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This research aims to investigate the correlation between the academic performance of migrant students and their cultural integration within the context of international education. Additionally, it seeks to identify an optimal acculturation strategy that enhances the academic outcomes of migrant students and explores the influence of VR technology-based learning on acculturation and academic performance. The study conducted an online survey among 1032 participants from China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Turkmenistan (studying at RUDN University in Moscow, Russian Federation), and Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan (studying at Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University in Yelabuga, Russian Federation), forming the primary sample (N = 400). The research utilized Berry's 2D acculturation model (2005) and Schwartz's questionnaire (1992) to assess acculturation strategies. A virtual reality experiment involved 100 students using Oculus Rift and Rhino-Unity technology. Academic performance, acculturation, and stress levels were measured post-virtual excursions. The SL-ASIA (26-item) and ILS (31-item) surveys assessed acculturation levels and stress. The research identified integration as the most effective acculturation strategy (35%), fostering improved academic performance, expanded cultural boundaries, and the development of global cultural capital. Analyzing the relationship between academic performance and acculturation tendencies revealed that the majority of students with "Excellent" (49%) and "Good" (59%) grades exhibited a high level of integration. Those with "Satisfactory" grades showed a tendency towards marginalization (32%). In the realm of cultural education through virtual reality technology, the study demonstrated that immersive VR learning environments can enhance academic performance, reduce psychological and acculturation stress, and multiply adaptive resources essential for acculturation in a new culture. Although the abstract highlights the research objectives, it requires modification for grammatical correctness. Additionally, the methodology for data collection and analysis needs to be explicitly mentioned for clarity.

The paper examines the degree of digitalization of Academic Writing and Information Literacy (hereafter AW & IL) course in the countries of the post-Soviet era. Numerous research demonstrated that digital transformation has taken place toward the teaching of AW & IL in most of the developed countries and beyond, yet little is studied about the digitalization in countries of the former Soviet Union that have passed a long way to align their education with the globe. Keeping up with the four main categories of digitalization, the paper will look at its application as a part of curriculum development, assessment, students' competency, and university maintenance. The paper employs a phenomenological approach confirmed through the qualitative analysis of 18 in-depth interviews conducted with AW & IL instructors from nine countries. The study revealed that recently AW & IL course has moved through partial digitalization, providing that the university stakeholders do not exert any necessary support.

Very little is known about the status of autism research in Central Asia. The purpose of this scoping review was to examine the scope and focus of the peer-reviewed research studies conducted with autistic people and their families in five Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The electronic databases of EBSCO Host and Web of Science were used for systematic search of literature. Eleven articles that met eligibility criteria were included in the review and analyzed for topics and research areas outlined in the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee Strategic Plan. Ten of these studies were conducted in Kazakhstan and one in Uzbekistan using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research designs. Five of the seven research areas - Diagnosis, Biology, Risk Factors, Services, and Treatment and Interventions - were represented in these studies, while there were no studies identified in the areas of Lifespan Issues or Infrastructure and Surveillance, highlighting a gap in research. None of the studies reported co-authorship of scientists from Central Asian countries. The review identified knowledge gaps and research needs to guide future research in autism in Central Asia to address the needs of autistic individuals and their families living in this region.

The underrepresentation of female faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines is a globally acknowledged gender equity concern; however, it remains under-researched in post-Soviet contexts. Using a theoretically informed analysis, this paper explores how female STEM faculty members navigate their gender identities in domestic and academic spheres in post-Soviet Tajikistan. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 female faculty members. The results indicated that parental discourses and family circumstances enabled female faculty members to defy the gendered oppositional inscription of STEM, while the performance of non-hegemonic masculinities by spouses, male mentors, and academic supervisors supported their career advancement. However, the gendered micropolitics of higher education institutions significantly undermined the performance of female STEM faculty members' identity and subjected them to discrimination, marginalisation, and isolation.

This study continued an in-depth investigation of the Plurilingual Creativity paradigm. It examined how Big Five personality traits moderated the relationship between plurilingualism/pluriculturalism and creativity. Data collection included assessments of plurilingual experience (measured by the abridged version of the Multilingual and Multicultural Experience Questionnaire), multicultural experience and desire (measured by the Multicultural Experience Questionnaire), intercultural competence (measured by Integrative Intercultural Competence Survey), and divergent thinking (measured by Unusual Uses test). A series of regression analyses using moderation models obtained evidence that neuroticism interacted with the plurilingual index (composed of the number of languages spoken by participants and their overall language proficiency), contributing to flexibility in divergent thinking. Extraversion interacted with the intercultural competence component, namely the management of intercultural interaction, contributing to fluency, flexibility, and originality in divergent thinking. It also interacted with multicultural experience in contributing to fluency. These findings emphasized the importance of considering personality traits in plurilingual creativity.

