Researching education and society in Central Asia

Abstract

Although researching of and publishing on different aspects of the society in Central Asia and the post-Soviet world has become a popular activity in the international context, little attention is paid to the concept, processes, and conditions of researching in Central Asia itself. Yet, the quality of the research outcomes, which depend on the above factors, and which constitutes a foundation for policy and practice decisions, including in education is of paramount importance. This paper is about themes, concepts, issues and challenges involved in the process of understanding and carrying out research in Central Asia. It draws upon the outcomes of a number of experiences, namely: (a) the presenter’s personal experiences of conducting research in Central Asia, (b) interviews and informal conversations with a number of scholars involved in studying education and society in Central Asia, and (c) review of literature on research. The concepts and processes of researching are connected with literature on Soviet and post-Soviet research conditions. The paper highlights implications for the quality of research products, researching capacity, conditions of researching, and for training local and external researchers to undertake qualitative inquiry in Central Asia. Writing a paper on the challenges of educational research in Central Asia is a challenging task for a number of reasons, the most important of which is the dearth of reliable and valid data due to the underdeveloped research tradition in Central Asia, the lack of research facilities, critical scholarship and a lack of confidence in sharing the research data for identifying solutions to the problems.