THE IMPACT OF WESTERN EDUCATION ON THE SOCIOPOLITICAL VALUES OF YOUNG ADULTS IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

How does a type of education influence the development of particular norms and beliefs within a society? My thesis is aimed at finding the impact of Western-oriented education on sociopolitical values of young people in Kazakhstan. I use revisited modernization theory by Inglehart and Welzel (2005) and argue that students studying in Western universities possess more self-expression values such as prioritizing freedom and autonomous decision-making compared to students who attend non-Western universities. In particular, I propose three hypotheses: two of them are focused on the influence of additional years of education and content of courses on the development of self-expression values. The last one claims that studying in a Western democratic country increases the exposure to self-expression values experienced by a foreign student.