As Iraq and Tajikistan recover from the impact of conflict and international isolation, spaces are being created for higher education to internationalize by opening up and (re)connecting with the international academic community. Drawing on 25 field-based interviews, this article examines how academics in these two countries interpret these processes of higher education internationalization. Four main themes emerged: bridging the gap created by conflict, reconnecting with the world, importing prestige, and integrating into the international academic community. Most respondents viewed internationalization processes positively even while recognizing that national political and economic factors are constraining how these processes develop.

Soviet higher education had a distinctive institutional landscape. It combined two institutional types in a uniform model that embedded higher education in the national economy. This paper focuses on the post-Soviet system-level changes in the institutional landscape in all 15 countries of the former USSR. It shows that over last three decades the Soviet two-type institutional model evolved into a three-type model, with the specialized university as a new institutional type. Highlighting the instruments of horizontal and vertical differentiation for each country, the paper explains how structural reforms and market forces led to the rise of the university/multiversity form of institution, and the strengthening of vertical stratification at system level. The comparative analysis shows that there have been different patterns of transformation in the 15 countries, shaped by unique combinations of structural reforms and marketization policies, with certain countries having made more distinctive steps away from the Soviet institutional model. There are now 15 formally different systems of higher education which poses further questions for comparative analysis.

Post-Soviet republics have undergone a variety of political and economic changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union to transform themselves into market-oriented open societies. Transitional countries have faced various problems, including social inequality, political unrest, economic hardship, and ethnic conflict. The countries had to introduce reforms in education in response to changing conditions to produce a new generation with ideas and skills that support pluralistic societies and market economies. Some countries opted for rapid, drastic reforms; others chose to restructure their economies while retaining centralized governments. Using examples from post-Soviet countries, the study examines the challenges and strategies in reforming the curriculum for states in transition. The study investigates the ideological aspects that have influenced curriculum revisions in post-Soviet nations.

The COVID-19 global pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge to the sustainability strategies and initiatives of many nations. In many countries, education strategies and funding were negatively impacted and, consequently, especially vulnerable groups were highly affected, amongst them Indigenous communities around the world. As Indigenous communities were already amongst the most vulnerable before 2020, a strategically and well-planned recovery from this pandemic would be vital to secure their well-being. This article offers reflections on the potential of infusing "Education for Sustainable Development" (ESD) in the classroom, the school and the community as a whole, to deal with known and yet unprecedented sustainability challenges in presenting commonalities of 32 good practice reports from 21 countries collected in advance and during the global pandemic. Authors make the point of considering the pandemic and its widespread impact as yet another sustainability challenge and position "ESD" as a potential tool to achieve quality education and unleash the full potential of education for society when planning recovery efforts in hope for a better future of Indigenous communities in the long term. As the good practices were also included in a report of the "UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to the 48th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council," focusing on the post-pandemic recovery efforts for Indigenous Peoples, further thoughts on both official reports and their alignment with the overall "2030 Agenda" from an "ESD" perspective are included.

The paper foregrounds analysis of the significance of English in individual and collective life in relation to a myriad of feelings that religious and ethnic minorities experience in South and Central Asia within their multilingual ecology. The data reveal an entangling of varied yet coexisting emotions on the part of these minorities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Tajikistan in relation to English and its positioning vis-à-vis other languages. The discursive realisation of emotion also gives a nascent understanding of the historical, political, social, cultural, and material significance of English at the microlevel -- as the language is practised, nurtured, and sustained with anxieties and insecurities as well as desires and hopes of its users. Most importantly, the data indicate that English is used to legitimise ethnic and religious identity by minority communities. Drawing on findings from two ethnographic case studies, the paper thereby suggests the necessity of exploring individual metalinguistic awareness and subjective "structures of feeling" (Park, Joseph Sung-Yul. 2015. Structures of feeling in unequal Englishes. In Ruanni Tupas (ed.), Unequal Englishes, 59-73. London: Palgrave Macmillan) of users of English in order to understand its shifting meanings in varied contexts of Asia. The paper thereby brings together understudied areas in Asia, whilst also going beyond a South/Central Asia divide by incorporating studies from both (Bolander, Brook and Till Mostoslansky. 2017. Introducing language and globalisation in South and Central Asian spaces. "International Journal of the Sociology of Language" 247; Bolander, Brook & Shaila Sultana. 2019. Ordinary English amongst Muslim communities in South and Central Asia. "International Journal of Multilingualism" 16(2). 162-174).

