State Education Standards of Preschool Upbringing and Education, together with stakeholder interviews and observations of six Astana kindergarten settings, illustrates how competing perspectives on preparing children for school can both promote and limit opportunities for child-led activity in early education. The article considers postcolonial and neocolonial pasts and their potential to influence the present, identifying potential sticking points that may limit change processes. The article suggests processes for building locally grounded praxis in order to create tipping points where child-initiated pedagogy could become a more frequent feature of practice

Governança e governamentalidade: relação e relevância de dois conceitos científico-sociais proeminentes na educação comparada

Contrapondo-se ao retrospecto da existência de uma relação volátil entre o Estado e "seu" sistema educacional, este trabalho enfoca dois conceitos que podem ser empregados como ferramentas de análise para estudar as transformações em curso. O termo "governança" está mais relacionado a aspectos técnicos: tratam-se de instrumentos e modos, procedimentos e atores, além de suas constelações e formas de cooperação. Ele concentra a pesquisa em questões como: quem oferece serviços educacionais, qual é a relação entre ensino público e privado etc. Ele também é extremamente útil na investigação da relação entre os diversos níveis de análise e provou-se particularmente importante para a compreensão teórica adequada do papel das organizações internacionais na formulação de políticas educacionais. A sociologia e a ciência política são duas disciplinas cuja associação se mostra mais notável na elaboração do conceito sob diversas perspectivas. "Governamentalidade", por sua vez, apesar de compartilhar muitas características com governança, é um termo foucautiano dedicado à geração de subjetividades distintas por meio de técnicas e modos de regulação e conduta em sentido lato. Assim, governamentalidade inclui investigações do nexo tipicamente foucautiano conhecimento/poder. Consideramos ambas as perspectivas em conjunto para discutir suas implicações para a educação comparada.Against the background of a changing relation between the state and "its" education system, the present contribution focuses on two concepts that can be used as analytical tools in order to analyze the current transformations. "Governance" is more concerned with technical issues: with instruments and modes, procedures and actors, with their constellations and forms of cooperation. It focuses research on questions such as: who provides educational services, what is the relation between public and private education etc. It is also very useful in investigating the relation between the various levels of analysis and has proven particularly useful for an adequate theoretical understanding of the role of international organizations in shaping educational policies. Sociology and political science are the two disciplines most prominently associated with elaborating the concept under various perspectives. Governmentality, on the other hand, although sharing many characteristics with governance, is a Foucauldian term concerned with the generation of different subjectivities through techniques and modes of ruling and guiding in an encompassing sense. Governmentality thus includes investigations of the typical Foucauldian knowledge/power nexus. Both perspectives are brought together to discuss the implications for comparative education

“We Have a Window Seat”: A Bakhtinian Analysis of International Teachers’ Identity in Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools in Kazakhstan

The paper explores dynamic positionality of international teachers in Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) in Kazakhstan. The study participants include 11 international teachers from three NIS schools. The experiences of international teachers in NIS schools are characterised by two main tendencies. On the one hand, the study participants report a fascination and enjoyment with the stimulating academic environment of the schools. On the other hand, the participants report a degree of disaffection as a result of multiple constraints, which prevent them from being fully integrated in the life of the schools. The paper contributes to the literature on teacher mobility and migration examined from the perspective of Bakhtin’s dialogical approach

‘Soviet’ in teachers’ memories and professional beliefs in Kazakhstan: points for reflection for reformers, international consultants and practitioners

This paper is a part of a three-year study, ‘Internationalisation and reform of secondary schooling in Kazakhstan’, jointly conducted by an international team of UK- and Kazakhstan-based researchers in 2012–2014. The study was conceived as a mechanism to support education reform in the country. This was achieved through reconstructing the education policy narrative of the last two decades and understanding the effects of the newly established Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools and the Centres of Excellence in-service professional development programme on the larger system. While the focus of the study was on Kazakhstan’s educational present, the references to the previous system of education, which was often referred to as Soviet, traditional, but also successful, fundamental and the best in the world, were numerous. These continuous references to the past prompted the authors of this paper to address the questions: What memories and practices of Soviet education are still dominant in the field of education in Kazakhstan? How do these beliefs continue to shape educational debate in the country? In support of its argument, the paper draws on the literature on Soviet schooling and contemporary education reform, interview data with national and international teachers in Kazakhstan, and field observations. The resultant narrative, which brings together the analysis of educational change and changes in teachers’ beliefs, may appeal to many involved in the construction of the contemporary reform agenda

Testimonies of Syrian Academic Displacement Post-2011: Time, Place and the Agentic Self

