Protest or Acquiescence: Factors Affecting Reactions to Higher Education Reforms in Kyrgyzstan

• In Event: Politics and activism in higher education in Eurasia

Proposal

Protests take place in political and social contexts. For example, different political systems tolerate different levels of dissent. Protesting the war in Ukraine has fewer consequences for a U.S. citizen living in Miami than it does for a Russian citizen living in Moscow. The case of Masha Moskalev, whose school drawing with the words “Glory to Ukraine” and “No to War” led to a two-year prison sentence for her father, Alexei, has been widely reported (Radford, 2023). A similar drawing by a child in Miami likely would not be noticed outside of her classroom.

Moreover, some people are socialized to believe that their actions matter – that their individual or collective choices can make a difference in the societies in which they live. Other people are socialized to think that only some people – male people, adults, people of certain ethnic groups, people in certain positions, people with education – can create change. Those people ask, “Who would listen to a school student?” “Who would listen to a woman without any education?”

Many theories developed in Global North assume that individuals have agency – the ability and willingness to act. For example, Nancy Schlossberg’s Transition Theory (Anderson et al, 2022) posits that adults going through transitions may be described in terms of “4 S’s”: the self, the situation, the supports available, and the strategies used to cope with or change the situation. However, when the authors researched the reactions of faculty in the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia to the plethora of reforms in the country’s post-Soviet higher education system, we found that few faculty had any strategies for counteracting disliked changes, or even for making their opinions known at the Ministry of Education or elsewhere. The changes were simply something to be coped with.

Such attitudes may be common in what are called “high power distance” societies. Geert Hofstede (1985), who originated the concept, defines power distance as “the extent to which the members of a society accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally” (p. 347). The United States is a low power distance society, where the uneven distribution of power is not broadly accepted; the Kyrgyz Republic is a much higher power distance society, in which many people are used the uneven distribution of power, as is shown, for example, in the daily use of honorifics to address older people.

For a study of faculty reactions to reforms in the Kyrgyz Republic, we interviewed 57 professors in four locations (two urban, two rural) over three years. Although most respondents liked some post-independence higher education reforms and not others, almost all felt a lack of control over decisions about the new policies and procedures. The changes from Soviet-era degrees to European-style ones, the replacement of contact hours with credit hours, the initiation of independent accreditation processes, and more, were perceived by many of our respondents as a “done deal,” something to be coped with, perhaps grumbled about, but not opposed or resisted.

Our research thus suggests that in the context of the acceptance by many people in Kyrgyzstan of the unequal distribution of power in society, a substantial number of faculty members may be likely to acquiesce to higher education reforms initiated at the state or Ministry level rather than to protest the changes they do not like.

Authors

• Chynarkul Ryskulova, American University of Central Asia

• MARTHA C MERRILL, Kent State University

• Janara Baitugolova, Diplomatic Academy of the Kyrgyz Republic