Ethical academicians are perfectly virtuous. They always strive for greater virtue and follow strictly the moral stands of their profession. The ethical living and self-efficacy are important to them because of being fair and honest in their academics. Determinants of ethics include knowledge, values, attitude and intention. The domain-specific framework developed by Verbeke et al. (2004) has been considered as fundamental for identifying the dimensionality of work Self-efficacy and ethical challenges of academicians. A comprehensive literature review is undertaken regarding the concept of work Self-efficacy to assess workers' confidence and their ethical living in the workplace. This article examines theoretically and analytically the antecedent processes and information cues involved in the formation of work self-efficacy. Theoretical and numerical analysis of the key determinants of work self-efficacy increases the understanding of moral values, truthful fair and honest. Factors which decisively affect ethical living were identified from literature collected from the academicians who are working in the Five Regions of Asia - Central Asia (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan) East Asia (China, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau) South Asia (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives) through Google classroom. Methods of Statistical Analysis of self-efficacy data are descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Kolmogorov-Smirvnos normality test and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance and Principal Component Analysis. Positive, mastery experiences give academicians a sense of accomplishment when they have faced a challenge ethically. Positive Zeal during Academic interaction, vicarious experiences that occur when academician see others succeed and feel an increased sense of their own ability to succeed. Sincere & deeper self, mingling with students, Social persuasion increase a teacher's sense of confidence and ability to succeed. A proper plan of action has drawn special attention, and inferences pertaining to future research are discussed at the end of the critique.

The social attractiveness and prestige of the teaching profession over the past twenty years have reached an extremely low level, despite the fact that the teaching profession is declared by the state as one of the most respected, honorable and responsible professions. The presented contradiction determined the purpose of the research: to develop a model of systemic improvement of the teacher's social status in the region and experimentally prove the effectiveness of introducing its key component -- an individually differentiated program to increase the motivation of students of a pedagogical university for the implementation of future professional activities in the training profile. In various types of experimental research participated (n = 1159) respondents: teachers (n = 23), part-time teachers (n = 48), students of the pedagogical institute (n = 1030), and graduates (n = 58). Experimental work was carried out from 2016 to 2018 based on the analysis of scientific literature, the collection of official information, sociological and comparative methods, questioning, interviews, modeling, analysis and formulation of relevant conclusions. Statistical processing of research results was carried out using chi-square at (p <0.05), which was used for the quantitative analysis of experimental data. Based on the identification of economic, labor, professional-cultural and legal directions of raising the status of a teacher, an integrated model of a system of individual integrated solutions has been developed. The study substantiates the effectiveness of introducing its key component -- an individually-differentiated program, including synergistic interaction of all departments of the university for the implementation of educational activities in five groups of students: "teacher-innovator", "teacher-educator", "teacher-manager", "teacher-entrepreneur", "teacher-scientist". The authoring development and technological aspects of its implementation in order to systematically improve the social status of a teacher in the region will open a new direction for the development of research in pedagogical science and will allow an increase in the indicators of professional growth of teachers in the Federal Project "Teacher of the Future".

This paper uses conversation analysis (CA) to examine telephone conversation openings in an unwritten and understudied language, Rushani, spoken primarily in remote, mountainous areas of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. In a sample of three telephone conversations, examples are sought of the four opening sequences of telephone calls originally identified by Schegloff (1986): summons-answer; identification-recognition; greetings; and initial inquiries. At first glance, telephone conversation openings in Rushani appear to skip over the greeting stage and move directly into an extended exchange of initial inquiries. However, upon closer analysis, it is argued that a Rushani word that translates as "How are you" is in fact used by conversation participants as a greeting. The paper concludes with an argument that the study supports a "universalist" position of CA as applied to calls conducted in languages other than English (Luke & Pavlidou, 2002). Despite their apparent form as initial inquiries, greetings in telephone conversations in Rushani serve precisely the same function and resolve the same "interactional issues" as greetings in other languages (Schegloff, 1986).

