Surviving the Transition? Case Studies of Schools and Schooling in the Kyrgyz Republic Since Independence
(co-authored with Alan De Young and Galina Valyayeva). Information Age Publishers Series on International Perspectives on Educational Policy, Research and Practice, 2006.
Drawing on ethnographic and case study methods, this book explores the everyday navigation of radical economic and political transformation within four school communities in rural Kyrgyzstan. The case study that I contribute, from Ak-Tatyr village of Batken district, draws on extended observation and interviews with teachers, administrators, pupils and parents at a time of considerable political upheaval in 2005 to consider the ways that schooling becomes a site of social and moral investment and a way of “keeping the state alive” in rural Kyrgyzstan.