This article explores the experiences of protracted displacement in a group of 19 displaced Syrian academics now living in Turkey who are often referred to as the ‘precariat’–that is, a group or collective of people who are living in conditions of high unpredictability, insecurity and uncertainty. As part of a small-scale collaborative professional enquiry semi-structured interviews with these academics were conducted to understand the social, affective and professional experiences, needs and concerns of the academics during and after their forced displacement. The key concepts of ‘precarity’ and ‘crises of selfhood’, alongside memory and testimony, inform the analysis. This article seeks to provide an account of this collective experience and its complex character and concludes with observations on how one might understand the constraints on professional agency and how might one support displaced academics in such contexts. Solidarity in exile and the development of political friendships are argued for as a principle to inform all work (Arendt, 1958). © 202

Ampliação do ensino fundamental: a que demandas atende? A que regras obedece? A que racionalidades corresponde?

O objetivo deste texto é analisar, a partir de um conjunto de materiais oficiais e sob a luz de um referencial foucaultiano, como o ensino fundamental de 9 anos (e a nova organização curricular a ele implicada) torna-se efeito emblemático de um processo de "mudança de ênfases" (Saraiva, Veiga-Neto, 2009) acerca dos tipos de racionalidade que orientam as práticas sociais voltadas para a criança pequena. Para tanto, num primeiro momento, mostra-se de que maneiras outras "mudanças de ênfases" foram operadas em outros contextos nacionais. Ou seja, a partir dos trabalhos de Hultqvist (1998) e Baker (1998), descreve-se como se deram, na Suécia e nos Estados Unidos (respectivamente), profundas modificações no cuidado e atendimento à criança pré-escolar, bem como na proposta e mesmo na forma de organização da escola infantil. Em seguida, e tomando tais autores como base, a discussão analítica empreendida se dá a partir de três tópicos fundamentais: inicialmente, descrevemos a captura da infância em nome de algo que se denomina e se apresenta sob a égide da qualidade; em seguida (e daí decorrente), voltamos nosso olhar para a relação entre Estado e o conceito de criança-projeto (relação da qual parte uma fórmula criança-ideal - sociedade-ideal) e, por fim, tratamos do conceito de criança-capaz, na qualidade de objeto discursivo que emerge, a um só tempo, do espaço deixado pela lógica de resgate (Baker, 1998) e das tensões mutuamente constitutivas entre educação infantil e ensino fundamental.The objective of the present text is to analyze, based on a set of official documents and under a Foucauldian perspective, how the nine-year fundamental education (and the new curriculum organization implied by it) has become an emblematic effect of a process of "change in emphases" (Saraiva, Veiga-Neto, 2009) about the types of rationality guiding the social practices focused on small children. To this end, the article initially shows in what manners other "changes in emphases" have been operated in different national contexts. That is to say, based on works by Hultqvist (1998) and Baker (1998), the text describes how profound modifications have been carried out in Sweden and in the USA, respectively, concerning the care of, and service to, pre-school children, as well as in the proposal, and even in the form of organization, of early childhood schooling. Next, and taking those authors as its basis, the analytical discussion centers on three fundamental topics: firstly, we describe the seizure of childhood in the name of something that is denominated and presented under the aegis of quality; next (and following from it), we turn our attention to the relation between the State and the concept of project-child (a relation wherefrom springs a formula of ideal-child - ideal-society) and, lastly, we deal with the concept of capable-child as a discourse object that emerges simultaneously from the space left by the logic of rescue (Baker, 1998) and from the reciprocally constitutive tensions between early childhood education and fundamental education

Cultural trauma and the politics of access to higher education in Syria

This paper takes interest in the relationship between the politics of HE access pertaining to longstanding practices of patrimonial authoritarian politics and between the narration of collective trauma. Building on an empirical study of Syrian HE during war, we suggest that a narrative disjuncture within HEIs has a damaging impact not only upon the educational process, HE reconstruction and reform but also upon the very possibility of social reconciliation. This is especially true when access to education and post-graduation opportunities are directly linked with patrimonial favouritism; widespread social inequalities in access and retention; a violent turn in the purging of oppositional academics; a severely exacerbated brain drain linked to political views; and significantly sparser employment opportunities. Building on the study findings we show how these challenges are linked to ethico-political positioning vis-à-vis the mass movement of 2011 and related cultural trauma narratives. In closing we suggest that understanding the relationship between HE access and cultural trauma, and the mechanisms of power and narrative reproduction resultant from the politicisation of HE access in such contexts, can inform decision-making on HE reconstruction and future reform, as well as further research on HE under dictatorship and conflict, in important ways.British Council and SOROS foundation to Council for At Risk Academic