This article examines the comprehensive and participatory component of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's (SCO) approach to the fight against the "Three Evil Forces" within the theoretical framework of smart counterterrorism. After analyzing the problematic definitions of the concepts of terrorism and extremism, the authors choose to focus on the non-coercive preventive pillar of the SCO's counterterrorism strategy through the prism of youth education. The emphasis is placed on the strikingly similar practices of SCO Member States in this field, whereby state and non-state actors foster partnerships to conduct cultural activities promoting the same values of patriotism, civic identity, interethnic and interfaith dialogue as a counter-ideology to the dissemination of radical ideas among the youth. The experience of SCO Member States in implementing inclusive counterterrorism programs serves as a basis for the evolution of SCO's soft diplomacy, which has very recently entered a new phase in its development, following the first SCO Youth Assembly and Uzbekistan's decision to support the SCO Youth Council. In this paper, the youth is analyzed as the primary target and actor of the SCO's preventive counterterrorism efforts.

Although it is disregarded and banned, a person can be discriminated in the society according to various attributes--due to the person's language, religion, nationality, social background. The problem touches upon not only individuals but minorities as well. Almost all states have one or several groups--minorities--that differ from the main population in ethnic, linguistic or religious lines. Most international treaties on human rights contain anti-discriminatory provisions. In addition to the main rights of the freedom of conscience, thought and associations, the principal legal guarantees for each representative of minorities consist in being treated equally by the law and courts and in equal protection of laws. The paper studies the problems of legal, sociolinguistic and educational basis of linguistic discrimination in the communicative space of Tajikistan. Linguistic discrimination and political correctness are closely connected with the language policy of the state. With exoglossic linguistic situation being characteristic for Tajikistan arises a need to study the questions related to linguistic discrimination. This will allow making certain adjustments to language building and harmonizing the ethnic and interethnic interests on the basis of a balanced and scientifically justified language policy.

Continued changes to legislation in countries that were previously parts of the Soviet Union cause them to become increasingly differentiated. Many of the changes are to social and economic processes. In the field of education, various parameters have changed and are continuing to change, from details concerning the way to conduct assessments to the broader issues affecting the whole architecture of the educational system. The most recent legislative act in the CIS--the "Education Code of Moldova"--illustrates the nature of changes taking place. This article discusses the most important trends in the legal regulation of the educational system in the post-Soviet area, including: how perceptions of education as a subject of legal regulation is changing; the impact of international cooperation in the field of education; the changing system of higher education and the introduction of a two-tiered system; and the increased attention to the quality of education.

The "early grade reading assessment" (EGRA) is frequently used in low and middle-income countries to inform the state of reading outcomes and reading instruction (Dubeck & Gove, 2015). Although the EGRA has been administered in languages with varying orthographies and scripts, there is little research on the cross-linguistic comparability of the psychometric properties of its subskills in a wide range of languages and diverse writing systems. In this study, Grade 2 and 4 assessment results in the Kyrgyz, Russian, and Tajik languages from the Kyrgyz Republic (4751 pupils) and Tajikistan (4328 pupils) were analyzed to determine the number and nature of the underlying EGRA constructs. These three languages represent very different languages families but all three use the Cyrillic or modified Cyrillic script. Principal axis factor analysis was employed on nationally representative samples to factor analyze reading results on nine reading subtasks for Grade 2 and seven reading subtasks for Grade 4. The results for all three languages indicate that the data structure confirms two common underlying reading constructs: decoding and language comprehension. By focusing our investigation on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, we go beyond the "anglocentricities" (Share, 2008) and monolingualism inherent in the theoretical base that informs the development of many EGRAs. This is important not only for programmatic decision making and impact evaluation outcome measure identification, but also for the development and definition of literacy metrics that may be used in the measurement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) and other international development benchmarks.

This article is on early childhood teacher education in Tajikistan. It is contextualized by the collapse of the Soviet Union and Tajikistan's rebirth in 1992, followed by Tajikistan's immediate spiral into a five-year civil war. Established as a presidential republic and having existed for fewer than 25 years as war-free, Tajikistan has made recovery efforts toward establishing stability and developing government, military, business, health, and education. One aspect of Tajikistan's rapid growth efforts is early childhood education, specifically, to provide early childhood programs aligned with alternative early childhood development (ECD) models (i.e., alternative to the teacher-centered Soviet-era kindergarten programs). With limited wealth and lack of a developed infrastructure, Tajikistan's early education leaders work diligently on alternative models with a variety of funding partners. Building on this foundation, the authors shared collaborative, culturally responsive, early childhood teacher training initiatives in two diverse Tajik cities along the historic silk trade route. Reflections on how the trainings were delivered and received provide teacher educators, particularly in international settings, insights into strategies that build upon the history while sharing current practices.

