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3 - The Translation of ‘World-Class’ Academic Research Practices in Kazakhstan

from Part I - Foundations of Scaling Up

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2023

By
Olena Fim’yar ,
Kairat Kurakbayev  and
David Bridges
Edited by
Colleen McLaughlin ,
Liz Winter  and
Natallia Yakavets
Colleen McLaughlin
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Liz Winter
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Natallia Yakavets
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

For a decade, the Faculty of Education of the University of Cambridge worked with colleagues in the newly established Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education (NUGSE) in a programme designed to build research capacity. Though this involved some research training in the early stages, it functioned mainly by bringing research teams from the two institutions together into a research collaboration focused on the progress of educational reform in Kazakhstan. This chapter considers some of the issues raised by a somewhat asymmetrical international collaboration, the ‘translation’ of ‘international’ practice into this new environment and the development of what might be understood as a ‘research culture’. It considers the impact of the structural hierarchies built into the foundation of Nazarbayev University and, in particular, our research collaboration, with some reference to knowledge hierarchies (academic research, teachers’ professional knowledge as reflected in action research and lesson studies), the problematic nature of the discourse of the ‘international’ and ‘world class’ in educational research and the charge of neocolonialism levelled against the whole enterprise.

Keywords

Research capacity buildinginternational research collaborationtranslating research cultureresearch excellence
Type
Chapter
Information
Mapping Educational Change in Kazakhstan , pp. 45 - 58
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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