SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHOICE IN ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN, AND EMERGING EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY

Ahn E.S. Smagulova J.
2023 Foundation for Good Politics

Ideology and Politics Journal
2023 Issue 2(24)86 - 105 pp.

Since independence and particularly since the beginning of the 21^st century, Kazakhstan has been undergoing rapid socio-demographic and geographic changes. This article explores how these socio-demographic and geographic changes have been contributing to emergent socio-economic stratification in urban contexts with a focus on the city of Almaty. Drawing on data from a survey conducted in 2014 among 29 public secondary schools involving 2,954 participants from grades nine to 11, the article examines the characteristics of the student bodies at these public schools according to medium of instruction (MOI) (primarily Russian or Kazakh). By looking at characteristics like ethnicity, reported language proficiency in Russian and/or Kazakh, factors like family migration, and various proxies for family socio-economic status (e.g., frequency of family vacations, family libraries, etc.), the study observed that there were patterns related to ethnic and socioeconomic stratification differentiating the Russian versus Kazakh MOI schools. While the dataset was a cross-sectional view into secondary school aged students during a single point in time (spring of 2014), the findings indicate that further research examining the ways recent education and other social policies may be reinforcing and/or reproducing historically structured inequalities, particularly in areas undergoing rapid urbanization like Almaty.

education policy , Kazakh language , language policy , medium of instruction , Russian language , school choice , socio-economic stratification , urbanization

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University of Wisconsin–Madison, United States
KIMEP University, Kazakhstan

University of Wisconsin–Madison
KIMEP University

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