International businesses face a difficult task when trying to decide where to place or expand a business that could be located anywhere in the world. Each country is a complex system of human capabilities, technical systems, [infrastructure bases, laws, cultures and economic systems. How can a company know which country is best for it today, and even more importantly, which country will grow into an appropriate location for future business opportunities? Several studies offer insights into how to make site selection decisions (O'Farrell & Wood, 1994; Papadopoulos et al., 2002; Rothaermel et al., 2006) but the complexity of the data required makes initial analysis across many countries problematic. Most businesses, trying to predict an ideal country or sequence of countries to enter, are left to simple rules of thumb or decision models using limited criteria (Górecka & Szalucka, 2013; Alexander et al., 2011). A wide variety of country data of varying reliability and efficacy are frequently used (Rahman, 2003). Many of the largest companies have developed specialized teams with sophisticated models for site selection. However, for smaller companies finding reliable, consistently measured data they can interpret and analyze in ways that provide useful insights is a challenge. This article introduces the Social Progress Index, launched in April 2013 at the 10th annual Skoll World Forum held at the University of Oxford (The Origins, 2015). The Social Progress Index is unique because it is the most comprehensive framework developed for measuring social progress and the first to measure social progress independently of GDP or other economic variables (Porter, 2015; Keohane, 2015). Three cases have been chosen to demonstrate the usefulness of the Social Progress Index for site selection in three very different circumstances.

The grain quality of winter wheat varies significantly by cultivars and growing region, not previously differentiated by end-use (baking, confectionery, etc.) in the national breeding programs. In these conditions it is advisable to determine the genetic potential and analyze the actual grain quality. Determining the genetic potential requires the cultivars classification by grain hardness and composition of the HMS and the LMS glutenin. The most of winter wheat cultivars from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and CIMMYT are classified as "hard" and "semi hard" (62-95% in different blocks), characterizing them as baking wheat in the respective regions. The "soft" grain samples were also detected in small amounts ranging from 2% (Tajikistan) to 11% (Kazakhstan). Varieties are ranked by the HMS-glutenin from 10 (max) to (min) 4 point Payne scale for quality and by the LMS-glutenin from 5 to 1. The genetic potential of breeding material was determined by composition of the glutenin subunits as high level (75-80%). Several cultivars classified as "soft"--Batyr, Komsomolskaya 103 (Kazakhstan) and new registered cultivars Konditerskaya. It is therefore important not only to identify potential quality, but also its implementation in the specific growing conditions of the region.

This article focuses on such a highly relevant subject as the prevention and correction of deviant behavior in the adolescent environment. The study revealed the main vectors for the development of the modern science of deviant behavior, identified the main causes of deviations and carried out a comparative analysis of the work on the prevention of deviant behavior in the CIS countries and abroad. This paper proved that the key factor in the prevention and correction of deviant behavior should be, firstly, the family as the primary and the most important institution of identity formation, and secondly, the pedagogically controlled environment of educational institutions serving as a condition for socialization and personal development for children and adolescents.

This article provides a critical analysis of the development of public administration education in the context of five post-Soviet, transitional, and authoritarian Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan from early independence to the present time (1991-2019). The study is based on a review of Master of Public Administration (MPA) programmes offered by Public Administration Academies in each of these five Central Asian countries, a focus group with local academics, extensive secondary data analysis, and critical reflections of a local scholar with six years of MPA teaching experience in a Kazakhstani university. This article highlights context-specific challenges in design and implementation of the MPA programmes in Central Asia. These challenges include the: ambiguous role of Public Administration Academies; programme design; pedagogical issues; and weak research capacity. It is argued that the MPA programmes in Central Asia often provide an example of 'mimicry' of European/North American programmes with peculiar features of their local context. Public Administration Academies in Central Asia are highly politicised and strongly controlled by authoritarian governments. This study will be of particular interest not only to public administration scholars from all post-Soviet countries which share the Soviet legacy and socio-economic challenges, but also for scholars teaching in other authoritarian contexts.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 heralded not only the creation and opening of borders but also the rapid entry of new actors and ideas into this previously isolated part of the world. This is typified by dramatic increases in the number of international research collaborations involving an ever-growing array of actors. Yet instead of pluralizing knowledge creation and ways of knowing, intensifying processes of globalization have given rise to a "global science" system that has not flattened or significantly altered existing knowledge hierarchies, despite greater diversity in international research collaborations. In the former Soviet state of Tajikistan, this is further tempered by resourcing gaps, political controls, and cultural factors, offering a unique setting through which to explore how researchers negotiate international research collaborations. Centering the perspectives of Tajikistani researchers, the article offers new insights into the reframing of globally homogenizing models of international research collaboration.

