8.6 Five Conversations and Three Notes on the “Soviet,” or Finding a Place for Personal History in the Study of Teacher Education Policy in Kazakhstan

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the analytical, procedural and methodological processes which have contributed to the emergence of the paper ‘The “Soviet” in the memories and teachers’ processional beliefs in Kazakhstan’ (Fimyar and Kurakbayev, under review), a part of a larger study on Internationalisation and School Reform in Kazakhstan (Bridges, 2014). In providing an account of the choices and constraints faced by the authors, the chapter makes explicit the relationships between the researchers’ intellectual biographies, the politics of research and the selection of a particular strategic point for analysis. This contribution argues for a more encompassing view of research data, which in this case includes literature on Soviet education, interview data and, of equal importance, the authors’ experiences of Soviet schooling. The key benefit of analysing teachers’ beliefs through the double lens of policy sociology and auto-ethnography is the ability to capture how change and continuity coexist in the complex present, and how memory is used strategically to legitimise new approaches to teaching and learning. The additional benefit of the approach is the possibility to produce dialogic, multi-layered interpretative narratives which talk to various actors in the field of education policy, comparative and international education and educational consultancy.