This paper examines the experiences of educational researchers undertaking fieldwork within three Central Asian countries -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Drawing on interviews with educational researchers from within and outside the region, the findings show that researchers encounter numerous ethical and methodological challenges in the process of gaining access to sites and participants, in data collection and in dissemination of findings. Many of them stem from a persistence of Soviet style controls, an underdeveloped research culture and use of standard research ethics guidelines. However, I argue that not all challenges can be blamed on the context of these countries, but in some cases neglect in proper planning and implementation of research is another reason for some challenges faced by researchers. The paper shows that some of the dilemmas and challenges faced by researchers are not unique to Central Asia, but ones that are also encountered in other countries.

Previous research has demonstrated a positive and long-running effect of mother-child interaction on numerous areas of child development. Yet, most of what is currently known derives from research on children in Western countries. Employing data from recent Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) on women (ages 15-49), this study examined factors shaping mother-child interaction across the post-Soviet countries of Belarus (N = 3,413), Georgia (N = 2,004), Kazakhstan (N = 5,084), Kyrgyzstan (N = 4,272), Moldova (N = 1,744), Tajikistan (N = 4,204), Turkmenistan (N = 2,064), and Uzbekistan (N = 4,939). The average number of mother-child interactions was highest in Georgia and lowest in Kyrgyzstan. Mother-child interaction was significantly lower for younger children, older mothers, and poorer households. Initiation of mass-communication campaigns and parent-child programmes could reduce differences in the number of interactions and improve the quality of maternal time dedicated to children.

This paper examines students' views about the purpose of university education and its role in their future employability in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Data was gathered through focus groups with 172 undergraduate students. Findings suggest that due to socio-economic pressures, students largely see the purpose of university in terms of its economic value, namely enhanced access to employment opportunities and improved financial wellbeing. While future career prospects are key motivation to pursue a university degree, this study shows that the perceived role of university credentials in employability is declining. Due to an oversupply of graduates and limited employment opportunities, employers have raised the bar for qualifications to select job candidates. Coupled with an undergraduate degree perceived as an 'incomplete degree', students are driven to earn more educational credentials; leading to a greater supply of graduates and what appears to be a widespread occurrence of 'diploma disease'.

This paper adopts a transglossic approach to explore the ordinariness of English amongst Muslim communities in South and Central Asia. It thereby maintains that studying English as an ordinary part of these communities' repertoires is contingent upon an approach to religion as situated, discursive, and interactive. This approach to religion is key to avoiding a paradoxical treatment of religion and language that critically examines the meaning of language without interrogating religion in the same manner. To this end, the paper uses examples from ethnographic face-to-face and online fieldwork amongst Muslim communities in Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Bangladesh to explore and rethink the relationship between religion and language. The paper concludes that religion is co-constructed and emergent in, across, and through English and other languages and semiotic resources. English is rendered ordinary in the sense that it is employed and invoked to perform religious identity in interlocutors' everyday language practices. It is thereby used to engage in processes of positioning, and emerges as a resource that is simultaneously translocal and polyvocal, while also locally meaningful in its situated practices.

This article investigates the contours of inequality in the context of institutional decline and polarization in educational attainment. Using household survey data collected in 2005-2006 by UNICEF, we conduct synthetic cohort analyses estimating the likelihood of transitioning to secondary and higher education for men and women; urban and rural residents; poor and wealthy; and ethnic majority and minority citizens. Overall, gender and ethnic differences appear to contribute most to the polarization, although poverty and rural residence play a role in some contexts.

Nine years of experience teaching economics in the Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan provides knowledge on the nuances and challenges of teaching economics across cultures. Particular categories and difficulties are presented with some examples of how to address them. Conclusions and findings are used to form general guiding principles for teaching economics in the increasingly diverse US classroom. The principles offered in the paper are valuable to English speakers providing economic teaching and training in post-Soviet nations and, more broadly, to anyone teaching economics across cultures. Finally, suggestions based these principles are offered to encourage all professors of economics to carefully consider language, illustrations, diversity of views regarding economics and the multi-cultural nature of university classrooms to better relate to students and be more effective teachers.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of a variety of levels of education, namely, high school, vocational and university education, on the probability of being employed in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Design/methodology/approach: The data are from two waves of the Life-in-Transition Survey that covers 29 post-communist transitional countries. The number of binary logistic models is estimated to quantify the effects of different types of education on the likelihood of being employed, while controlling for different sets of covariates. Findings: The findings reveal that the effect of employment associated with university education is higher than that of vocational education, which in turn is higher than that of high school education. However, the differences between the effects of the various levels of education are not considerable. Any specific level of education is always associated with a higher effect in Eastern Europe as compared to the former Soviet Union. The effect of education is also found to be higher for females than for males. In the former Soviet Union, the positive effect of university and vocational education on employment is found to go down with age. Originality/value: This is the first study which compares effect of different types of education on probability of being employed on a diverse sample of 29 post-communist countries over the period of five years.

We developed a middle school earthquake science and hazards curriculum to promote earthquake awareness to students in the Central Asian country of Tajikistan. These materials include pre- and post-assessment activities, six science activities describing physical processes related to earthquakes, five activities on earthquake hazards and mitigation strategies, and a codification art/literacy project. This curriculum was implemented with 43 middle school students in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in the winter of 2008. We examine the effectiveness of each curriculum component in communicating the causes, effects, and mitigation strategies associated with earthquakes to young people, and find significant improvements in seismic and earthquake hazards literacy as a result of the program.

Against the backdrop of growing sociolinguistic interest in transnationalism, this paper uses the notion of "scale" as an "ideological project" (Irvine in "Scale. Discourse and dimensions of social life," University of California Press, California, 2016: 214) to study situated discursive performances of transnationalism amongst Shia Ismaili Muslims in a village in Hunza, Northern Pakistan and the city of Khorog, Eastern Tajikistan. By virtue of the ideological importance granted to English by the Ismaili community's spiritual leader, the Aga Khan IV, transnational scaling is studied through the window of discourse on English. Specifically, the paper analyses how Ismailis in these two localities appropriate the Aga Khan's English as a "second language" policy. Drawing on data collected during ethnographic fieldwork, the paper demonstrates how Ismailis make English into an economic and symbolic resource, which is simultaneously used to underscore community-internal sameness and index Ismaili progress. In bringing together an analysis of the discursive construction of local policy appropriation with reflections on transnational scaling practices, the paper makes a novel contribution to both current debates on the spatialisation of language policy discourse (Canagarajah in "Reclaming the local in language policy and practice" (xiii-xxx), Routledge, London and New York, 2005; Hult in "Int J Sociol Lang" 202:7-24, Hult 2010; Mortimer and Wortham in "Annu Rev Appl Linguist" 35:160-172, 2015) and language commodification and value (Heller in "J Sociolinguist" 7(4):473-492, 2003, Heller in "Annu Rev Anthropol" 39:101-114, 2010; Tan and Rubdy in "Language as commodity: global structures, local market places, Continuum," London, 2008; Duchêne and Heller in "Language in late capitalism: pride and profit," Routledge, London and New York, 2012; Park and Wee in "Markets of English. Linguistic capital and language policy in a globalizing world," Routledge, London and New York, 2012).

Why is it important to discuss writing instruction at the global level? When a refugee student enters the English classroom, it may be helpful to know the philosophy and practice of writing instruction in other parts of the world to help better understand this new student. To better understand the views of writing instructional practices across the globe, literacy leaders were invited to participate in a survey as leaders have the opportunity to inspire, to motivate, and to make a positive difference in the lives of teachers and adolescents. This article focuses on these international literacy leaders and their views of the teaching of writing.

This article investigates the current state of faculty research activity within Tajik higher education institutions (HEIs), where the level of research productivity has substantially decreased in the past three decades. As part of a larger ethnographic study on professional lives of Tajik faculty members, we investigated and found enormous challenges to conducting research and becoming active researchers reported by our respondents. We analyze and discuss how such issues may challenge the development of higher education in the country.